old fashioned

Description

"This Is My Song" is a song written by Charlie Chaplin in 1966 and performed by Petula Clark This is My Song" was intended for the film, A Countess from Hong Kong, which Charlie Chaplin wrote and directed. Chaplin saw his film as a throwback to the shipboard romances which were popular in the 1930s and wrote "This Is My Song" with the intent of evoking that era: to reinforce the evocation Chaplin was determined to have Al Jolson sing the song - so determined that he only accepted the advisement that Jolson had died in 1950 when shown a photograph of Jolson's tombstone. Ultimately, the song would be featured in the film only as an instrumental. After being disillusioned in regard to Jolson, Chaplin considered having "This Is My Song" recorded by Petula Clark who had a home in Switzerland near his residence. Clark's husband/manager Claud Wolf - at the time with Clark in Reno NV - received a copy of "This Is My Song" in September 1966 and liked the song which he felt had special potential for success in Germany. However Clark's regular collaborator Tony Hatch was not impressed with the song and refused Wolf's invitation to arrange it for Clark to record; ultimately Ernie Freeman arranged the song and Sonny Burke produced the session - at Western Studios in Los Angeles - in which Clark recorded the song not only in English but in French as "C'est Ma Chanson" (lyrics by Pierre Delanoë who also felt the song a poor choice for Clark), German as "Love, So Heisst Mein Song" (lyrics by Joachim Relin) and Italian as "Cara Felicità" - lyrics by Ciro Bertini). In fact Clark did not wish to record the song in English as she disliked the deliberately old fashioned lyrics which Chaplin refused to modify; however after the translated versions of the song had been recorded there happened to be some time remaining on the session which Burke coaxed Clark to use to record Chaplin's lyrics. The recording session featured the backing of the Wrecking Crew. Clark had assumed her recording of "This Is My Song" with the original quaint Chaplin lyrics would only be used as an album track; on learning of Pye Records plan to release the track as a single she attempted to block its release. Instead, she found herself atop the UK charts for the first time in six years when "This Is My Song" reached #1 on the UK Top Fifty dated 18 February 1967 a position it retained the next week. Certified Silver for sales of 250,000, the total sales of "This Is My Song" in the UK would in fact exceed 500,000. The breakout of "This Is My Song" in the UK in February 1967 caused Pye Records to withdraw Clark's current album release Colour My World which was rush re-released with "This Is My Song" added on to reach #16 on the charts. "This Is My Song" was also included on Clark's next album: These Are My Songs, which reached #38 UK that fall.