Some songs feel like they’ve always been a part of us. No matter how long they’ve been around, they feel like timeless tunes woven into the fabric of our lives. One could argue that “Killing Me Softly (With His Song)” is one such song.
You’ve undoubtedly heard Roberta Flack’s soulful, intimate 1973 version. It peaked at #1 around the world and became a staple of that decade’s soul-infused hits. In 1996, Lauren Hill’s version with The Fugees introduced a new generation to the song, layering in a hip-hop beat sampled from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Bonita Applebaum.”
What most people don’t know is that both of these versions are covers. The song’s origins began with one young woman’s raw, emotional reaction to a concert she attended on a whim and a poem she scribbled on a napkin in the dark.
A night at the Troubadour changed everything
In November 1971, a 19-year-old singer named Lori Lieberman let a friend talk her into catching a show at LA’s famous Troubadour club. Headlining the night was “American Pie” singer Don McLean. During his performance, something shifted in Lieberman. She began connecting not only with the music but with the emotions McLean’s melodies and lyrics evoked. Lieberman grabbed a napkin and scribbled down her feelings, letting them spill out in real time.
Soon after, Lieberman shared that tear-stained poem with songwriters Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox. The pair were producing and writing material for her debut album. Gimbel crafted the lyric, “Killing me softly with his blues.” But as they wrote the song, they adapted it to fit the track’s folk-inspired tone.
Lieberman recorded the song in 1972. It barely made a ripple. A year later, Roberta Flack heard the song playing on an airplane’s in-flight music channel. At producer Quincy Jones’s encouragement, Flack laid down her own version. A year later, her rendition crossed over to multiple Billboard charts and became a massive hit. Eventually, it earned three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year. Not only is it a ’70s soul classic, but it also ranks #273 on Rolling Stone‘s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.
For decades, the woman who inspired it all got pushed out of the story
Despite being the catalyst for “Killing Me Softly,” Lieberman spent years watching her contribution get minimized. Gimbel and Fox, who held the official songwriting credit, began distancing themselves from the origin story. For Lieberman, it was a strange kind of erasure. She was being written out of a story that was, quite literally, from her own life.
The person who ultimately helped set the record straight was Don McLean himself—the very artist whose performance had given Lieberman her inspiration. He publicly backed Lieberman’s account on his now-shuttered personal website. He even tracked down a 1973 Daily News article where Gimbel himself tells the story of Lieberman’s concert experience.
Lieberman has never chased royalties or sought official credit. She’s only wanted simple acknowledgment of her real, lived experience: a night at a local club where a performer’s voice and music electrified her. His songs made her feel seen, and that moment became the seed of one of pop music’s most enduring standards, first scribbled on a tear-stained napkin.
