7
A strictly instrumental version of the
Unchained
melody
flows under some of the film’s one hour and 15 minutes,
although the closing credits make clear that the lyrical
version of the song had a different name when it
appeared in the movie. What we now think of as
Unchained Melody
was originally called
Lonely River.
Can
you imagine that? The Righteous Brothers singing their
big hit,
Lonely River.
It appears that the title
Unchained
Melody
was the Motion Picture Academy’s shorthand way
of identifying where the song came from - sort of
like
Theme From Picnic,
another hit movie song from the
mid-1950s.
Since hardly anybody has seen the film ‘Unchained,’
the song’s original title has vanished into the mists of
time. It’s probably a good thing, too. The name
Lonely
River
has almost nothing to do with the lyrics. You might
be tempted to argue that the song’s release (
“Lonely
rivers flow to the sea, to the sea…”
) is where the title
comes from, except those lyrics don’t even appear in
the film. The one minute version of the song offered by
singer/actor Todd Duncan stops after the first verse.
Movie-goers never got to hear about those
“Lonely rivers”
flowing anywhere.
Here’s another oddity: Most listeners today assume that
this love song is called
Unchained
for some deeply romantic
reason. It’s a bit sobering to learn that the film has to do
with a minimum security prison in California called Chino
