In a career that stretched more than half a century, Cynthia Weil wrote hits for girl groups, rock bands, country acts and soul singers. Her lyrics captured the many facets of love — its euphoric bloom and its agonizing demise — but also pondered family, friendship and the details of urban American life.
Weil, who died June 1 in Beverly Hills, Calif., at age 82, was best known as half of a songwriting team with her husband, Barry Mann, who handled the melodies and with whom she got her start in the early 1960s as part of the bustling pop-music scene based around New York’s Brill Building. Yet Weil — a member of both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame — collaborated widely over the years, exploring different genres and forging new creative partnerships.
Here, in chronological order, are 10 of her finest songs.
1. The Drifters, “On Broadway” (1963): Mann and Weil wrote this tale of showbiz ambition with a fresh-faced girl group in mind, and indeed the Crystals released an early version of “On Broadway” in 1962. But it was the Drifters’ slightly bluesier take — for which the couple tweaked their writing with help from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller — that became a pop staple. Fifteen years later, George Benson, covered the tune and scored a hit of his own.
2. The Righteous Brothers, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ” (1964): Identified by BMI as the most broadcast song of the 20th century, the Righteous Brothers’ Spector-produced smash is the wailing lost-love lament against which all others have been measured for almost 60 years. “Now there’s no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you,” Bill Medley sings — an image somehow made only lonelier by Spector’s quivering wall-of-sound strings.
