- published: 10 Dec 2009
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"Unforgettable" is a popular song written by Irving Gordon. The song's original working title was "Uncomparable". The music publishing company asked Irving to change it to "Unforgettable". The song was published in 1951.
The most popular version of the song was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1961, with an arrangement written by Nelson Riddle. A non-orchestrated version of the song recorded in 1952 is featured as a bonus track on the CD reissue of 1955's completely instrumental (save the bonus material) Penthouse Serenade. Cole again recorded the tune in 1961, in a stereo version of the Riddle arrangement, for the album The Nat King Cole Story. His version of the song was included in its entirety in the 2009 film Watchmen during the Comedian's death scene.
In 1991, after Elvis Presley's legendary musical director Joe Guercio had the idea, Cole's 1961 recording of the song was edited and remixed to create a duet with his daughter, Natalie, which won three awards at the Grammy Awards of 1992: Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.
Unforgettable may refer to:
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing. A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs. The lyrics (words) of songs are typically of a poetic, rhyming nature, though they may be religious verses or free prose.
A song may be for a solo singer, a duet, trio, or larger ensemble involving more voices. Songs with more than one voice to a part are considered choral works. Songs can be broadly divided into many different forms, depending on the criteria used. One division is between "art songs", "pop songs", and "folk songs". Other common methods of classification are by purpose (sacred vs secular), by style (dance, ballad, Lied, etc.), or by time of origin (Renaissance, Contemporary, etc.).
A song is a piece of music for accompanied or unaccompanied voice or voices or, "the act or art of singing," but the term is generally not used for large vocal forms including opera and oratorio. However, the term is, "often found in various figurative and transferred sense (e.g. for the lyrical second subject of a sonata...)." The noun "song" has the same etymological root as the verb "to sing" and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word to mean "that which is sung" or "a musical composition suggestive of song." The OED also defines the word to mean "a poem" or "the musical phrases uttered by some birds, whales, and insects, typically forming a recognizable and repeated sequence and used chiefly for territorial defence or for attracting mates."