'You've lost that lovin' feeling' at age 48

Getty Images — Songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil circa 1966

The Song That Conquered Radio

How songwriting spouses Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann joined with Phil Spector and the Righteous Brothers to create one of the most-played songs in history, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'."

By MARC MYERS, WSJ

Forty-eight years ago this summer, songwriting spouses Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann wrote "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" with Phil Spector. Today, the song is No. 1 on BMI's list of most-played songs on radio and TV since the royalty-collection agency's founding in 1939. (ASCAP, the other major royalty organization, doesn't track such data.)

In the years since the Righteous Brothers' "Wall of Sound" hit, dozens of artists have covered the slow-burn ballad about lost love and the near-tears wish for its return.

Veterans of pop-rock's golden age, Ms. Weil, 71, and Mr. Mann, 73, have won two Grammys and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. Last week, they and surviving Righteous Brother Bill Medley, 71, talked about the song's evolution and how Mr. Spector (currently serving a sentence in California for second-degree murder) summoned them to Los Angeles in 1964 to write a song for the Righteous Brothers, whom he had just signed. (Edited from interviews.)

Barry Mann: We flew out from New York and checked into the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood—the only hotel that let you roll a rented piano into your room. Up at Phil's house, he played us records by the Righteous Brothers. They were white but sounded remarkably like Sam and Dave.

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