“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Ewan MacColl, as sung by Roberta Flack, arranged with tab for fingerstyle guitar by Daryl Shawn.
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is a 1957 folk song written by British political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who later became his wife. At the time, the couple were lovers, although MacColl was still married to his second wife, Jean Newlove. Seeger sang the song when the duo performed in folk clubs around Britain. During the 1960s, it was recorded by various folk singers and became a major international hit for Roberta Flack in 1972, winning Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Billboard ranked it as the number one Hot 100 single of the year for 1972.
The song was popularised by Roberta Flack in 1969 in a version that became a breakout hit for the singer.
Flack knew the song from the Joe & Eddie version which appeared on that folk duo’s 1963 album Coast to Coast (as “The First Time”), Flack’s friend singer Donal Leace having brought the track to Flack’s attention. Having taught the song to the young girls in the glee club at Banneker High School (Washington D.C.), Flack would regularly perform “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in her set-list at the Pennsylvania Avenue club Mr Henry’s where Flack was hired as resident singer in 1968. In February 1969, Flack would record the song for her debut album First Take, her rendition of which was much slower paced than Seeger’s original, Flack’s take running more than twice the two and a half minute length of Seeger’s.[citation needed] Flack would recall that while she made her studio recording of “The First Time…” she felt the loss of her pet cat, Flack having two days earlier returned home to Washington D. C. from Detroit (where she had played her first non-local engagement) to find that her cat had been run over and died.
Flack’s slow and sensual version was used by Clint Eastwood in his 1971 directorial film debut: Play Misty for Me to score a love scene featuring Eastwood and actress Donna Mills. Flack would recall how Eastwood, who had heard her version of “The First Time…” on his car radio while driving down the LA Freeway, phoned out of the blue to her Alexandria (Virginia) home: (Roberta Flack quote:)”[Eastwood said:] ‘I’d like to use your song in this movie…about a disc jockey [with] a lot of music in it. I’d use it in the only part of the movie where there’s absolute love.’ I said okay. We discussed the money.[Eastwood would pay $2000 to use Flack’s “The First Time…”] He said: ‘Anything else?’ And I said: ‘I want to do it over again. It’s too slow.’ He said: “No, it’s not.'”
Lyrics:
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and the endless skies, my love
To the dark and the endless skies
And the first time ever I kissed your mouth
I felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love
That was there at my command, my love
And the first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
And last ’til the end of time my love
And it would last ’til the end of time
The first time ever I saw your face
Your face, your face, your face
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