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Forever No. 1: Roberta Flack’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’

This Forever No. 1 column looks at Roberta Flack's "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face," her transcendent first Hot 100 No. 1 hit.

The sequence, of long walks on the beach and through the woods, of making love by the fire and in the grass and even of skinny dipping in the brook, could easily have been mawkish and eye-rolling — but soundtracked by the spellbinding “Face,” it instead served as the film’s emotional climax, and increased public demand for the song to the point where it was finally released as a single, three calendar years after first appearing on First Take. By the time she was done with it, the album version ran nearly five-and-a-half minutes; producer Joel Dorn asked in vain for her to quicken and tighten it up, saying there was no way the song would become a hit in its current state. 1 “A Horse With No Name.” It topped the listing for six weeks total — making for both a rapid rise and a long reign by early-’70s standards — before giving way to another slow song: The Chi-Lites’ “Oh Girl.”

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