- This was written by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn for the Oscar-winning movie The Poseidon Adventure, starring Gene Hackman. The original title of the song was "Why Must There Be a Morning After?"
- In the movie, this was sung by Renee Amand, with Carol Lynley lip-synching to it in front of the camera.
- This won the Oscar for Best Song, 1972. In addition, The Poseidon Adventure won the Best Special Effects Oscar.
- During the spring of 1972, Russ Regan (the head of 20th Century Records at the time) began looking for someone to record "The Morning After" for the singles market. He originally offered the song to Barbra Streisand, but she turned it down in favor of other projects. He then remembered hearing (months before) a demo tape from a secretary who was a part-time Folk singer (and who had never made a record before) named Maureen McGovern. Regan liked her voice so much, that he immediately hired her sight unseen to record the song.
- Upon initial release, the McGovern version was ignored -- but after the Oscar presentation, the public wanted a copy of "that song." It started climbing the charts in the summer of 1973, a year after McGovern recorded it.
- McGovern performed another Oscar-winning song, "We May Never Love This Way Again," in 1974's The Towering Inferno, but the single didn't make the Top 40. Nor did Superman's "Can You Read My Mind" in 1979, but her theme song from the TV series Angie ("Different Worlds") managed to reach #18 that year.
- Ironically, when this song gave McGovern a healthy professional life as a singer, her private life was in shambles. She was going through a lawsuit with her first manager; she was divorcing her husband; and she found out that her mother had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Since then, McGovern has received letters from people telling her how much this "generic hope song" (as many people call it) helped them cope with the downside of life, which has helped her realize in later years how meaningful the song really is. Many years after the release of this song, McGovern became involved in organizations to help people realize how music can heal.
... update background information... |
Send "The Morning After" Ringtone to your Cell 
Twitter