The Rose (song)

"The Rose" is a classic pop song written by Amanda McBroom and made famous by Bette Midler who recorded it for the soundtrack of the 1979 film The Rose in which it plays under the closing credits.

Contents
[hide]
 * 1 Background and Bette Midler version
 * 2 Conway Twitty version
 * 2.1 Chart performance
 * 3 Westlife version
 * 3.1 Track listing
 * 3.2 Music video
 * 3.3 Chart performance
 * 4 The Dubliners version
 * 5 Other versions
 * 6 Cultural references
 * 7 See also
 * 8 References
 * 9 External links

Background and Bette Midler version[edit]
"The Rose" was first recorded by Bette Midler for the soundtrack of the 1979 film The Rose in which it plays under the closing credits. However the song was not written for the movie: Amanda McBroom recalls "I wrote it in 1977 [or] 1978, and I sang it occasionally in clubs...Jim Nabors had a local talk show, and I sang ["The Rose"] on his show once."[1] According to McBroom she wrote "The Rose" in response to her manager's suggestion that she write "some Bob Seger-type tunes" to expedite a record deal: McBroom obliged by writing "The Rose" in forty-five minutes. McBroom - "'The Rose' is...just one verse [musically] repeated three times. When I finished it I realized it doesn't have a bridge or a hook but I couldn't think of anything to [add]". McBroom's composition was one of seven songs selected by Midler from thirty song possibilities proffered by Paul A. Rothchild the producer of The Rose soundtrack album: reportedly Rothchild had listened to over 3000 songs in order to assemble those thirty possibilities.[2]

Released as the second single from the The Rose soundtrack album, "The Rose" hit number 1 on the Cashbox Top 100 and peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Additionally, it was number 1 on theAdult Contemporary chart for five weeks running. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA for over a million copies sold in the United States.[3][4]

Midler won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose", beating out formidable competition from Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer among others.[5]

There are two mixes of the song. The single mix features orchestration, while the version in the film (and on its soundtrack) includes an extended introduction while doing away with the orchestration in favor of piano-and-vocals only.

"The Rose" did not receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Despite not having been recorded prior to the soundtrack of the film The Rose, the song had not been written for the film. According to McBroom, AMPAS enquired of her if the song had been written for the movie, and McBroom answered honestly. McBroom did win the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Rose" as that award's governing body: HFPA, does not share AMPAS' official meticulousness over a nominated song's being completely original with its parent film.[6]

In 2004 "The Rose" finished #83 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema.

Conway Twitty version[edit]
Country singer Conway Twitty recorded a cover version in 1983. His version, off his album Dream Maker, was a number one country hit in US and Canada. Conway Twitty's version was his 30th number one single on the US country chart.[7]

Westlife version[edit]
"The Rose" was covered by Irish boy band Westlife and was released as the first and only single from their eighth studio album, The Love Album. It reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for one week in November 2006. This became the group's 14th number-one single.[8] The single has sold over 140,000 copies in Britain so far.[9]The band gave their first live performance of the song on Miss World 2005 and later performed it on their Love Tour.

Track listing[edit]

 * UK CD1
 * 1) "The Rose" – 3:40
 * 2) "Solitaire" – 5:07
 * UK CD2
 * 1) "The Rose" – 3:40
 * 2) "Nothing's Gonna Change My Love for You" – 3:47
 * 3) "If" – 2:42
 * 4) "The Rose" (video) – 3:55

Music video[edit]
The video for this single was presented in black and white and shows the emotions and events leading up to a couple's wedding procession. The band members are clad in suits and are shown in a checkered-floor room. During the initial period of the video's release, fans were given the opportunity to customise the music video by digitally adding their names to various elements such as the wedding invitation card. A coloured version of the music video was later made available.

The Dubliners version[edit]
The Dubliners recorded a duet with The Hothouse Flowers for Rose Week and released "The Rose" as a single in 1991, reaching no. 2 in the Irish Singles Chart.

Other versions[edit]

 * American alternative rock band Mudhoney recorded a cover of the song for the 1988 compilation album Sub Pop 200.
 * Japanese pop singer Ayahi Takagaki features this song on her foreign-language cover album, Melodia.
 * A Japanese translation of "The Rose" was used as the ending theme song for the 1991 Studio Ghibli animated film Only Yesterday. The translated version of the song was titled 愛は花、君はその種子 ("Ai wa Hana, Kimi wa sono Tane", lit. "Love is a flower, you are its seed").
 * Joan Baez covered this song. There is also a German version translated and sung by her, and interpreted by Katja Ebstein, Bettina Wegner, Helene Fischer, Peter Maffay, Peter Alexander and more.
 * Skeeter Davis recorded the song and released it as a single in 1980.
 * Bianca Ryan covered this song on her self-titled debut album in 2006.
 * Siobhan Owen recorded a version of this song accompanying herself on harp. It is featured on her 2012 album Storybook Journey.
 * Gheorghe Zamfir recorded a pan pipes version which was an album track as well as a single.
 * Belgian singer Ann Christy recorded a version in Dutch, called "De Roos".
 * Chinese singer Ruiyao Jin (金瑞瑤 Jīn Ruìyáo) used the entire song's melody line in a 1984 song titled 好想你 ("Hǎo Xiǎng Nǐ").
 * Elaine Paige recorded the song for her 1984 album Cinema.
 * LeAnn Rimes covered the song in 1997 on her album, You Light Up My Life: Inspirational Songs.
 * Lea Michele's character Rachel Berry covered the song in the Glee episode "Back-up Plan".
 * Michael Sweet covered the song in 2007 for his album Touched.
 * Jane McDonald covered the song in 2014 for her album Singer of Your Song.

Cultural references[edit]
Kurt Cobain mockingly sang the first line of this song at the beginning of Nirvana's famed 1992 Reading Festival appearance. On the television show Family Guy, in the episode "Baby Not on Board", the Griffins sing an abbreviated version of "The Rose" in the style of Bette Midler after Peter suggests they sing a driving song. In the Two and a Half Men episode "City of Great Racks", a version of the song by LeAnn Rimes was played during a montage of Rose and Charlie. The song was also briefly played in the movie Napoleon Dynamite during the "Happy Hands Club" scene. The Kelly Family did a recording of "The Rose"[12] as well.