The Rose (song)
"The Rose" is a pop song written by Amanda McBroom. Bette Midler made the song famous when she recorded it for her 1979 film The Rose, in which it plays during the closing credits. It has been recorded multiple times, including by Conway Twitty and Westlife who had US Country & Western and UK number one hits with the song, respectively. Nana Mouskouri recorded a German version (Die Rose), also in 1980, as well as an English version.
"The Rose"
1980
3:04
Sheffield Lab
Amanda McBroom
Lincoln Mayorga, Doug Sax, Patricia Meredith
March 1980
1979
3:40
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 45 minutes. The song is one verse musically repeated three times; McBroom comments: "When I finished it, I realized it doesn't have a bridge or a hook, but I couldn't think of anything to put in there." McBroom believes the song struck a universal nerve because "It's a message of hope that's very easily understandable".[2]
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 3,000 songs in order to assemble those thirty possibilities.[3]
Released as the second single from 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 the Adult Contemporary chart for five weeks running. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA for over a million copies sold in the United States.[4][5]
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.[6]
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 inquired of her if the song had been written for the movie, and McBroom answered honestly that it had not. McBroom did however win the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Rose", as that award's governing body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), does not share AMPAS' official requirement that a nominated song be completely original with its parent film.[7]
In 2004 "The Rose" finished #83 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of the top tunes in American cinema.
"The Rose"
January 17, 1983
3:35
Conway Twitty, Jimmy Bowen
1991
November 6, 2006[27]
- Studios 301 (Stockholm, Sweden)
- Metropolis (London, England)
3:39
Amanda McBroom
In popular culture[edit]
An adaptation of the song entitled "Hǎo xiǎng nǐ" (好想你, "I Truly Miss You") by Taiwanese singer YoYo (金瑞瑶) was released in 1984.
The song was featured in the ending scene of the 1991 Studio Ghibli film Only Yesterday, directed by Isao Takahata. The ending theme song, sung by Miyako Harumi, is titled "Ai wa Hana, Kimi wa sono Tane" (愛は花、君はその種子, "Love Is a Flower, You Are the Seed"), a Japanese translation of Amanda McBroom's composition "The Rose".[43]
The song appears in Napoleon Dynamite in the scene where Napoleon performs with the Happy Hands Club for his class. The song also appeared in the Richard Simmons exercise video Dance Your Pants Off!. A cover of the song was featured in the 2008 Family Guy episode "Baby Not on Board". During the episode, the Griffin family, except for Stewie, sings the song as a family road trip song. The song was also covered in the episode "Maybe Tomorrow" of True Detective,[44][45] and in the first episode of the third season of Goliath.[46]
A six part a cappella arrangement of the song by Nic Raines, created for The King's Singers, was included in the King's Singers 2019 EP release "The Library, Vol. 1" and also in a 2019 music video for YouTube.[47][48] The song was featured in the 2021 Korean drama series Youth of May, aired on KBS2.[49]