THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

226-Nat King Cole-Unforgettable.

1951-It has never charted in the UK. There was no UK chart until 1952.

Best Bit-At 2.21. In January 1964 Nat King Cole made one of his final television appearances on ‘The Jack Benny Program,’ where he was introduced as ‘The best friend a song ever had.’

Nat King Cole (see also best songs 988-327 and 161) was born Nathaniel Adams Coles on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, he died of lung cancer, having been a heavy smoker all of his life at the age of 45, on February 15th, 1965. Shortly before his death Cole had vowed that if he recovered after having an entire lung removed, he would go on television to urge people to stop smoking.

‘Unforgettable’ was written by the American songwriter Irving Gordon, (1915-1996) Gordon had originally written the song with the working title ‘Undeniable,’ but the music publishing company persuaded Gordon to change it to ‘Unforgettable. Other well known songs written by Gordon include the Folk-style song ‘Allentown Jail,’ and the ‘almost novelty’ songs ‘Mister Mississippi,’ a hit for Patti Page, and ‘Delaware,’ made famous by Perry Como. In Gordon’s obituary it was claimed that he wrote the legendary baseball comedy routine performed by Abbott and Costello, ‘Who’s on First?’ The claim was never made by Gordon while he was alive, and there have been others who have also claimed authorship.

‘Unforgettable’ was first recorded by Nat King Cole in 1951, and went on to reach Number 14 on the United States Billboard Best-Selling Pop Singles in 1951. The song was later included in 1952 on Cole’s 10 inch LP, also titled ‘Unforgettable,’ which was the re-issued in 1954 as a 12 inch LP. ‘Unforgettable was produced by Lee Gillette (1912-1981) who had worked with many of the Country Music stars on the ‘Capitol Records’ label, of which Nat King Cole, who he worked with on several occasions was the labels best selling artist. In fact the ‘Capital Records Building’ which is a 13 story tower building on Vine Street, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, is nicknamed ‘The House That Nat Built,’ in recognition of Cole’s success ‘Unforgettable’ is also notable for it’s string arrangement by Nelson Riddle, (1921-1985) (see also best songs 877 and 73) the Nelson Riddle Orchestra also played alongside Nat King Cole on many other songs including Cole’s best seller ‘Mona Lisa’ in 1950.
In 1991 the musical director Joe Guercio (1928-2015) who had been the director and conductor for Elvis Presley’s concerts in the 1970’s, had the idea of editing Nat King Cole’s original 1951 recording of ‘Unforgettable,’ and remixing it with vocals provided by Cole’s daughter Natalie Cole (1950-2015) to create a duet between the two of them. This version reached Number 14 on Billboard in America, and Number 19 in the UK. The song also won three awards at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards in 1992, for ‘Song of the Year’, Record of the Year,’ and ‘Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.’

‘Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me, never before has someone been more unforgettable in every way.’