If you will indulge me this week, I feel like an extended musical interlude. So consider this Tuesday Tunes, I guess. Before her passing yesterday at 88, everyone of course knew Roberta Flack for “Killing Me Softly with His Song” – and the subsequent Fugees cover a couple decades later. But did you know she was the first (and so far only) person to win back-to-back record of the year Grammys, for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in 1973 and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1974? While both songs are sublime, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” remains one of the most beautiful gender-neutral ballads ever sung. The lack of pronouns – which here is a freeing thing, not bigoted thing – allows anyone to dream of seeing the sunrise in someone’s eyes. And, as a lesbian wedding song, come on. Practically peerless. So thank you for the beauty and the romance, Roberta. Rest in peace, but know your music will live forever.
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