Theme from A Summer Place

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"Theme from 'A Summer Place'"

Single by The Lettermen
from the album The Hit Sounds of the Lettermen
B-side(s)	"Sealed with a Kiss"
Released	1965
Format	7" single
Length	2:05
Label	Capitol
Writer(s)	Mack Discant, Max Steiner
Chart positions
#2 (U.S. AC) #16 (U.S.)
The Lettermen singles chronology
"Girl with a Little Tin Heart" (1965)	"Theme From 'A Summer Place'" (1965)	"Secretly" (1965)

The "Theme from A Summer Place" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner, written for the 1959 movie A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. Its popularity is somewhat of a rarity since it is a single-melody song with no chorus.

The song was a number-one hit instrumental for Percy Faith in 1960 and was the best-selling single of the year. Faith re-recorded the song twice; first in 1969 as a female choral version, then in 1976 as a disco version titled "Summer Place 76." Interestingly, Percy Faith's version was not the one in the movie, which was recorded by Hugo Winterhalter.

"Theme from A Summer Place" was also covered by Dick Roman, The Tornados (both in 1962), The Lettermen in 1965 (placing at number sixteen in the charts) and The Ventures in 1969.

This was the first movie theme to win a Grammy Award for Record of the Year (1961). It still stands as the country's longest-running #1 instrumental hit.

[edit] Pop Culture References

Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean sang part of the melody in the fadeout of another song, "Like a Summer Rain" (1966)
In The Simpsons episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", Jasper sings this song only by repeating "Theme from A Summer Place" over and over, apparently assuming that these words are the full lyrics.
It was regularly used by the cult 1970s BBC radio sketch comedy show The Burkiss Way to begin its "intermission" sketches.
It is also the theme song of Miami radio station WAQI 710 Radio Mambi's show Marta Flores La Noche y Usted.
The song is both used and referenced in the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oz is asked "what a girl would have to do to impress him." He responds that "it involves a feather boa and the theme from A Summer Place." Much later in the series, in the episode Him, slow-motion shots of a jock who unknowingly casts a love spell over several of the main characters, and their reactions (including those of Willow, who is a Lesbian), are set to the song itself.
The song is playing in the background during a scene in the 2001 remake of "Oceans 11" in which a couple involved in an affair are talking in a restaurant. A major theme of the movie "A Summer Place" is marital infidelity.
The animated TV show Freakazoid! features the "Theme from A Summer Place" as the re-occurring theme for the Relax-O-Vision gag in the episode also called "Relax-O-Vision".
In the 1989 film Batman, when The Joker meets Vicki Vale in the museum, he sits down at her table and plays the song on cassette to set the mood.