"Answer Me" is a popular song, originally written (with German lyrics, under the title "Mutterlein") by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch. The English lyrics were written by Carl Sigman in 1952.
After the song was recorded by David Whitfield and Frankie Laine in 1953, the "religious" version was banned by the BBC after complaints.[1] Nevertheless it still reached number one on the UK Singles Chart,[2] after another version was written by Sigman in which, instead of directing the question to God about why the singer has lost his love, the lyric is addressed directly to the lost lover. In the new lyric, "Answer me, Lord above..." is changed to "Answer me, oh my love..." with other appropriate changes. The new song, entitled "Answer Me, My Love," was again recorded by Laine and Whitfield, but became a bigger U.S. hit for Nat King Cole in 1954.
Whitfield's version reached the top spot in the UK Singles Chart first, followed swiftly by Laine's. On 13 November 1953, for the first but not only time in chart history, one version of a song was knocked off the top by another version of the same song.[2] Four weeks later, for the only time in British chart history, the two versions of the same song were at number one together.[2]
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