Fairytale of New York undergoing rewrites and aborted attempts at recording, and losing its original female vocalist along the way, before finally being completed in August 1987. Although the single never reached the coveted UK Christmas number one, being kept at number two on its original release in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys' cover version of "Always on My Mind", it has proved enduringly popular with both music critics and the public: to date the song has reached the UK Top 20 on fifteen separate occasions since its original release in 1987, including every year since 2005, and was certified double platinum in
The Way We Were (song) Knight & the Pips also recorded a cover for "I Feel a Song" (1974). It was commercially successful, reaching number four in the United Kingdom and number 11 in the United States. Their version was blended with the song "Try to Remember" and features the B-side track "The Need to Be". American composer and producer Marvin Hamlisch created the final melody for "The Way We Were", which initially was a problem between himself and the singer. Streisand had asked Hamlisch to produce a composition in minor key, but he instead wrote it in major key due to his fear of