Cooke handed the song to his arranger René Hall, with no specific instructions as to what he personally wanted, but to give it “the kind of instrumentation and orchestration that it demanded.” Previously, the duo had collaborated on arrangement, but this was the first occasion in which Hall was granted complete control of the eventual arrangement, and he composed it as he would a movie score, with lush, symphonic strings. "I wanted it to be the greatest thing in my —I spent a lot of time, put out a lot of ideas, and then changed them and rearranged them," said Hall. Cooke was well known as a perfectionist and "control freak" in the recording studio, so giving Hall total latitude was unprecedented.