by
Jerry Osborne

in
DISCoveries Magazine
September 1991

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Connie:  I wanted Malaguena to do for my Spanish album what Mama did for the Italian album.  Unfortunately I never did Malaguena on TV.  I just forgot all about it.  I made the mistake of not doing something from the Spanish album on TV.  However, the Spanish music market wasn't nearly what it is today.

DISC:  My Heart Has A Mind Of It's Own did become your second Number 1 hit - in fact two in a row.

Connie:  Howie called me and said, "As a follow-up to Everybody's Somebody's Fool you told me you wanted another country song.  I've got one titled My Heart Has A Mind Of It's Own.  I said, "It's another hit title.  Send it to me by overnight express."  There was no question in my mind.  It was Howie Greenfield's lyrics, and he liked it.  When he liked a song I knew I would like it.  He was a wonderful writer and I feel so bad that he passed away.

DISC:  Many Tears Ago and Senza Mamma were in keeping with the country/ethnic pattern.

Connie:  Yes, but Many Tears Ago wasn't quite country.  And even though it went Top 10 I think it would have been more successful if it had been a little more country.  Senza Mamma was one that the distributors were getting a lot of requests for because it was played a lot from the second Italian song album.

DISC:  You mentioned earlier about some songs you turned down.  Would now be a good time to talk about those?

Connie:  Sure.  Let's start with Danke Schoen.

DISC:  The Wayne Newton hit?

Connie:  Yes.  That song was brought to me by a friend, Hal Fine, who also brought me Strangers In The Night.  Coincidentally, both were co-written by Bert Kaempfert.  At any rate, I knew Danke Schoen was a hit, but I had just come off all those foreign language albums and I felt I didn't want to do another foreign language song.  I talked to Bobby Darin - he and I were big Wayne Newton fans - and we suggested the song to Wayne.  I did end up doing the song for release in other languages for release there, but Wayne did it in the United States.
   

Then there was that wonderful evening when I went to the premier of the film Doctor Zhivago in L.A.  The next morning I called the president of MGM records and said, "Arnold, you've got to get words written for that Lara's Theme that's in this movie.  It's gorgeous and it's a hit for sure.  He said, "Okay, who do you want to write it?"  After thinking about it for awhile I suggested Paul Francis Webster, who wrote Love Is A Many Splendored Thing and Three Coins In The Fountain.  So I called Paul myself and said that I wanted to do this song right away because the movie's out, and I asked him how long he thought it would take him to do the lyrics.  He said it would take him about a week.  I said, "Okay, great."
   

In less than a week, Paul called me and played me the lyrics he'd written.  When I heard his lyrics I said, "C'mon Paul, it's 1966," or whenever it was, "these moon, June, spoon, charms, arms songs, they've had it.  'Somewhere my love there will be songs to sing' - give me a break."  I asked how long it would take him to rewrite it.  He said, "I'm not going to rewrite them."  I said, "Then i'm not going to record it.  This is too square for me, I can't cut it.  Why don't you give it to somebody like Ray Conniff,"  Of course he did and it sold about 3 million copies.  Oh well, I did eventually do it in all the foreign languages, like I did with Danke Schoen.  Unbelievable, right?