Let the River Run

1988

Let the River Run is a song by Carly Simon. It was published in 1988 as the theme song of the film Working Girl.

Background

The lyrics of the song was not only inspired by the script of the film, but also poems by Walt Whitman. Musically used Carly Simon opposites: one is a modern ode to New York in the typical Popgewand, on the other hand they put a contemporary jungle rhythm under the composition. In the text there are two allusions which suggest a political or religious context, one is " Silver Cities Rise" and the other "The New Jerusalem ", both of which were not intended.

In the film itself next to the version of Carly Simon is heard a choir version of the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys from New York City.

The song received all three major film awards in the United States: the Oscar for Best Song, the Golden Globe for best film song written ( with Two Hearts by Phil Collins from the movie Buster ) and a Grammy Award as " Best Song specifically for film or television ". So this song was the first to be written by a single artist and got these three important prizes. Later followed by Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen. Songs that also all three prizes won, but were written by more than one person, were Evergreen ( Barbra Streisand with lyricist Paul Williams), Into the West ( Annie Lennox with the two co - composer Fran Walsh and Howard Shore) and Skyfall ( Adele in collaboration with Paul Epworth )

The American Film Institute placed the song at number 91 of the "100 Songs - America's best film songs ".

Single

The song was released by Arista Records as a single in several versions. The song reached number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed 10 weeks in the charts, it also reached number 11 in the adult contemporary charts.

Further use

The song later appeared on Carly Simon's 3CD box Clouds In My Coffee 1965-1995 (1995), compilations Nobody Does It Better - The Very Best Of ( 1998), Anthology (2002) and Reflections: Carly Simon's Greatest Hits (2004). They even took it again on for her album Never Been Gone.

In 2001, the song was used in a commercial of the United States Postal Service, which was created in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks. 2004, it was towards the end of the film, the ex-girlfriends of my friend, in which Carly Simon starred.