In arguably one of the cases where a movie’s song has a bigger cultural impact than the film itself, “Born Free” was the title song for the 1966 film of the same name, performed by British singer Matt Monro. Based on the real-life story of Joy and George Adamson, played by Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, the couple raised a lioness named Elsa since she was orphaned as a cub and eventually successfully released her back into the wild. The movie was critically well-received and did exceptionally well in its native UK. John Barry, who composed the scores for eleven James Bond films starting with Dr. No, also composed the score for Born Free and wrote the theme song, with lyrics by Don Black. Matt Monro recorded the song, but the producers didn’t think it would be commercially successful and removed it from the print shown at the movie’s premiere. After Black and Monro spoke to them, the song was restored for the end credits and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Monro’s version never charted, but a cover by Roger Williams was #1 on the Adult Contemporary charts for six non-consecutive weeks in the fall of 1966 and reached #7 on the Hot 100. Since it was the 60s, there’s obviously no official music video for the song, but you can listen to it below.
