How Roberta Flack Helped Lori Lieberman Finally Stake Her Claim to ‘Killing Me Softly’

One singer made the song iconic, while the other was left out of its history. Later in life, they came together.

February 24, 2025 at 7:14 p.m.

Washington Post

Lori Lieberman meets Roberta Flack for the first time in October 2019. (Barbara Bordnick)

By Geoff Edgers

For decades, nobody really knew Lori Lieberman’s secret. Sure, the singer was the first to record “Killing Me Softly With His Song” in 1972, but it wasn’t until Roberta Flack covered it a year later that the song hit No. 1. Which is when the men credited with writing the song began to write Lieberman out of its history.

On Monday, Lieberman, now 73, heard of Flack’s death at the age of 88 and talked of how much she had meant to her. Late in life, Flack offered her support.

In 2020, already struggling with the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis that would take her life Monday, Flack sent The Washington Post an email saying that she cried when she heard what had happened to Lieberman.

“I hope that Lori knows that I am forever grateful for her part in the writing of the song,” Flack wrote.

Lieberman knew. The two met in 2019 and embraced. While she remains uncredited for writing the song, Lieberman is at peace. This despite the fact that “Killing Me Softly” has made millions both from Flack’s Grammy-winning version and the 1996 redo by the Fugees that went to No. 2.

“I’ve got a good life,” Lieberman said from her home in California on Monday. “I don’t need any more money. But what I needed more than all of it was her validation and the credit from her. It meant so much to me and has emboldened me.”

The story of the song’s creation — which The Post reported on five years ago — began in 1971 when Lieberman, then 20, saw “American Pie” singer Don McLean perform at the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles. She was so inspired that she wrote a poem on a napkin and handed it to her manager, Norman Gimbel. Things were complicated. Gimbel was 44 and married. He was also having an affair with Lieberman, less than half his age. She and Gimbel worked on the lyric and then went to see composer Charles Fox, who helped them finish “Killing Me Softly,” she said Monday.

The napkin disappeared somewhere along the way.

Gimbel and Fox are the lone writers credited. But McLean, who believed Lieberman’s story, began telling it in concert and wrote about it in his memoir. At one point, Gimbel, who died in 2018 at 91, threatened to sue McLean for referencing Lieberman’s role. Fox, who did not respond to a request Monday, has called her account an “urban legend.”

When Gimbel died, McLean referred to him as “abusive and obnoxious” on his Facebook page and also slammed Fox. “I don’t need any ‘Love Boat’ theme song writer to enhance my reputation,” he posted, referencing the pair’s TV theme writing.

Lieberman recorded four more albums in the 1970s but eventually gave up on her career. In the mid-'90s, she made a comeback, recording again and performing regularly, including at Carnegie Hall. But she didn’t always feel comfortable or happy singing “Killing Me Softly” — until McLean and Flack acknowledged her role.

On Monday, Lieberman praised not only Flack’s generosity but her artistic creation.

“I mean, mine was a small, little folk song in a way,” Lieberman said. “It had a back beat and it had strings and it was guitar-based. And what she made it into was something I never could have imagined.”

Flack also created the wordless bridge after the fourth chorus “that opened up the song and exposed this new sound that hadn’t been heard before,” Lieberman said.

For decades, Lieberman fought to be recognized for her contribution to the song’s construction. On Monday, she said she remembers asking Flack’s management why the later singer didn’t, in fact, ask for writing credit for that bridge.

“She created it,” Lieberman said. “She wrote that. Today, if a singer-songwriter writes a word, a note, they ask for credit. I know why I didn’t. But why didn’t she ask for credit? The management said she didn’t want to make waves. And it’s so interesting to me that here was this brilliant superstar. But still, as a woman in the business, she also didn’t want to rock the boat.”