Theme from A Summer Place

"Theme from "A Summer Place"" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner, written for the 1959 film "A Summer Place", which starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. It was recorded for the film as an instrumental by Hugo Winterhalter. Originally known as the "Molly and Johnny Theme", the piece is not the main title theme of the film, but a secondary love theme for the characters played by Dee and Donahue.
Following its initial film appearance, the theme has been recorded by many artists in both instrumental and vocal versions, and has also appeared in a number of subsequent films and television programs. The best-known
version of the theme is an instrumental version by Percy Faith and his orchestra that was a Number One hit for nine weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart in 1960.
Percy Faith version.
Percy Faith recorded the most popular version of the theme, an instrumental orchestral arrangement, at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. It was released in September 1959 as a single on Columbia Records, credited to "Percy Faith and his Orchestra," prior to the November 1959 release of the film "A Summer Place".
The single was not an immediate hit and did not enter the "Billboard" Hot 100 singles chart until mid-January 1960, finally reaching number one six weeks later on February 22, 1960. It went on to set an at-the-time record of nine consecutive weeks at number one, a record which would not be broken until 1977, when "You Light Up My Life" spent ten weeks at number one. (Elvis Presley's double-sided hit "Don't Be Cruel/ Hound Dog" remained at number one for 11 weeks in 1956 prior to the 1958 creation of the Hot 100 chart; The Beatles' "Hey Jude" tied, but did not break, the nine-week record in 1968.) It remains the longest-running number one instrumental in the history of the chart. "Billboard" ranked Faith's version as the Number One song for 1960.
The Faith version reached number 2 in the UK. It was also a number 1 hit in Italy under the title "Scandalo Al Sole."
Faith won a Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1961 for his recording. This was the first movie theme and the first instrumental to win a Record of the Year Grammy.
Faith re-recorded the song twice: first, in 1969, as a female choral version, then, in 1976, as a disco version titled "Summer Place '76."
In 2008, Faith's original version was ranked at number 18 on "Billboard"'s top 100 songs during the first 50 years of the Hot 100 chart. "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits" called it "the most successful instrumental single of the rock era."
Other cover versions.
"Theme from "A Summer Place"" has been covered by a number of artists in addition to Percy Faith, in both non-vocal instrumental versions, and with one or more vocalists either singing the Discant lyrics or a wordless melody line. The theme has also been referenced, sampled, or otherwise adapted into several other songs.
Vocal versions.
Most vocal versions of the theme have featured the Discant lyrics. However, some featured wordless vocals by singers who voiced the melody line.
In popular culture.
"Theme from "A Summer Place"" is frequently used as period background or soundtrack music in films and television programs set between 1959 and the mid-1960s. The theme has also become a ubiquitous representation of "peaceful music" and has been employed frequently in films, television shows and other popular culture to suggest peacefulness or in situations where inoffensive music is common (e.g. as stereotypical "elevator music"). It is also used for intentionally stereotypical comic effect when a show cuts away from a scene deemed to be too violent to display and shows peaceful images instead.
More recently, the song's peaceful and relaxed theme has taken on a darker significance as it has been used to convey an eerie sense of false security in horror productions, such as the TV miniseries "Rose Red" (2002), and the films "Final Destination 3" (2006), "Dark Shadows" (2012) and "Beautiful Creatures" (2013).