An Old Fashioned Love Song

This was written by Paul Williams, who also wrote the Three Dog Night hits "Out In The Country" and "Family Of Man." All three songs were last-minute additions that wound up on the album and became hits. Williams is also a popular actor, appearing in the movies Smokey And The Bandit and The Doors. He was a frequent guest star on TV shows like The Love Boat (he wrote the theme song for that show) and The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. In the first season of The Muppet Show in 1977, Williams was a guest star, and he performed this song. This led to a collaboration with Jim Henson, with Williams writing music and appearing in Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas and The Muppet Movie.

In a Songfacts interview with Paul Williams, he talked about this song's inspiration. "I had a date one night with a young lady named Patti Dahlstrom," he said. "She was a songwriter. We were going to go out and have dinner. And right before I left for the date I had gotten a phone call that I had a gold record. And I walked into her house, and I said, 'Well, got a gold record for such-and-such, it just went gold. Kid did it again with another old fashioned love song.' It just came out of me. I went, 'Wait a minute.' I went over to her piano and I sat down, and it's the quickest I ever had a song come out of me. And it sounds like it. It's a really simple song, I wrote it in like 20 minutes. And it was a big hit."

Collaborating with Kenny Ascher, Williams wrote the hit "We've Only Just Begun" for the Carpenters, but this was the first hit he wrote by himself. He went on to write many more popular songs, including "You And Me Against The World" and "Evergreen."