This Is My Song

This song was written by the silent movie giant Charlie Chaplin for his movie A Countess From Hong Kong, starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando. Chaplin was a talented composer, his most famous work being "Smile," which he wrote as an instrumental for his 1936 film Modern Times. Petula Clark (known as "Pet Clark" in her native England) said of the song: "I heard it and I thought it was a charming, slightly old fashioned love song. I could hear it being a hit in French, Italian and German."

Clark recorded versions of the song in French, Italian, and German for the European market. At the same time, her husband Claude recorded the original English version used in the movie. At the end of her recording session, Petula Clark recorded her English version using her husband's backing track. Clark didn't want to record the song in English, as she didn't think it would work, but her producer Sonny Burke convinced her to do it. Reluctantly, she recorded the song. The English version was the first one released, issued in the UK where it quickly rose to #1.

An English-language version by Harry Secombe was released in the UK before Clark's - his version spent a week at #1 there.