Songs with Earlier Histories Than the Hit Version

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Don’t Say You Don’t Remember

First recorded by The Goggles (1971).
Hit version by Beverly Bremers (US #15/MOR #5 1972).

From the wiki: “‘Don’t Say You Don’t Remember’ was written by Estelle Levitt with Helen Miller, who had started out in the late-1940s songwriting before leaving the business to raise her children. Returning to the business in the early-1960s as one of Don Kirshner’s Aldon label songwriters, Miller would collaborate with several lyricists, most notably with Howard Greenfield (who also famously collaborated with Neil Sedaka).

“‘Don’t Say You Don’t Remember’ was first broadcast in 1971 on the NBC-TV Children’s Theater production Looking Through Super Plastic Elastic Goggles at Color and subsequently released as a single by Audio Fidelity Records in 1971 on the original soundtrack recording, performed by The Goggles, with no apparent chart success.

“Googles’ member Rod McBrien remembers:

‘Ed Newmark, a record producer with Audio Fidelity Records, was holding auditions for a group he was putting together. The group was to be called The Goggles and would have their own Saturday morning national TV show as part of the Mattel Children’s Theater series. The show would be similar to The Monkees only with an educational theme. The audition called for singers who could also play an instrument. And I played guitar.’

“‘My friend, Reid Whitelaw, heard of the project and arranged an audition for me. I got the job and arranged for an audition for my friend, David Spinozza – who also got the job. Actress Jessica Harper and Mark Lockhart rounded out the group. We recorded one single and an album for Audio Fidelity and a one-hour TV special was produced by Guy Fraumeni. The show aired on NBC as promised. We all hoped the show would be picked up by NBC as a weekly feature but that didn’t happen.’

“The Beverly Bremers recording of ‘Don’t Say You Don’t Remember’, reminiscent of the girl-group sound from the early 1960s, was first released in May 1971 but stalled just shy of the Billboard Hot 100. The recording was re-released in December 1971, peaking at #15 of the Billboard Hot 100 and at #5 Adult Contemporary in February 1972. It would be her highest-charting performance. Bremers was signed to Scepter/Wand Records which had just lost two hit makers – Dionne Warwick and B.J. Thomas – to major labels and the company was on the verge of closing their doors for good. From there, Beverly went to Columbia Records with little to no success but was able to create a new career doing voice-overs and composing. She hit pay dirt when the music she wrote for Disney’s Mousercise album helped the record sell over a million copies.”

Beverly Bremers, “Don’t Say You Don’t Remember” (1972):

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