The End of the World (Skeeter Davis song)

"The End of the World"
Single cover
Single by Skeeter Davis
from the album Skeeter Davis Sings The End of the World
B-side	"Somebody Loves You", "Blueberry Hill"
Released	1962
Format	7" single
Recorded	1962
Genre	Country pop
Length	2:33
Label	RCA
Songwriter(s)	Arthur Kent, Sylvia Dee
Producer(s)	Chet Atkins
Skeeter Davis singles chronology
"The Little Music Box" (1962) "The End of the World" (1962) "I'm Saving My Love" (1963)
"The Little Music Box" (1962) "The End of the World" (1962) "I'm Saving My Love" (1963)

"The End of the World" is a country pop song written by Arthur Kent and lyricist Sylvia Dee, for American singer Skeeter Davis. It had success in the 1960s and spawned many covers.

Background

"The End of the World" was written by Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee; the latter drew on her sorrow from her father's death.

Davis recorded her version with sound engineer Bill Porter on June 8, 1962, at the RCA Studios in Nashville, produced by Chet Atkins, and featuring Floyd Cramer.^[1] Released by RCA Records in December 1962, "The End of the World" peaked in March 1963 at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (behind "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby & the Romantics), No. 2 on the Billboard country singles,^[2] No. 1 on Billboard's easy listening, and No. 4 on Billboard's rhythm and blues.^[3] It is the first, and, to date, only time that a song cracked the Top 10 on all four Billboard charts.^[4] Billboard ranked the record as the No. 2 song of 1963.

In the Skeeter Davis version, after she sings the whole song through in the key of B-flat, the song modulates up by a half step to the key of B, where Skeeter speaks the first two lines of the final stanza, before singing the rest of the stanza, ending the song.

Davis's recording of "The End of the World" was played at Atkins's funeral in an instrumental by Marty Stuart, and at Davis's own funeral at the Ryman Auditorium. Her version has been featured in several films, TV shows, and video games (see "Appearances in media" below).

Chart performance

The Carpenters version

In 1975, American pop music duo Carpenters released a cover of "The End of the World" as a promotional single from their live album Live in Japan. It was recorded at the Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan.

Sonia version

In 1990, British singer Sonia covered "End of the World". The fifth and final single from her debut album, Everybody Knows, it reached number 18 in the UK,^[7] the same chart position as the original.^[5] The single's B-side "Can't Help the Way That I Feel" also appeared on Sonia's debut album. This was her final single with Stock Aitken Waterman.

Other versions

A No. 2 hit in Sweden in September 1966 via a local cover by Mike Wallace & the Caretakers, "The End of the World" has also been remade by a number of other artists including Jessica Andersson on her 2009 album Wake Up^[9], Anika (as B-side to her single "Yang Yang" and on her album Anika), Eddy Arnold, Best Coast, Debby Boone, Brilliant, Carola (in Finnish as "Maailmain"), Chantal Pary (in French "Le jour se lèvera), the Carpenters, Rivers Cuomo, Bobby Darin, Lana Del Rey, Barbara Dickson, Dion, Mary Duff, Allison Durbin, Judith Durham, Exposé, Agnetha Fältskog, Rosie Flores, Emi Fujita, Girls, Nina Gordon, Herman's Hermits (as the B-side of "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am"), Grethe & Jørgen Ingmann (released on the b-side to Eurovision Song Contest winner song 1963; Dansevise), Satoko Ishimine, Joni James, Cyndi Lauper, Brenda Lee, Vic Dana, Lobo, Julie London, Claudine Longet, Loretta Lynn, Al Martino, Johnny Mathis, Anne Mattila (in Finnish as "Maailmain"), Imelda May, Maywood, John Mellencamp, Anita Meyer, the Mills Brothers, Ronnie Milsap, Dorothy Moore, Mud, Anne Murray, Leigh Nash, Nomeansno, Patti Page, Helen Shapiro, Anne Shelton, Vonda Shepard, Nancy Sinatra, Sonia, the Tokens, Twiggy, Twinkle, Sharon Van Etten, the Vanguards, Bobby Vinton, Jeff Walker, Dottie West, Lena Zavaroni, and Tracy Huang (黃鶯鶯). In 2009 Susan Boyle remade "The End of the World" for her debut album, I Dreamed a Dream.

Herman's Hermits covered the song. It was released in June 1965 as the B-Side to I'm Henry The VIII, I Am.

Anna-Lena Löfgren recorded the song in Swedish, as "Allt är förbi"^[10], scoring a Svensktoppen hit for seven weeks between 9 October–19 November 1966.^[11]

A cover version by Allison Paige peaked at number 72 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in May 2000.^[12]

The Brazilian band Roupa Nova made a cover version in Portuguese, in 1997, named "O Sonho Acabou".

There have been three Cantonese versions covered by three different Hong Kong singers, namely "長相思" by Pauline Chan (陳寶珠) in 1968, "含羞草" by Annabelle Lui (雷安娜) in 1981 and "冬戀" by Danny Chan (陳百強) in 1988.

For the Mandarin version, the first one "打不動你的心" was covered by Hong Kong veteran female singer Rebecca Pan (潘迪華) in 1965 while the second one "後會無期" by another Hong Kong female singer G.E.M. Tang (鄧紫棋) in 2014. Subsequently, there was the third one titled "星夢之光", lyrics written by an SNH48 member, Wu Yanwen (吳燕文), and performed by SNH48 themselves in 2015.

Cyndi Lauper covered the song in 2016, the cover is part of the album Detour.

Appearances in media

• in the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted;
• in the 2001 film Riding in Cars with Boys;
• in the 2005 film Daltry Calhoun;
• in episode 9 ("What Kate Did") of the second season of the TV series Lost, first aired in 2005;
• as the main title and credit sequences in the 2008 film An American Affair;
• in the 2009 film The Boat That Rocked;
• at the end of episode 12 ("The Grown-Ups") of the third season of Mad Men, first aired in 2009;^[13]
• In season 5 episode 4 "The Oath" of HBO series Big Love;
• as the opening and closing theme for the 2012 political thriller radio drama Pandemic, produced by BBC Radio 4;^[14]
• in an abbreviated version as the theme music for the 2013 TV series Granite Flats; (later replaced with generic music.)
• in episode 5 ("Blue on Blue") of the first season of the 2013 TV series Under the Dome;
• in the second part of the 2015 Japanese dark fantasy action horror film Attack on Titan;
• played on the in-game radio in the 2015 video game Fallout 4;^[15]
• in episode 8 ("End of the World") of the first season of the 2015 TV series The Man in the High Castle, when an American singer performs the song in Japanese (a different version sung by Sharon Van Etten appears in the show's music album, Resistance Radio);
• in episode 9 ("Walcott Prep") of the second season of the TV series Wayward Pines, first aired in 2016;
• at the end of episode 7 ("The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)") of the third season of the TV series The Leftovers, first aired in 2017;
• over the closing credits of Darren Aronofsky's 2017 film Mother!;
• during the first and last episode of the 2017 British TV series The End of the F***ing World.
• In the Korean Drama Time (2018 TV series)

References

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics