| An Old Fashioned Love Song | |
| Cover: | An_Old_Fashioned_Love_Song_-_Three_Dog_Night.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Three Dog Night |
| Album: | Harmony |
| B-Side: | Jam |
| Released: | November 1971 |
| Genre: | Pop rock |
| Length: | 3:26 |
| Label: | Dunhill |
| Producer: | Richard Podolor |
| Prev Title: | Liar |
| Prev Year: | 1971 |
| Next Title: | Never Been to Spain |
| Next Year: | 1971 |
"An Old Fashioned Love Song" is a 1971 song written by Paul Williams and performed by the American pop-rock band Three Dog Night. Chuck Negron performed the lead vocal on this track. Taken as the first single from their 1971 album, Harmony, the song peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in December 1971, becoming the band's seventh top-ten hit.[1] It was Three Dog Night's first record to top the U.S. easy listening chart.[2] It reached number 2 in Canada.
According to the Karen Carpenter biography Little Girl Blue by Randy L. Schmidt, Williams originally intended the song for the Carpenters, who were in the middle of a string of hits with their own brand of "old fashioned love songs", including two of Williams' own compositions, "We've Only Just Begun" and "Rainy Days and Mondays". Although this was the first song Williams had written specifically for Carpenters, Richard Carpenter rejected it, and so Williams offered the song to Three Dog Night. Carpenters never recorded the song, but did perform it live on television with Carol Burnett a few months later.[3]
| Chart (1971–72) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (KMR) [4] | 16 | |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 2 | |
| Canada RPM Adult Contemporary[5] | 3 | |
| New Zealand (Listener)[6] | 3 | |
| U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary | 1 |
| Chart (1972) | Rank | |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 171 | |
| U.S. (Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual)[8] | 41 |
| An Old Fashioned Love Song | |
| Cover: | Old_Fash_single.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Paul Williams |
| Album: | Just an Old Fashioned Love Song |
| Released: | 1971 |
| Genre: | Pop |
| Label: | A&M |
The song's composer Paul Williams recorded his own version of the song he had written, which was included on his 1971 album Just an Old Fashioned Love Song. Williams later performed the song when he appeared on The Muppet Show in 1976. He also sang a portion of the song for an episode of The Odd Couple in 1974.
