Lulu – To Sir With Love

Music Video Page Studio said:

The B-Side That Schooled America

In 1967, “To Sir With Love” slipped out alongside a modest single and quietly stole the show. Tied to Sidney Poitier’s London classroom drama, Lulu’s closing-credits goodbye turned into the year’s biggest U.S. hit—five weeks at No. 1 and Billboard’s top single of 1967. The twist? British radio couldn’t even spin it properly at first; the UK never got a full single release that summer.

Chart action reads like a plot twist. American DJs flipped the record and wouldn’t flip back, pushing a film ballad past The Box Tops and The Monkees at the height of AM pop’s sugar rush. Teen star from Glasgow, soundtrack song, autumn airplay—suddenly the classroom elegy owned the country’s playlists. It sold and stuck, a goodbye note elbowing aside the season’s louder records.

The origin is pure movie magic by way of family ties. Composer Mark London—soon linked to Lulu’s inner circle—brought a plaintive melody; lyricist Don Black penned the thank-you letter every teacher hopes to hear. Lulu, barely out of her teens and acting in the film, cut the vocal with the story still on her breath. It wasn’t meant to be the juggernaut; it just felt true.

Production kept it simple: a steady beat, church-bell chimes, and Lulu’s clear, almost conversational phrasing. There’s no grand key change or studio trick to point at—just the moment the drums lift into the chorus and her voice widens into gratitude. The record sounds like a hallway after the last exam: echoing, a little sad, somehow bigger than the room.

Career-wise, it redrew her map. She’d already scored in the UK, but this one opened America’s doors and proved she could carry grown-up material before she turned 20. It also set the stage for her late-’60s run with hitmakers and TV specials on both sides of the Atlantic.

The song won the long afterlife: graduation playlists, talent-show tributes, and covers from rock bar bands to choir risers. Every June, it resurfaces, a secular hymn to the teacher who changed someone’s course. It’s the rare pop hit that grows up with its listeners.

Why it matters now: because it nails the hardest goodbye—a thank you big enough for the person who believed in you first. Half a century later, that chorus still shakes hands with memory and means it.