"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. It has become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, by some estimates having spawned over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages.^[1]

In 1955, Alex North used the music as a theme for the prison film Unchained, hence the name. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack.^[2] Les Baxter (Capitol Records catalog number 3055), released an instrumental version which reached #1. Then song recordings were released by Al Hibbler (Decca Records #29441) reaching #3 on the Billboard charts, Jimmy Young which hit #1 in the United Kingdom, and Roy Hamilton (Epic Records no. 9102) reaching #1 on the R&B Best Sellers list and #6 on the pop chart.^[3] Hundreds of other recordings followed.

It was the July 1965 version by The Righteous Brothers that became a jukebox standard for the late 20th century, regaining massive popularity when used in the 1990 blockbuster film Ghost.

source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unchained_Melody

FYI --A little bit here on the composer:

Alex North (December 4, 1910 – September 8, 1991) was an American composer who wrote the first jazz-based film score (A Streetcar Named Desire) and one of the first modernist scores written in Hollywood (Viva Zapata!).

Born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania to Russian Jewish parents,^[1] North was an original composer probably even by the classical music standards of the day. However, he managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes. One of these became the famous song, "Unchained Melody". Nominated for fifteen Oscars but unsuccessful each time, North is one of only two film composers to receive the Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, the other being Ennio Morricone. North's frequent collaborator as orchestrator was the avant-garde composer Henry Brant. He won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968).

His best-known film scores include The Rainmaker (1956), Spartacus (1960), The Misfits (1961),The Children's Hour (1961) Cleopatra (1963), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Devil's Brigade (1968), and Dragonslayer (1981). He composed the music for "The Wonderful Country" in a Mexican and southwestern US motif.

His commissioned score for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is notorious for having been discarded by director Stanley Kubrick. North reused themes from the rejected score for The Shoes of the Fisherman, Shanks (1974), and Dragonslayer, but the score itself was unheard until composer Jerry Goldsmith rerecorded it for Varèse Sarabande in 1993. In 2007, Intrada Records released North's personal copies of the 1968 recording sessions on CD.

continued:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_North

Unchained Melody

O, my love, my darling,
I've hungered for your touch,
A long, lonely time.
And time goes by, so slowly,
And time can do so much,
Are you still mine?
I need your love.
I need your love.
God speed your love to me.

Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea,
To the open arms of the sea.
Lonely rivers sigh, wait for me, wait for me,
I'll be coming home, wait for me.

O, my love, my darling,
I've hungered, hungered!, for your touch,
A long, Lonely time.
And time goes by, so slowly,
And time can do so much,
Are you still mine?
I need your love.
I need your love.
God speed your love to me.

--song written by Alex North & Hy Zaret

I know Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner is a hard act to follow. But give it a try anyway. Brings us down to Earth again.