1967 (Climb Every Mountain was a #1 Hit for Shirley back in 1961, before the movie came out. Here she sings it live on her TV Special with Count Basie and his Orchestra providing the music. Shirley then follows with the great Irving Berlin/Jule Styne song, 'Let Me Sing and I'm Happy).
ABOUT Climb Every Mountain:
Shirley first recorded this song as a Columbia single in 1961, and then included the track on her 1961 LP title, 'Shirley Bassey'. Shirley's powerful recording of this classic song climbed the charts until it reached the Number 1 position!
ABOUT the song:
"Climb Ev'ry Mountain" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. Here it is sung at the close of the first act by the Mother Abbess. It is themed as an inspirational piece, to encourage people to take every step towards attaining one's dreams.
This song shares inspirational overtones with the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from Carousel. They are both sung by the female mentor characters in the shows, and are used to give strength to the protagonists in the story, and both are given powerful reprises at the end of their respective shows. However, as Oscar Hammerstein II was writing the lyrics, it developed its own inspirational overtones along the lines of an earlier Hammerstein song, "There's a Hill Beyond a Hill". He felt that the metaphors of climbing mountains and fording streams better fitted Maria's quest for her spiritual compass. However, the muse behind the song was Sister Gregory, the head of Drama at Rosary College in Illinois. The letters that she sent to Hammerstein and to Mary Martin, the first Maria von Trapp on Broadway, described the parallels between a nun's choice for a religious life and the choices that humans must make to find their purpose and direction in life. When she read the manuscript of the lyrics, she confessed that it "drove [her] to the Chapel" because the lyrics conveyed a "yearning that ... ordinary souls feel but cannot communicate".
Tony Bennett had a very minor hit in 1960 with his recording of the song. In 1961, Welsh singer Shirley Bassey recorded the song and released it as part of a double A-sided single with "Reach for the Stars". It reached No.1 in the UK on September 21, 1961, and remained on the charts for 18 weeks
LRYICS:
Climb every mountain, search high and low
Follow every byway, every path you know
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream
