When Love Casts a Spell That Never Fades – A Song of Romance’s Magical Hold, Seen Through a Lover’s Eyes
In the spring of 1959, The Platters released Enchanted, a tender ballad that climbed to No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 9 on the R&B chart, a sweet success from their ever-growing catalog of hits. Dropped in February as a single on Mercury Records, backed by The Sound and the Fury, it didn’t snag the top spot like The Great Pretender or Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, but it held its own, ranking No. 64 on Billboard’s Top 100 singles of the year. Written by their manager and musical architect Buck Ram, and produced under Jerry Wald Productions, it was a showcase of the group’s signature doo-wop elegance—Tony Williams’ soaring tenor lifting it skyward, with David Lynch, Paul Robi, Herb Reed, and Zola Taylor weaving a harmony that felt like a warm embrace. For those of us who tuned in back then, it was a quiet jewel—a song that shimmered through the static of a simpler time.
The story behind Enchanted is a soft footnote in The Platters’ golden era. By ’59, they were riding high, a vocal quintet that had bridged the old Tin Pan Alley charm with the new pulse of rock ‘n’ roll. Ram, the mastermind who’d shaped their sound since ’53, penned this one with his usual flair for romance, drawing from the same well that gave us My Prayer and Twilight Time. Recorded in a Los Angeles studio, it was a quick affair—Williams laying down that lead in a take or two, the group’s voices blending like colors on a canvas. It wasn’t born of drama or grand design; it was just another day in their hit-making machine, a tune meant to keep the jukeboxes humming and the fans swooning. Yet there’s a whisper of magic in its making—a sense that Ram knew how to bottle love’s glow and hand it to us on a platter, no pun intended.
At its heart, Enchanted is a lover’s dream—a melody that says life turns golden when you’re hand in hand with the one who makes your world spin right. “Living is a dream when you make it seem enchanted,” Williams sings, his voice a velvet thread, stitching together a tale of stars touched and seeds planted, of love that grows wild and free. It’s about the spell that falls when you look into someone’s eyes and see forever, the kind of ecstasy that doesn’t need big words—just a quiet thrill in the night. For us who were there, it’s a memory of slow dances under dim lights, of stolen glances across a crowded room, of a time when love felt like a secret only the radio could tell.
Oh, how it takes us back—those of us with a few more lines around our eyes, who remember the crackle of a 45 dropping into place, the needle kissing the groove as The Platters filled the air. It’s the scent of Brylcreem and Evening in Paris perfume, the rustle of crinoline skirts at a high school hop, the glow of a Philco radio on a porch swing. Back then, they were our voices—five souls from L.A. who turned street-corner harmony into something divine. Enchanted wasn’t their loudest hit, but it’s stayed with us, popping up in Breaking Bad years later like a ghost from ’59. It’s the sound of a world we’ve lost, yet still hold close—a spell cast in vinyl, a love song that never quite lets go, even as the years roll on.