The Drifters’ “This Magic Moment”: A Timeless Spark of Love’s First Glow – A Song About the Sudden, Heart-Stopping Rush of Falling in Love
When The Drifters released “This Magic Moment” in January 1960, it climbed to No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit No. 4 on the R&B chart, a radiant gem that marked a new chapter for the group, featured later on compilations like The Drifters’ Golden Hits, which charted in ’68 at No. 123 on the Billboard 200. Certified Gold decades on, it was a cornerstone of their legacy under Ben E. King’s velvet lead. For those of us who caught it on a snowy night’s radio or swayed to it at a high school hop, “This Magic Moment” wasn’t just a chart number—it was a shiver down the spine, a song that older hearts can still hear glowing through the years, pulling us back to a time when love felt like a spell cast under a winter moon, and the world paused for a heartbeat we’d never forget.
The path to “This Magic Moment” winds through the soulful streets of late ’50s New York, where The Drifters—reborn after a lineup purge—found gold with King at the helm. Written by the Brill Building’s dream team, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, it was born in a haze of late-night inspiration—Pomus, polio-crippled but poetry-rich, scribbling of a love that hit like lightning, maybe for his wife, maybe just a dream. King, fresh from Harlem’s Five Crowns, stepped in after manager George Treadwell fired the old crew in ’58, his voice a warm ache that turned the song into magic. Recorded at Atlantic’s studios with producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, it shimmered with Tommy Dowd’s strings—lush and soaring—over a cha-cha beat, King’s “sweeter than wine” line trembling with truth. Released as rock softened and doo-wop peaked, it hit just as the ’60s dawned, a bridge from the ’50s’ innocence to a decade of change, its glow later reignited by Jay and the Americans’ No. 6 cover in ’68.
At its tender essence, “This Magic Moment” is a snapshot of love’s electric dawn, a man caught in the thrill of “a moment so different from any gone before.” “This magic moment, so different and so new,” King sings, his voice a velvet tide, “was like any other until I kissed you”—it’s the rush of “eyes inviting” and “lips exciting,” a spell where “everything I want I have whenever I hold you tight.” It’s not a saga—just a flash, pure and fleeting, a heartbeat where time stops and “magic” means forever, if only for now. For those who lived it, this song is a memory in amber—the hum of a jukebox in a diner’s corner, the rustle of a coat at a dance, the way The Drifters felt like they’d bottled that first spark we all chased. It’s the early ’60s in a gentle haze—poodle skirts brushing knees, a radio glowing on a nightstand, a time when love was a mystery you fell into, wide-eyed and breathless.
More than a hit, “This Magic Moment” was The Drifters’ rebirth, King’s star turn before “Stand By Me”, a classic that danced through Dirty Dancing and The Sandlot. It was their first big splash with the new lineup—Charlie Thomas, Dock Green, Elsbeary Hobbs—a sound that carried soul into pop’s arms. For us who’ve grayed since those days, it’s a bridge to a world of sock hops and stolen glances—when you’d save dimes for a record shop run, when their Ed Sullivan spot lit up Sunday nights, when music was a first kiss frozen in time. Slip that old 45 onto the player, let it crackle, and you’re back—the chill of a February breeze, the glow of a streetlight on wet pavement, the way “This Magic Moment” felt like a spell we’d never break, a song that still holds that magic, soft and eternal.
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