Who recorded “Killing Me Softly" first? Here’s a hint. She’s the songwriter, and she recorded it one year before Roberta Flack’s #1 hit version in 1973. The answer is… Lori Lieberman. It’s a too-familiar story in the music biz. A young talent is discovered by industry executives of dubious integrity. The talent creates something magical, and the executives literally steal the creations from the creator. That’s exactly what happened to Lori Lieberman. When "Killing Me Softly" became a smash hit in 1973, the executives, Charles Fox & Norman Gimbel, removed her name from the song altogether… even after Fox & Gimbel credited Lieberman publicly in Billboard magazine in 73! Flack has been telling the story for decades about how the song was written, and most importantly why. Lieberman was inspired after seeing a moving performance by singer-songwriter Don McLean, and came up with those magical three words in a poem written the same night. Lieberman’s original version was released on her debut LP in 1972.