1971 · Behind the Songs
Eleven years after the Shirelles took it to number one, Flack asked the same question at half the speed.
Few songs have lived two lives as different as this one. Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” for the Shirelles, whose November 1960 single — backed with “Boys” on Scepter — became the first by a girl group to top the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 2 R&B and No. 4 in the UK, with Paul Griffin on piano and Gary Chester on drums. Some radio stations banned it for suggestiveness, which only confirmed what teenagers already knew: the question in the title was a grown-up one. Then in 1971 the song came home to its writer — Carole King cut a much slower version for Tapestry, with Joni Mitchell and James Taylor singing behind her.
Roberta Flack’s answer arrived the same year, as track 5 of Quiet Fire. Where the Shirelles had been urgent and King confessional, Flack made it a late-night piano meditation — 3:59 of quiet certainty. Released as a single on December 7, 1971 with “Go Up Moses” on the flip, it reached only No. 76 on the Hot 100 in 1972, a modest showing next to the Shirelles’ chart-topper. But chart positions measure moments, not readings: Flack heard the song as a woman’s question rather than a girl’s, and sang it like someone who already knew how rarely the answer is yes.