"The Great Pretender" is a popular song recorded by the Platters, with Tony Williams on lead vocals, and released as a single in November 1955. The words and music were written by Buck Ram,[1] the Platters' manager and producer who was a successful songwriter before moving into producing and management. The song reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top 100, and No. 5 on the UK charts.
The song has been covered by a number of singers, most notably by Freddie Mercury, whose version reached No. 4 on the UK charts. Sam Cooke's cover of the song is believed to have inspired Chrissie Hynde to name her band the Pretenders.[2]
Platters' original
Buck Ram, the manager of the Platters, said that he wrote the song in about 20 minutes in the washroom of the Flamingo Hotel in order to have a follow-up to the success of "Only You (And You Alone)". Ram had boasted to Bob Shad that he had an even better song than "Only You", and when pressed by Shad on the name of the song, Ram quickly replied "The Great Pretender".[3] He said the song would be a hit even before he had written the song to go with the title.[4] The song was recorded by the Platters and released in November 1955.[3]Plas Johnson played tenor saxophone on the recording. It became the best-selling R&B song in January 1956,[5] and reached No. 2 on the Top 100 chart on Billboard in February 1956.[6] It was also the 12th best-selling singles of 1956.[7]
The song was repopularized in 1987 by Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock bandQueen. Mercury's version reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart. In one of his last videotaped interviews in spring of 1987, Mercury explained that the song was particularly fitting for the way he saw his career and being on stage.[16]
The song was covered in the UK by Australian vocalist Jimmy Parkinson. It entered the Top 20 on March 3, 1956, six months before the Platters' version; Parkinson's version peaked at No. 9 and remained in the Top 20 for ten weeks.[35]
The Band recorded a version of "The Great Pretender" in their 1973 album Moondog Matinee, an album consisting solely of covers, with Richard Manuel on lead vocals.[37]