Songfacts®:

• Barry Manilow notched his fifth US Top 10 hit with this song about a man who's missing a woman he met while on a weekend in New England. He has fallen in love with her, and now wonders when and if he will ever see her again. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
• Manilow is an accomplished songwriter, but he didn't write this one: It was composed by Randy Edelman, who has written popular scores for movies and TV, including the theme for the show MacGyver.
• This was the song that Jennifer Hudson sang on season 3 of American Idol before she was eliminated from the competition, finishing seventh. A few years later, Hudson became a star when she won an Oscar for her performance in the movie Dreamgirls. At Clive Davis' 2009 pre-Grammy party, Hudson performed this song with Barry Manilow. This is the same party that Chris Brown and Rihanna attended before their altercation. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bertrand - Paris, France
• This was used on season 4 of Friends in the episode "The One with the Worst Best Man Ever," when the guys are at the veterinarian's office reminiscing over their pet duck.
• This was also used in the 2009 movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop, starring Kevin James.
• Edelman explained how the song came together in the liner notes to Manilow's 1992 anthology The Complete Collection And Then Some: "The music for 'Weekend' was written on an old Steinway upright in New Jersey in the house where I grew up I wrote the lyrics on a plane and included the song on a solo album I was recording."
  
  The solo album was 1975's Farewell Fairbanks, which boasted a UK hit cover of the Unit 4+2 song "Concrete And Clay" with "Weekend In New England" as its B-side.
  
  A year later, Arista Records president Clive Davis asked Edelman to rewrite the melody of the verses and brought the song to Manilow to record for his This One's For You album.
  
  "I made the changes and that was the version Barry arranged and recorded in his own personal way," Edelman said.
  
  "Hearing the record for the first time was a very emotional moment. It was the kind of excitement that a songwriter dreams of. You compose a song, no telling where it may go, it takes on a life of its own and you become one of the people who may just have one of his creations stand the test of time and be listened to for generations to come."
• Manilow was proud of the way the song came out but never dreamed it would make the charts in 1976, the same year dance grooves like "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty" and "Disco Duck" - polar opposites of the passionate ballad - were all the rage.
  
  "I was stunned that this became a hit. The song is a beauty and I tried to create a record that had the passion and power that I believed was inherent in the song. But when we finished recording it, it didn't seem possible that this would be played on the radio," he explained in The Complete Collection And Then Some liner notes.
  
  "'Weekend In New England' was a ballad that started out very tiny and ended very tiny. It sounded very legitimate, not rock or dance oriented. It was written in 3/4 time - a waltz. And besides, the title never even appeared in the song!"
• Along with the album's other two singles, "This One's For You" and "Looks Like We Made It," this went to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Manilow reached the apex 13 times in his career, and more than a dozen of his other singles landed in the Top 10.
• This was covered by Jim Nabors, Roger Whittaker, Vera Lynn, Gary Puckett, John Barrowman, and Kyle Vincent, among others.