record for his own label, Philles Records. All the songs previously produced by Spector for Philles Records featured African-American singers, and the Righteous Brothers would be his first white vocal act. However, they had a vocal style, termed blue-eyed soul, that suited Spector. Spector commissioned Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to write a song for them, bringing them over from New York to Los Angeles to stay at the Chateau Marmont so they could write the song. Taking a cue from "Baby I Need Your Loving" by The Four Tops, which was then rising in the charts, Mann and Weil decided to write a ballad. Mann wrote the melody first, and came up with the opening line, "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips", influenced by a line from the song "I Love How You Love Me" that was co-written by Mann and produced by Spector – "I love how your eyes close whenever you kiss me". Mann and Weil wrote the first two verses quickly, including the chorus line "you've lost that lovin' feelin. When Spector joined in with the writing, he added "gone, gone, gone, whoa, whoa, whoa" to the end of the chorus, which Weil disliked. The line "you've lost that lovin' feelin was originally only intended to be a dummy line that would be replaced later, but Spector liked it and decided to keep it. The form of the song is of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus or ABABCB form. Mann and Weil had problems writing the bridge and the ending, and asked Spector for help. Spector experimented on the piano with a "Hang On Sloopy" riff that they then built on for the bridge. Weil recalled that, "after Phil, Barry and I finished [writing it], we took it over to the Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song." However, Medley initially felt that the song did not suit their more uptempo rhythm and blues style, and Mann and Spector had sung the song in a higher key: "And we just thought, 'Wow, what a good song for The Everly Brothers.' But it didn't seem right for us." The song, which has a very big range, was originally written in the higher key of F. But to accommodate Medley's baritone voice, the key was gradually lowered to C in the recording, which, together with slowing the song down, changed