The East Orange, New Jersey-born Lauryn Hill is a triple threat. She is visually stunning, an incredible singer, and one of the best rappers and lyricists of all time. She can do it all. And that is the case whether or not she is performing with her trio the Fugees or as a solo artist.
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And ever since her career began in the mid-1990s, she has been showing off her skill and acumen. As a result, Hill boasts several songs that have stood the test of time. Here below, we wanted to explore a trio of those tunes. Three tracks that remain on the radio waves and stereos galore. Indeed, these are three eternal Lauryn Hill songs.
“Killing Me Softly with His Song” by the Fugees from The Score (1996)
This song became a hit in 1973 thanks to singer Roberta Flack, but almost a quarter-century later, the Fugees covered it for their LP The Score and it became a modern classic. Sung by frontwoman Lauryn Hill, who made the track her own in the way Whitney Houston made “I Will Always Love You” hers, the song is heartbreaking and intimate, lovely and spellbinding. On it, Hill sings of seeing her lover perform and tell all their secrets to a crowd. The fear of anyone romantically involved with an artist. On the track, she offers,
I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him, and listen for a while
And there he was, this young boy, stranger to my eyes
Strumming my pain with his fingers (one time, one time)
Singing my life with his words (two times, two times)
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
“Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” by Lauryn Hill from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
Another song originally released by a another artist (Frankie Valli), Hill recorded this track for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998. From her lips, the track is so sweet and adoring. It makes you want to wrap yourself in a relationship of your own as she sings of the love she’s feeling for another. Her voice, rich with emotion, flutters and soars. She is a blue sky spotted with white puffy clouds. On the song, Hill sings,
You’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
You’d be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
At long last love has arrived
And I thank God I’m alive
You’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
“Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998)
The lead single from Hill’s debut solo studio LP, this track was a commercial success in its time and one that continues to feature on “throwback” radio stations all over the country. It’s got flare and fire, melody and spoken word. It shows Hill’s range as a vocalist and shows her at the peak of her powers in the late 1990s. It’s dynamic and sticky and because of that, it’s everlasting. On the track, she sings,
It’s been three weeks since you were looking for your friend
The one you let hit it and never called you again
‘Member when he told you he was ’bout the Benjamins?
You act like you ain’t hear him, then give him a little trim
To begin, how you think you’re really gon’ pretend
Like you wasn’t down and you called him again?
Plus, when you give it up so easy you ain’t even foolin’ him
If you did it then, then you’d probably f- again
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Photo by Bennett Raglin/Getty Images
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