“Cherish” was a soft rock song that was released by The Association in 1966. The song rose all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed in the position for three weeks.
Terry Kirman told HuffPost that the band was forced to shorten the song to get it played on the radio. Kirkman explained, “In the 60s, the general guideline for the maximum playtime of a song to ever get on Top 40 AM radio was around two minutes and 15 seconds. Two snappy verses and a short bridge — maybe a little instrumental riff — then a repeated verse or chorus before wrapping it up. But the way I intended ‘Cherish’ to be sung ran a full minute or longer than that, somewhere around 3:40.”
He continued, “The song was so long that not only did we speed up the tempo — we sped the actual recording up after we recorded it as well. And when that still wasn’t quite fast enough, our producers then lied about the play time on the label by about 20 full seconds. God only knows what must have gone through the minds of all those tightly formatted Top 40 radio programmers trying to figure out where they’d gone wrong.”
Kirkman also spoke about the fact that this has become a popular wedding song. “Another strange aspect of the ‘Cherish’ story—one that has particularly baffled me—was that it became such a huge favorite for weddings,” he said. “Couples by the thousands called it ‘their song,’ in spite of the fact it is so very much about love lost, not victorious love. But who knows? Maybe it was that stirring youth march tempo that did them in.”
Related: 1972 Song, Written in the Car by Harry Nilsson After a Hawaiian Vacation, Charted for Months
The Association had a few more hits over the years, including “Windy” and “Never My Love.” In 2003, the band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The members of the band also received Rock Justice Awards in 2019.
Kirkman died in 2023 at the age of 83.
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