Throwing back to the week of February 6, 1954, we find that songs clung to the top spot of Billboard’s charts right from the beginning.
At #1 that week was Eddie Fisher’s ‘Oh! My Pa-Pa,’ just as it had been every week of that year. In the second spot was Dean Martin’s ‘That’s Amore,’ another repeat.
At #3 was a song that had been moving up the chart for weeks on it’s way to an eventual #1 berth: Doris Day’s ‘Secret Love.’
Day recorded this song in one take after riding her bicycle to the studio where the orchestra was rehearsing. When asked if she wanted to run through the song once before recording, she declined, and her one and only performance is the one that was released.
The song was written for the Western musical Calamity Jane, in which Day played the title role. ‘Secret Love’ won the Oscar for Best Song, though Day declined to sing it at the ceremony, unwilling to perform in front of such a large audience.
Once I had a secret love
That lived within the heart of me
All too soon my secret love
Became impatient to be free
[Verse 2]
So I told a friendly star
The way that dreamers often do
Just how wonderful you are
And why I’m so in love with you
[Chorus]
Now, I shout it from the highest hills
Even told the golden daffodils
At last, my heart’s an open door
And my secret love’s no secret anymore
[Instrumental Break]
[Chorus]
Now, I shout it from the highest hills
Even told the golden daffodils
At last, my heart’s an open door
And my secret love’s no secret anymore
Meet Me In Montauk 
I’ve heard of, but have never seen the movie, nor have I heard this song before.
I love the details you include about her riding a bike to the recording session and then doing it in one take! It is a song that has a poignant resonance for many (older) members of the LGBTQ community — and consequently is still performed in Provincetown piano bars on a regular basis.
Thank you for sharing the special resonance this song has with the LGBTQ community. Doesn’t seem like such an easy song to sing!
I think the resonance is related to the story told by that song’s lyric as well as Doris Day’s gender-bending performance in that particular film plus her longstanding friendship with the very handsome (but closeted until just before he died due to AIDS) Rock Hudson. Lots of layers of association…
that background is so interesting on this song. I remember it well and as a youngster my sister and I would pretend we were singers (we weren’t very good)using fake microphones and this was a regular on our repertoire. Also Patty Paige songs were among our favorites.