1968 Taboo Ballad With Iconic Lyrics Returns to the Spotlight After Songwriter's Death
On May 4, 1968, Merrilee Rush made her debut on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Angel of the Morning." Backed by Lee's Memphis band, The Turnabouts, the soft-rock ballad quickly became a defining one-hit wonder known for its iconic lyrics. Now, following the death of the song's writer, Chip Taylor, the track has returned to the spotlight as fans and critics revisit its enduring legacy.
"When Merrilee Rush starts the chorus of this song, you know you're witnessing something great," American Songwriter shares. "Indeed, when she sings the very title of this song, it is enough to give you, well, a rush."
With lyrics that seemed to materialize without intention, Taylor wrote the song in just 20 minutes, without fully understanding what it meant. According to Kent Kotal, author of the Forgotten Hits newsletter, Taylor spent hours struggling to capture the ideal sound before finally surrendering to an emotional, almost automatic songwriting process.
"Incredibly, in one sitting, he completed the entire song," Kotal says. "In his own mind, he feels that he didn't so much as write this song as that he dreamed it." Taylor adds, "I just let the emotion carry me. In this song, the emotion just totally took over and carried me. It was magic."
Now that it's a hit, it's easy to go back and evaluate its meaning. A song about, ahem, premarital sex, the core idea was way taboo for mainstream radio in the '60s. Still, even though it was bold for its time, the song was celebrated as nothing less than poetic. We love to see soft rock pushing boundaries and it paying off.
Rush's song became a breakout hit, soaring to No. 7 on the Hot 100 for three weeks and earning Rush a Grammy nomination and international chart success.
Originally intended for Evie Sands, the song was almost shelved after Sands' label went under, but it found new life with Rush, as well as several other artists who covered it - see: Billie Davis in 1967, Juice Newton in 1981, and The Pretenders in 1994.
The ballad is also used in modern pop culture, featuring in films including Promising Young Woman(2020), Girl, Interrupted(1994), and the opening credits of Deadpool (2016). The song just continues to find new audiences.
Last month when Taylor died, Rush, now 82, shared a tribute to the legendary songwriter, who is also the uncle of Angelina Jolie and brother of Jon Voight, on her Instagram.
"How can I begin to express my gratitude to this wonderful man and Hall of Fame Songwriter, Chip Taylor," she captions an image of her and Taylor. "Writing ‘Angel of the Morning' changed his life and recording it changed mine. Together we created one of rock & roll's most iconic records and shared a lifetime of appreciation for the imprint it made on each of our lives."
She signed off, "Thank you, Chip. Your fan, Merrilee Rush." Sentiments we share.
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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 5:37 PM.