Last Time I Saw Him (song) - Original Version

Original Version

Michael Masser had also composed and produced the precedent solo Diana Ross single "Touch Me in the Morning", a dreamy ballad which had hit #1, but "Last Time I Saw Him" took a drastically different musical direction: AMG would note that on the "arguably campy" last-named track arrangers Michael Omartian and Gene Page "throw in everything but the proverbial kitchen sink with a score that is all over the musical map from Dixieland-band jazz to banjo-pickin' and even an orchestrated string section" while Billboard would describe "Last Time I Saw Him" as "a light romp in the Tony Orlando and Dawn style."

The song's narrator recalls how she saw her "honey" off on a Greyhound bus having given the man a large amount of money to establish future living arrangements for the two of them; six months have since passed with no word and the narrator resultantly announces her intention to go in search of her errant swain in the naive belief he has been stranded by some ill-fortune from which she can retrieve him.

Ross scored her seventh Top 40 hit with "Last Time I Saw Him" which peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1974, and a Top 20 R&B hit, where it peaked at #16. The track had its greatest impact in the easy listening market: #1 for three weeks on the Easy Listening chart in Billboard, "Last Time I Saw Him" was named the biggest Easy Listening Hit for the year 1974.

Ross also charted with "Last Time I Saw Him" in Australia at #18 and in the UK at #35.