In the autumn of 1964 Hatch made his first visit to New York City, spending three days there in search of material from music publishers for the artists he was producing.

He recalled, "I was staying at a hotel on Central Park and I wandered down to Broadway and to Times Square and, naively, I thought I was downtown.

[3] He was standing on the corner of 48th Street in Midtown, waiting for the traffic lights to change and looking towards Times Square when "the melody first came to me, just as the neon signs went on.

It has been said that Hatch gave Julie Grant the opportunity to record "Downtown" which Grant turned down,[6] but this does not accord with Hatch's statement that he played "Downtown" for Petula Clark within a few days of conceiving the melody and only completed the song's lyrics after Clark had asked to record it.

Hatch has also said that prior to Clark's expressed interest in "Downtown", "it never occurred to me that a white woman could even sing it.

"[8] Clark, who first heard "Downtown" from her kitchen, having stepped away to make a pot of tea, told Hatch: "That's the one I want to record.

Hatch said of his arrangement: "I had to connect with young record buyers... but not alienate Pet[ula]'s older core audience...

[11] Also playing on the session were guitarists Vic Flick, Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan, as well as drummer Ronnie Verrell, while the Breakaways provided the vocal accompaniment.

[12] Tony Hatch would recall playing the completed "Downtown" track for Pye Records executives saying: "Nobody knew what to make of it and no release date was set.

Then Pye's general manager called and said Joe Smith – Warner Bros.' head of A&R – was in London looking for British material.

When Joe heard Pet[ula]'s record, he loved it and scheduled the single for urgent release in the [United] States".

1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated 23 January 1965, retaining that position a further week before being overtaken by the ascendancy of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'".

"Downtown" also made Clark the first UK female artist to have a single certified as a Gold record for US sales of one million units.

Petula Clark, who had been playing to her French-speaking fans in small venues in Quebec when "Downtown" entered the US charts, swiftly cut non-English versions of the song for the markets in France, Italy and Germany; the absence in each region's language of a two-syllable equivalent of "downtown" necessitated a radical lyric recasting for the versions aimed at France ("Dans le temps"), Italy ("Ciao Ciao", winning the Festivalbar, a juke-box contest) and Spain ("Chao Chao") which respectively charted at No.

In 2013, Petula Clark rerecorded that song for her album Lost in You, with new arrangements, as a ballad and with a soft voice, giving it a new life.

[15][16][17] The song is on the soundtrack of the 1999 film Girl, Interrupted[18] and is sung in character by Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie.

[27] The song is featured in the Edgar Wright horror film Last Night in Soho performed by actress Anya Taylor-Joy.

In addition, the original 1964 recording was remixed and released in 1988 as "Downtown '88": a top ten UK hit, the track also charted in Australia (No.

24 on the UK Singles Chart dated (i.e. for the week ending) 12 December 1988: Clark's live TOTP performance evidently facilitated the rise of "Downtown '88" to No.

10 peak on the UK chart dated 24 December 1988, that being the singles rankings for the first full week after Clark's TOTP live performance of "Downtown '88".

"[59] Reviewing Lost in You for MusicOHM.com, Philip Matusavage writes of the "Downtown" remake: "already a song loaded with melancholy, the stately version here acquires new meaning with its weary but amiable delivery summoning forth powerful nostalgia and the sense of someone fondly remembering their youth.

"[60] Dolly Parton recorded "Downtown" in Nashville in 1983 in the sessions for her covers album The Great Pretender, a Val Garay production which focused on hits from the 1950s and 1960s.

It includes appearances from contestants from the BBC's reality television show Strictly Come Dancing and features cameos from Matt Dawson, Louisa Lytton, Carol Smillie, Spoony, Mark Ramprakash, Claire King, Peter Schmeichel, Craig Revel Horwood, Anton du Beke, Brendan Cole, Erin Boag, Lilia Kopylova, Karen Hardy, and Darren Bennett.

Bunton would constantly evade or deny this allegation, as when Michael Baggs of Popjustice put to her: "The dancers in the 'Downtown' video seem to know you very well indeed.

According to Saw Doctors' member Leo Moran the group habitually played snippets of well-known songs during their encore numbers: "One night for no particular reason we did 'Downtown' and you could see people loved it.

"[74] Top Irish cinematographer Eugene O' Connor (Father Ted) directed the video for the Saw Doctor's "Downtown" which was uploaded to YouTube on 17 November 2011.

Shot on the nights of 9–10 November 2011, the video focuses on the band's members walking through the town center of Galway (lead vocalist Davy Carton is also seen briefly riding in a car).

Footage of Clark was shot in Paris and spliced into the completed video in which she mainly appears on the screens of televisions displayed in a shop window (the shop is in fact clothing retailer Anthony Ryans) outside of which the Saw Doctors perform on the street in the company of eight members of the Galway City Cougars cheerleading squad and also a fire juggler.

[75] Radio presenter Ray Foley (Today FM) began a campaign to make the Saw Doctors' "Downtown" the Christmas No.

[76][77][78] On the Irish Singles Chart dated 29 December 2011 "Downtown" by the Saw Doctors featuring Petula Clark was ranked at No.