"Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet", also known as "A Time for Us", is an instrumental

Instrumental

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 arranged by Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

. It was a number-one pop hit in the United States during the year 1969. It topped the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 singles chart on June 28, 1969, and remained there for two weeks.

The melody is the theme from the movie Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet (1968 film)

Romeo and Juliet is a 1968 British-Italian cinematic adaptation of the William Shakespeare play of the same name.The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and stars Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design; it was also...

, which starred Leonard Whiting

Leonard Whiting

Leonard Whiting is a British actor who starred as Romeo in the 1968 Zeffirelli film version of Romeo and Juliet opposite Olivia Hussey's Juliet, a role which earned him the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor....

 and Olivia Hussey

Olivia Hussey

Olivia Hussey is an Argentinian actress who became famous for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's Academy Award-winning 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet. For this role she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actress as well as the David di Donatello for best actress...

. Rearranged by Mancini, the song started competing with rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 songs from The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 and the Rolling Stones on an Orlando, Florida

Orlando, Florida

Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...

 radio station and spread from there. It faced stiff opposition from some radio states for being too soft. Those stations had to change their mind when the song become number one.

This release also topped the U.S. easy listening chart

Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

for eight weeks where it was Mancini's sole number one on the chart .