Monday April 11, 2022 “Don’t Let Me Down” The Animals
So this week we are going to play a game of musical connect the dots. Each subsequent song will have some relationship to the previous one. They may be foolish, they may be serious, they may be funny, they may be obscure…OK most are foolish.
We will start with “Don’t Bring Me Down” which sounds to me to be one of the least likely songs ever written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin who tended to go more for the sweet poppy tunes like “Locomotion” and “Take Good Care of My Baby”...both fine songs. According to Animal’s lead singer Eric Burdon, even he didn't realize it was a Goffin/King composition.
Burdon said in an interview, "I didn't realize that it was a Goffin, King song until I was in a doctor's office in Beverly Hills and Ms. (Carole) King came in and sat next to me. I didn't know it was her, I was just reading a magazine and she turned to me and said, 'You know, I hated what you did to my song.' I didn't know what to say, so all I said was, 'well, sorry.' and then as she got up to go into the doctor's office, she turned around and said, 'but I got used to it.'
I’m guessing those royalty checks from an international top ten, multi-million selling single helped her ‘...get used to it.’
I met Eric Burdon in a small club in Louisville KY where he and Alan Price, the original keyboard player in the Animals, were performing. We spoke briefly after the set, both were friendly and appreciative of my suggestion that I had been enjoying their music for years, which I had. Turned out we were staying at the same downtown Hyatt which was a block away from the club. I walked back to the hotel as they got in a long white stretch limousine for the same trip.
Stay safe and well…and the tall guy playing bass in the video is Chas Chandler who would discover Jimi Hendrix and orchestrate his rise to superstardom.