Gloria (Them song)

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Gloria
Them
publication December 1964
Genre (s) Garage rock , rhythm and blues
Author (s) Van Morrison
album The Angry Young Them

Gloria is a song by the Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison . Originally recorded in 1964 by Morrison's band Them , it appeared as the B-side of the single Baby, Please Don't Go . The song was covered by many musicians and became a garage rock standard.

history

Morrison wrote the catchy 3- chord song while performing with the "Monarchs" in Germany in the summer of 1963. He was just turning 18 at the time. Back in Belfast , he put the band "Them" together and played the piece at the Maritime Hotel. Live he interpreted it ad. lib. up to 15 or 20 minutes.

After the group got a recording deal with A&R manager Dick Rowe and Decca , "Them" went to London to the Decca studio in West Hampstead and recorded seven tracks on April 5, 1964, including Gloria . In addition to Morrison and "Them" Rowe used a few studio musicians to support. It is unclear whether Jimmy Page played guitar during the recording, there are different statements. On November 6, 1964, Baby Please Don't Go , B-side Gloria, was released as the second single from Them in the UK and topped the charts at number 10, largely due to Gloria's popularity . In the USA, Gloria entered the singles charts : in May 1965 at number 93 and a year later for 6 weeks at the highest number 71.

meaning

The recording was boycotted by some American radio stations because of the lyrics. The piece is characterized by the few chords, the spoken word, the sexual allusions and the dynamic increase up to the "Gloria". The lines

  (she) comes a-walkin 'down my street,   (she) come down my street
when she comes to my house, at my house ...
she knocks upon my door, ... she knocks on my door,
and then she comes in my room, then she comes into my room ...
yeah, an 'she make me feel alright. ... and makes me happy.

were then "defused" by the American band Shadows of Knight to "... she called out my name, that made me feel alright" (she called my name, which made me happy). In December 1965, their radio-compatible version appeared and reached top positions on local radio stations and number 10 in the American singles charts; more than a million singles were sold.

By spelled refrain "GLORIA" there was a garage rock standard, which among other musicians such as Patti Smith , The Doors , Jimi Hendrix , David Bowie , Bruce Springsteen , AC / DC and the Simple Minds gecovert was.

In addition to the recording with Them, which appeared on the album The Angry Young Them (1965), Morrison played the song at numerous concerts and published live versions, for example on It's Too Late to Stop Now (1974), Van Morrison in Ireland (1981 ), Van Morrison the Concert (1990). In 1993 he recorded the piece with his idol John Lee Hooker for the album Too Long in Exile and sang it a year later in San Francisco (double CD: A Night in San Francisco ). The recording with John Lee Hooker reached positions in the singles charts in several countries.

Reviews and awards

  • Bill Janovitz (American author and musician ( Buffalo Tom )): "Very few rock & roll songs rival the sexual excitement and anticipation of Van Morrison's" Gloria "" (Few rock 'n' roll songs can deal with sexual tension and expectation of Van Morrison's “Gloria”) and The beauty of the original is that Van Morrison needs only to speak-sing, in his Howlin 'Wolf growl ... (The beauty of the original is that Van Morrisons grumbled à la Howlin' Wolf Chanting is enough ...).
  • David Marsh (American music critic) placed Gloria at 69th place in his book The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made from 1989. He describes the song as "one of the few rock songs that's actually as raunchy as its reputation ” (one of the few rock songs that is actually as suggestive as its reputation).
  • Dave Barry (American writer, humorist and musician) joked: You can throw a guitar off a cliff, and as it bounces off rocks on the way down, it will, all by itself, play Gloria ( You can throw a guitar off a cliff and if she hits rocks on the way down she will play Gloria all by herself).
  • The American music journalist Paul Williams (editor of Crawdaddy ) said of Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria in 1993 in his book Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles : “Into the heart of the beast ... here is something so good, so pure, that if no other hint of it but this record existed, there would still be such a thing as rock and roll ... Van Morrison's voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world. Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind. " (" Into the heart of the beast ... here is something so good, so pure that, if there were no other reference than this recording, something like rock 'n' Roll would exist ... Van Morrison's voice was a wild beacon, the lighthouse at the end of the world, culminating in the most perfect rock anthem of mankind. ")
  • In 1999 the song Gloria by Them was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame .
  • VH1's list of The 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time from 2000 tops Gloria von Them at number 81.
  • Rolling Stone magazine lists Gloria von Them in The 500 Best Songs of All Time at number 208 (2004) and 211 (2010).
  • The covers of The Shadows of Knight and Patti Smith are featured in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clinton Heylin : Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography . Chicago Review Press, 2003, ISBN 978-1-55652-542-1 , pp. 76 .
  2. ^ Gordon Thompson: Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out . Oxford University Press , New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-533325-1 , pp. 303 .
  3. ↑ Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine: All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul . 3. Edition. Backbeat Books , 2003, ISBN 978-0-87930-653-3 .
  4. ↑ The Hot 100. The week of May 22, 1965. Billboard (magazine) , accessed August 12, 2018 .
  5. ^ The Hot 100. The week of May 28, 1966. Billboard (magazine) , accessed August 12, 2018 .
  6. ↑ The History Of Banned Rock 'n' Roll. 1966. ClassicBands.com, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  7. ^ The Hot 100. The week of June 4, 1966. Billboard (magazine) , accessed August 12, 2018 .
  8. ^ Bonnie Stiernberg: The 50 Best Garage Rock Songs of All Time. 13. Them, "Gloria". Paste , August 27, 2014, accessed August 11, 2018 .
  9. ^ Bill Janovitz: Them - Gloria. Song Review by Bill Janovitz. AllMusic , accessed August 12, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Dave Marsh: The Heart of Rock and Soul. 69, GLORIA, Them. LexJansen.com, 1989, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  11. ↑ Dave Barry: Göry Days. Rock Bottom Remainders (Dave Barry's Band), accessed August 12, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Paul Williams, Cindy Lee Berryhill: Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles . Entwhistle Books, 1993, ISBN 978-0-934558-41-9 , pp. 71-72 .
  13. ^ GRAMMY Hall of Fame. Past recipients. The Recording Academy , accessed August 12, 2018 .
  14. ↑ VH1: '100 Greatest Rock Songs' :. 51-100. RockOnTheNet.com, 2000, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  15. ^ Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. rocklistmusic.co.uk, accessed August 12, 2018 .
  16. ↑ James Henke: 500 Songs That Shaped Rock. See infoplease.com, accessed August 12, 2018 .