Song of the Day 8/15: The Animals, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”

With more RWNJ violence on the horizon, I think this song represents a common sentiment — who wouldn’t want to get out of this place? Released in 1965, it has captured that feeling for everyone from soldiers in Vietnam to high school seniors at graduation ever since. Bruce Springsteen once said all his songs spring from this one.

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil wrote the tune for the Righteous Brothers as a possible follow-up to their No. 1 hit, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.” The Animals recorded it first, and their single reached No. 2 in the UK (behind “Help!”) and No. 13 in the US — even though they were different records.

EMI, the band’s British record company, sent the wrong take to MGM, their American label, so Yanks bought what nowadays would be considered an alternate take. This became an issue in the CD age, when EMI released only the UK version in the new format. American listeners complained, claiming their familiar version had a better vocal by Eric Burdon. The two takes can be differentiated by the first line of the second verse: In the UK version Burdon sings “Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’,” but in the US the verb is “see,” not “watch.”

Though the title on this video claims it’s the US version, it’s actually the UK version. The record company apparently screwed that up, too.

Here’s the true American version. Judge for yourself.

Here’s Barry Mann’s demo of the song. He intended to record it as a single himself when he landed a recording contract in 1965, but the Animals beat him to the punch.