We Gotta Get Out of This Place

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were husband and wife (and future Songwriters Hall of Fame) songwriters associated with the 1960s Brill Building scene in New York City.{{cite web|url=http://mann-weil.com/biographies.html |title=Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil |publisher=The Official Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil Web site |access-date=18 February 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070321230608/http://www.mann-weil.com/biographies.html |archive-date=21 March 2007 |url-status=dead }}

Mann and Weil wrote and recorded "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano. It was intended for the Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"{{cite news | author=Dale Kawashima | url=http://www.songwriteruniverse.com/mannweil.htm | title=Legendary Songwriting Duo Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil Talk About Their Classic Hits and New Projects | publisher=Songwriter Universe | access-date=18 February 2007}} Demo audio stream at end of article. but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label Red Bird Records wanted him to release it instead. Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and gave the demo to Mickie Most, the Animals' producer. Most already had a call out{{huh|date=November 2024}} to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session (the Animals hits "It's My Life" and "Don't Bring Me Down" came from the same call{{cite web | url=http://www.spectropop.com/CarlD/index.htm | title=Songwriter Carl D'Errico Interviewed by Mick Patrick | publisher=Spectropop | access-date=18 February 2007}}), and the Animals recorded it before Mann could.

In the Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working class Newcastle-upon-Tyne origins:{{cite news | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=2-Jul-04 | title=Former Animals Singer Eric Burdon | author=Terry Gross| author-link=Terry Gross| work=Fresh Air | publisher=NPR | date=2 July 2004 |orig-year=2002 | access-date=1 July 2012 }}{{cite book| first=Charlie| last=Gillett | author-link=Charlie Gillett | year= 1996 | title= The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll | edition= 2nd | publisher= Da Capo Press | location=New York | isbn= 0-306-80683-5 | page= 271}}{{cite book | title=Mods, Rockers, and the Music of the British Invasion | first=James E. | last=Perone | publisher=ABC-CLIO | year=2009 | isbn=978-0275998608 | page= 129}}

{{poemquote|In this dirty old part of the city

Where the sun refused to shine

People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'}}

Next came a verse about the singer's father in his deathbed after a lifetime of working his life away, followed by a call-and-response buildup, leading to the start of the chorus:

{{poemquote|We gotta get out of this place!

If it's the last thing we ever do…}}

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by group member Chas Chandler.{{cite book | title=Jimi Hendrix Gear: The Guitars, Amps & Effects That Revolutionized Rock 'n' Roll |author=Michael Heatley | publisher=Voyageur Press | year=2009 | isbn=978-0760336397 | page=60}} This was the first single not to be recorded by the original line-up, following as it did the departure of keyboard player Alan Price and his replacement by Dave Rowberry. It featured one of singer Eric Burdon's typically raw, fierce vocals.{{cite book | title=Elwood's Blues: Interviews With The Blues Legends & Stars | author=Dan Aykroyd | author-link=Dan Aykroyd | author2=Ben Manilla | author2-link=Ben Manilla | publisher=Hal Leonard Corporation | year=2004 | isbn=0879308095 | page=[https://archive.org/details/elwoodsbluesinte00dana/page/132 132] | url=https://archive.org/details/elwoodsbluesinte00dana/page/132 }} Rolling Stone described the overall effect as a "harsh white-blues treatment from The Animals. As [Burdon] put it, 'Whatever suited our attitude, we just bent to our own shape.{{'"}}{{cite magazine | url=https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6596078/we_gotta_get_out_of_this_place | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070214123741/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6596078/we_gotta_get_out_of_this_place | url-status=dead | archive-date=14 February 2007 | title=We Gotta Get Out of This Place | magazine=Rolling Stone | date=9 December 2004 | access-date=18 February 2007}}

The song reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart on 14 August 1965 (held out of the top slot by the Beatles' "Help!").{{cite web|url=http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=58 |title=The Animals |publisher=Rock and Roll Hall of Fame |year=1994 |access-date=18 February 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202161305/http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=58 |archive-date=2 February 2007 |url-status=dead }} The following month, it reached number 13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, its highest placement there. In Canada, the song also reached number 2, on 20 September 1965.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}}

{{Original research|section|date=June 2023}}

The UK and US single releases were different versions from the same recording sessions. The take that EMI, the Animals' parent record company, sent to MGM Records, the group's American label, was mistakenly one that had not been selected for release elsewhere. The two versions are most easily differentiated by the lyric at the beginning of the second verse: in the US version the lyric is, "See my daddy in bed a-dyin{{'"}}, while the UK version uses, "Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin{{'"}} (as a result of an error by the music labels, certain online retailers sell the UK version but incorrectly identify it as the US version).

In the US the song (in its "mistaken" take) was included on the album Animal Tracks, released in the autumn of 1965, and again on the popular compilation The Best of The Animals released in 1966 and re-released with an expanded track list on the ABKCO label in 1973. The song was not on any British Animals album during the group's lifetime. Cash Box described the US version as a "laconic, blues-drenched romancer about a duosome who feel hemmed-in living in the city."{{cite magazine |title=CashBox Record Reviews |date=7 August 1965 |page=12 |access-date=12 January 2022 |url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Cash-Box/60s/1965/CB-1965-08-07.pdf |magazine=Cash Box}} Record World said that "the Animals wail for 3:17 worth...about the pressures of the city on young lovers" and considered it as a counterexample to the proposition that "rock and roll lyrics don't mean anything."{{cite magazine|title=Single Picks of the Week|magazine=Record World|date=7 August 1965|page=1|accessdate=19 July 2023|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Record-World/60s/65/RW-1965-08-07.pdf}}

Once Animals' reissues began occurring during the compact disc era, Allen Klein, by then owner of ABKCO and the rights to this material, dictated that the correct British version be used on all reissues and compilations everywhere. Thus, as US radio stations converted from vinyl records to CDs, gradually only the British version became heard. Some collectors and fans in the US wrote letters of complaint to Goldmine magazine, saying they believed the US version featured an angrier and more powerful vocal from Burdon, and in any case wanted to hear the song in the form they had grown up with. The 2004 remastered SACD Retrospective compilation from ABKCO included the US version, as did the budget-priced compilation The Very Best of The Animals.

At the time, the title and simple emotional appeal of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" lent itself to some obvious self-identifications—for instance, it was a very popular number to be played at high school senior proms and graduation parties. In music writer Dave Marsh's view, it was one of a wave of songs in 1965, by artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, that ushered in a new role for rock music as a vehicle for common perspective and as a force for social consciousness.{{cite book | last=Marsh | first=Dave | author-link=Dave Marsh | title=Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who | publisher=St. Martin's Press | location=New York | year=1983 | isbn=0-312-07155-8 | pages= 117–118}} Writer Craig Werner sees the song as reflecting the desire of people to take a hard look at their own lives and the community from where they come.{{cite book | author=Werner, Craig | title=A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race, and the Soul of America | publisher=University of Michigan Press | year=1999 | isbn=0-452-28065-6 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/changeisgonnacom00wern/page/87 87]–88 | url=https://archive.org/details/changeisgonnacom00wern | url-access=registration }} Burdon later said, "The song became an anthem for different people – everybody at some time wants to get out of the situation they're in."

The song was very popular with United States Armed Forces members stationed in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It was frequently requested of, and played by, American Forces Vietnam Network disc jockeys.{{cite news | url=http://www.dinfosalum.org/afvn_reunion.htm | title='Nam deejays air their memories | author=Will Higgins | newspaper=The Indianapolis Star | date=29 April 2002 | access-date=18 February 2007 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://archive.today/20120729020219/http://www.dinfosalum.org/afvn_reunion.htm | archive-date=29 July 2012 }} During 2006 two University of Wisconsin–Madison employees, one a Vietnam veteran, began an in-depth survey of hundreds of Vietnam veterans, and found that "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then: "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."Brian Mattmiller, [http://www.news.wisc.edu/12188.html "'We Gotta Get Out of This Place:' Music, memory and the Vietnam War"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070214105221/http://www.news.wisc.edu/12188.html |date=14 February 2007 }}, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 16 February 2006. Retrieved 17 February 2007. Just such a band played the song in an episode ("USO Down", by Vietnam veteran Jim Beaver) of the American television series about the war, Tour of Duty, and the song is reprised in the episode's final scene.

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was also used in Dennis Potter's 1965 television play Stand Up, Nigel Barton and the BBC's 1996 Newcastle-set Our Friends in the North, which partially took place in the 1960s. In America it was used as the title credits song in some episodes of the Vietnam War-set television series China Beach. It was then applied to the Bin Laden family, having to leave the United States in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, in Michael Moore's 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11. It also was featured in the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Hamburger Hill. It was used in a third-season episode of the 2000s television series Heroes. It was used as the theme song for 2002 BBC comedy TLC and the 2013 BBC series Privates. The song was also featured humorously in the Kong: Skull Island trailer.{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44LdLqgOpjo |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/44LdLqgOpjo |archive-date=13 December 2021 |url-status=live|title=Kong: Skull Island - Rise of the King [Official Final Trailer] |last=gradepoint|date= 27 February 2017|access-date=2 February 2017|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}

In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the South by Southwest music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of the Animals' version on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.{{'"}}{{cite news | url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/03/sxsw-bruce-springsteen-hits-a-lot-of-notes-in-keynote-address.html | title=SXSW: Bruce Springsteen hits a lot of notes in keynote address | author=Todd Martens | newspaper=Los Angeles Times | date=15 March 2012 | access-date=2 July 2012}}

The song's title and theme have become a common cultural phrase over the years.

It formed the basis for the title of academician Lawrence Grossberg's We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (1992), detailing the conflict between American conservatism and rock culture. Similarly, it formed the title basis for Gerri Hirshey's 2002 account, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock.

It has also been used as the title of editorials by American Journalism Review{{cite news | url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3138/is_199803/ai_n7808353 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071223084722/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3138/is_199803/ai_n7808353 | url-status=dead | archive-date=23 December 2007 | title=We gotta get out of this place.(Editorial) | magazine=American Journalism Review | author=Rem Rieder | date=March 1998 | access-date=18 February 2007}} and other publications. The title was even used to name an art exhibit, curated by Stefan Kalmár at the Cubitt Gallery in London in 1997.

It has featured in the soundtrack of Bob Carlton's Jukebox Musical Return to the Forbidden Planet.

{{Infobox song

| name = We Gotta Get Out of This Place

| cover = The Angels - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.jpg

| alt =

| type = single

| artist = the Angels

| album = Howling

| released = December 1986

| recorded =

| studio =

| venue =

| genre = Hard rock

| length = 4:43

| label = Mushroom Records

| writer = Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil

| producer = Steve Brown

| prev_title = Don't Waste My Time

| prev_year = 1986

| next_title = Can't Take Any More

| next_year = 1987

}}

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was covered by Australian hard rock band the Angels and released in December 1986{{Cite web|url=http://www.45cat.com/record/k210|title=The Angels [Australia] - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place|access-date=1 June 2021|website=45cat.com}} as third single to be released from The Angels eighth studio album Howling. The song peaked at number 7 on the Kent Music Report and number 13 on the Recorded Music NZ.{{Cite web|url=https://australian-charts.com/showitem.asp?interpret=The+Angels&titel=We+Gotta+Get+Out+Of+This+Place&cat=s|title=australian-charts.com - The Angels - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place|website=Australian-charts.com|access-date=1 June 2021}}

; 7" single (Mushroom K210)

1. We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil) - 4:43
2. I Just Wanna Be With You (New Version) (Doc Neeson, John Brewster, Richard Brewster) - 3:54

• Bass, Vocals, Saxophone – Jim Hilbun
• Drums – Brent Eccles
• Lead Guitar – Rick Brewster
• Lead Vocals – Doc Neeson
• Rhythm Guitar – Bob Spencer

Production

• Steve Brown (tracks: 1)
• Ashley Howe (tracks: 2)

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" has been recorded or performed in concert by numerous artists, including the Savages (1966), the Cryan' Shames (1966), the American Breed (1967), the Frost (1970), the Partridge Family (1972), Bruce Springsteen (performed only a handful of times in his career, but acknowledged by him as one of his primary influences in the 1970s{{cite news | url=http://www.doubletakemagazine.org/mag/html/backissues/12/steen/ | title=Will Percy Interviews Bruce Springsteen | publisher=DoubleTake | access-date=18 February 2007 | archive-date=26 November 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091126001406/http://www.doubletakemagazine.org/mag/html/backissues/12/steen/ | url-status=dead }}), Udo Lindenberg (in a German language adaption in the 1970s for which commercial success was small), Blue Öyster Cult (1978), Steve Bender (1978), Gilla (1979), Angelic Upstarts (1980), Gardens & Villa, Grand Funk Railroad (1981), David Johansen (1982, and a hit on album oriented rock radio and MTV as part of an Animals medley), Fear (1982), Richard Thompson (1988), Jello Biafra and D.O.A. (1989), Randy Stonehill (1990), Bon Jovi (1992, again as part of an Animals medley for an MTV special), Midnight Oil (1993, for MTV Unplugged), Space (1998), Southside Johnny (concerts in the 2000s), Overkill (2000), Widespread Panic (2005), Ann Wilson with Wynonna Judd (2007), Alice Cooper (2011), and many others.

In 1990 Eric Burdon joined Katrina and the Waves for a recording of it for use on China Beach. In 2000 Barry Mann revisited the song, performing it with Bryan Adams on Mann's retrospective solo album Soul & Inspiration. When Suzi Quatro was on a German tour in 2008 she came on stage and played bass on the song during an Eric Burdon concert at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart. Burdon also performed it in 2010 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when songwriters Mann and Weil were inducted.{{cite news | url=https://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/16/the-stooges-genesis-abba-join-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-at-historic-25th-induction-ceremony/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100317151326/http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/03/16/the-stooges-genesis-abba-join-the-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-at-historic-25th-induction-ceremony/ | url-status=dead | archive-date=17 March 2010 | title=The Stooges, Genesis, Abba Join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Historic 25th Induction Ceremony | author=Greene, Andy | magazine=Rolling Stone | date=16 March 2010 | access-date=10 April 2010}} Later in 2010, Mann and Weil were at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles – to open a gallery for the Songwriter's Hall of Fame{{cite web | url=http://www.bmi.com/photos/tag/C4850 | title=Songwriters Hall of Fame Photo Archive | publisher=BMI | access-date=2 July 2012}} – and performed their original version of the song, including previously unheard lyrics like "What are we waiting for?" (which was supposed to occur before the familiar lyrics in the chorus).

{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• [https://secondhandsongs.com/work/4170/versions#nav-entity List of covers of "We Gotta Get out of This Place"]

{{The Animals}}

{{SpaceBand}}{{The Angels (Australian group)}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1965 singles

Category:1965 songs

Category:The Animals songs

Category:Blues rock songs

Category:Songs of the Vietnam War

Category:Alice Cooper songs

Category:Bon Jovi songs

Category:Bruce Springsteen songs

Category:Columbia Graphophone Company singles

Category:Grand Funk Railroad songs

Category:Katrina and the Waves songs

Category:Space (English band) songs

Category:MGM Records singles

Category:Mushroom Records singles

Category:Song recordings produced by Mickie Most

Category:Songs with lyrics by Cynthia Weil

Category:Songs written by Barry Mann

Category:The Partridge Family songs

Category:The Angels (Australian band) songs

Category:1986 singles

Category:1987 singles