Needles And Pins

Album

Single

Label

Kapp Records

Genre

Jangle Pop

Composer(s)

Jack Nitzsch;Sonny Bono

Entered Chart

Mar 7, 1964

Peak Date

Apr 11, 1964

Released

7 January 1964[6] (UK)

Recorded

1963

Catalog #

Kapp 577

B-Side

Saturday Night Out"

Jack Nitzsche and Sonny Bono wrote this song, which finds the singer so bewitched by a girl, he gets that needles and pins feeling when he sees her. Nitzsche was a producer who worked on a lot of movies. Bono married Cher, but before he was known as her husband, he was a record producer who made a name for himself working with Larry Williams on songs like "Bony Maronie" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzie." Jackie DeShannon recorded the original in 1963 on Liberty Records, but her version stalled at #84 on the Hot 100. In a Songfacts interview with DeShannon, she explained why her recording didn't hit. "There were a lot of issues with the record company, a lot of marketing things I wasn't happy with," she said. "For instance, 'Needles And Pins' was Top 5 in Detroit, Top 5 in Chicago, and Top 5 in every city it was played in. However, unless you're coordinated across the country and the song hits the charts at the same time, you can't get the big leaps. My record didn't have that, because it would be going down in Chicago while it was going up in some other city. So that was a problem." The Searchers heard British performer Cliff Bennett sing this at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany (where The Beatles played for a while), and wanted it to be their next single. Two 6-string guitars are playing in unison on the intro - it sounds like a 12-string guitar because an engineer accidentally left the echo switch on but liked the result. A live version by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks hit #37 in 1986. The Ramones performed a cover of this that can be found as a bonus track on their re-released album, Rocket to Russia. >> On the BBC Breakfast news programme, April 14, 2009, presenter Bill Turnbull said this was the first record he ever bought. >> Along with "Ain't That Just Like Me," The Searchers performed this song when they made their US television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show on April 5, 1964. >> UK pop parody group the Barron Knights included a new lyric to this in their 1964 #3 UK hit "Call Up The Groups." The premise of the song was that the pop acts of the day had been enlisted in the armed forces. The new lyric to "Needles and Pins" was: We sent them away To earn their pay What a place it was And they knew They had to go away And get down on their knees to earn their pay Oh yes we will sir! We'll clean those saucepans and tins-ah Yes sah! >> Jackie DeShannon's A&R people didn't want her to record "Needles and Pins," but she told them if she couldn't do it, she wasn't going into the studio. "It was pretty brave of me at the time to put my foot down, but I really wanted to do that song," she admitted to Uncut magazine. Jackie DeShannon told Uncut she was a full participant in the song's creation, along with Nitzsche and Bono, although she did not get formal credit. "Jack Nietzsche was a really close friend, and he was friendly with Sonny Bono," she said. "We were all together at one point at his house in LA, and they started writing Needles and Pins. We all three collaborated on it." The drums were missing when DeShannon went to do her vocal in the studio. "We were all panicking," she recalled. "Hal Blaine, I think it was Hal, went back out and overdubbed the drums to the track. That's one of the reasons it has that spacey sound."

I saw her today, I saw her face, it was a face I loved, and I knew
I had to run away, and get down on my knees and pray that they'd go away
But still they'd begin, needles and pins
Because of all my pride, the tears I gotta hide

Hey I thought I was smart, I'd won her heart
Didn't think I'd do, but now I see
She's worse to him than me, let her go ahead
Take his love instead, and one day she will see
Just how to say please, and get down on her knees
Hey that's how it begins, she'll feel those needles and pins
A-hurtin' her, a-hurtin' her

Why can't I stop and tell myself I'm wrong, I'm wrong, so wrong
Why can't I stand up and tell myself I'm strong

Because I saw her today, I saw her face, it was a face I loved, and I knew
I had to run away, and get down on my knees and pray that they'd go away
But still they'd begin needles and pins
Because of all my pride, the tears I gotta hide

Oh needles and pins, needles and pins, needles and pins