I Hear You Knocking

Album

Glam Rock (At It’s Very Best)

Label

Mam

Genre

Blues rock

Composer(s)

Dave Bartholomew

Entered Chart

Dec 26, 1970

Peak Date

Feb 13, 1971

Released

November 1970

Recorded

1970 Studio Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales

Catalog #

MAM 3601

B-Side

Black Bill

Written by the New Orleans trumpet player Dave Bartholomew and guitarist Earl King (listed as "Pearl King" - his songwriting pen name), this song was published in 1955 and quickly became a rhythm & blues standard. The first to record it was Smiley Lewis, a New Orleans singer who ran in the same circles with Bartholomew and King. With a slow, swinging blues sound, the song is emblematic of the New Orleans sound of the era popularized by Fats Domino, whose version made #67 US in 1961. The song is about a guy whose ex-lover returns to him. When she left, he begged her to come back, but now the tables are turned and he won't even answer the door. A singer/actress named Gale Storm recorded a very popular version of this song that went to #2 US in 1955. Storm, who starred in a TV show called My Little Margie at the time, did a sultry version with the gender switched. Dave Edmunds brought this song back to the charts with a rocking guitar version released in 1970. In his version, he namechecks some of his musical contemporaries, including Smiley Lewis, who originally recorded the song, and Fats Domino, who also covered it. It was Edmunds' first single; the song did very well in America, but far better in his native UK (he's Welsh), where it was one of the biggest selling singles of all time to that point. He had several other UK hits, following up with another retro cover: "Baby, I Love You," which made #8 in 1973. He had a number of other hits in his native Britain, among them "Queen of Hearts" and "I Knew The Bride (When She Used To Rock & Roll)." These were also minor hits in the US (where Juice Newton's 1981 cover of "Queen of Hearts" would also reach #2), but Edmunds' only other American Top 40 hit was 1983's "Slipping Away," which just barely made the list at #39. >> This song wasn't Edmunds' first choice: he planned to record a version of "Let's Work Together" by Wilbert Harrison, but Canned Heat covered that song before he could. Searching for a different song by an under-appreciated American artist, he heard "I Hear You Knocking" on his car radio when he was driving in Britain; the song was getting airplay because a Smiley Lewis compilation album had recently been released in the UK. "I thought, Hang on, the two songs have identical format. You could use the same backing track for both songs," Edmunds said in his Songfacts interview. "It's just a simple 12-bar thing. So I thought, I'll do that." The original Smiley Lewis version is in 6/8 time, but Edmunds recorded it at 4/4 to make it more contemporary. At first, Edmunds added a lot of instruments, but he wasn't satisfied with the results. After leaving it for a few weeks, he returned to the song, stripped it down, and got the sound he wanted. This was the first hit song recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales, established by the brothers Charles and Kingsley Ward in the early '60s. Located in Monmouth, it took the name "Rockfield" because started calling it that after seeing a sign for a nearby town on his way in. At the time, almost all recording in the area was done in London, but with this song, Edmunds showed you could do high-end recording anywhere with great equipment and the right atmosphere. Rockfield became the first residential studio, meaning artists would live there while they were recording. In 1973, Queen started recording there, and later did the bulk of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the studios.

You went away and left me long time ago
Now you're knocking on my door
I hear you knocking, but you can't come in
I hear you knocking, go back where you been

I begged you not to go but you said goodbye
And now you're telling me all your lies
I hear you knocking, but you can't come in
I hear you knocking, go back where you been, oh yeah

You better get back to your used-to-be
'Cause you're kinda love ain't good for me
I hear you knocking, but you can't come in
I hear you knocking, go back where you been

I told you way back in Fifty-two
That I would never go with you
I hear you knocking but you can't come in
I hear you knocking, go back where you been