Tony Orlando & Dawn - Knock Three Time
Tony Orlando & Dawn - Knock Three Times


Tony Orlando & Dawn - Knock Three Times Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Candida
Released: 1970

Knock Three Times Lyrics


Hey girl what ya doin' down there
Dancin' alone every night while I live right above you
I can hear your music playin'
I can feel your body swayin'
One floor below me you don't even know me
I love you
Oh my darling
Knock Three Times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you'll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain't gonna show
If you look out your window tonight
Pull in the string with the note that's attached to my heart
Read how many times I saw you
How in my silence I adored you
Only in my dreams did that wall between us come apart
Oh my darling
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you'll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain't gonna show
I can hear your music playin'
I can feel your body swayin'
One floor below me you don't even know me
I love you
Oh my darling
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you'll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain't gonna show

Writer/s: Levine, Irwin / Brown, Larry Russell
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, SONY ATV MUSIC PUB LLC, SPIRIT MUSIC GROUP
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Knock Three Times
  • This song is about a guy who falls in lust with his downstairs neighbor. She doesn't know him, but he obsesses over her and leaves her a note one day with an elaborate plan to pursue a relationship: she is instructed to knock 3 times on the ceiling if she wants him, and to bang twice on the pipe if not. We don't find out how she responds, but he would probably have better luck if he just talked to her.
  • The producers of this song persuaded their old friend Tony Orlando (then working for the publishing arm of CBS Records) to record his lead vocal on a pair of demos after Bell Records' bigwigs didn't like the original lead singer.
  • Dawn was a group named after the daughter of a promotion man at Bell Records. The members of Dawn were Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent. Hopkins is an actress and has had roles on the TV shows Bosom Buddies, Gimme A Break and Family Matters. When this was recorded, however, there was no Dawn. Backup singers on the Candida album included Toni Wine (who wrote the song "Candida"), Jay Siegel (from The Tokens), Robin Grean and Linda November. (For more, check out our interview with Toni Wine.)
  • Tony Orlando was born Michael Anthony Orlando Cassivitis. He had hits "Halfway to Paradise" (#39) and "Bless You" (#15) in 1961 as a 16-year-old.