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The Doobie Brothers - Black Water

The Doobie Brothers - Black Water Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits
Released: 1974

Black Water Lyrics

Well, I built me a raft and she's ready for floatin'
Ol' Mississippi, she's callin' my name
Catfish are jumpin'
That paddle wheel thumpin'
Black Water keeps rollin' on past just the same
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Yeah, keep on shinin' your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all

Well, if it rains, I don't care
Don't make no difference to me
Just take that street car thats goin' up town
Yeah, I'd like to hear some funky Dixieland
And dance a honky tonk
And I'll be buyin' ev'rybody drinks all 'roun'

Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Old black water, keep on rollin'
Mississippi moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me
Yeah, keep on shinin' your light
Gonna make everything, pretty mama
Gonna make everything all right
And I ain't got no worries
'Cause I ain't in no hurry at all

I'd like to hear some funky Dixieland
Pretty mama come and take me by the hand
By the hand, take me by the hand pretty mama
Come and dance with your daddy all night long
I want to honky tonk, honky tonk, honky tonk
With you all night long

Writer/s: SIMMONS, PAT
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Black Water

Patrick Simmons, who is the group's guitarist, wrote this song and sang lead. It continued the Louisiana swamp rock feel of earlier Doobie Brothers songs like "Toulouse Street" and "Black Eyed Cajun Woman."

The song is about the Mississippi River, with lyrics likely inspired by Mark Twain's books Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, which depicted life on the "Black Water."

"Black Water" wasn't seen as having hit potential, so it was relegated to the B-side of "Another Park, Another Sunday." In our interview with Tom Johnston , the Doobie Brothers frontman explained how the song became an unlikely hit. Said Johnston: "That's a story that could have happened back then, but never would ever ever happen now: Roanoke, Virginia picked that tune up and started playing it in heavy rotation, and somebody in Minneapolis who I guess knew somebody in Roanoke heard the song and decided to follow suit, and it ended up becoming our first #1 single. That was Pat's first single. And oddly enough, it was never looked at as a single by the record company.

I remember when I first heard it was #1, we were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and we were just getting ready to go on stage, and then I guess Bruce [their manager Bruce Cohn] must have told us. I think we were already aware of the fact that it was getting airplay, but nobody was really paying a lot of attention. And then all of a sudden it became #1 and we were paying attention. I remember I went in and congratulated Pat backstage, and we've been playing it ever since."

The Doobie Brothers performed this in a 1978 episode of the TV show What's Happening!!, where they teach the characters on the show about the dark side of bootlegging.

The United States private security firm Blackwater was named for the dark water swamps of North Carolina, where the company is based. After criticism of the company's conduct during the Iraq War, they changed their name to "Xe" (pronounced "Z") in 2009.

The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes

The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Minute by Minute
Released: 1978

What a Fool Believes Lyrics

He came from somewhere back in her long ago
The sentimental fool don't see
Trying hard to recreate
What had yet to be created once in her life

She musters a smile
For his nostalgic tale
Never coming near what he wanted to say
Only to realize
It never really was

[Chorus]
She had a place in his life
He never made her think twice
As he rises to her apology
Anybody else would surely know
He's watching her go

But What a Fool Believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
And nothing at all keeps sending him

Somewhere back in her long ago
Where he can still believe there's a place in her life
Someday, somewhere, she will return

[Chorus]

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
There's nothing at all
But what a fool believes he sees

Writer/s: BRANNAN, RICHARD SPADY / MALLOY, DAVID
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What a Fool Believes Song Chart

Kenny Loggins co-wrote this with Doobie Brothers lead singer Michael McDonald. Loggins put his version on his album Nightwatch, which was released in July 1978, five months before The Doobies included it on their Minute by Minute album. Loggins' version was never released as a single, but The Doobie Brothers took it to #1 in the US in April 1979.

This won Grammys for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The album won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus. These were the only Grammys the band ever won.

Producer Ted Templeman described this as a "floppy record" and wanted a "floppy feel" for the percussion. So he played drums alongside drummer Keith Knudson "to get the feeling right." They had been recording the song for five or six straight days when he made this decision.

This was the band's second US #1, after "Black Water." The Doobie Brothers took on a different sound when they lost lead singer Tom Johnston due to illness in the mid-'70s. Instead of the album rock they were known for, they had more of a soft rock sound with Michael McDonald as lead singer. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Michael McDonald wrote the original version of this song. He presented a fragment of it to Templeman, who encouraged him to continue working on it. Kenny Loggins came in when McDonald got stuck on the bridge of the song. Bassist Tiran Porter had suggested Loggins to McDonald because the two were good friends.

McDonald's concept for the lyric was a scenario where two people meet in a restaurant - two people who had a passionate relationship long ago. To the man, the affair was the best thing in his life; to the woman, it was fun, but it was time to move on. In the conversation, the man makes a complete fool of himself. When the woman excuses herself to leave, he doesn't get the message, believing he still has a shot and that their affair was much more meaningful than it actually was. Love makes a man a fool, and even a wise one can't reason it away.

While he was waiting for Loggins to arrive at his home, McDonald played some of the songs that were "in progress" and asked his sister Maureen which she thought was best. As Loggins was getting out of his car, he heard McDonald playing a fragment of this. According to Loggins, he heard about three-quarters of the verse's melody (no lyrics), but McDonald stopped at the bridge. Loggins' mind continued without a break... and the song's bridge was born. Then Loggins knocked on the door, introduced himself to McDonald, and demonstrated the bridge that he devised before the two of them could sit down. The lyrics were finished over the telephone the next day.

Minute by Minute was the only #1 album the band ever had. It went to #1 in the US but didn't even chart in the UK.

The Doobies used an analog synthesizer called a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 on this song.

This was the 500th #1 song of the Rock era (taken from when "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley topped the US singles chart in 1955).