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The Yardbirds - Drinking Muddy Water

The Yardbirds - Drinking Muddy Water Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Little Games
Released: 1967

Drinking Muddy Water Lyrics

Well I've been running and a-hiding,
Trying to lose my mind.
Well I've been running and a-hiding,
Trying to lose my mind.

Ever since you told me,
That you weren't my kind.

Drinking Muddy Water,
I don't know how long for.
I been drinking muddy water,
I don't know how long for.

Since I been running, babe,
I been treating you like a dog.

Writer/s: Dreja, Chris / Mccarty, Jim / Page, Jimmy / Relf, Keith
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Drinking Muddy Water

This song is an update of the 1950 Muddy Waters blues classic "Rollin' and Tumblin'" and nominally a tribute to the bluesman. As well as the four Yardbirds members, the track also featured The Rolling Stones' Ian 'Stu' Stewart on piano.

This was a track on Little Games. The album was produced by successful singles producer Mickie Most, who was brought in by The Yardbirds' record company to coax out more commercial product. Although Page had worked earlier for Most as a session guitarist, he was unhappy with him taking on the production duties as the producer was basically interested in singles and didn't believe it was worth spending much time on album tracks. Page recalled to Mojo magazine July 2014. "You'd finish recording the track and Mickie would just go 'Next!'"

"I remember that happening during 'Drinking Muddy Water,'" Page continued. "Stu looked at me and he said 'I can't believe this! I've never worked like this in my life! And I said to him, 'And you're not going to start now! We're going to hear a playback. And we did, but everything was based around the idea of getting things done quickly."

The Yardbirds - I Wish You Would

The Yardbirds - I Wish You Would Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: For Your Love
Released: 1964

I Wish You Would Lyrics

Early in the morning, 'bout the break of day,
That's when my baby went away.
Come back, baby, I Wish You Would,
Try and love me, you won't do no good.

Walking and a-kissing late at night;
I tell you now baby, I feel just right.
Come now baby, whatcha trying to do?
Trying to love me and some other man, too.

Come now baby, give me one more chance.
You know I still love you, want to give you romance.
Yeah romance, all night long, in my arms, woah yeah.

Early in the morning, 'bout the break of day,
That's when my baby went away.
Come back, baby, I wish you would,
Try and love me, you won't do no good.

You know baby that I love you so.
You know, pretty baby, it hurts me to see you go.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Writer/s: HOLLIS, CHAUNCEY A. / KHALED, KHALED MOHAMMAED / WEST, KANYE OMARI / ROBERTS, WILLIAM LEONARD II / HUTCHINSON, MARQUEZ DEON
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Wish You Would Song Chart

Lead singer Keith Relf's voice was drowned in echo. The Yardbirds were known for experimenting with distortion and various other effects in their quest for the right sound. This led to an updated Blues sound that Jimmy Page would later use with Led Zeppelin. Page was with The Yardbirds from 1966-1968.

On most US pressings, this was mistitled "I Wish You Could."

There is an alternate take on the British album Remember the Yardbirds.

This was the Yardbirds' first single. It didn't chart because R&B was not popular at the time. The Yardbirds learned this when they finally hit it big with a Pop song, "For Your Love."

This was a cover of Billy Boy Arnold's 1955 hit, which is reputed to be the first blues song to feature electric bass.

The Yardbirds - I Ain't Done Wrong

The Yardbirds - I Ain't Done Wrong Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: For Your Love
Released: 1965

I Ain't Done Wrong Lyrics

Yeah the bells have tolled,
And my baby caught that train and gone.
Oh the bells have tolled,
And my baby caught that train and gone.

Well it's all my fault,
I must have done somebody wrong.
Well it's all my fault,
And I just can't explain.
Yes it's all my fault,
And I just can't explain.
Gonna get me a new doll,
So maybe my luck will change.

My baby's (treating me that my luck would change?)
I've been goin' around,
And now look at me,
Done somebody wrong,
Well it's all my fault,
I must have done somebody wrong.

Writer/s: RELF, KEITH
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Ain't Done Wrong Song Chart

This was recorded from one of Jeff Beck's earliest sessions with the group. The song begins as a stop-start Blues number featuring Beck's guitar and Keith Relf's harmonica. In the middle, the song turns into a rave-up, a style for which the Yardbirds are known. It concludes by returning to the Blues.

Keith Relf, who was the group's lead singer and harmonica player, wrote this song.

This was one of only three songs Jeff Beck played on to appear on the 1965 album For Your Love. Even though the majority of songs featured Clapton on guitar, Beck was the one pictured on the cover with the rest of the group.

The Yardbirds - Evil Hearted You

The Yardbirds - Evil Hearted You Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds
Released: 1965

Evil Hearted You Lyrics

Evil Hearted You.
You always try to put me down,
With the things you do,
And words,
You spread around against me.
Evil hearted you.

You kept,
Kidding me along,
With your phoney smile,
And with,
Your siren song smiling, beguiling,
You lead me on 'til all hope's gone,
Persuading, degrading,
On my knees I try to please.

But I love you,
Just the same,
And I want you,
To remain,
By my side,
And you'll see,
Just how much you,
Mean to me.
Evil hearted you.

You always try to put me down,
With the things you do,
And words,
You spread around against me,
About me.

What would you,
Do without me?
Smiling, beguiling,
You lead me on 'til all hope has gone.

Writer/s: GOULDMAN, GRAHAM
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, SCHUBERT MUSIC PUBLISHING INC.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Evil Hearted You Song Chart

Graham Gouldman, who later formed the band 10cc, wrote this song. Gouldman was a prolific songwriter who also provided the Yardbirds hits "For Your Love" and "Heart Full of Soul." The Yarbirds were skilled songwriters and composed most of their own material, but Gouldman's songs brought a moody sound they were able to turn into a hit record. When we asked their drummer Jim McCarty about recording the songs of another writer, he told us, "There wasn't a problem doing that. It was the sort of thing that you relied on to get into that other echelon, to have a hit song. All our contemporaries were having hit songs: The Beatles and the Stones and the Moody Blues and Animals, they were all having #1 hits and we were really trying to keep up." (Here's the full Jim McCarty interview .)

The solo is Jeff Beck playing a slide guitar. Along with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Beck is one of the three famous guitarists to play in The Yardbirds.

This song did well in England, but it was never released as a single in the United States.

The Yardbirds - For Your Love

The Yardbirds - For Your Love Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: For Your Love
Released: 1965

For Your Love Lyrics

For Your Love
For your love
I'd give you everything and more and that's for sure
(For your love)
I'd bring you diamond rings and things right to your door
(For your love)
To thrill you with delight,
I'd give you diamonds bright
Double takes I will excite,
Make you dream of me at night
For your love
For your love
For your love
For your love,
For your love
I would give the stars above
For your love,
For your love
I would give you all I could
(For your love)
(For your love)
I'd give the moon if it were mine to give
(For your love)
I'd give the stars and the sun for I live
(For your love)

Writer/s: GOULDMAN, GRAHAM
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

For Your Love Song Chart

This was written by Graham Gouldman, who was the bass player for the group 10cc. He also wrote "Heart Full Of Soul" for the Yardbirds. Gouldman was inspired by the Animals "The House Of The Rising Sun." Bassist Paul Samwell-Smith made wholesale changes to Gouldman's original demo, including the use of a harpsichord. Gouldman observed to Uncut magazine August 2009: "The harpsichord was an absolute stroke of genius. The record just had a weird, mysterious atmosphere about it."

The Yardbirds wrote many of their own songs as a group, but had some of their biggest hits with the ones Gouldman wrote. What did they think of Gouldman's songs? Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty told us: "Well, they were always very original. Very interesting songs, very moody, because they were usually in a minor key, the ones we did, anyway. 'For Your Love' was an interesting song, it had an interesting chord sequence, very moody, very powerful. And the fact that it stopped in the middle and went into a different time signature, we liked that, that was interesting. Quite different, really, from all the bluesy stuff that we'd been playing up till then. But somehow we liked it. It was original and different."

The Yardbirds didn't have a lot of hits, but were one of the most influential and original bands of the '60, and an easy pick for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which they entered in 1992. Having a hit song was important to them, however, and this song provided that. McCarty explains: "To try and get a hit song in those days was quite a difficult thing to do for us. We could come up with ideas, but our first hit song was very important for us. And with 'For Your Love' we heard it and had the demo of it and it sounded like a hit song to all of us. Yeah, there wasn't a problem doing that. It was the sort of thing that you relied on to get into that other echelon, to have a hit song. All our contemporaries were having hit songs: The Beatles and the Stones and the Moody Blues and Animals, they were all having Number 1 hits and we were really trying to keep up."

This almost didn't get recorded by The Yardbirds. Gouldman wrote it for his own group at the time, the Mockingbirds, but their demo was turned down by Columbia. Also it is believed that producer Mickie Most turned it down on behalf of Herman's Hermits and that the Animals also turned it down.

The song found its way to The Yardbirds after their manager ran into the fledgling songwriter Gouldman when they were opening for The Beatles at a 1964 Christmas show. Gouldman loved how The Yardbirds would change tempo in the middle of a song, which is how he wrote "For Your Love."

This song prompted Eric Clapton to leave The Yardbirds, since he felt their music was becoming too commercial. He was replaced by Jeff Beck, who was later replaced by Jimmy Page. Clapton joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and would later be a member of Cream and Derek and the Dominos. One of the contributing factors to Eric Clapton's departure was, while performing the song live, his having to recreate the song's harpsichord on a 12-string guitar. (thanks, James - Tracy, CA)

The harpsichord on this song was played by session musician Brian Auger, who later became a solo artist of note. His biggest hit was the Bob Dylan song "This Wheel's On Fire," which was credited to Julie Driscoll With Brian Auger And The Trinity. It later became the theme tune for the BBC comedy show Absolutely Fabulous.

The Yardbirds were known as a great live band, but the recording technology of 1965 limited their commercial potential, as the songs they wrote themselves didn't play well in a studio setting. McCarty told us how this song gave them a breakthrough: "All the stuff that we played live and we recorded in the studio, it just sounded really tame. The studios weren't so good then, they weren't really geared for playing rock and roll or blues music. And all the ideas that we'd had up to 'For Your Love' just sounded awful. And so 'For Your Love' was the song that would sound good anyway, because it was a much more commercial song."

On The Yardbirds official site, bass player Chris Dreja says of this: "We owe a lot to that song because it sort of pulled us out from national to international and set the template for us - that time change in the middle, the weirdness of it." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

This song appeared in the movies Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998), Harimu Ogen (1985) and Deadly Advice (1994).

Fleetwood Mac recorded this for their 1973 album Mystery to Me and released it as a single.

The musical breakdown on this track is as follows:
Keith Relf - lead vocal
Eric Clapton - guitar
Chris Dreja - guitar
Paul Samwell-Smith - bass
Jim McCarty - drums

Non-Yardbirds brought in to play were:
Ron Prentiss - acoustic bass
Brian Auger - harpsichord
Denny Piercey - bongos

This song was covered by Greg Kihn in 1994. It was also used in the movies Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) and Pirate Radio (2009). (thanks, Charlie - Las Vegas, NV)

This was used in commercials for Zales jewelry. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

The Yardbirds - Ha Ha Said the Clown

The Yardbirds - Ha Ha Said the Clown Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Little Games
Released: 1967

Ha Ha Said the Clown Lyrics

[Chorus]
Ha Ha Said the Clown
Has the king lost his crown,
Is the knight being tight on romance?
Ha ha said the clown,
Is it bringing you down,
That you've lost your chance.

Feeling low, gotta go,
See a show in town.
Hear the jokes, have a smoke,
And a laugh at the clown.
In a whirl, see a girl,
With a smile in her eyes.
Never thought I'd be brought,
Right down by her lies.

[Chorus]

In a trance, watch her dance,
To the beat of the drums.
Faster now, sweating brow,
I'm all the fingers and thumbs.
Wonder why I hit the sky,
When she blows me a kiss.
In a while run a mile,
I'm regretting all this.

[Chorus]

Time to go, close the show,
Wave the people good-bye.
Grab my coat, grab my hat,
Look that girl in the eye.
Where's your home?
What's your phone number?
Stop fooling round.
Could have died she replied.
"I'm the wife of the clown"

[Chorus]

Writer/s: Hazzard, Tony
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., SHAPIRO BERNSTEIN & CO. INC.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Ha Ha Said the Clown Song Chart

This was a cover of the Manfred Mann UK pop hit, written by Tony Hazzard.

Although not included on the original Little Games release, this was added to the track list for the 1992 expanded version.

British producer/songwriter Mickie Most was brought in to produce this album to boost the band's commercial success which, according to drummer Jim McCarty , was a mistake.

"Working with Mickie Most was the kiss of death for the band," he said in an August 2011 Interview. "Mickie never really got what we were about. His attitude was that we were just another '60s band that needed a hit. Consequently the songs he supplied us with (most notably the catchy but very un-Yardbirds-like 'Little Games' and 'Ha, Ha Said The Clown,' which ironically was the band's last single and only featured one member of the group, singer Keith Relf) went nowhere.

I know I said it before but being a singles band is definitely what killed us. It was what people expected of us. And the irony is that about the time we broke up, the whole singles thing was on the way out and albums and progressive rock were on their way in. If we had hung together for another year or two we might have been in a position to go in the studio and make a Pink Floyd kind of album and then who knows what might have happened. At our best, we were more than capable of becoming Pink Floyd." (thanks, DeeTheWriter - Saint Petersburg, Russia Federation)

This was the band's last single to break into the Top 50 on the pop charts.