Fact #130797
When:
Short story:
Barry McGuire spends the first of three days recording the future No1 protest-rock hit Eve Of Destruction, for Dunhill Records in Los Angeles, California, USA. The song is written by P.F. Sloan.
Full article:
Barry McGuire : The Beatles were happening. I think that was probably the main thing. The Beatles just changed the whole world of music.
Mark Volman (vocalist, The Turtles) : Phil Sloan had been sent over to present us a song to follow-up It Ain't Me, Babe. Phil brought us Eve of Destruction. He played it that afternoon at a rehearsal, and we said 'No' to it. It was much too strong lyrically for what we felt we could sing and actually pull off. I mean, we were just kids out of high school. We had just had a really nice kind of love song with 'It Ain't Me, Babe,' and - even though we liked the song, and would record it for our first album – we felt Eve was not something we wanted to represent us as a single. When we told him that, he said, 'I have another song that might work better,' and he played us Let Me Be at the same sit-down. We chose that as our single, because we liked the message in Let Me Be for us better that we liked the message of Eve of Destruction.
(Source : interview with John Cody, BC Christian News, October 2008)
Barry McGuire : I got my lyrics that I’d had in my pocket for about a week. I smoothed all the wrinkles out of them, and we wrote the chords down on a piece of brown paper that somebody got some chicken in or something, and we folded little creases and hung them on the music stands and went through it twice. They were playing and I’m reading the words off this wrinkly paper. I’m singing, ‘Well, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’, that part that goes, ‘Ahhhhhh, you can’t twist the truth,’ and the reason I’m singing ‘Ahhhhhh’ is because I lost my place on the page. People said, ‘Man, you really sounded frustrated when you were singing.’ Well, I was. I couldn't see the words. I wanted to re-record the vocal track, and Lou said, ‘We're out of time. We'll come back next week and do the vocal track.’ Well, by the next weekend, the tune was released. The following Monday, it was being played on the No1 rock music station in Los Angeles, and it was incredible what happened. It all just exploded.
(Source : http://barrymcguire.com/index.php?page=bio4)
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Mark Volman (vocalist, The Turtles) : Phil Sloan had been sent over to present us a song to follow-up It Ain't Me, Babe. Phil brought us Eve of Destruction. He played it that afternoon at a rehearsal, and we said 'No' to it. It was much too strong lyrically for what we felt we could sing and actually pull off. I mean, we were just kids out of high school. We had just had a really nice kind of love song with 'It Ain't Me, Babe,' and - even though we liked the song, and would record it for our first album – we felt Eve was not something we wanted to represent us as a single. When we told him that, he said, 'I have another song that might work better,' and he played us Let Me Be at the same sit-down. We chose that as our single, because we liked the message in Let Me Be for us better that we liked the message of Eve of Destruction.
(Source : interview with John Cody, BC Christian News, October 2008)
Barry McGuire : I got my lyrics that I’d had in my pocket for about a week. I smoothed all the wrinkles out of them, and we wrote the chords down on a piece of brown paper that somebody got some chicken in or something, and we folded little creases and hung them on the music stands and went through it twice. They were playing and I’m reading the words off this wrinkly paper. I’m singing, ‘Well, my blood’s so mad feels like coagulatin’, that part that goes, ‘Ahhhhhh, you can’t twist the truth,’ and the reason I’m singing ‘Ahhhhhh’ is because I lost my place on the page. People said, ‘Man, you really sounded frustrated when you were singing.’ Well, I was. I couldn't see the words. I wanted to re-record the vocal track, and Lou said, ‘We're out of time. We'll come back next week and do the vocal track.’ Well, by the next weekend, the tune was released. The following Monday, it was being played on the No1 rock music station in Los Angeles, and it was incredible what happened. It all just exploded.
(Source : http://barrymcguire.com/index.php?page=bio4)