House of Blue Light-from Chuck Berry?
Robert Bartz
Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, who was in the Beatles brefore they made it big.
ANyway, in one scene they play the song "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Chuck
Berry. One line kind of caught me off guard:
"From the early early morning
to the early early night
?????
to the HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT"
Now, is that where DP got the name of their album, or was it something
else? Thanks.
Bob
--
rba...@nyx.cs.du.edu "I never doubted the teachers, only the
rba...@telerama.lm.com lessons they taught." - Flotsam and Jetsam,
President, College Republicans, "Swatting At Flies"
SUNY Fredonia Chapter
Thomas Zeltwanger
| About a month ago, I saw the film "Backbeat", which was about former
| Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe, who was in the Beatles brefore they made it big.
| ANyway, in one scene they play the song "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Chuck
| Berry. One line kind of caught me off guard:
|
| "From the early early morning
| to the early early night
| ?????
| to the HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT"
|
| Now, is that where DP got the name of their album, or was it something
| else? Thanks.
As far as I know, DP recorded "The House of Blue Light" in Munich (I don't
have the CD at hand and cannot check therefore, but this is what I think to
remember) and one of the DP guys (Lordy?) once had the impression, the
building in which the studio was located is a "House of Blue Light" and
they made it the album title. But still, Lordy's impression (or whoever
had it) might indeed be influenced by this above mentioned Chuck Berry song.
Plus, this is probably anyway another one of these unproved legends, and
I can't really recall where I heard it from, maybe I read it in an ancient
METAL HAMMER ...
BTW, I saw "Backbeat" too. Pretty boring in my opinion, I might even
have fallen asleep during it, because I didn't even recognize this remarkable
line.
--
Thomas Zeltwanger zelt...@cony.gsf.de
Trond J. Stroem
Zeltwanger) wrote:
Sounds like one for future inclusion in the FAQ, this one!
Here's the story:
"Speed King" had it's lyrics made up from Ian's old rock'n'roll-favourites.
The line
Good golly said little miss Molly,
when she was rocking at the house of blue light
is naturally based around LITTLE RICHARD's song "Good Golly Miss Molly".
(Chuck Berry, on the other hand, had a song CALLED "The House of Blue
Light", and for all I know, Little Richard might in turn have "stolen" the
words from this song.) Hell, it's not written by Little Richard either,
according to the credits I found, but here's the verse in question:
From the early early mornin' till the early early night
you can see Miss Molly rockin' at the house of blue lights.
Good golly, Miss Molly, sure like a ball.
When you're rockin' and a rollin' can't hear your momma call.
- R.A. Blackwell & J.S. Marascako
R. A. Blackwell sounds familliar to me - I think he's written some other
classic r'n'r stuff, too.
Anyway, why did Deep Purple use the line as the title on their 1987 album?
According to an interview I have with Jon Lord, he states that it's just a
line from "Speed King" they thought sounded good.
What is a house of blue light? In World War I, there were separate
whorehouses for privates and officers. Whorehouses for privates had a red
light over the entrance (hence the whore districts in many cities still are
referred to as the "red light areas"), while the whorehouses for the
officers had a blue light. Hence: The house of blue light is originally a
whorehouse for officers only.
Whether the 50's rockers and Deep Purple themselves were aware of this
meaning? I haven't got a clue.
--
Trond J. Stroem t.j....@ub.uio.no
Richard Swann
>ANyway, in one scene they play the song "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Chuck
>Berry. One line kind of caught me off guard: ^^^^^
^^^^^
Good Golly Miss Molly is by Little Richard!!!!!
:-)
Michael G Ayoob
Perhaps they are.I remember watching the ultimate hippie movie - "Easy
Rider" a few years back. One of the lines in the closing credits caught
my eye. It referred to some of the hookers in the film as "Girls in the
House of Blue Light." Since then I'd always known that a HOBL was a
whorehouse, and that perhaps "Easy Rider" was DP's inspiration - (I
didn't know of the WWI/Little Richard tidbits, of course...)
Mike
Trond J. Stroem
<ma...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
I wrote:
> >From the early early mornin' till the early early night
> >you can see Miss Molly rockin' at the house of blue lights.
> >Good golly, Miss Molly, sure like a ball.
> >When you're rockin' and a rollin' can't hear your momma call.
> >
> > - R.A. Blackwell & J.S. Marascako
> >Whether the 50's rockers and Deep Purple themselves were aware of this
> >meaning? I haven't got a clue.
>
> Perhaps they are.I remember watching the ultimate hippie movie - "Easy
> Rider" a few years back. One of the lines in the closing credits caught
> my eye. It referred to some of the hookers in the film as "Girls in the
> House of Blue Light." Since then I'd always known that a HOBL was a
> whorehouse, and that perhaps "Easy Rider" was DP's inspiration - (I
> didn't know of the WWI/Little Richard tidbits, of course...)
I think, at least, that the 50's rockers were fully aware of this. The
lyrics to these "innocent" 50's rockers are often VERY sleazy, once you
start realizing what they're really singing about... They just do it with
more style that Turner and Coverdale can ever dream of... ;-)
Joseph Yurick
: About a month ago, I saw the film "Backbeat", which was about former
: ANyway, in one scene they play the song "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Chuck
: Berry. One line kind of caught me off guard:
: "From the early early morning
: to the early early night
: ?????
: to the HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHT"
: Now, is that where DP got the name of their album, or was it something
: else? Thanks.
: Bob
Yes, this is where the title was inspired from. I went to see DP on
their House of Blue Light tour, and bought a program which mentioned how
the title came about.
Also think back to the lyrics of Speed King...
"Good golly said little Miss Molly, as she was rocking in the House
of Blue Light. Tootie Frutie...". They had influences from Chuck Berry
as far back as In Rock (probably earlier).
Joe
Trond J. Stroem
wrote:
Actually, I don't think there's any CB referrences in Speed King. But
there's LOTS of references to lyrics by two of Ian's heroes, Little Richard
(GGMMolly and Tutty Frutty) and Elvis ("Ever since the world began" springs
to mind...)