"Gloria" is a rock song written by Northern Irish singer-songwriterVan Morrison, and originally recorded by Morrison's bandThem in 1964. It was released as theB-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go". The song became agarage rock staple and a part of many rock bands' repertoires.[6]
According to Morrison, he wrote "Gloria" while performing with the Monarchs in Germany in the summer of 1963, at just about the time he turned 18 years old.[7] He started to perform it at the Maritime Hotel when he returned toBelfast and joined up with the Gamblers to form the band Them. He wouldad-lib lyrics as he performed, sometimes stretching the song to 15 or 20 minutes. After signing a contract withDick Rowe andDecca, Them went to London for a recording session at Decca Three Studios in West Hampstead on 5 April 1964; "Gloria" was one of the seven songs recorded that day.
Besides Morrison, present were Billy Harrison on guitar, Alan Henderson on bass guitar, Ronnie Millings on drums and Pat McCauley on keyboards. Rowe brought in session musiciansArthur Greenslade on organ andBobby Graham on drums, since he considered the Them members too inexperienced. There remains some dispute about whether Millings and McCauley were actually miked, but Alan Henderson contends that Them constituted the first rock group to use two drummers on a recording.[8] Although some sources claim thatJimmy Page played second guitar, other sources deny this.[9][10]
Decca Records released "Gloria" as the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go" in the UK on 6 November 1964, with only the latter reaching the singles chart. In the US the same pairing, released byParrot Records, became a regional hit on the US West Coast.[11] Between March and June 1965, the single (both songs) appeared on weekly Top 40 playlists for Los Angeles radio stationKRLA, reaching number one for three weeks in April.[12][13][14] A year later, after the release of a cover version of "Gloria" bythe Shadows of Knight, Them's original entered the nationalBillboard Hot 100 chart. Both peaked during the week of 14 May 1966, with Them at number 75 and the Shadows of Knight at number 10.[15]Cash Box described it as "a bluesy, up tempo stomp'er devoted to 'Gloria'".[16]
1965 – The Shadows of Knight recorded "Gloria", which was released as a single in December 1965 and later included on thealbum of the same name.Bill Janovitz describes it as "a faithful, though tamer version of the original".[11] The song reached number 10 on theBillboard Hot 100 and number 8 on Canada'sRPM charts in 1966,[15] due to its popularity with radio stations that chose not to play Them's original because of its lyrics – the Shadows of Knight replaced Morrison's line "She comes to my room" with "She calls out my name".[18][19][20]
The Canadian bandKing-Beezz reached number 75 on theRPM charts with their version, June 6, 1966.[21]
1966–1970 – The Doors performed the song several times, with one recording released onAlive, She Cried (1983). It was also released as a single, which reached number 18 on Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks and number 71 onBillboard Hot 100 in 1983.[22] The song is included onLegacy: The Absolute Best (2003) andThe Very Best of The Doors (2007).
1975 – Patti Smith recorded it for her albumHorses. Based on the Van Morrison tune, the lyrics had been adapted from an early poem, 'Oath'.[6] Smith's band had started to play the song live and merged it with the poem by 1974, so the song contained half of Smith's own words.[6] For the recording of her debut album, Smith and her band recorded the song live and, after mixing, chose it as the album's opener.[6] The spoken intro begins, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine," being the statement of the album.[11] According to Janovitz, "Smith's intermingling of lascivious sex and religious guilt (or lack thereof) certainly foreshadows similar sacred/profane juxtapositions from ultra-feminineMadonna and androgynousPrince."[11]Rolling Stone said similarly that the "legend-making first line of Smith's galvanic act of rock & roll vandalism" showed the band to be "reveling in its cathartic simplicity" and "creating something reverent and revolutionary."Rolling Stone ranked her version at number 97 in its 2024 list of the"500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[23]
One explanation for the timeless popularity of the song was offered inAllMusic's review byBill Janovitz:[11]
The beauty of the original is that Van Morrison needs only to speak-sing, in hisHowlin' Wolf growl, "I watch her come up to my house/She knocks upon my door/And then she comes up to my room/I want to say she makes me feel all right/G-L-O-R-I-A!" to convey his teenage lust. The original Latin meaning of the name is not lost on Morrison. Them never varies from the three chords, using only dynamic changes to heighten the tension.
"Gloria" was rated number 69 onDave Marsh's list in the 1989 bookThe Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. He described the song as "one of the few rock songs that's actually as raunchy as its reputation."[30]
In his bookRock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles,Paul Williams said about the two sides of the "Baby Please Don't Go/Gloria" recording: "Into the heart of the beast ... here is something so good, so pure, that if no other hint of it but this record existed, there would still be such a thing as rock and roll ... Van Morrison's voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world. Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind."[31]
Author/columnistDave Barry wrote, “You can throw a guitar off a cliff, and as it bounces off the rocks on the way down, it will, all by itself, play Gloria.”[38]
^abcdPadgett, Ray (2017).Cover me : the stories behind the greatest cover songs of all time. New York. pp. 104–115.ISBN978-1-4549-2250-6.OCLC978537907.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Williams, Paul; Berryhill, Cindy Lee (December 1993). "Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria – Them (1964)".Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles (Hardcover ed.). United States: Entwhistle Books. pp. 71–72.ISBN978-0-934558-41-9.
Williams, Paul; Berryhill, Cindy Lee (December 1993). "Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria – Them (1964)".Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles (Hardcover ed.). United States: Entwhistle Books. pp. 71–72.ISBN978-0-934558-41-9.
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