1966Released
2:38

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about I Call Your Name. By Songfacts®.

"I Call Your Name" was mostly written by John Lennon, although it was credited to the team of Lennon/McCartney. According to journalist David Sheff from his interview with Lennon, Lennon wrote this song before the formation of the Beatles.

Lennon originally turned the song over to The Dakotas, another Liverpool act, at the time when George Martin was also working with them. Lennon wasn't happy with The Dakotas arrangement of the song and its poor B-side performance, so he had The Beatles re-do it, releasing it for the first time in the US on The Beatles' Second Album in 1964.

This cover by The Mamas & The Papas seems as if they were trying to compensate Lennon for his disappointment with The Dakotas version. That sunny honky-tonk piano with their trademark full-rounded vocals and the well-realized instrumental bridge certainly grabs your attention.

This wasn't the only song on their first album not written by the original group; If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears also included a cover of soul-singer Bobby Freeman's "Do You Wanna Dance?" and a Jerry Leiber/Phil Spector collaboration "Spanish Harlem."

Collectors take note: If you can find the original album with the cover showing the toilet in the bathroom photo, it's worth big bucks. The initial cover was pulled because showing a picture of a toilet was considered indecent in 1966. Later shots showed the group piled in the same bathtub, but with a scroll to the side pasted over the toilet and listing hit singles from the album. Still later covers have the bathroom cropped out completely. We can't understand what all the fuss is about - the toilet looks perfectly clean. In any case, R&B singer Millie Jackson (the queen of tasteless album cover art) posed actually sitting on a toilet in 1989 (guess which album?), so apparently it's OK now.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of I Call Your Name.
DKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
107BPM

Album

The album I Call Your Name is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released I Call Your Name.
Geffen*
© 1998 MCA Records Inc.
℗ 1966 Dunhill Records Inc.

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