We Gotta Get Out of This Place
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place", occasionally written "We've Gotta Get Out of This Place",[1] is a rock song written by American songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded as a 1965 hit single by English band the Animals. It has become an iconic song of its type and was immensely popular with United States Armed Forces G.I.s during the Vietnam War.[2]
For other uses, see We Gotta Get Out of This Place (disambiguation)."We've Gotta Get Out of This Place"
In 2004 it was ranked number 233 on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list; it is also in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.
In 2011, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[3]
Impact[edit]
At the time, the title and simple emotional appeal of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" lent itself to some obvious self-identifications—for instance, it was a very popular number to be played at high school senior proms and graduation parties. In music writer Dave Marsh's view, it was one of a wave of songs in 1965, by artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, that ushered in a new role for rock music as a vehicle for common perspective and as a force for social consciousness.[18] Writer Craig Werner sees the song as reflecting the desire of people to take a hard look at their own lives and the community from where they come.[12] Burdon later said, "The song became an anthem for different people – everybody at some time wants to get out of the situation they're in."[7]
The song was very popular with United States Armed Forces members stationed in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[9] It was frequently requested of, and played by, American Forces Vietnam Network disc jockeys.[19] During 2006 two University of Wisconsin–Madison employees, one a Vietnam veteran, began an in-depth survey of hundreds of Vietnam veterans, and found that "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then: "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."[20] Just such a band played the song in an episode ("USO Down", by Vietnam veteran Jim Beaver) of the American television series about the war, Tour of Duty, and the song is reprised in the episode's final scene.
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" was also used in Dennis Potter's 1965 television play Stand Up, Nigel Barton and the BBC's 1996 Newcastle-set Our Friends in the North, which partially took place in the 1960s. In America it was used as the title credits song in some episodes of the Vietnam War-set television series China Beach. It was then applied to the Bin Laden family, having to leave the United States in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks, in Michael Moore's 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11. It also was featured in the soundtrack to the 1987 movie Hamburger Hill. It was used in a third-season episode of the 2000s television series Heroes. It was used as the theme song for 2002 BBC comedy TLC and the 2013 BBC series Privates. The song was also featured humorously in the Kong: Skull Island trailer[21]
In a 2012 keynote speech to an audience at the South by Southwest music festival, Bruce Springsteen performed an abbreviated version of the Animals' version on acoustic guitar and then said, "That's every song I've ever written. That's all of them. I'm not kidding, either. That's 'Born to Run', 'Born in the U.S.A.'"[22]
In popular culture[edit]
The song's title and theme have become a common cultural phrase over the years.
It formed the basis for the title of academician Lawrence Grossberg's We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (1992), detailing the conflict between American conservatism and rock culture. Similarly, it formed the title basis for Gerri Hirshey's 2002 account, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock.
It has also been used as the title of editorials by American Journalism Review[23] and other publications. The title was even used to name an art exhibit, curated by Stefan Kalmár at the Cubitt Gallery in London in 1997.
It has featured in the soundtrack of Bob Carlton's Jukebox Musical Return to the Forbidden Planet.
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place"
Other versions[edit]
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" has been recorded or performed in concert by numerous artists, including the Savages (1966), the Cryan' Shames (1966), the American Breed (1967), the Frost (1970), the Partridge Family (1972), Bruce Springsteen (performed only a handful of times in his career, but acknowledged by him as one of his primary influences in the 1970s[30]), Udo Lindenberg (in a German language adaption in the 1970s for which commercial success was small), Blue Öyster Cult (1978), Steve Bender (1978), Gilla (1979), Angelic Upstarts (1980), Gardens & Villa, Grand Funk Railroad (1981), David Johansen (1982, and a hit on album oriented rock radio and MTV as part of an Animals medley), Fear (1982), Richard Thompson (1988), Jello Biafra and D.O.A. (1989), Randy Stonehill (1990), Bon Jovi (1992, again as part of an Animals medley for an MTV special), Midnight Oil (1993, for MTV Unplugged), Space (1998), Southside Johnny (concerts in the 2000s), Overkill (2000), Widespread Panic (2005), Ann Wilson with Wynonna Judd (2007), Alice Cooper (2011), and many others.
In 1990 Eric Burdon joined Katrina and the Waves for a recording of it for use on China Beach. In 2000 Barry Mann revisited the song, performing it with Bryan Adams on Mann's retrospective solo album Soul & Inspiration. When Suzi Quatro was on a German tour in 2008 she came on stage and played bass on the song during an Eric Burdon concert at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart. Burdon also performed it in 2010 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when songwriters Mann and Weil were inducted.[31] Later in 2010, Mann and Weil were at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles – to open a gallery for the Songwriter's Hall of Fame[32] – and performed their original version of the song, including previously unheard lyrics like "What are we waiting for?" (which was supposed to occur before the familiar lyrics in the chorus).