Cry Like a Baby
| "Cry Like a Baby" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Box Tops | ||||
| from the album Cry Like a Baby | ||||
| B-side | "The Door You Closed to Me" | |||
| Released | February 1968 (U.S.) | |||
| Format | Vinyl record | |||
| Recorded | American Sound Studio, 1968 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock, psychedelic rock | |||
| Length | 2:35 | |||
| Label | Mala | |||
| Writer(s) | Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham | |||
| Producer(s) | Chips Moman | |||
| The Box Tops singles chronology | ||||
|
||||
"Cry Like a Baby" is a 1968 song written by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and performed by The Box Tops. The song reached #2 in April 1968 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a position which it held for two weeks. It was kept out of the top spot by Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey", which stayed at #1 for five weeks. "Cry Like a Baby" also reached #2 on Cashbox for one week. It stayed on the Hot 100 for 15 weeks and Cashbox for 14 weeks. It was awarded a gold disc for selling over one million copies in the United States.
Spooner Oldham explained in an interview how the song came to be:
"Cry Like a Baby" features an electric sitar, played by session guitarist Reggie Young. Author Peter Lavezzoli cites this part as an example of the widespread influence of Indian classical music on rock and pop music in the late 1960s, in the wake of the Beatles' popularisation of the sitar in songs such as "Within You Without You", from their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Oldham played keyboards on "Cry Like a Baby" in addition to co-writing it. Chilton, who sang lead vocals on the song, was only 17 years old at the time of recording. This version of the song also features a female backup chorus, a brass section, a string section, bass guitar, organ, piano, and drums.
The original recording is available on numerous compilations, including Billboard Top Rock'n'Roll Hits: 1968, Classic Rock (Time-Life Music), and AM Gold (Time-Life Music).
...
Wikipedia