Alongside the Rolling Stones, the Animals in 1965 were one of Britain’s leading blues rock/R&B ensembles.
Still, with the single format as the flagship album (“Rubber Soul” by the Beatles, released at the end of that year, changed this), the LPs used to collect compilations of singles and covers, which also served to show their influences.
Mickey Most produced “Animal Tracks” for them, an album with very different songs in the British and American versions In the American version, released on MGM Records, Eric Burdon, and his companions opened the album with one of their totem songs, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”, a composition for the Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil marriage band and one of the best cuts in the history of the Animals, with Eric in apocalyptic rock.
In this dirty old part of the city
Where the sun refused to shine
People tell me there ain’t no use in tryin’Now my girl, you’re so young and pretty
And one thing I know is true
You’ll be dead before your time is due, I knowWatch my daddy in bed a-dyin’
Watched his hair been turnin’ grey
He’s been workin’ and slavin’ his life away, oh yes I know it
Produced by Mickey Most at Columbia, the song is instrumentally highlighted by the sinuous bass line of Chas Chandler, the future discoverer of Jimi Hendrix. At his side, in the recording of the single, were the guitarist Hilton Valentine, the keyboardist Dave Rowberry, the drummer John Peel and the great singer Eric Burdon, who with his brave vocal bill expresses his desire to escape, to get out of “that place ” with your partner, and look for a better future. Tired of working, of being a slave. The song became a hit with US troops in the Vietnam War. Normal to want to leave that site.
In 1978, the rock group Blue Oyster Cult covered “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” as the closing of their LP “Some Enchanted Evening”.