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This song is about a guy who gets a letter from his former love telling him that she wants him back, and the guy wants to fly out and see her immediately. The Nashville songwriter Wayne Carson Thompson wrote the song after his father gave him the line "Give me a ticket for an aeroplane." Thompson gave this to The Box Tops on the recommendation of his friend, Chips Moman, who ran ARS Studios and liked the sound of an unnamed band headed by then-16-year-old Alex Chilton, who auditioned for him in 1967.
Thompson played guitar on the recording. He didn't like the singing, believing the lead vocal was too husky, and wasn't fond of the production either. The addition of the jet sound "didn't make sense" to him. When producer Dan Penn added the airplane sound to the recording, Wayne Carson Thompson clearly thought that Penn had lost his mind. He hadn't - several weeks later it became one of the biggest records of the '60s, and The Box Tops went on to score with a few other Thompson compositions, including their follow-up release, "Neon Rainbow" (#24, 1967), "Soul Deep" (a #18 hit in 1969) and "You Keep Tightening Up On Me" (their last chart hit, which peaked at #74 in 1970). A few years later, Thompson won a Grammy for cowriting the hit "
Always On My Mind." (thanks to Kent Kotal at
Forgotten Hits)
When the group recorded this they still did not have a name. One band member suggested, "Let's have a contest and everybody can send in 50 cents and a box top." Producer Dan Penn then dubbed them The Box Tops.
At 1:58, the Box Tops' version of this was the last #1 hit to be shorter than two minutes in length.
Cover versions were US hits for 2 other artists, The Arbors (#20 in 1969) and Joe Cocker (#7 in 1970). (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for above 3)
Comments (13):
Don Felder
Don breaks down "Hotel California" and other songs he wrote as a member of the Eagles. Now we know where the "warm smell of colitas" came from.
Al Jourgensen of Ministry
In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.
Desmond Child
One of the most successful songwriters in the business, Desmond co-wrote "Livin' La Vida Loca," "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" and "Livin' On A Prayer."
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Almost Famous is one of my 10 favourite movies, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is the one who says that line as Lester Bangs (actual Rolling Stone journalist). He is the guest of a female radio DJ. She intends to put on The Doors, he trashes Jim Morrison, praises the Guess Who, The Letter, and finally puts himself The Stooges on the record player and starts dancing...