Did It in a Minute by Hall & Oates

Album: Private Eyes (1981)

Charted: 9

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This euphoric song about suddenly finding love was written by Daryl Hall along with his girlfriend Sara Allen and her sister, Janna Allen. In our interview with Hall, he explained: "I was in the car with Janna, and she said, 'I got this idea for a chorus,' and she sang that chorus. That's how it all started. And I said, 'That's great.' We got out of the car, I went to a keyboard, and I put the chords to it. I worked on a verse, and then Sara and I sat and wrote the lyrics together for the verse. So it was sort of a three-way collaboration on that song."
There are some expert songwriting elements in this song that helped make it a hit. The title contains rhymes, which is something also found in the Hall & Oates songs "Possession Obsession" and "Kiss On My List." Each chorus repeats the phrase "did it" 15 times on the lead vocal, making for inescapable repetition. The pre-choruses are each different, however ("Some things stay the same...", "Everybody always laughs at love..."), and build momentum to provide an interesting transition from verse to chorus.
Hall & Oates were red hot when they released this song as the third single from Private Eyes. The first two (the title track and "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)") both went to #1 in the US.
With Hall & Oates out on tour, there was no concept video made for this song. A clip was assembled from live footage that did fairly well on MTV, where the duo were some of the biggest stars on the network.

Comments: 2

Kent Noseworthy from Nl CanadaI was learning to play the synth part for ‘Jump’ by Van Halen. I like to dig up interviews the artists give about their song writing and inspiration, and in doing so I stumbled upon an interview where Eddie VH was talking about Jump.
He sad that he’d heard ‘Kiss on my List’ by Hall and Oates and was playing around with the synth part of that song when he came up with the basic riff structure of Jump.
He later told Daryl Hall that he’d borrowed the chords from his song and Daryl was flattered and said “yeah, no problem”.
I love how a lot of original music derives inspiration from other songs. It’s an organic process and may be intentional or subconscious.
So I’m listening to H&O, being down that rabbit hole, and rediscovered the pop powerhouse of a song “Did it in a Minute’. Having also recently learned “great balls of fire” I noticed the similarity between a couple of lines in each song.
Intentional or not there’s a cool synchronicity.

Everybody always laughs at love
But what they want is to be proven wrong
Then you came along

‘I laughed at love 'cause I thought it was funny’
‘You came along’ and you moved me, honey
Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn March 14th 1982, "Did It In A Minute" by Hall & Oates entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #66; and nine weeks later on May 16th, 1982 it peaked #9 {for 2 weeks} and spent 16 weeks on the Top 100...
In reached #10 on the Canadian RPM Singles Pop chart...
Between 1974 and 2004 the duo had thirty-five Top 100 records; fifteen made the Top 10 with six reaching #1, "Rich Girl" for 2 weeks in 1977, "Kiss On My List" for 3 weeks in 1981, "Private Eyes" for 2 weeks in 1981, “I Can’t Go for That (Can Do)” for 2 weeks in 1982, "Maneater" for 4 weeks in 1982, and "Out of Touch" for 2 weeks in 1984...
They just missed having a seventh #1 record when "Say It Isn't So" peaked at #2* for two weeks in 1983...
* The two weeks "Say It Isn't So" was at #2, the #1 record for both those weeks was "Say Say Say" by Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson.

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