Just To Walk That Little Girl Home

Album: Le Chat Bleu (1980)
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Songfacts®:

  • This romantic ballad finds Mink DeVille frontman Willy DeVille smitten with a woman at a cafe. Though she's with a man, he still wants to walk her home.
  • "Just to Walk That Little Girl Home" showcases Willy DeVille's soulful vocals and the band's blend of roots rock, soul, and blues.
  • DeVille wrote the song with Doc Pomus, the legendary songwriter who worked with artists like The Drifters ("Save The Last Dance For Me") Dion & the Belmonts ("A Teenager in Love") and Elvis Presley ("Viva Las Vegas").

    "Willy and I were in Doc Pomus' apartment on West 72nd Street in Manhattan," keyboardist Kenny Margolis recalled to Mojo magazine. "Doc was in a wheelchair, but he could get about. He had a little Wurlitzer electric piano that I played, and Willy bought an acoustic guitar. Willy had all the music for the song, but no lyrics. Doc wanted to give it some sort of Spanish theme, so he started out with the line, 'It's closing time at Roberto's cafe,' but Willy said no. Doc thought about it for a few minutes and said, 'I've got it: in that nowhere Cafe,' and Willy said, 'Yes that's it.'"
  • This was one of three DeVille and Pomus co-writes for Mink DeVille's third album, Le Chat Bleu. "Willy was in awe of Doc," Margolis told Mojo. "And I think Doc saw in Willy a link to the past when Doc was young and coming up with those songs that influenced Willy's music."
  • Jean-Claude Petit, a French composer and conductor, did the string arrangement.
  • Recorded at the L'Aquarium in Paris, France, DeVille delved into Cajun music and the French cabaret tradition for Le Chat Bleu. "I wanted that (French) sound," Willy DeVille told Rolling Stone. "French records are so much more vivid. I knew what I was going for - this record was my dream."
  • Le Chat Bleu received critical acclaim. The Rolling Stone critics' poll ranked it the fifth best album of 1980.

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