Eli's Coming by Three Dog Night

Album: Suitable For Framing (1969)

Charted: 10

License This Song

lyrics

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

This hit song finds Three Dog Night breaking the bro-code by warning their female friend that a heartbreaker named Eli is coming back to town. The song was actually written from a female perspective by Laura Nyro, a singer who found commercial success as a songwriter. This joined two other Nyro compositions in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 in 1969: "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat & Tears and "Wedding Bell Blues" by the 5th Dimension.
Nyro's powerful rendition, found on her 1968 album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, suggests the singer was one of Eli's conquests and she pleads with her friend, or herself, not to make the same mistake. She begins with a quiet warning that builds into an explosion of aggressive multi-tracked harmonies and lush orchestration, as if she's screaming at her friend to listen, before settling back into repose.

Alan Merrill, founder of the UK pop group the Arrows and co-writer of "I Love Rock And Roll," was a cousin of Laura's and tried to advise her against incorporating shifting tempos in her tunes. He told us: "I watched Laura write all of her first songs. I'd go, 'You can't speed up like that, you'll never have a hit. You can't slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up.' And she just smiled at me, like, 'I know what I'm doing.' I said, 'Listen to the Byrds and the Beatles, they don't slow down and speed up.' A year or two later I was looking at the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 songs on the Billboard charts and Laura had written them all!"
Three Dog Night had three lead vocalists: Chuck Negron, Cory Wells and Danny Hutton. Negron used to watch Nyro perform in New York City and liked her sound. He brought the song to the group, thinking it would be a good fit for Wells' voice. In an era when every band was trying to be the Beatles and write their own tunes, Three Dog Night preferred to revamp existing songs into hits. "That was our forte, basically," Wells explained in Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro by Michele Kort. We would take songs that either were not palatable to the public, like Randy Newman stuff, and change it and make it commercial, or we'd do it in a completely different direction to sort of give it another character."

He called "Eli's Coming" a "great, upbeat, 'come-and-see-me' record, a number that people would turn out to see in concert."
Also in 1969, this was included on Three Dog Night's live album, Captured Live at the Forum, and it was covered by the girl group Honey Ltd. The following year, jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson recorded it for his album M.F. Horn, and in 1989 the Nylons included it on their album Rockapella.
This was also the name of a 90-minute stage production created by Bruce Buschel and Diane Paulus in 2001 in honor of Nyro's music.
This was used on the TV series Sports Night in the 1999 episode "Eli's Coming."
This song had a huge impact on Desmond Child, one of the most successful songwriters of the '80s, '90s and '00s. "It just seems so cinematic and epic," he told Songfacts. "It would speed up, it would slow down – it was very dramatic. It stirred something inside of me that felt very personal.

At that time, when I was 15 years old hearing her music, I felt like I knew her, and I felt like I wanted to have that effect on the world. That motivated me to write songs seriously and to find my own path in music."

Child, whose co-writes include "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "I Hate Myself For Loving You," named one of his sons Nyro.

Comments: 10

Hillary From Ny from NycApollo referred to the Apollo theater and the bay is either the San Francisco Bay or one of the bays around Long Island or Hudson Bay
Ray From Nysomeone please explain, "I walk to Apollo and the bay."
Ragin' Cajun from Asheville NcCan't seem to think of any other rock, pop or blues song that had 3 lead singers that performed as well as they do on this song.
Peter from IllinoisELI'S COMIN' means God's Coming, as per Dr. Maurice Friedman, famous Martin Buber scholar of Jewish theology. Said in 1968 after hearing Nyro's album.
Spencer Benedict from Naperville, IllinoisEli's Coming has a strong "Rockin' Church Revival" type vibe. While listening to it, I can picture the lead singer as the pastor, and the background singers as the Church Choir; exuberantly clapping their hands and rhymically swaying from side to side as the church goers lift up their hands in the air crying Hosana
" When i mentioned this to a friend, while the song was playing, she thought the tune was from Jesus Christ Superstar-indicating that i was not alone in my interpretation. Everytime i hear it, i feel as if i were in a Baptist Church Choir, clapping my hands vigorously and praising God.
Thisguysmusic from FloridaLaura Nyro was a fantastic writer and singer, she deserves as much attention post death as she did in her years of singing in the late 19th century!
Rico724 from Carlsbad,caIn 1969 Three Dog Night played in the gym at Grant High School in Van Nuys, CA for just the senior class it was a big class. Unfortunately I was only a junior at the time
Seventhmist from 7th HeavenMy nephew Eli was born in 1995 and as my sister was prepped for delivery, we started singing this song. Made for a great moment and a warm memory.
Barry from Sauquoit, NyExactly fifty years today on November 23rd, 1969, "Eli's Coming"* by Three Dog Night peaked at #10 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard's Top 100 chart, and it spent fourteen weeks on the Top 100...
The rest of the Top 10 on November 23rd, 1969:
At #1. "Come Together"/"Something" by The Beatles
#2. "And When I Die"* by Blood, Sweat, and Tears
#3. "Wedding Bell Blues"* by The 5th Dimension
#4. "Take A Letter Marie" by R.B. Greaves
#5. "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam
#6. "Smile A Little Smile For Me" by The Flying Machine
#7. "Leaving On A Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul and Mary
#8. "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday" by Stevie Wonder
#9. "Down On The Corner"/"Fotunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
* And from the 'For What It's Worth' department; three of the records in the Top 10 were composed by Laura Nyro, "And When I Die", "Wedding Bell Blues", and "Eli's Coming"...
May Ms. Nyro {1947 - 1997} R.I.P.
Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn this day in 1969 {October 25th} Three Dog Night performed "Eli's Coming" on the ABC-TV Saturday afternoon program, 'American Bandstand'...
At the time "Eli's Coming" was in it's first week on Billboard's Top 100 chart at position #61, five weeks later it would peak at #10 {for 2 weeks} and it spent fourteen weeks on the Top 100...
It reached #8 on the Canadian RPM Singles chart...
As noted above, "Eli's Coming" was composed by Laura Nyro...
And on the same 'Bandstand' show they also performed "Easy To Be Hard", at the time it was at position #18 on the Top 100, four weeks earlier it had peaked at #4 {for 2 weeks} and it stayed on the chart for thirteen weeks...
Between 1969 and 1975 the California band had twenty one records on the Top 100, eleven made the Top 10 with three reaching #1, "Mama Told Me Not To Come" for 2 weeks in 1970, "Joy To The World" for 6 weeks in 1971, and "Black and White" for 1 week in 1972...
Member Cory Wells, born Emil Lewandowski, passed away at the age of 74 on October 28th, 2015...
May both he and Laura Nyro {1947 - 1997} R.I.P.

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Walking On Thin IceYoko Ono

John Lennon's lead guitar work on Yoko Ono's "Walking On Thin Ice" proved to be his final creative act. It was upon their return home after completing laying down the track that Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman.

TeardropMassive Attack

"Teardrop" by Massive Attack has vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of The Cocteau Twins, who wrote the lyric after learning that Jeff Buckley had died.

All The Young DudesMott the Hoople

All The Young Dudes "carry the news" because it was intended for a David Bowie concept album where Ziggy Stardust spreads the news in a world with electricity.