R&B

The singer of “Love Potion No. 9” by The Clovers says he went to see the gypsy with the gold-capped tooth  because he was a flop with chicks. Her potion made him fall in love with everything he saw:

“But when I kissed a cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine.”

So it goes. And so it went that the cop-kissing part caused some radio stations to ban the song. “Love Potion No. 9” was written by the prolific team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Although there have been many covers of the song, The Clovers, a popular and influential R&B group from Washington, D.C., did the original version in 1959. It reached #23 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the R&B Chart.  A little note:  The album version of the song has an additional ending that the charting single did not, which was:

“I hadda so much fun that I’m goin’ back again…
I wonder what’d happen with Love Potion No. 10.”

Cover versions include those by The Searchers, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, The Coasters, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Neil Diamond, Robert Plant, AC/DC, Gary Lewis & The Playboys,  Tlot Tlot, and many more. The movie American Graffiti features the recording by The Clovers. “Love Potion  No.9” was also included in the Leiber and Stoller musical revue Smokey Joe’s Café.

Here are the lyrics to “Love Potion No. 9” by The Clovers:

“I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth
She’s got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
Sellin’ little bottles of Love Potion No. 9

I told her that I was a flop with chicks
I’ve been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm, and she made a magic sign
She said, what you need is Love Potion No. 9

She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said, I’m gonna make it up right here in the sink
It smelled like turpentine, it looked like Indian ink
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink

I didn’t know if it was day or night
I started kissin’ everything in sight
But when I kissed that cop down at Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of Love Potion No. 9

I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink

I didn’t know if it was day or night
I started kissin’ everything in sight
But when I kissed that cop down at Thirty-Fourth and Vine
He broke my little bottle of

Love Potion No. 9
Love Potion No. 9
Love Potion No. 9
Love Potion No. 9”

For another song by The Clovers: “Devil or Angel.”

For More Golden Oldies Music       

The Daily Doo Wop Rec Room has daily featured doo wop, rock and roll, R&B, or rockabilly songs that were hits during the first era of rock and roll (that is, from about 1952 until the British invasion in 1964). After a song is featured, it then goes into the juke box. You are welcome to listen to any of the 40+ selections there. Every weekend, there is a Juke Box Saturday Night, and the juke box is full of song requests from the 1950s and 1960s.

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