‘Hello, I Love You’ is a song recorded by American rock band the Doors for their 1968 album Waiting for the Sun. Elektra Records released it as a single that same year, which topped the charts in the U.S. and Canada. Although the Doors are credited as the songwriters, songs by other artists have been identified as likely sources.
Apart from the single's success, a portion of the band's fans have dismissed the tune, arguing that it does not represent the Doors sound, due to its commercial nature and shallow lyrics. The Doors themselves strongly objected when Elektra Records pressured them to record the song for their third album, since it was one of the first songs they played together and they felt it represented a shallow pop approach that they had long since evolved beyond.
‘Hello, I Love You’ was written and first recorded in 1965. It was one of six songs recorded by Rick & the Ravens (a forerunner of the Doors) at World Pacific Jazz studios that the group used to try to secure a record deal. The lyrics were inspired by a young black girl whom Jim Morrison saw at Venice Beach: "Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?". Both the single and Waiting for the Sun liner notes list the song as a group composition; the performance rights organization ASCAP shows the writers as each of the individual Doors members.
In the liner notes to The Doors: Box Set, Robby Krieger denied allegations that the song's musical structure was stolen from Ray Davies, where a riff similar to it is featured in the Kinks' ‘All Day and All of the Night’. Instead, Krieger said the song's drum beat was taken from Cream's song ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. But Davies commented in a 2012 interview with Mojo magazine: “The funniest thing was when my publisher came to me on tour and said the Doors had used the riff for ‘All Day and All of the Night’ for ‘Hello, I Love You’. I said rather than sue them, can we just get them to own up? My publisher said, "They have, that’s why we should sue them!" (laughs) Jim Morrison admitted it, which to me was the most important thing. The most important thing, actually, is to take (the idea) somewhere else. In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Davies suggested that an out-of-court settlement had been reached with the Doors. Keyboardist Ray Manzarek, admitted in an interview with Musician magazine that it was "a lot like a Kinks song."
Label – Elektra
Songwriters – The Doors
Producer – Paul A. Rothchild
SONG LYRICS
[Chorus]Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
[Verse 1]
She's walking down the street
Blind to every eye she meets
Do you think you'll be the guy
To make the queen of the angels sigh?
[Chorus]
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
Hello, I love you
Won't you tell me your name?
Hello, I love you
Let me jump in your game
[Verse 2]
She holds her head so high
Like a statue in the sky
Her arms are wicked, and her legs are long
When she moves my brain screams out this song
[Verse 3]
Sidewalk crouches at her feet
Like a dog that begs for something sweet
Do you hope to make her see, you fool?
Do you hope to pluck this dusky jewel?
[Outro]
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello
I want you
Hello
I need my baby
Hello, hello, hello, hello...