Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From '' No Pedestrians ''
Label: Chameleon Records – CR-535
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: Canada
Released: 1980
Tracklist
A1 The Sharks - Get Off The Radio
A2 Winston Hancock - Girls, Girls
A3 The Secrets - All The Words
A4 Arson - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place
A5 S.S. - Working Girl
B1 Winston Hancock - Leavin' Tonite
B2 Tyranna - Back Off Baby
B3 Zro4 - Blood
B4 True Confessions - Fourth Base
B5 The Secrets - I'll Cry Tomorrow
Engineer – Ken Doidge
Producer, Engineer – Tom Atom
🎵 [SONG INFO]
"We Gotta Get out of This Place", occasionally written "We've Gotta Get out of This Place", is a rock song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded as a 1965 hit single by The Animals.
It has become an iconic song of its type and was immensely popular with United States Armed Forces GIs during the Vietnam War.
In 2004 it was ranked number 233 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list; it is also in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.
History
Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were husband and wife (and future Hall of Fame) songwriters associated with the 1960s Brill Building scene in New York City.
Mann and Weil wrote and recorded "We Gotta Get out of This Place" as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.
It was intended for The Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label Redbird Records wanted him to release it instead.
Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and given the demo to Mickie Most, The Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session (The Animals hits "It's My Life" and "Don't Bring Me Down" came from the same call), and The Animals recorded it before Mann could.
In The Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion.
The two versions
The UK and US single releases were different versions from the same recording sessions.
The take that EMI, The Animals' parent record company, sent to MGM Records, the group's American label, was mistakenly one that had not been selected for release elsewhere.
The two versions are most easily differentiated by the lyric at the beginning of the second verse: in the US version the lyric is, "See my daddy in bed a-dyin'", while the UK version uses, "Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'" (as a result of an error by the music labels, certain online retailers sell the UK version but incorrectly identify it as the US version).
In the US the song (in its "mistaken" take) was included on the album Animal Tracks, released in the fall 1965, and again on the popular compilation The Best of The Animals released in 1966 and re-released with an expanded track list on the ABKCO label in 1973. The song was not on any British Animals album during the group's lifetime.
Other versions
"We Gotta Get out of This Place" has been recorded or performed in concert by numerous artists, including:
The American Breed (1967),
The Frost (1970),
The Partridge Family (1972),
Bruce Springsteen,
Udo Lindenberg (in a German language adaption),
Blue Öyster Cult (1978),
Steve Bender (1978),
Gilla (1979),
Angelic Upstarts (1980),
Gardens & Villa,
Grand Funk Railroad (1981),
David Johansen (1982, as part of an Animals medley),
Fear (1982),
The Angels (1986),
Richard Thompson (1988),
Jello Biafra and D.O.A. (1989),
Randy Stonehill (1990),
Bon Jovi (1992, as part of an Animals medley),
Midnight Oil (1993, for MTV Unplugged),
Space (1998),
Southside Johnny (concerts in the 2000s),
Overkill (2000),
Widespread Panic (2005),
Ann Wilson with Wynonna Judd (2007),
Alice Cooper (2011)
and many others.
In 1990 Eric Burdon joined Katrina and the Waves for a recording of it for use on China Beach.
In 2000 Barry Mann revisited the song, performing it with Bryan Adams on Mann's retrospective solo album Soul & Inspiration.
When Suzi Quatro was on a German tour in 2008 she came on stage and played bass on the song during an Eric Burdon concert at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart.
Burdon also performed it in 2010 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when songwriters Mann and Weil were inducted.
Later in 2010, Mann and Weil were at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles – to open a gallery for the Songwriter's Hall of Fame – and performed their original version of the song, including previously-unheard lyrics like "What are we waiting for?"
From '' No Pedestrians ''
Label: Chameleon Records – CR-535
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Country: Canada
Released: 1980
Tracklist
A1 The Sharks - Get Off The Radio
A2 Winston Hancock - Girls, Girls
A3 The Secrets - All The Words
A4 Arson - We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place
A5 S.S. - Working Girl
B1 Winston Hancock - Leavin' Tonite
B2 Tyranna - Back Off Baby
B3 Zro4 - Blood
B4 True Confessions - Fourth Base
B5 The Secrets - I'll Cry Tomorrow
Engineer – Ken Doidge
Producer, Engineer – Tom Atom
🎵 [SONG INFO]
"We Gotta Get out of This Place", occasionally written "We've Gotta Get out of This Place", is a rock song written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and recorded as a 1965 hit single by The Animals.
It has become an iconic song of its type and was immensely popular with United States Armed Forces GIs during the Vietnam War.
In 2004 it was ranked number 233 on Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list; it is also in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.
History
Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil were husband and wife (and future Hall of Fame) songwriters associated with the 1960s Brill Building scene in New York City.
Mann and Weil wrote and recorded "We Gotta Get out of This Place" as a demo, with Mann singing and playing piano.
It was intended for The Righteous Brothers, for whom they had written the number one hit "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" but then Mann gained a recording contract for himself, and his label Redbird Records wanted him to release it instead.
Meanwhile, record executive Allen Klein had heard it and given the demo to Mickie Most, The Animals' producer. Most already had a call out to Brill Building songwriters for material for the group's next recording session (The Animals hits "It's My Life" and "Don't Bring Me Down" came from the same call), and The Animals recorded it before Mann could.
In The Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion.
The two versions
The UK and US single releases were different versions from the same recording sessions.
The take that EMI, The Animals' parent record company, sent to MGM Records, the group's American label, was mistakenly one that had not been selected for release elsewhere.
The two versions are most easily differentiated by the lyric at the beginning of the second verse: in the US version the lyric is, "See my daddy in bed a-dyin'", while the UK version uses, "Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'" (as a result of an error by the music labels, certain online retailers sell the UK version but incorrectly identify it as the US version).
In the US the song (in its "mistaken" take) was included on the album Animal Tracks, released in the fall 1965, and again on the popular compilation The Best of The Animals released in 1966 and re-released with an expanded track list on the ABKCO label in 1973. The song was not on any British Animals album during the group's lifetime.
Other versions
"We Gotta Get out of This Place" has been recorded or performed in concert by numerous artists, including:
The American Breed (1967),
The Frost (1970),
The Partridge Family (1972),
Bruce Springsteen,
Udo Lindenberg (in a German language adaption),
Blue Öyster Cult (1978),
Steve Bender (1978),
Gilla (1979),
Angelic Upstarts (1980),
Gardens & Villa,
Grand Funk Railroad (1981),
David Johansen (1982, as part of an Animals medley),
Fear (1982),
The Angels (1986),
Richard Thompson (1988),
Jello Biafra and D.O.A. (1989),
Randy Stonehill (1990),
Bon Jovi (1992, as part of an Animals medley),
Midnight Oil (1993, for MTV Unplugged),
Space (1998),
Southside Johnny (concerts in the 2000s),
Overkill (2000),
Widespread Panic (2005),
Ann Wilson with Wynonna Judd (2007),
Alice Cooper (2011)
and many others.
In 1990 Eric Burdon joined Katrina and the Waves for a recording of it for use on China Beach.
In 2000 Barry Mann revisited the song, performing it with Bryan Adams on Mann's retrospective solo album Soul & Inspiration.
When Suzi Quatro was on a German tour in 2008 she came on stage and played bass on the song during an Eric Burdon concert at the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart.
Burdon also performed it in 2010 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when songwriters Mann and Weil were inducted.
Later in 2010, Mann and Weil were at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles – to open a gallery for the Songwriter's Hall of Fame – and performed their original version of the song, including previously-unheard lyrics like "What are we waiting for?"
