Remarks:
In 1971 this was a #1 hit across the Anglophere.
I love this video because Dawn (Stax session singers Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson) are not sidelined and look wonderful. But it is not their voices you hear. They did not join Orlando till after the song was recorded.
The backing singers you hear are Toni Wine (who wrote “Candida”) and Linda November. They also sing “meow meow meow” in the Meow Mix ad (1979), played on American television in the early 1980s and at Guantanamo as a form of torture in the 2000s.
Orlando is from the same part of New York as Alicia Keys: Hell’s Kitchen. They also both worked under Clive Davis.
Lyrics:
Hey girl what ya doin’ down there
Dancin’ alone every night while I live right above you
I can hear your music playin’
I can feel your body swayin’
One floor below me you don’t even know me
I love you
Oh my darling
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you’ll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain’t gonna show
If you look out your window tonight
Pull in the string with the note that’s attached to my heart
Read how many times I saw you
How in my silence I adored you
Only in my dreams did that wall between us come apart
Oh my darling
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you’ll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain’t gonna show
I can hear your music playin’
I can feel your body swayin’
One floor below me you don’t even know me
I love you
Oh my darling
Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me
Twice on the pipe if the answer is no
Oh my sweetness
Means you’ll meet me in the hallway
Twice on the pipe means you ain’t gonna show
Wow, didn’t know that about the meow mix ad.
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Brings me back to the day, for sure. I wonder where the video was filmed. It appears to be some sort of conservatory of flowers, perhaps in Los Angeles.
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I recently saw him on an old Cosby Show episode playing a counselor at a community center…:/
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This song is one of my favourites from childhood.
Indeed, the whole period from 1965 – 1977 was full of an eclectic mix of many styles.
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AND, OMG, I just realized that my family used to buy Meow Mix. 😛
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[…] Tony Orlando & Dawn: Knock Three Times « Abagond […]
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a creepy stalker song
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[…] Tony Orlando & Dawn: Knock Three Times (abagond.wordpress.com) […]
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Good times.
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This is one of my go-to karaoke songs! (Not that anyone cares, but yeah!) LOL! 😀
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Can anyone tell me the location of the background to this video please?
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