♫ (Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All ♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

In a comment yesterday … or was it the day before … Larry (justdrivewillyou) mentioned that this is his favourite song by the 5th Dimension, so since Larry absolutely hated Good Morning Starshine when I played it a couple of days ago, I figured I owed him one!

This song was written by Tony Macaulay and performed by The 5th Dimension with instrumental backing from L.A. session musicians from the Wrecking Crew.  The song appeared on the band’s album Individually & Collectively, produced by Bones Howe and arranged by Bill Holman. The song was a top 10 hit for the group in the U.S., and their sixth and final platinum record.

SongFacts doesn’t even have an entry for this one, so what little background I found came from Wikipedia:

Tony Macaulay began work on the song while in Tokyo for the World Popular Song Festival of 1972. He met fellow attendees the Carpenters and was inspired to write a song emulating their hit “We’ve Only Just Begun” (Macaulay: “I liked the feel of that, the shuffle feel of it”). Macaulay recalls that due to changing time zones “I was awake all night and sleeping all day [in Tokyo]. So I just got up in the night and I wrote it”. Although he was having sleepless nights in Tokyo, it was the melody rather than the lyrics that he wrote there. The lyrics were completed after Macaulay’s return to London “in a taxi stuck in a traffic jam … in about an hour going from one side of London to another”.

Macaulay sent a demo of the song to the Carpenters. “They said they loved it and they’d do it. [Later] I got a phone call about 2 o’clock in the morning that woke me up (they hadn’t figured out the time change between here and America). They said ‘Oh, we can’t record it because it mentions sleeping pills and they are drugs and we don’t mention drugs.’ So I got up in the middle of the night and rewrote the last verse without the sleeping pills.” However, Macaulay was not happy with the change to the lyric, so when Bones Howe contacted him the next week, Macaulay pitched “(Last Night)…” for the 5th Dimension, who recorded it with the sleeping pill reference intact.

The lead vocals on the 5th Dimension’s recording are performed by Marilyn McCoo.

The song charted at #6 in Canada and #8 in the U.S., but did not chart much of anywhere else except Australia (#7).

(Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All

The 5th Dimension

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all, no, no
I laid, waked and watched until the morning light
Washed away the darkness of the lonely night

Last night I got to think maybe I should call you up
And just forget my foolish pride
I heard your number ringing
I were cold inside
Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all

I know it’s not my fault I did my best
God knows this heart of mine could use a rest

What more and more I find the dreams I left behind
Are somehow too real to replace

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all
The sleeping pill I took was just a waste of time
I couldn’t close my eyes ’cause you were on my mind

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all
Didn’t get to sleep, no I didn’t get to sleep at all

What more and more I find the dreams I left behind
Are somehow too real to replace

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all, no, no
The sleeping pill I took was just a waste of time
I couldn’t close my eyes ’cause you were on my mind

Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all
No I didn’t get to sleep, didn’t get to sleep at all

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Tony Macaulay

(Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

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22 thoughts on “♫ (Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All ♫”

  3. The Carpenters’ loss was the 5th Dimension’s gain, over a stupid sleeping pill? Yeah, sleeping pills are drugs, but in those days they weren’t worth rejecting a good so g over. But I preferred 5D over sissyPants anyway, so I’m happy they got the nod. (Apparently years later Richard got addicted to Quaaludes — I guess what comes around goes around.)

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      • I prefer to not think of the Carpenters doing any song, but that is personal.Their sugar-filled voices put syrup in my ears. But others liked them, so mostly I just ignore them. But that is all in the past. I would like to say time to look to the future, but I see only saccharine music there. And my blogger of music from all eras including today disappeared, though I only read him for the way he covered music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s anyway. But still he offered modern music, I just couldn’t get anything much out if it. I tried!

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        • Unlike you, I rather like some of the Carpenters’ music, though not all. Just a thought, but now that you’re blogging more regularly, you could start doing your own music posts to show us what you love.

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          • Did one last night, though the music was an addendum to the post. But specific daily music posts, I’m not ready for that yet. I did a week (plus) on the music of John Lennon just a short while ago, but I think you weren’t feeling well enough to read them. Two or three songs a day. Some people really enjoyed that.

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            • No no … I wouldn’t even suggest doing it daily, for I often struggle to come up with a daily tune. Maybe once a week or just whenever a tune is stuck in your head and you want to share it! Oh, I did see your Lennon posts and have saved them, but you’re right … I’ve not been feeling up to reading many blog posts by others and have missed a great deal, but … there’s only so much energy these days.

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              • And thus life goes. You take your service to others seriously, we all know that. But it can take too much time, and you miss letting others keep you informed, or just entertaining you. It might help your energy level to take more time for yourself, I cannot say. But sometimes you just have to do it…

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                • We’re all different, rg. I get satisfaction from routine, others do not. I do take time for myself, but I spend it reading, writing, or sometimes snoozing! I figure there’s little time left … I want to make the most of it.

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  5. Jill, great song. I don’t think I was the only boy who had a crush on Marilyn McCoo of The 5th Dimension. When we saw Jimmy Webb, he said he wrote “Up, up and away” for them because he also had a crush on her. Keith

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