In honor of the late, great Wicked Wilson Pickett, I ask this question in reference to his big hit, “In the Midnight Hour.”
Lyrics:
“I’m gonna wait 'til the midnight hour
That’s when my love comes tumbling down”
This phrase is also used in several other songs. What’s the origin of this phrase and what exactly does it mean?
Anybody?
I imagine in the context of the song it means “gushes forth” or “falls upon me”
oh and the earliest refernce I could find was to Jesse Belvin who wrote a song by that name in the 50s. Unfortunately he died in 1960 so cant ask him
A bit of speculation here, not about what it means, but about where it came from. If you listen to old delta blues, you’ll hear phrases and entire lines and verses attributed to one song writer that appear in songs by other composers. I’ve read that a lot of blues songs were not so much written as they were assembled from parts that were simply the common vocabulary of the blues. Some of these phrases are quite mysterious to modern ears, but had an accepted meaning in their time. Check out the lyrics of Robert Johnson for examples here. Although “love comes tumbling down” isn’t in there, you’ll see lots of phrases that it’s hard to discern the meaning of. Anyway, I believe that the phrase may come from the delta blues tradition, but searching out its origin is beyond my capabilities. More recent use of the phrase simply causes too many hits for a web search. Maybe this is a job for Cecil. He handled “pompitous of love” nicely.
Oops, I didn’t scroll down when I previewed. Good job, scm1001.
Walls come rumblin tumblin down too, you know.
I know, I’m a real good dancer
No need to look over my shoulder to see who I’m after
Cause and effect, man. You started it.
Good grief
I thought we were in CS.
nothing to see here, answer the OP, move along…