| Darling Be Home Soon | |
| Cover: | Darlin' Be Home Soon picture sleeve.jpg |
| Caption: | U.S. picture sleeve |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | the Lovin' Spoonful |
| Album: | You're a Big Boy Now soundtrack |
| B-Side: | Darlin' Companion |
| Released: | [1] |
| Genre: | Folk rock |
| Length: | 3:32 |
| Label: | Kama Sutra |
| Producer: | Erik Jacobsen |
| Prev Title: | Nashville Cats |
| Prev Year: | 1966 |
| Next Title: | Six O'Clock |
| Next Year: | 1967 |
"Darling Be Home Soon" is a song written by John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful for the soundtrack of the 1966 Francis Ford Coppola film You're a Big Boy Now. It appeared on the Lovin' Spoonful's 1967 soundtrack album You're a Big Boy Now.Sebastian performed his composition at Woodstock; it was the fourth song out of the five he performed at the 1969 music festival in White Lake, New York.
Coppola commissioned Sebastian to write music for the film, and for one scene wanted a song with a similar mood and tempo to "Monday, Monday" by the Mamas and the Papas. Sebastian said that he wrote the song as "pleas for a partner to spend a few minutes talking before leaving.... [but] you never knew if the other person was actually there listening or was already gone". Coppola approved the song, and it was recorded by the band but with session musician Billy LaVorgna rather than Joe Butler on drums. The arrangement was by Artie Schroeck. After the recording was completed and the musicians left, the producer, Erik Jacobsen, discovered that an engineer had mistakenly erased Sebastian's vocal track, so he had to re-record it the next day. Sebastian said: "What you hear on the record is me, a half hour after learning that my original vocal track had been erased. You can even hear my voice quiver a little at the end. That was me thinking about the vocal we lost and wanting to kill someone." It has been described as "...one of the most heartfelt songs about being away from a loved one, written from the point of view of a musician on the road writing a letter."[2]
Billboard described the song as a "medium-paced rock ballad given that 'extra special' Lovin' Spoonful treatment" and should be a "smash" on the Billboard Hot 100.[3] The critic Richard Goldstein negatively reviewed the single for The Village Voice.[4] Goldstein had been an early champion of the band, but he considered "Darling Be Home Soon" to be "the first disappointing Lovin' single I can remember", disparaging it as a tribute to Bob Dylan which "lacks the master's raunchiness".
According to John Sebastian:
The Lovin' Spoonful
Additional musicians
| +Weekly chart performance | Chart (1967) | Peak position |
|---|---|---|
| Canada Top Singles (RPM)[5] | 8 | |
| Netherlands (Veronica Top 40)[6] | 15 | |
| Netherlands (Hilversum 3 Top 30)[7] | 16 | |
| U.K. (Disc and Music Echo)[8] | 34 | |
| U.K. (Melody Maker)[9] | 45 | |
| U.K. (Record Retailer)[10] | 44 | |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100[11] | 15 | |
| U.S. Cash Box Top 100[12] | 15 | |
| U.S. Record World 100 Top Pops[13] | 11 |