SONGFACTS Originally "
Come Softly," the title of this song was changed because Dolphin (later Dolton) Records owner
Bob Reisdorff feared that AM radio DJs would think it to be too suggestive. He was being extra-cautious, Dolphin Records was formed by the Seattle DJ for the sole purpose of distributing Fleetwoods records.
This song started when
Fleetwoods members
Gary Troxel and
Gretchen Christopher were waiting for a lift home from high school by her mother. Troxel started humming "Dum dum, domby doo wha..." and Gretchen noticed that it was the same chord progression that she used in a song that she had just finished writing, "Come Softly." She asked him to slow his tempo, then sang her song atop Troxel's humming. They took it to Gretchen's singing partner
Barbara Ellis, who liked it, and the trio formed Two Girls and a Guy.
Two Girls and a Guy performed this live twice - at a senior class assembly and at a post-football game dance. Classmates wanted copies of the song so they could learn it. It took six months for the trio to record it. Ultimately, they sang it a capella, then instrumentation was overdubbed (a reversal of the usual production technique of overdubbing vocal atop an instrumental bed).
There are no drums in the recording -- the only percussion was that of
Troxel shaking his car keys in his closed hands. Originally Troxel's part didn't have any lyrics -- they were written in the studio.
Bob Reisdorff suggested that the trio change their name to a more "commercial" one. Since all three of the teenagers had the same telephone exchange -- FLeetwood -- they accepted Reisdorff's idea of calling themselves the
Fleetwoods.