‘Doris Day Sent a Lawyer to My House’: Eddie Money on ‘Baby Hold On’
200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs Vol. 2 Book Excerpt
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“Baby Hold On” was Eddie Money’s first big hit, reaching №11 in 1978. Written by Money and guitarist Jimmy Lyon, it appeared on Money’s self-titled 1977 debut album. “I’ll tell you the truth, when my record first came out, I was driving a ’62 Studebaker,” Money explained in Music Recall.
“And I only had AM radio. I didn’t have college radio — I didn’t have FM. So when I first came out on the radio, I really didn’t hear myself a lot. I never had a good radio.
“When I was finally on FM radio, ‘Baby Hold On’ was a big hit for me. And it was just a lot of fun to do the song. You know, I really felt good that God had blessed me and gave me a hit single on the radio, and it was really a lot of fun. It’s great to hear yourself on the radio.”
“I grew up with AM radio,” Money told The Well News. “This was long before there was album-oriented rock on FM, and I can remember repeatedly buying transistor radios at the TSS department store in Levittown.
“They only cost four dollars and what would happen is you would get one, then you’d break it, and you’d go out and get another one. But they were absolutely essential. And thanks to that radio, I grew up with beach music, the Drifters, Jay and the Americans, the Four Seasons.
“That’s why, having grown up with these people, being a singles writer was very important to me,” Money said. “I wrote ‘Baby Hold On’ because it reminded me of something Jay and the Americans would do.”
Money told The Vinyl District that he received an unexpected complaint about the song.
“When I wrote ‘Two Tickets to Paradise,’ they did not think it was commercial enough to get on to AM radio. So I turned around and wrote ‘Baby Hold On to Me.’ It was after I saw that show with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and they had that song ‘Que Sera, Sera’ in it. [Sings] ‘Que, sera, sera, whatever will be, will be / The future’s not ours to see, Baby hold on to me . . .’
“Actually, Doris Day sent a lawyer to my house and told me they wanted to sue me over that song. I hadn’t combed my hair in three days and I was in the bathroom going, ‘Who the hell is Doris Day? What the hell are you talking about?’ But yeah, Doris Day tried to sue me, saying that ‘Baby Hold On’ was actually ‘Que Sera, Sera.’ Naturally, I denied it but she was right.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of the new eBook 200 Greatest 70s Rock Songs Vol. 2: The Stories Behind the Music of the 1970s, one of the 200 Greatest Rock Songs series.
