"Gimme Some Lovin'" is a song written by Steve Winwood, Spencer Davis and Muff Winwood,[citation needed] although solely credited to Steve Winwood on the UK single label, and performed by the Spencer Davis Group. Live recordings are included on the Traffic albums Welcome to the Canteen and The Last Great Traffic Jam.
As recalled by bassist Muff Winwood, the song was conceived, arranged, and rehearsed in just half an hour. At the time, the group was under pressure to come up with another hit, following the relatively poor showing of their previous single, "When I Come Home", written by Jamaican-born musician Jackie Edwards, who had also penned their earlier number one hits, "Keep On Running" and "Somebody Help Me". The band auditioned and rejected other songs Edwards offered them, and they let the matter slide until, with a recording session looming, manager Chris Blackwell took them to London, put them in a rehearsal room at the Marquee Club, and ordered them to come up with a new song.
"We started to mess about with riffs, and it must have been eleven o'clock in the morning. We hadn't been there half an hour, and this idea just came. We thought, bloody hell, this sounds really good. We fitted it all together and by about twelve o'clock, we had the whole song. Steve had been singing 'Gimme, gimme some loving' - you know, just yelling anything, so we decided to call it that. We worked out the middle eight and then went to a cafe that's still on the corner down the road. Blackwell came to see how we were going on, to find our equipment set up and us not there, and he storms into the cafe, absolutely screaming, 'How can you do this?' he screams. Don't worry, we said. We were all really confident. We took him back, and said, how's this for half an hour's work, and we knocked off 'Gimme Some Lovin' and he couldn't believe it. We cut it the following day and everything about it worked. That very night we played a North London club and tried it out on the public. It went down a storm. We knew we had another No. 1."
Lyrics
Well my temperature's rising and my feet are on the floor Twenty people knocking 'cos they're wanting some more Let me in baby, I don't know what you've got But you'd better take it easy, this place is hot [Chorus:] I'm so glad we made it, I'm so glad we made it You've gotta gimme some lovin' (gimme some lovin') Gimme some lovin' (gimme gimme some lovin'), gimme some lovin' every day Well I feel so good, everything is sounding hot Better take it easy 'cos the place is on fire Been a hard day and I don't know what to do Wait a minute baby, it could happen to you [Chorus:] I'm so glad we made it, I'm so glad we made it You've gotta gimme some lovin' (gimme some lovin') Gimme some lovin' (gimme gimme some lovin'), gimme some lovin' every day Well I feel so good, everybody's getting high Better take it easy 'cos the place is on fire Been a hard day and nothing went too good Now I'm gonna relax honey, everybody should [Chorus:] I'm so glad we made it, I'm so glad we made it You've gotta gimme some lovin' (gimme some lovin') Gimme some lovin' (gimme gimme some lovin'), gimme some lovin' every day Gimme some lovin' (gimme some lovin') I need it (Gimme gimme some lovin') I need it Ooh, gimme some lovin', every day, every day