I Know a Place

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"I Know a Place"
"I Know a Place" cover
Single by Petula Clark
from the album 'I Know a Place'
B-side(s) "Jack and John"
Released March 1965
Recorded 1965
Label Warner Bros.(US)/Vogue (UK)
Writer(s) Tony Hatch
Producer(s) Tony Hatch
Chart positions

1 (Canada, South Africa), 3 (US, Rhodesia), 7 (Australia), 8 (France), 10 (India), 17 (UK), 18 (Belgium)

Petula Clark singles chronology
"Downtown "I Know a Place" "You'd Better Come Home"

"I Know a Place" was a 1965 single by Petula Clark, the singer's second US Top Ten hit.

Written by Tony Hatch, who also composed Clark's chart-topping "Downtown" and many of her subsequent recordings, it was released in March 1965 and reached Number 3 on the U.S. singles charts in May, as well as becoming an international success. (The French version, "Viens Avec Moi," charted in France and Belgium.) Having much more of a "rock and roll" beat than its predecessor, it emulated the the theme of "Downtown" by inviting the listener to "just get away where your worries won't find you", a place "where the music is fine and the lights are always low."

There are good reasons to believe that this song is about listening to the Beatles at the Cavern Club, the Liverpool venue where they played most frequently just before becoming superstars. For one thing, the song came out during the height of Beatlemania. The lyrics speak of going downstairs from street level and contain the exact words “a cellar full of noise” which coincide exactly with the words chosen as the title of a book about the Beatles by their manager, Brian Epstein. His use of those words certainly refers to the Cavern Club, where he first heard them play. Almost as if to remove any doubt that those words might have been coincidental, the lyrics also state that “the beat is the greatest there.”