About The Song
With a songwriting capability that propelled him for nearly 40 years, Harlan Howard was the dean of Nashville songwriters (notice I didn’t say “country” songwriters, because Howard wrote several pop tunes and even a couple of rhythm & blues hits as well). Born in Detroit, Michigan, Harlan began writing songs as a boy by listening to the Grand Ole Opry and creating new lyrics to the melodies coming over the radio. He got his big break in 1958 when Charlie Walker’s recording of “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down” became his first top ten hit as a composer. This was followed quickly by the super-smash “Heartaches By The Number,” a #2 country hit for Ray Price and a #1 pop hit for Guy Mitchell. These two songs launched a long line of famous compositions that stretched into the next five decades. Along the way, many of Harlan’s tunes would be re-discovered by the younger artists and new versions would make their way up the national playlists.
Even while his old classics were being revived, Howard continued to write new material as well. Songs such as “Somebody Should Leave” by Reba McEntire, “Why Not Me” by the Judds, and “Somewhere Tonight” by Highway 101 all made their mark on the modern-day charts. Conway Twitty was actually the first to re-introduce Howard’s music by recording “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love (The Moon Song)” during the summer of 1984.
The two men had been friends from the mid-1960s and Harlan had been extremely helpful in getting Conway established and accepted in Nashville when he decided to switch his career’s focus from rock music to country. Twitty had demoed some country songs at a studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and it was Howard who brought the tape to the attention of Decca’s A & R chief Owen Bradley, who liked what he heard and immediately signed Conway to the label. In the ensuing years, Twitty recorded many of Harlan’s compositions for albums, but until ‘84, he had issued just one as a single: 1966’s “Look Into My Teardrops.” Only Conway’s second country release, this record stalled at #36 on the Billboard chart.
Howard wrote “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love (The Moon Song)” while fishing at night on Center Hill Lake, a man-made reservoir near Nashville. He found it very easy to write songs while fishing, because, as he put it: “Fishing is kind of an automatic thing. You don’t have to think about it, so your mind kind of drifts away.” On this particular night, Harlan started contemplating the moon and how incredible it was when the astronauts landed up there, those thoughts then transitioning to the old Tin Pan Alley love songs, which seemed to give the moon so much power and influence in the emotion of love. He got to playing around with those ideas in his head, found a writing pad and pen which he always kept handy for times like this, and fashioned a large part of “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love” right there in the boat. He continued to doodle with it after he got home, but he didn’t take the song too seriously until he came up with a key line toward the end when the moon says, “Don’t ask me, there’s somebody above me that you need to talk to.” The slightly religious connotations inflected into the piece with that addition caused Harlan to step back and say, “Wow, this song just might have something.”
Howard had a “Don Williams fixation” at the time, and envisioned Don to be the one who would cut “I Don’t Know A Thing About Love (The Moon Song),” but Williams never recorded it. Instead, it ended up in the capable hands of Conway Twitty and reached the #1 plateau of Billboard’s country singles chart on October 20, 1984, marking Twitty’s 37th chart-topper. He went on to notch three more over the next two years, finishing his career with a record-setting forty, at the time the most #1 hits by any artist in all fields of music. Conway’s achievement stood for twenty years until George Strait surpassed it on September 23, 2006 when “Give It Away” became his 41st number one country hit. Strait currently maintains the record with forty-four (the accurate, authentic and official Billboard count).
Video
Lyric
I talked to the man in the moon
I said, “Sir, is she coming back soon?”
He smiled, and he stated, “Son, I’m overrated
I’ve had too much credit in those old love tunes”
I don’t know a thing about love
I just kinda hang here above
I just watch from the sky, will love grow, will it die?
I don’t know a thing about love
Then I ask him, “Where is she tonight?
You must see all things with your light”
He said, “Son, I could tell you things that might kill you
But I don’t get involved in what’s wrong or right”
I don’t know a thing about love
I just kinda hang here above
I just watch from the sky, will love grow, will it die?
I don’t know a thing about love
He said, “I can move oceans when I take the notion
Or make mountains tremble and rivers run dry
But in all matters human, remember there’s someone
In charge of those things way above you and I”
I don’t know a thing about love
I just kinda hang here above
I just watch from the sky, will love grow, will it die?
I don’t know a thing about love
I don’t know a thing about love