"Woke Up This Morning" is a song by Alabama 3 from their 1997 album Exile on Coldharbour Lane. The song was used as the opening theme music for the HBO drama series The Sopranos which used the "Chosen One Mix".
Alabama 3 frontman Rob Spragg wrote the song after hearing about the 1996 murder case of Sara Thornton, who stabbed her husband after 20 years of abuse, mistreatment and neglect. The song is co-written with Jake Black.
A number of influential artists are namechecked:
- Charles Mingus and the album Pithecanthropus Erectus
- J. R. Monterose
- Jackie McLean
- Eric Dolphy
- John Coltrane
- Duke Ellington
- Lester Young
- Billie Holiday
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Jimmy Reed
- Muddy Waters
- Howlin' Wolf
Read more about Woke Up This Morning: Musical Structure, Use in Other Media
Famous quotes containing the words woke up, woke and/or morning:
“You danced with me never saying a word.
Instead the serpent spoke as you held me close.
The serpent, that mocker, woke up and pressed against me
like a great god and we bent together
like two lonely swans.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Midway along the journey of our life [Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita] I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.”
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
“My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)