Written by their keyboard man David Paich with lead vocals by Bobby Kimball, Toto was a group made up of six very talented session musicians who had backed up artists like Boz Scaggs, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand and Jackson Browne. The song was released as the band's debut single, and was featured on their debut 1978 eponymous album.
"Hold the line" is an expression meaning to maintain your existing position, which in this case is the singer telling a girl to be patient and stay with their relationship.
The saying also has a more literal meaning, however, which is how David Paich came up with the title. "Hold the line" is what you tell someone on the phone if you want to put them on hold while you're taking another call. This is typical in workplaces, but in the days before cell phones, some households (especially ones with teenagers) also had multiple phone lines coming in and could put callers on hold. Paich lived in one such household.
“It started out with the piano riff that is in the intro. I started playing this riff and I just couldn’t stop playing it. I played it for days, and I started singing, “Hold the line, love isn’t always on time.” It was a phrase that just came into my head. . . . it was a blessing. (The words) came to me in the night, and then I went to the verse. I wrote it in 2 hours. Sometimes songs come quickly like that, and sometimes I spend 2 years trying to finish a song,”
"When I was in high school, all of a sudden the phone started ringing off the hook, and I had a situation where I was at the dinner table and I had three girls all call at the same time, so all the lights were flashing. I was kind of juggling girlfriends, and that's how that came about."
Most of this song's lyrics start with the words, "It's not." According to David Paich, once he came up with the title, he started writing lines about what love isn't: "It's not in the way you say you're mine," "It's not in the way you say you care." Through process of elimination, he's trying to figure out what love is.
This song used a single-note piano percussion that was a popular technique at the time - Jefferson Starship also used it on "Jane." Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro explained: "'Hold the Line' was a perfect example of what people will describe as your heavy metal chord guitar licks and your great triple A-notes on the piano. It was taking the Sly Stone hot-fun-in-the-summertime groove and meshing it with a harder rock caveman approach, all mishmashed together with a boy from New Orleans singing… and it really crossed over a lot of lines.”
By 2008, guitarist Steve Lukather was the only original member still with the band when he decided to call it quits. He made this statement on the band's official website: "Honestly I have just had enough. This is NOT a break. It is over. I really can't go out and play 'Hold the Line' with a straight face anymore. I was 19 when we cut the record. I am 50 now."
A fellow user wrote a nice article about Steve here: https://musicfor.us/2020/04/21/steve-lukather/
Written by their keyboard man David Paich with lead vocals by Bobby Kimball, Toto was a group made up of six very talented session musicians who had backed up artists like Boz Scaggs, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand and Jackson Browne. The song was released as the band's debut single, and was featured on their debut 1978 eponymous album.
"Hold the line" is an expression meaning to maintain your existing position, which in this case is the singer telling a girl to be patient and stay with their relationship.
The saying also has a more literal meaning, however, which is how David Paich came up with the title. "Hold the line" is what you tell someone on the phone if you want to put them on hold while you're taking another call. This is typical in workplaces, but in the days before cell phones, some households (especially ones with teenagers) also had multiple phone lines coming in and could put callers on hold. Paich lived in one such household.
“It started out with the piano riff that is in the intro. I started playing this riff and I just couldn’t stop playing it. I played it for days, and I started singing, “Hold the line, love isn’t always on time.” It was a phrase that just came into my head. . . . it was a blessing. (The words) came to me in the night, and then I went to the verse. I wrote it in 2 hours. Sometimes songs come quickly like that, and sometimes I spend 2 years trying to finish a song,”
"When I was in high school, all of a sudden the phone started ringing off the hook, and I had a situation where I was at the dinner table and I had three girls all call at the same time, so all the lights were flashing. I was kind of juggling girlfriends, and that's how that came about."
Most of this song's lyrics start with the words, "It's not." According to David Paich, once he came up with the title, he started writing lines about what love isn't: "It's not in the way you say you're mine," "It's not in the way you say you care." Through process of elimination, he's trying to figure out what love is.
This song used a single-note piano percussion that was a popular technique at the time - Jefferson Starship also used it on "Jane." Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro explained: "'Hold the Line' was a perfect example of what people will describe as your heavy metal chord guitar licks and your great triple A-notes on the piano. It was taking the Sly Stone hot-fun-in-the-summertime groove and meshing it with a harder rock caveman approach, all mishmashed together with a boy from New Orleans singing… and it really crossed over a lot of lines.”
By 2008, guitarist Steve Lukather was the only original member still with the band when he decided to call it quits. He made this statement on the band's official website: "Honestly I have just had enough. This is NOT a break. It is over. I really can't go out and play 'Hold the Line' with a straight face anymore. I was 19 when we cut the record. I am 50 now."
A fellow user wrote a nice article about Steve here: https://musicfor.us/2020/04/21/steve-lukather/
(post is archived)