Lyrics to
Chinatown

This version of Chinatown was released by The Doobie Brothers in 1977.

Our The Doobie Brothers Songs profile has Chinatown lyrics from 1977 and most if not all of the lyrics by The Doobie Brothers that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Doobie Brothers or about the 1970s in general.

You can see from the top of the hill
Tangled streets and the mystery there
Painted lanterns hang from balconies
People running everywhere
Chinatown, with all your dark mystery
Chinatown, Chinatown
Your spell is capturing me

Lovely ladies with almond eyes
Dressed in silk and laces
Twilight falls and the shadows move
Silently in secret places

Chinatown, with all your dark mystery
Chinatown, Chinatown
Your spell is capturing me

You’ve got me under your spell
You’ve got me under your spell
You’ve got me under your spell
You’ve got me under your spell
Ah, ah
Ah, ah

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The Doobie Brothers has released many songs over the years besides Chinatown. The Doobie Brothers released songs from 1971 to 2000 spanning across albums like The Doobie Brothers, Toulouse Street, The Captain And Me, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, Stampede, Takin' It To The Streets, Livin' On The Fault Line, Minute By Minute, One Step Closer, Cycles, Brotherhood, and Sibling Rivalry. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Doobie Brothers.

If you're a fan of lyrics from 1970s songs looking for more songs from 1977 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and Chinatown by The Doobie Brothers

The lyrics for Chinatown are defined as the words making up the song released by The Doobie Brothers in 1977. It also includes the verses and words used by the background chorus in the song. Like many hit songs, the lyrics to Chinatown have different meanings to different people. While it is clear in some of the lyrics what the artist is trying to really say, only The Doobie Brothers and those working with them know all of the meanings behind all of the lyrics to their songs.

Some folks are interested in word and phrase etymology. It is easy to understand the lyrics to Chinatown by The Doobie Brothers if you think through it. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Chinatown" means the words set to the music of Chinatown, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Doobie Brothers. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Chinatown and the lyrics to Chinatown are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Doobie Brothers who came here looking just for the lyrics to Chinatown, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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