Californian band Toto has released great songs throughout their career and some of these songs feature women’s names in the title. “Rosanna”, “Goodbye Elenore”, “Holyanna” and “Pamela” are some examples. David Paich, Toto’s keyboardist and composer, gave an interview to the Songfacts website in 2015 and explained why girls’ names are given to some of the group’s songs.
According to David, it all started because of an appearance that his father, Marty Paich, made on an album by the legendary Ray Charles.
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“Let me tell you a story. My father [Marty Paich] he arranged an album for Ray Charles many years ago, and he had girls’ names on that album. I remember picking up the record and saying, ‘Look, these are all girls’ names.’ Each song was named after a girl. That’s when I started doing it, I was one of the first to say, ‘OK, my dad did that on this album here,'” said the keyboardist.
The album mentioned by David is “Dedicated to You”, which was released in 1961 and features the following tracks: “Hard Hearted Hannah”, “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)”, “Margie”, “Ruby”, “Rosetta” , “Stella by Starlight”, “Cherry”, “Josephine”, “Candy”, “Marie”, “Diane” and “Sweet Georgia Brown”.
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Davi also explained the origin of the titles of two Toto songs that were inspired by girls.
“‘Rosanna’ was about a high school sweetheart, one of my first loves, but I only put another Rosanna’s name in there because she was dating Steve Porcaro, my best friend, at the time. He had just met her, he was wanting to title a song after her, and that fit that song perfectly. So, it’s named after her, but it’s actually about another high school sweetheart, and that’s how songs go sometimes.
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“About ‘Holyanna,’ my sister and all her friends went to Catholic girls’ schools, so this is a Catholic girls’ school song. They all used to flirt with me, so this is an amalgamation of some of my sister’s friends that I turned into a girl, ‘Holyanna'”, added the musician who supposedly melted the hearts of his sister’s friends.
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