About The Song
“Murder in My Heart for the Judge” didn’t start as a Three Dog Night song at all—it comes out of San Francisco’s late-’60s psychedelic rock world. The tune was written by Moby Grape’s drummer Don Stevenson with guitarist Jerry Miller, and it first appeared on Moby Grape’s 1968 double set Wow/Grape Jam, released April 3, 1968. On that record, it sits early in the sequence on the Wow side, framed by the band’s mix of blues drive and West Coast experimentation.
That Moby Grape album is often remembered for its “more produced” approach compared with their rawer debut—strings and horns showing up elsewhere on Wow—but “Murder in My Heart for the Judge” stays rooted in blues rock. The title alone hints at the era’s fascination with trouble, authority, and blurred lines, and writers have repeatedly described it as a tough, thumping groove piece rather than a delicate psychedelic sketch. Wikipedia’s album notes also point out something telling: Stevenson’s song kept getting picked up by other artists, including Lee Michaels, Three Dog Night, and later Chrissie Hynde, which is usually a sign that musicians hear a strong live-performance engine inside the writing. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
By the time Three Dog Night recorded it, they were in a different lane—Los Angeles hitmakers with a reputation for selecting outside material and turning it into radio-friendly rock. Their version landed on the 1971 album Harmony, released September 30, 1971, produced by Richard Podolor and cut at American Recording Co. in Studio City. On the official track list, “Murder in My Heart for the Judge” appears on side two, tucked among songs that ranged from Joni Mitchell to Paul Williams—an album built like a curated playlist before that term existed.
What makes the cover choice interesting is what Harmony was “supposed” to be. The album is best known for its big singles (“An Old Fashioned Love Song,” “Never Been to Spain,” and later “The Family of Man”), and it reached the Top 10 on Billboard’s U.S. album chart. Against that pop success, a gritty Moby Grape cut looks almost like a reminder: beneath the polished three-lead-singer format, Three Dog Night still wanted room for a heavier bar-band pulse.
Instead of rewriting the song into something safer, Three Dog Night largely let the premise stand—an intense, almost confession-like stance aimed at a judge, which fits blues tradition more than pop storytelling. Their edge comes from precision: the band’s tight rhythm section and the way the vocals lock in without turning it into a dramatic showpiece. Fan discussions and session documentation around the era commonly identify Cory Wells as the lead voice on the track, which suits him—his tone was often the one Three Dog Night used when they wanted grit rather than sheen.
There’s also a subtle “industry” thread running through the song’s life. Moby Grape were on Columbia at a time when labels were aggressively trying to market San Francisco bands, sometimes awkwardly; Three Dog Night were on Dunhill, where the business model leaned hard on strong material, clean production, and heavy touring. When a song written inside a chaotic psychedelic scene ends up as an album cut for a chart-dominant touring machine, it shows how quickly good riffs and good choruses moved between worlds in that period.
So the Three Dog Night recording matters less as a “hit” and more as a snapshot of their taste. It connects their early-’70s pop-rock dominance back to a 1968 Bay Area band that mixed blues, psyche, and volatility—and it preserves Stevenson and Miller’s writing in a cleaner, more widely distributed setting. If you’re tracing how late-’60s rock ideas filtered into mainstream ’70s radio albums, “Murder in My Heart for the Judge” is a very direct paper trail.
Video
Lyric
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Well that bad old judge wouldn’t budge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Walked into the courtroom,
Know this was gonna bring me down
And that big fat bald representative of justice
And the prosecutor began to frown
I’m sorry, sorry for the things I’ve done
I sure want to change my evil ways
And the judge looked down at me and said
For getting smart boy, gonna give you
More than a lifetime
Murder in my heart for the judge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Well that mean old judge wouldn’t budge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Now he said if you look like a man
I will be your friend
Just give me your money
And cut off your hair boy
I don’t want to see your ugly face again.
Murder in my heart for the judge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Well that mean old judge he would not budge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
I’ve got murder in my heart for the judge
Murder, murder in my heart
Murder, murder don’t take me away
Murder, murder
Murder, in my heart
Murder, oh oh oh
Murder