{"id":931129,"date":"2026-07-13T03:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/931129\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T03:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:05:18","slug":"the-allen-sisters-the-songwriters-behind-some-of-hall-oates-greatest-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/931129\/","title":{"rendered":"The Allen Sisters: The Songwriters Behind Some of Hall & Oates\u2019 Greatest Hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the 70s through the mid-80s, Daryl Hall and John Oates<\/a> produced a string of decade-defining hits like \u201cPrivate Eyes\u201d, \u201cManeater\u201d, and \u201cYou Make My Dreams\u201d. After the first couple of successful songs, it became clear that for Hall and Oates, combining pop, rock, and R&B was definitely their strong suit. Even Hall once described the duo as the \u201c80s Beatles\u201d and compared them to Lennon and McCartney in a Rolling Stone<\/a> interview.<\/p>\n

However, if you look at some of their early hits, you\u2019ll see that Hall and Oates weren\u2019t the only minds behind their artist project.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

In fact, for songs like \u201cManeater\u201d and \u201cPrivate Eyes\u201d, credit has to be given to Sara Allen, Hall\u2019s long-time girlfriend. Janna Allen, her sister, also collaborated on songs like \u201cKiss On My List\u201d and \u201cPrivate Eyes\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Billy Corgan, Hall described the sisters as being \u201cvery influential\u201d when it came to songwriting.<\/p>\n

\u201cKiss\u2019 and \u2018Private Eyes\u2019. That was Allen\u2019s sisters and me,\u201d Hall shared. \u201c\u2018Kiss On My List\u2019 was a song I wrote with Janna Allen. She was only 20 years old and she came up with it, with the chorus and then I fleshed out the verse and uh, that was a real collaboration\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201c\u2018Private Eyes\u2019, [Janna] brought Private Eyes to the table. She had written this kind of template for the song with a guy named Warren Pash, and they gave it to me and I altered it and changed it and then Sarah and I wrote the words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daryl Hall on Writing With Sara Allen<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Hall and Sara Allen were together for nearly 28 years. During that time, Allen was not only a co-writer on some of his biggest songs but also served as a muse for tracks like \u201cSara Smile\u201d. When asked whether there were challenges to having his partner as his collaborator, Hall told SongFacts<\/a>, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. Because she was really good at jumping into my thoughts and helping me to sort of coalesce them,\u201d he shared. \u201cThat\u2019s really what it was all about\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He then referenced songs like \u201cAugust Day\u201d and \u201cRoom To Breathe\u201d, where Allen was the sole lyric writer.<\/p>\n

He continued, saying, \u201cSo she did write lyrics on her own, too, but I would say for the most part, it was enabling me to organize my own thoughts, and of course the occasional idea, which made her a co-writer. That\u2019s really the way I mostly wrote with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by: Lynn Goldsmith\/Corbis\/VCG via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the 70s through the mid-80s, Daryl Hall and John Oates produced a string of decade-defining hits like…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":931130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,25412,975,4006,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-931129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-hall-oates","tag-music","tag-pop-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116910459886771677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}