"he was never miserable... he was always happy. shy, sweet, humble, never ever miserable."

"don't know what you've read but it 's wrong- he was happiest as a kid and teenager and had a great life, too short, but great. He was my father, my name's tracy nelson, his oldest, and so i should know. and sarah, yes, he kicks elvis' ass. :-)"

I found that after looking at List-a-Beefy's spotlight on the #2 hits of 1957. List-a-Beefy is counting down the top 100 songs in the history of the top 100 that reached #2. "A Teenager's Romance" did not make the list. The only 1957 song that did is "Bye Bye Love," by The Everly Brothers, which "establishes the forlorn bellow of the slighted teen that would grow to be the most popular of voices in the coming five years, yet it did so with rhythm and poise." 1957 was apparently a big year for teenagers. There was also — reaching #2 — "Young Love," by Sonny James and "Teen-Age Crush" by Tommy Sands.

"Xylophone-powered pop is still a rarity and this Como track is almost entirely lost to history, even though it is a great hellzapoppin romp through falling in love."

"Hot Diggity (Dog Ziggity Boom)" is #99 on the countdown of 100 greatest songs that reached #2 — but not #1! — on the Billboard list over the years going back to 1955. This is List-a-Beefy's new project. (Click on my List-a-Beefy tag to see past posts linking to the previous Top 100, which was limited to recordings that reached #1.)

"Hot Diggity" was #2 for 5 weeks in April and May of 1956. Rightfully blocking its ascent was "Heartbreak Hotel" (my favorite Elvis Presley record). I say that now. But at the time, when I was 5 years old, I adored Perry Como (and I didn't quite get Elvis Presley). I watched his television show, and I loved his very calm, gentle way of singing and speaking. This is how it looked in 1956. (Yikes! Be careful watching that. It's really wholesome.)

"What songs other than 'Leader of the Pack' have the sound of a motor revving?"

A question I asked Google this morning a propos of List-a-Beefy's "I don't get Leader of the Pack. I just don't." Not get "Leader of the Pack"? This immense aficionado of pop songs doesn't get "Leader of the Pack"? I don't get it. Maybe it's the motor revving:

According to legend, to add the authentic sound of a motorcycle engine, one was driven through the lobby of the hotel and up to the floor of the recording studio. No one was arrested, but a ticket was issued. However, in an interview four decades later, Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss said the motorcycle sound was taken from an effects record. The Zombies' drummer Hugh Grundy recalls revving up a motorcycle backstage when the Shangri-Las performed on a U.S. tour.

By the way, if you combine their hairstyles into one hairstyle, you get Amy Winehouse.

Anyway, I'm looking for more songs with motor revving. Google didn't really help. Poking around in YouTube for car songs was a better method. I tried "Dead Man's Curve" and "Little Cobra," then got successful with "409."

Help me generate the definitive list of songs with motor revving sound effects. And express whatever opinions you have about sound effects in songs. It's a tradition that presumably predates recorded music... and perhaps even musical instruments. A classic early example — the not that early — is "The Typewriter":



I'd like to see a video synthesizing "Leader of the Pack" and "The Typewriter." I'd call it "Leader of the Nerds." You have the girl singing about falling in love, the parents breaking up the relationship, and the kiss before dying routine, but the boyfriend is a nerd, not a Brandoesque rebel, and the sound effect is a typewriter.

"A song so titanic that it basically changed the entire trajectory of pop music history."

"The opening is pure bliss and glee and stands as a complete change from the creeping blahness of the early 60s. Instead, we get a charge of guitars and a thump of drums and simple profession..."

List-a-Beefy finally reaches the end of the line, #1 on the list of 100 greatest #1 songs in the history of the Billboard top 100 list.

"There is a way in which 9-year old girls will always decide the pop charts."

"'What do you mean [Bob Dylan/Nirvana/Led Zeppelin/Modest Mouse] never had a #1 but [Bobby Vinton/Barry Manilow/Mariah Carey/Britney Spears] had multiple ones?'  Yeah, yeah.  The radio is important hipster dudes and kids who cannot afford to stock their whole iPod yet have to hear their favorite songs somehow.  Yup.  Whitney Houston's 80s #1s are the definers of this genre.  And How Will I Know is the best of those songs.  Upbeat and dancey, How Will I Know, which asks essentially the same questions and the Shoop Shoop Song, doesn't really care much about the first blush of love or the deeper meaning of woman's inability to read male signals.  It care about Whitney's voice, which is sweet and flowing like Karo syrup across flapjacks, and that synth line.  And the little girls sang along and rightly so."

List-a-Beefy reaches #143 in the top 200 #1 songs since 1955 and analyzes it in the pop style that only List-a-Beefy can muster. Mmmm... flapjacks.

Here are the lyrics to "How Will I Know?" and here's "Shoop Shoop Song" in case you want to compare questions asked and possibly answered.

How will I know?...
Does he love me? I want to know...
Don't trust your feelings...
It's in his kiss...

"Those snaps are all you need to know."

"The working man's plight is boiled down to the struggle for money.  Ford uses his gospel training to make this fight seem almost as fight that Jesus himself would join to defeat the forces that make him 'another day older and deeper in debt'.  But because he lacks hope of escape, Ford's message here seems to subscribe to the 'take this job and shove it' school of country music as opposed to the aspirational.  The snaps, though; that's the heartbeat of America there."

#180 on List-a-Beefy's top 200 #1 songs of the last 55 years.