(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please refer to the "Poor Little Fool" post.)
Ray Charles - "Hit the Road Jack"
Hit Number 1: October 9, 1961
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
So in case you all didn't know, I'm a huge baseball fan. Sometimes when I'm watching a game and the visiting pitcher is getting rocked, they will obviously pull him from the game. Well, sometimes as he's walking back to the dugout, they'll have this song blaring telling him to "hit the road jack, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more!" That song is today's entry, and it was done by none other than Ray Charles. Which might seem a little bit surprising. Here we have a guy who sang a blissful melody about his home state of Georgia in "Georgia On My Mind", and now he returns to the top of the charts again with a pretty vicious song about a girl basically kicking this guy out of her house and telling him to never come back.
"Hit the Road Jack" is a song that is divided up into "roles". Charles recorded the song with Margie Hendrix, the lead vocalist for a group called the Raelettes. She plays the role of the woman who is kicking this man to the curb, and the man is obviously being played by Charles. The song never specifies what the man did to be thrown out like that, but all the woman says is that he will never have any money and that he's "just no good". You really have to feel for the guy in the song, from what we know as listeners, cause the only thing he apparently did wrong is that he is in bad shape money wise, and instead of being a true lover and being supportive of him, this woman just kicks him out and tells him to never come back. He commands her to just give him another chance, and one day he will be back on his feet again. She says "Don't care if you do, cause it's understood. You ain't go no money, you're just no good". Yeah, bitch alert!
Obviously, Hendrix isn't an actual jerk in real life, it was just a sort of acting job on the song. And both her and Charles play their parts well. Hendrix does well in acting like she is so sick of this guy, and is hell bent on getting him out of her house, and Charles sounds like a real guy who is in disbelief on what he's being told, and towards the end, sounds like he could even be on the verge of tears. These sorts of "roles" that they're playing turn "Hit the Road Jack" into a very fun song, and it's a lot of fun to listen to! And I might add, it's ties to baseball certainly help it too.
GRADE: 9/10
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