(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 CLICK HERE)
Ray Stevens - "The Streak"
Hit Number 1: May 18, 1974
Stay at Number 1: 3 Weeks
One of the strangest crazes to go around, likely in the history of humankind, was streaking. It was a popular thing for people to strip naked and run around in public spaces, but there was one notable event involving streaking that everyone remembers. Robert Opel, a relatively unknown photographer at the time, streaked on stage behind host David Niven at the 46th Academy Awards. After this, Opel became a famous figure before he was murdered in 1979 during a robbery. His own act of craziness, though, was one of those moments people often remember when talking about the random, brief streaking phase. But streaking found its way into pop music too, and a song about streaking became one of 1974's biggest hits.
And who other than Ray Stevens would be responsible for that? He already appeared in here once with the surprisingly serious "Everything Is Beautiful", but Stevens, an obvious novelty artist, had to think that this was a golden opportunity for him. After all, he already found himself making some hits with novelty music, with a couple of those being top ten songs to boot. He first got the idea to write a song about streaking when he was reading an article on an airplane flight. The magazine he was reading had a brief article about streaking, and he instantly knew he had to write a song about it. It actually took him a bit to complete the song. He started making some notes when he first got the idea, and continued to work on it after his flight was over, but then he somewhat abandoned it. It wasn't until Stevens said he started seeing cases of streaking all over the news that he finally began to finish his song. He said "Everywhere you turned, people were talking about streakers." His finished product was simply titled "The Streak", and it was written and produced entirely by Stevens himself.
Believe it or not, novelty music like "The Streak" isn't very easy to review, even with something that's so outrageous like "The Streak". The song is obviously about an unnamed dude who runs around town naked, but there's a running theme for the song. A news reporter asks the same guy, three times, if he "saw what happened," and what everyone was getting so disturbed about. Stevens talks in a typical southern accent saying "Yeah I did," followed by an explanation on what happened, and what the streaker was up to this time. The most identifiable part (besides the cheesy slide whistle) is the fact the southerner's wife, Ethel, always manages to get a glimpse of this streaker before the southerner can tell her not to look. At the end, Ethel actually streaks with the streaker, much to the dismay of the southerner. You've also got an obvious laugh track on the song as well as other little dinky sound effects. It's about as clear-cut as a novelty song gets.
Obviously, "The Streak" is a really dumb song, and there's nothing all that great about it. But this is where novelty music is hard to critique; the whole point of these songs is to be funny, not good. It would be very easy for me to slam "The Streak" and slap a 1 at the end of this review, but that's not how I operate. "My Ding-a-Ling" was a truly terrible song, and one that's just downright uncomfortable to get through. "The Streak", though, is pretty light-hearted. And I'll be damned, it's pretty funny. The southerner's voice with his "Yeah, I did" right before his explanations are just hilarious, as well as his horror at the end watching Ethel streak with this guy he keeps ranting about. It's not that clever on the part of Stevens, clearly, but he just took advantage of a strange phenomenon that was going on, and he got himself a #1 hit with it. You can't look at these songs just like other songs. Sure, "The Streak" really isn't that great of a song, but it's funny, so it achieves its main goal. It's a corny little song that can always manage to bring a smile to someone's face, I'd imagine.
Stevens is still around today, and he still creates some pretty ridiculous novelty songs that are also funny. (You can find a lot of them on YouTube. My personal favorite is "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival") In 2018, he opened up a performance venue in Nashville, which seems to be a pretty good hot spot in the city. The guy's lived a fun life, and the fact that he's rich as hell just because of some stupid little novelty songs is pretty remarkable, I've gotta say. There's a real art to be able to make a living out of creating funny music.
GRADE: 5/10
JUST MISSED:
The Jackson 5's probable dance floor favorite "Dancing Machine" peaked at #2 behind "The Streak". It's a 7.
IN POP CULTURE:
There's no covers or any other instances I can find of "The Streak" being in pop culture, so we'll just go with another fun Ray Stevens song. Here's his video for "The Quarantine Song".
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