(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)
Steam - "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
Hit Number 1: December 6, 1969
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
For decades now, we've been singing this song all over the place. We've sang it at sporting events, drunken parties, and honestly, a good amount of us will probably play it on New Year's Eve this year. (Screw you, 2020) But for a time in late 1969, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" was the most popular song in America. Maybe lots of people were going through nasty breakups, and thought this song could be a good remedy to cure it. Maybe people turned to this song after the craziness of Woodstock and the death of Meredith Hunter at the Rolling Stones' free concert (which coincidentally occurred on the day of "Na Na Hey Hey" hitting #1), and saw it as the end of the psychedelic era. Most likely though, they liked the beat and the rhythm of the song, just like pretty much every other #1 song in the Hot 100 history.
The band that recorded it was an obscure American accident, and they called themselves "Steam". I call them an accident because, well, everything just seemed to come together on accident. Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo, and Dale Frashuer were three teenagers who had formed doo-wop group. They had the earliest sketches of the song in the early 1960's, and the song was in a blues shuffle format. They eventually broke up to become songwriters and producers, with "Na Na Hey Hey" never being released. That was until DeCarlo recorded some songs at Mercury Records, and Leka produced them, which caught the attention of the company's executives. They wanted to release DeCarlo's recorded songs as A-Side singles, and slapped on the old familiar song of theirs "Kiss Him Goodbye" as a B-Side. The song was scrapped together without a real band. Leka played keyboards, and a drum pattern from an entirely different recording session was edited into the song. I don't think they put a lot of effort into the song, and it was only something to slap on as a B-Side. Well, none of those A-Sides became big hits, and it was instead "Na Na Hey Hey" that became the big hit. Steam was just a name they came up with so that there would be an artist name on their records. The music world can be so hard to predict sometimes.
I've never had any problems with this song. It's not hard to tell that it was cheaply put together, and the song is nothing great. What it does have going for it though, is staying power. Just like the case with some previous #1 hits I've covered, sometimes the trick is to come up with a hook that people will remember, and will be singing out loud to themselves. Sometimes, that's involuntary. With "Na Na Hey Hey", that hook is maddening. It's easily forgettable that the thing is even a love song, because so many of us, including me, only associate it with being in sporting events. It's everyone's favorite song to belt out to those damn opponents at home games, and it's even more fun when they are the ones that lose. "Na Na Hey Hey" is also pretty strange, because you can't place it in any particular genre. It's not psychedelic, it's not real bubble gummy, and it's certainly not soul, funk, or folk either. Instead, it's just some maddening pop song that all happened on accident, and because of that, we still like to play it and sing it for all kinds of different situations. So I guess you could say it's aged rather well in that regard. Just try to steer clear from it at funerals though.
GRADE: 6/10
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