Song:Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye
Album:'60s: Gold
Most of you know this song because it's still heard at sporting events today. It may be the most lucrative one hit wonder ever. That's pretty good considering that Steam wasn't really a band. The man behind Steam was producer songwriter Paul Leka from Bridgeport, CT. He had a band called Chateaus in the early 60s with Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer. After they released some unsuccessful singles on Coral and Warner Bros., Leka turned to production and produced The Lemon Pipers hit Green Tambourine. He took a house producer job at Mercury Records in 1969 and brought in DeCarlo to record as a solo artist. Mercury liked the songs and Leka needed some B-sides. So they resurrected a song that they had written several years earlier when they were Chateaus. DeCarlo sang lead and they used old backing tracks. And every time DeCarlo couldn't think of a lyric, he's chant Na Na Na Na... And it was done in one take. DeCarlo didn't want his name on the song so Mercury released it under the name Steam. So when a DJ in Georgia played the song the phone lines lit up and the song topped the Billboard Hot 100. But there was no band. So Leka put together a touring band. Subsequent singles didn't sell and that was the end of Steam. Paul Leka went on to produce acts like Jimmy Spheeris, Harry Chapin and REO Speedwagon. Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye became a hit again when the British girl group Bananarama recorded it in 1983. The video was bigger than the record. That's when the Chicago White Sox picked it as their theme and now it's a song everyone knows. This 2CD comp from Hip-O has a lot of great 60s hits. According to BMI, Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye has had over three million radio plays. That's a lot of coin for a throwaway B-side. Here's Steam performing Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye in 1970.
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