Peggy Sue
Encyclopedia
"Peggy Sue" is a rock and roll
song written by Buddy Holly
, Jerry Allison
, and Norman Petty
, and originally performed, recorded and released as a single by Buddy Holly
in early July of 1957
. The Crickets are not mentioned on the single (Coral 9-61885) but both Joe B. Mauldin
(string bass) and Jerry Allison
(drums) are known to be featured on the recording. The song was also released on Buddy Holly's self-titled
1958 album. The song is ranked #194 on the Rolling Stone
magazine's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song was originally called "Cindy Lou", and was named for Buddy's niece, the daughter of his sister Pat Holley Kaiter. The title was later changed to "Peggy Sue" in reference to Crickets drummer Jerry Allison
's girlfriend (and future wife), Peggy Sue Gerron, with whom he had recently had a temporary breakup.
Appropriately, Allison played a prominent role in the production of the song, playing paradiddles on the drums throughout the song, the drums' sound rhythmically fading in and out as a result of real-time engineering techniques by the producer, Norm Petty
. Many music critics regard this as Holly's all-time best recording.
The song went to #3 on the Billboard Top 100 chart in 1957. The song is currently ranked as the 100th greatest song of all time, as well as the third best song of 1957
, by Acclaimed Music.
Initially only Allison and Petty were listed as the song's authors. At Allison's insistence, Holly was credited as a co-writer after his death.
", and recorded a demo or practice version in his New York City
apartment on December 5, 1958, accompanied only by himself on guitar. The tape was discovered after his untimely death, and was "enhanced" for commercial release, by adding background vocals and an electric guitar track that drowned out Holly's own playing (and almost his voice as well). The rarely-heard original version was released on a vinyl collection called "The Complete Buddy Holly", and was later used over the opening credits of the 1986 Kathleen Turner
film Peggy Sue Got Married
. After Holly's death The Crickets
would also release their own cover single in 1960. They followed the original Peggy Sue arrangements with the only difference being David Box a Buddy Holly soundalike singing as the lead vocalist.
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
song written by Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
, Jerry Allison
Jerry Allison
J.I. Allison is an American musician, best known for being the drummer for The Crickets and co-writer of their Buddy Holly hit "Peggy Sue"....
, and Norman Petty
Norman Petty
Norman Petty was an American musician, songwriter, and pioneer record producer who helped shape modern popular music, including pop and rock....
, and originally performed, recorded and released as a single by Buddy Holly
Buddy Holly
Charles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
in early July of 1957
1957 in music
-Events:*January 5 – Renato Carosone and his band start their American tour in Cuba.*January 6 – Elvis Presley makes his final appearance on the The Ed Sullivan Show.*January 16 – The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool, UK....
. The Crickets are not mentioned on the single (Coral 9-61885) but both Joe B. Mauldin
Joe B. Mauldin
Joe Benson Mauldin, Jr. is ranked among the top rock bassists and became a recording engineer at Gold Star Studios, the Los Angeles studio that became the hit factory for Phil Spector, Brian Wilson and other major 1960s rock performers...
(string bass) and Jerry Allison
Jerry Allison
J.I. Allison is an American musician, best known for being the drummer for The Crickets and co-writer of their Buddy Holly hit "Peggy Sue"....
(drums) are known to be featured on the recording. The song was also released on Buddy Holly's self-titled
Buddy Holly (album)
Buddy Holly is Buddy Holly's second album, released in February 1958. Approximately one year later, Holly was killed in a plane crash. It contains one of Holly's best known songs, "Peggy Sue".-Track listing:#"I'm Gonna Love You Too" Buddy Holly is Buddy Holly's second album, released in February...
1958 album. The song is ranked #194 on the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's 2004 list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song was originally called "Cindy Lou", and was named for Buddy's niece, the daughter of his sister Pat Holley Kaiter. The title was later changed to "Peggy Sue" in reference to Crickets drummer Jerry Allison
Jerry Allison
J.I. Allison is an American musician, best known for being the drummer for The Crickets and co-writer of their Buddy Holly hit "Peggy Sue"....
's girlfriend (and future wife), Peggy Sue Gerron, with whom he had recently had a temporary breakup.
Appropriately, Allison played a prominent role in the production of the song, playing paradiddles on the drums throughout the song, the drums' sound rhythmically fading in and out as a result of real-time engineering techniques by the producer, Norm Petty
Norman Petty
Norman Petty was an American musician, songwriter, and pioneer record producer who helped shape modern popular music, including pop and rock....
. Many music critics regard this as Holly's all-time best recording.
The song went to #3 on the Billboard Top 100 chart in 1957. The song is currently ranked as the 100th greatest song of all time, as well as the third best song of 1957
1957 in music
-Events:*January 5 – Renato Carosone and his band start their American tour in Cuba.*January 6 – Elvis Presley makes his final appearance on the The Ed Sullivan Show.*January 16 – The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool, UK....
, by Acclaimed Music.
Initially only Allison and Petty were listed as the song's authors. At Allison's insistence, Holly was credited as a co-writer after his death.
Sequel
Holly wrote a poignant sequel called "Peggy Sue Got MarriedPeggy Sue Got Married (song)
"Peggy Sue Got Married" is a song written and sung by Buddy Holly. It was released in 1959 as a 45-rpm single with "Crying, Waiting, Hoping". It refers to his song hit "Peggy Sue". It was one of the first sequels of the rock era...
", and recorded a demo or practice version in his New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
apartment on December 5, 1958, accompanied only by himself on guitar. The tape was discovered after his untimely death, and was "enhanced" for commercial release, by adding background vocals and an electric guitar track that drowned out Holly's own playing (and almost his voice as well). The rarely-heard original version was released on a vinyl collection called "The Complete Buddy Holly", and was later used over the opening credits of the 1986 Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, The War of the Roses, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Prizzi's Honor...
film Peggy Sue Got Married
Peggy Sue Got Married
Peggy Sue Got Married is a 1986 American comedy-drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Kathleen Turner as a woman on the verge of a divorce, who finds herself transported back to the days of her senior year in high school...
. After Holly's death The Crickets
The Crickets
The Crickets are a rock & roll band from Lubbock, Texas, formed by singer/songwriter Buddy Holly in the 1950s. Their first hit record was "That'll Be the Day", released in 1957....
would also release their own cover single in 1960. They followed the original Peggy Sue arrangements with the only difference being David Box a Buddy Holly soundalike singing as the lead vocalist.
Legacy
- John Lennon would cover the song on his Rock 'n' RollRock 'n' Roll (John Lennon album)Rock 'n' Roll is a 1975 album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs covered by John Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned a year. Though critically derided, it reached #6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States.-History:...
album in 1975. - In his song "Old"You're the One (album)You're the One is the tenth studio album released in 2000 by Paul Simon, his first successful studio album in 10 years. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2001, with Simon becoming the first artist to be nominated in that category in five consecutive decades...
, Paul SimonPaul SimonPaul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
indicates his age by singing "First time I heard Peggy Sue/I was 12 years old./Russians up in rocket shipsSpace RaceThe Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
/and the war was ColdCold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
." - Julian CopeJulian CopeJulian Cope is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator...
's 1991 album was called Peggy SuicidePeggy SuicidePeggy Suicide is the seventh album by Julian Cope. It is generally seen as the beginning of Cope's trademark sound and approach, and as a turning-point for Cope as a maturing artist.-Background:...
. - In an episode of Quantum Leap ("How the Tess was won"), young Buddy Holly, working as a Texas farm boy, invents the song as a homage to a pigPigA pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
let, calling it Piggy Sooey. Sam Beckett suggests he calls it Peggy Sue instead and, after hearing this, he realizes that the teen, who he named "buddy", was in fact Buddy Holly. - In blink-182Blink-182Blink-182 is an American rock band consisting of vocalist and bass guitarist Mark Hoppus, vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker. They have sold over 27 million albums worldwide since forming in Poway, California in 1992...
's album Cheshire Cat, one of the songs is named "Peggy Sue". The song is also featured on a live album entitled "The Mark, Tom, and Travis Show: The Enema Strikes Back". - In MyslovitzMyslovitzMyslovitz is a Polish rock band, whose music incorporates elements of college rock, shoegazing, and, arguably, Britpop. Since 2003, EMI Group has been attempting to establish them internationally, with considerable support from MTV Europe...
's album Miłość w czasach popkultury, one of the songs is named "Peggy Sue nie wyszła za mąż" (Peggy Sue did not get married). - In Almost FamousAlmost FamousAlmost Famous is a 2000 musical comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe and telling the fictional story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the fictitious rock band Stillwater , and his efforts to get his first cover story published...
, the lead guitarist of the fictional band Stillwater, Russell Hammond, begins to sing this song as the plane he and his bandmates are flying in encounters severe turbulence, a reference to Buddy Holly's own death in a plane crash. - In 2004, the Norwegian band Trashcan DarlingsTrashcan DarlingsTrashcan Darlings was a band from Oslo. They described themselves as the pioneers of Glam-Punk and a mix of Ramones, Kiss,Sex Pistols and New York Dolls.-Band history:The band was founded by Doll and Gentle in 1995....
released "Peggy Sue is Dead" on the "Tunes From The Trashcan EP". - In Quentin TarantinoQuentin TarantinoQuentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
's Pulp FictionPulp Fiction (film)Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
, the waiter Buddy HollyBuddy HollyCharles Hardin Holley , known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll...
is calling Mia Wallace as Peggy Sue, when taking her order in Jack Rabbit Slim's, a 1950s-themed restaurant staffed by lookalikes of the decade's pop icons. - In the alternate history novel Back in the USSABack in the USSABack in the USSA is a collection of 7 short stories by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman, which was published in 1997 by Mark V. Ziesing Books. The stories are linked through their setting, an alternate history of the twentieth century in which the United States experienced a communist revolution in...
, Peggy Sue is the name of a girl the young Holly knows and is attracted to. - In the Wild CardsWild CardsWild Cards is a science fiction and superhero anthology series set in a shared universe. The series was created by a group of New Mexico science fiction authors, but it is mostly pulled together and edited by best-selling author George R. R. Martin with assistance by Melinda Snodgrass, also a...
novels (another alternate history series), the song retains its original name, "Cindy Lou". In the fifth Wild Cards novel, Down and DirtyDown and DirtyDown and Dirty is the fifth book in the Wild Cards anthology series, set in the same shared universe as the other Wild Cards novels and collections. It was edited by George R. R...
, it is explained that in this version of history, Jerry Allison's breakup with Peggy Sue Gerron was permanent, and thus the song's name was never changed. - The song is also referenced in a New Zealand children's songwriter named the Minstrel's song; "From Rock, to Roll to Rocket", in the line "Buddy Holly sang Peggy Sue".
- The song is featured in the 2003 film Evil.
- The song is also referenced to in the 2011 song "Man DownMan Down (song)"Man Down" is a song performed by Barbadian recording artist Rihanna, taken from her fifth studio album Loud . The song was sent to US rhythmic and urban radios on May 3, 2011 and was released as the album's sixth overall single in the United States as well as in certain countries internationally...
" by RihannaRihannaRobyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...
.
Other notable recordings
- John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
recorded a version of the song for his 1975 album Rock 'n' RollRock 'n' Roll (John Lennon album)Rock 'n' Roll is a 1975 album of late 1950s and early 1960s songs covered by John Lennon. Recording the album was problematic and spanned a year. Though critically derided, it reached #6 in both the United Kingdom and the United States.-History:...
. - Country singer Billy "Crash" Craddock recorded the song in 1973 for his album Mr. Country RockMr. Country RockMr. Country Rock is an album by country singer Billy "Crash" Craddock. It was released in 1973 on ABC Records. The album featured several hits including, 'Till The Water Stops Runnin' and Sweet Magnolia Blossom.- Track listing :...
. - The Beach BoysThe Beach BoysThe Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
recorded the song on their 1978 "M.I.U. AlbumM.I.U. AlbumM.I.U. Album is the 22nd studio album by The Beach Boys, released in 1978. Recorded at a fraught time for the band, only Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Brian Wilson appear throughout the album. Carl and Dennis Wilson are audible on only a few of the songs....
". The song was also a hit for them, charting at #59 in the United States. - Hank MarvinHank MarvinHank Brian Marvin is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard...
did an instrumental of the song in 1996 on the album Hank Plays Holly. - Cobra StarshipCobra StarshipCobra Starship is an American synthpop band created by former Midtown bassist and lead vocalist Gabe Saporta in 2003 in New York City, New York...
have recently contributed a cover version for their tribute album Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, released in Sept 2011.
Literature
- Amburn, Ellis (1995). Buddy Holly: a Biography. St. Martins Press. ISBN 0-312-14557-8
- Jonathan Cott in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. Rolling Stone PressRolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
Random House. (1976) ISBN 0-394-73238-3
External links
- http://www.hotshotdigital.com/WellAlwaysRemember/BuddyHollyDisco.html Buddy Holly Discography
- List of Holly "covered" songs, including this one
- BBC interview with Peggy Sue Gerron