Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now
(Come on baby, do the Loco-Motion)
I know you'll get to like it if you give it a chance now
(Come on baby, do the Loco-Motion)
My little baby sister can do it with ease
It's easier than learnin' your ABCs
So, come on, come on, and do the Loco-Motion with me.
Remember that song? I'll bet you can hear it in your head right now. It was a huge sensation, but the singer who made it famous would become one of music's so-called 'one hit wonders'.
On this date in 1962 17-year-old Eva Narcissus Boyd (Little Eva) took the #1 spot on the charts with "The Loco-Motion". She had just left North Carolina for the Big Apple and she was looking for work wherever she could find it. As luck or fate would have it, she landed a babysitting job - with songwriter Carole King.
King wrote the song and Boyd recorded it. Besides being a big hit, the song created a minor dance craze - everybody
was doing it.
Including me.
Though it would be Little Eva's first and only hit song, "The Loco-Motion" was one of only nine songs in history to chart at #1 by two different artists. Grand Funk Railroad covered it in 1974 and got everybody doing the Loco-Motion once again.
Including me.
It was a line dance of sorts and - believe it or not - I still know the steps. And (maybe more believable) I still have the record. So tonight I'll celebrate the anniversary of little Eva's one bold accomplishment by getting everybody at my house to "do the Loco-Motion with me".
