By 1961, music was beginning to undergo a bit of a shift, with new and daring (at least for that era in music) sounds and styles. With that in mind, these are three of the best Top 10 hits from 1961. They are all so good, almost every 60s kid likely still knows them by heart today.
“Hello Mary Lou” by Ricky Nelson
“Hello Mary Lou” appears on Ricky Nelson’s Rick Is 21 album. Gene Pitney wrote this song by himself. However, Cayet Mangiaracina later was listed as a writer, following a lawsuit, since “Hello Mary Lou” was deemed too similar to “Merry, Merry Lou”, a song that Mangiaracina wrote for his band, The Sparks.
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The chorus says, “I said, Hello Mary Lou, goodbye heart / Sweet Mary Lou, I’m so in love with you / I knew Mary Lou, we’d never part/ So hello Mary Lou, goodbye heart.”
One year before Nelson released “Hello Mary Lou”, Johnny Duncan released this song. In 1970, Bobby Lewis had a Top 20 country hit with “Hello Mary Lou”. In 1972, Creedence Clearwater included a cover of this song on Mardi Gras, their final studio album.
“I Feel So Bad” by Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley’s “I Feel So Bad” is part of Presley’s Elvis’ Golden Records, Vol. 3 album. It was written by Chuck Willis, who first released “I Feel So Bad” in 1954. Willis had a Top 10 R&B hit with this song.
“I Feel So Bad” says in part, “Feel so bad / Feel like a ball game on a rainy day / Yes, I got my rain check / Shake my head and walk away.”
Elvis’ Golden Records, Vol. 3 also includes “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”, a song that remains one of Presley’s most popular singles.
“Crazy” by Patsy Cline
Most people think of “Crazy” as Patsy Cline’s big country hit, which is accurate. But the song also reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the Top 5 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Written by Willie Nelson, “Crazy” is on Showcase, Cline’s sophomore album. “Crazy” begins with, “Crazy / I’m crazy for feeling so lonely / I’m crazy / Crazy for feeling so blue.”
Although “Crazy” remains Cline’s signature song, she wasn’t the first choice for this song. Nelson pitched it to several other artists before it went to Cline.
“I had problems immediately with my song ‘Crazy’ because it had four or five chords in it,” the songwriter later reveals. “Not that ‘Crazy’ is real complicated; it just wasn’t your basic three-chord country hillbilly song.”
Photo by John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
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