The Story and Meaning Behind “Dizzy,” the Tommy Roe Bubblegum Smash that Lives up to Its Name

Has there ever been a song with a title that’s as apropos to the music that accompanies it as “Dizzy”? The 1969 No. 1 hit single by Tommy Roe keeps listeners spinning in the same way the song’s narrator does.

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For Roe, “Dizzy” was the second chart-topper of a career that probably doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves, considering his success. The song represented a savvy change in styles by the artist, a transformation that went against the grain and ended up helping form its own musical trend.

Roe’s Route

A product of Atlanta, Tommy Roe managed to strike first on the pop scene just before Beatlemania came to town, a fortuitous time to do so for solo male singers. “Sheila,” a Buddy Holly-style rambler that Roe wrote himself, rose all the way to the top of the pop charts in 1962, when Roe was still only 20 years old.

From there, he managed a couple more big hits in 1963, only to watch as he suffered through some fallow times in the next few years. Roe then rebounded with a pair of Top-10 hits in the U.S. in 1966.

It was around that time Roe took stock of what was going on around him in the music world. He realized he wasn’t cut out to compete with the psychedelic hard rock that was taking hold in the second half of the decade. That’s when he started to focus on somewhat softer, more melodic sounds with big pop hooks. Because it appealed to kids, some folks started calling it bubblegum.

Getting “Dizzy”

Roe wrote “Dizzy” with the help of guitarist Freddy Weller. The song lived up to its name with its unique musical structure. It seems like every time you get oriented to one chord pattern, the whole thing changes keys all over again. Who knows how Roe kept up with it all as he sang his vocals?

To make the whole thing cohere, producer Steve Barri employed some incredible Wrecking Crew session musicians. They included bassist Joe Osborn and drummer Hal Blaine, the rhythm section responsible for keeping the whole thing from collapsing from all those sudden changes.

“Dizzy” managed to do serious damage on the pop charts, going to No. 1 and staying there for about a month in 1969. Roe scored one more Top-10 in American a year later with the unforgettably titled “Jam Up Jelly Tight,” before bubblegum also started to wane in popularity.

Behind the Lyrics of “Dizzy”

So why exactly is Tommy Roe so dizzy? And it’s you, girl, making it spin, he admits. Once that’s established, we just need to know how Roe reached that point. It started from the day he met her: First day that I saw you girl, I knew that I just had to make you mine / But it’s so hard to talk to you with fellas hanging ‘round you all the time.

The good news is he finally gets to talk to her, and more than that, they even kiss. That only seems to exacerbate his vertigo symptoms: ‘Cause I’m so dizzy I can’t see / I need to call a doctor for some help.

Tommy Roe proved resilient on the pop charts, and that resiliency carried over to sustaining his career. After announcing his retirement in 2018, he came back and started recording and playing live again a few years later. This “Dizzy” singer still had a few spins left to give us.

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