"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" is a song written and
recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer,
attributed to a fictitious band they named "Steam". It was
released under the Mercury subsidiary label Fontana and became
a number one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969.
The song's chorus remains well-known due to its frequent use as
a crowd chant at many sporting events.
Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer wrote a primitive
version of the song in the early 1960s when they were members
of a band from Bridgeport, Connecticut, called The Chateaus.
The Chateaus disbanded after several failed recordings. In
1969, DeCarlo recorded several singles at Mercury Records in
New York with Paul Leka as producer. The singles impressed the
company's executives, who wanted to issue all of them as A-side
singles. In need of "inferior" B-side songs, Leka and DeCarlo
resurrected an old song from their days as the Chateaus, "Kiss
Him Goodbye" with their old bandmate, Dale Frashuer.
With DeCarlo as lead vocalist, the three musicians recorded
the song in one recording session. Instead of using a full
band, Leka spliced together a drum track from one of DeCarlo's
four singles and played keyboards himself. "I said we should
put a chorus to it (to make it longer)," Leka told Fred Bronson
in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. "I started writing
while I was sitting at the piano going 'na, na, na, na, na, na,
na, na'... Everything was 'na na' when you didn't have a
lyric." Someone else added "hey hey" (Bronson,2003). "Na Na Hey
Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" reached number one in the United States
for a pair of weeks, on December 6 and 13 of 1969; it was
Billboard (magazine)'s final multi-week #1 hit of the 1960s and
also peaked at number twenty on the soul chart . By the
beginning of the 21st century, sales of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him
Goodbye" had exceeded 6.5 million records.
The original recording of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"
has been released in many collections of oldies songs and
re-recorded by other groups. In February 1983, UK girl group
Bananarama released the song as a single off their album
Deep Sea Skiving. This version became a top ten hit in
the United Kingdom (#5), but only a minor hit in the US
(Billboard #101) later that year. Their music video features a
feminist message as the girls undergo boxing training in order
to retaliate against a bunch of guys. In a sketch on the early
1980s comedy show, Three of a Kind, Tracey Ullman spoofed
Bananarama singing "Na Na Hey Hey" (as well as "Shy Boy"), with
the words "We are nanas".
A disco remake of the song was recorded by original vocalist
Gary DeCarlo (credited to his stage name Garrett Scott) and
released as a 12" single in 1976 on the West End label as "Na
Na Kiss Him Goodbye (Disco Version)". Another disco version was
released by Pattie Brooks in 1977, as part of a medley that
also included "Popcorn" & "Black is Black".
In 1987, Canadian quartet The Nylons released an a cappella
version of this song as a single under the shortened title
"Kiss Him Goodbye". It became their biggest hit on the
Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number twelve that summer.
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the
song was placed on the list of post-9/11 inappropriate titles
distributed by Clear Channel.
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