"It's My Party" is a song most famously sung by American
singer Lesley Gore in 1963. This song hit #1 on the pop and
rhythm and blues charts in the United States. . "It's My
Party", peaked at #9 in the United Kingdom, becoming Gore's
only major hit there. It was the first hit single for producer
Quincy Jones.
The song lyrically portrays the discomfiture of a teenage
girl at her birthday party when her boyfriend disappears only
to surface in the company of another girl who's "wearing his
ring" to indicate she's replaced the birthday girl as his love
interest.
The song's chorus, "It's my party, and I'll cry if I want
to... You would cry too if it happened to you," became a part
of American pop cultural language as a phrase used to describe
being utterly humiliated and miserable during an event that is
supposed to be a happy occasion.
"It's My Party" was written in 1962 by John Gluck, Wally
Gold and Herb Weiner who were staff writers employed at the
Aaron Schroeder Music firm. The demo for the song was cut by
Barbara Jean English a girl group veteran (the Clickettes, the
Fashions) who was then working as both a receptionist at the
firm and, with Jimmy Radcliffe, serving as its in-house demo
singer; Radcliffe produced the demo and according to English
"tried to persuade Musicor [the label owned by Aaron Schroeder]
to release it as a record, or to take me into a master studio
and redo it, but they weren't interested."[1]
The first recording of the song was by Helen Shapiro for her
Helen in Nashvillealbum recorded in February of 1963
with Shapiro's regular producer Norrie Paramor and also Al
Kasha. Shapiro would recall: "Right from the first time we
heard the song on the rough demo back in London, we thought we
were going to sock them between the eyes with that one";[2]
however Shapiro's version was not one of the cuts chosen as an
advance single from the album and by the time of the album's
release that October the "It's My Party" track was perceived as
a cover of Lesley Gore's hit.
Lesley Gore recalls that "It's My Party" was among some two
hundred demos producer Quincy Jones brought to review with her
in the den of her family home in February of 1963. On hearing
"It's My Party" Gore told Jones: "That's not half bad. I like
it. Good melody. Let's put it on the maybe pile." The song
proved to be the only demo Gore and Jones found agreeable. With
Jones producing and Claus Ogerman handling arranging and
conducting duties, Gore recorded "It's My Party" at Bell Sound
Studios in Manhattan on 30 March 1963.[3]
In March of 1963 that Phil Spector heard the demo of "It's
My Party" while visiting Aaron Schroeder's office. Wally Gold
would recall: "He [Spector] said, 'Great, I love it. I’m gonna
do it with the Crystals.' We [the song's writers] were really
excited, because that would ensure that the record was
#l!"[4]
Schroeder apparently only learned of the Lesley Gore
recording of "It's My Party" when Quincy Jones invited him to
hear the completed track, which Schroeder found formulaic;
believing that Spector would be able to cut a much stronger
version of the song with the Crystals and not wanting to lose
Spector's goodwill, Schroeder attempted to convince Jones to
suppress the track. Schroeder didn't mention Spector's version
to Jones but Jones and Spector both happened to attend a
concert at Carnegie Hall on the evening of 30 March 1963 and
when they met outside it came up in conversation that Spector
had recorded a version of "It's My Party" with the Crystals.
Jones skipped the concert instead spending that night - a
Saturday - at Bell Sound Studios making a test pressing of the
track comprising one hundred copies which over the next two
days Jones mailed out to radio programmers in key markets
across the US. Gore heard her record played on the radio for
the first time that Friday; the official release of "It's My
Party" came later in the month with the disc ascending to #1
nationally in four weeks.[5] [6] Jones was abroad at the time
of "It's My Party"'s release; on his return he expressed dismay
when Aaron Schroeder advised him that the rush release of "It's
My Party" had precluded coining a more pleasant name for the
singer than "Lesley Gore" to which Schroeder replied: "Didn't
anybody tell you?...Quince, the record's number one. Do you
really give a damn what her last name is?"
"It's My Party" has also been recorded by the Chiffons, the
Paris Sisters, Brenda Lee, Sue Thompson and Carol Welsman.
In 1988 Chaka Khan reached #5 on
Billboard's Black Music charts with a track entitled
"It's My Party" which is not a remake of the Lesley Gore hit
but rather a composition by Cecil and Linda Womack which
describes a similar scenario to that in the Gore hit, but with
the party's host reacting more aggressively.
Because of the pop cultural obsession with the song and the
tragic nature of the song, Lesley Gore recorded a sequel titled
"Judy's Turn to Cry". In the song, the teenage girl narrator
gets her revenge on Judy after all the pain and humiliation she
caused her. In the lyrics the narrator explicitly finds
"foolish" how much she cried when she saw Johnny and Judy
together, and seems determined to start anew. She kisses
another guy in front of Johnny and Judy during another party,
which causes a jealous Johnny to jump at and punch the other
boy, then get back together with her.
"Judy's Turn To Cry" was not quite as popular as "It's My
Party", but still was a sizeable hit, reaching #5 on the
Billboard charts in the summer of 1963.