Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: The B-52s — “Love Shack”
Georgia-based new wave pop band the B-52s had a minor hit in 1978 with the tune “Rock Lobster,” off their self-titled debut album. However, the band then went through an eleven-year drought until they finally hit paydirt in 1989 with what would turn out to be their biggest hit, “Love Shack.” The epic earworm topped the charts in Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand, and reached the Top five in the United States, Canada, and the UK. The song was certified triple-platinum and earned the B-52s an MTV Video Music Award and a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.
The Building Behind The Hit
Photo courtesy of Bill Steber / The Tennessean-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn.
In interviews decades later, the band would reveal that the source of their inspiration for “Love Shack” was a club outside of Athens, Georgia, that the band used to frequent called the Hawaiian Ha-Le. The club was housed in, you guessed it, an old shack with a rusty metal roof.
“…kind of like the juke joint in ‘The Color Purple…'” — Kate Pierson to AV Club
“It was an African-American club that had a lot of good shows. It looked like a shack, you wouldn’t expect it to be what it was, and when you opened the door, it was a wild band playing.”
— Fred Schneider to Rolling Stone
“It used to be this funky building with a tin roof that was old and rusty. They would have ‘Soul Train’ [dance] lines.”
— Cindy Wilson to Rolling Stone
Often, the best things in life come in unexpected packages. For the B-52s, their biggest hit came from a hole-in-the-wall club in the middle of a field with a rusty tin roof, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
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