The Twist (song)
"The Twist" is an American pop song written and originally released in 1958 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to "Teardrops on Your Letter".[1] It was inspired by the twist dance craze. Ballard's version was a moderate hit, peaking at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1960.[2] On the US Billboard Hot R&B Sides chart, the original version of "The Twist" first peaked at number 16 in 1959 and at number six in 1960.[3] By 1962, the record sold in excess of one million copies, becoming Ballard's fourth million seller.[4]
Chubby Checker's 1960 cover version of the song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 19, 1960, where it stayed for one week, and setting a record at the time as the only song to reach number 1 in two different hit parade runs when it resurfaced and topped the popular hit parade again for two weeks starting on January 13, 1962.[5] This would not happen for another song for nearly 59 years until December 2020, when Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" reached the summit after previously topping in another separate chart run in December 2019.
In 1988, "The Twist" again became popular due to a new recording of the song by The Fat Boys featuring Chubby Checker. This version reached number 2 in the United Kingdom and number 1 in Germany. In 2014, Billboard magazine declared the song the "biggest hit" of the 1960s.[6]
History[edit]
Hank Ballard wrote "The Twist" after seeing teenagers in Tampa, Florida doing the titular dance.[7][8] In a 2014 interview with Tom Meros, Midnighters member Lawson Smith claimed that The Gospel Consolaters' Nathaniel Bills wrote the song and initially asked The Spaniels to record it, and that Ballard "stole" the song, falsely claiming authorship.[9] Green and Ballard already had written a song together called "Is Your Love for Real", which was based on Clyde McPhatter and The Drifters' 1955 song "What'cha Gonna Do", so they created an entirely new song by simply putting the new Twist words to the older melody. They originally recorded a loose version of the song in a Florida studio for Vee-Jay Records in early 1958, with slightly different lyrics, featuring Green on guitar playing like Jimmy Reed. This version appeared on the box set "The Vee-Jay Story" in 1993, but it went unreleased at the time. They did not get around to recording the released version until November 11, 1958, when the Midnighters were in Cincinnati.
Ballard thought "The Twist" was the hit side, but King Records producer Henry Glover preferred the ballad "Teardrops on Your Letter", which he had written himself. The song ultimately became the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters' 1959 single "Teardrops on Your Letter". The song was used in the 2007 film Spider-Man 3.[10]
"The Twist"
Accolades[edit]
Chubby Checker's "The Twist" held the honor of being the most successful single in Billboard history on its various "Greatest Hot 100 Songs of All Time" charts over the decades.[29] It held the title until 2021, when it was dethroned by the Weeknd's "Blinding Lights".[30]
The song is ranked number 451 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 and number 457 in 2010. Jim Dawson wrote a 1995 book about the song and the Twist phenomenon called The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance That Changed the World for Faber and Faber.
In 2000, the 1960 recording by Chubby Checker on Parkway Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[31]
The song has been added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.[32] In 2014, Billboard magazine declared the song the "biggest hit" of the 1960s.[6]
In 2018, Checker's version was one of six singles inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a new category honoring singles by artists who have not been elected to the Hall.[33]