My song today is, ‘Hello, Mary Lou’. This song was written by U.S. singer, Gene Pitney, and was first recorded by Johnny Duncan in 1960, and later by Ricky Nelson in 1961. Ricky Nelson's version was issued as a double A-side with his Number 1 hit “Travelin’ Man”( American spelling), and it reached Number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100’ chart on May 28, 1961. In the United Kingdom, it reached Number 2. It was also a hit in much of Europe, particularly Norway, where it spent 14 weeks at Number 1. In New Zealand, the song reached Number 4. A 1991 reissue following the song's use in a TV advert gave the song a second chart run, peaking at Number 45 in the ‘UK Singles Chart’.
‘Hello, Mary Lou’ is similar to an earlier song, "Merry, Merry Lou", written by Cayet Mangiaracina and recorded by his band, the Sparks, in 1957 on a single released by ‘Decca Records’. It was covered by ‘Bill Hayley & His Comets’ as ‘Mary, Mary Lou’ and released as a single later in 1957, also by Decca, and by Sam Cooke in 1958. Mangiaracina would later become ordained as a Catholic priest. When ‘Hello Mary Lou’ was released, the publisher of ‘Merry, Merry Lou’, Champion Music (an arm of Decca Records), sued for plagiarism and a settlement was reached. Mangiaracina was given co-writing credit for ‘Hello Mary Lou’ and a share of the song's royalties, while Champion received a share of the publishing.
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I was born the oldest of seven children and my next sibling down the line was my sister, Mary, who was 18 months younger. When this song came out, I used to tease her with it, singing, “Hello Mary Lou, goodbye loopy loo”.
Mary’s birthday is in June and mine is in November and all our life we would play this imaginary game of age difference. Between June and November of any year, she would minimise our age difference by telling all her friends that I was only one year older than her, and between November and June, I would maximise it, and let it be known to all and sundry that our age difference was a full 18 months.
Strange, but now we are both in our late 70s, we still differentiate our age disparity, but the only difference now is that I stress there is only one year age gap between us and my sister Mary insists that it is a full 18 months. Do siblings ever stop playing games, however old they are?
Love and peace Bill xxx