The Peculiar Truth about Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

• 1977: The organist at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox, was open to requests. Someone asked her to play a specific tune whenever an opponent’s pitcher was removed from the game. Then she began playing the same tune whenever the White Sox won.

• The song has been heard at all sorts of sporting events - college, professional, and international - sung by the crowd in a kind of collective taunt. You probably recognize the chorus, which has been around for over 55 years.

• Na na na na / Na na na na / Hey hey hey / Goodbye…

• But very few people can name the original recording artists behind it.

• The song was attributed to a band called Steam. Except there was no such band. Until the record was released.

• That’s because the songwriters never intended for it to be a hit. They expected it to be a flop.

• In the early 60s, Gary DeCarlo, Paul Leka, and Dan Frashauer had an unsuccessful group called the Chateaus. They sang doo-wop tunes and tinkered with a half-baked song that remained unfinished.

• The group split up, and Paul Leka went on to co-write and produce Green Tambourine by one-hit wonders the Lemon Pipers. DeCarlo developed a solo career under a new stage name, Garrett Scott.

• DeCarlo aka Scott had recorded four songs for his label, Mercury Records. Paul Leka produced them. The singles were ready for release but one tune needed a B-side.

• In the 60s, 45 RPM records, or singles, sold well. Only 45s could be played on jukeboxes. One hit single could make a career back then.

• Every 45 single needed a track on the other side of the disc, or the B-side. That other song was almost always a dud - on purpose. You couldn’t have two good songs on one disc. That was like giving away the second song for free, a missed earning opportunity. So the B-sides were often purposefully less appealing.

• DeCarlo and Leka recalled the silly song they’d half-written with Frashauer years earlier. So they asked Frashauer to join them in a studio for an overnight session to lay down that track. They couldn’t afford musicians, so the trio recorded the entire song themselves with an engineer.

• The result was Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.

• The recording had no bass guitar and no guitars at all. The engineer used a prerecorded drum track. DeCarlo, Frashauer, and Leka added handclaps, keyboards, and vocals. Nobody else.

• The song was too short. No problem. They added an additional two minutes that began with the percussion track and hand claps followed by the recurring chorus. Done.

• To their surprise, the record company loved the B-side. They wanted to release Na Na Hey Hey… as a single. They also wanted an entire album to go with it.

• That created a dilemma, however. DeCarlo had already begun a solo career as Garrett Scott. He couldn’t just drop that. Mercury Records agreed and placed the song with its subsidiary, Fontana Records.

• Then, to further distance the song from DeCarlo’s young career, they created a fictitious band.

• Publicity stills were shot of a group called Steam - despite none of the men in the photos playing on the record.

• The name came while Leka was walking along a Manhattan sidewalk and saw steam rising from a manhole cover. Simple as that.

• Then they shot a promotional video of the imaginary band performing the song, and it’s unintentionally funny. The lip-synching was mediocre at best, and the band featured three guitarists - despite the song having no guitars - and nobody playing keyboards.

• DeCarlo took writing credit, but he would not be part of the live band. And he didn’t think Steam should perform live without him on lead vocals because their lead singer didn’t sound anything like him.

• Ironically, DeCarlo as Garrett Scott went nowhere. Neither did Steam.

• Meanwhile, Na Na Hey Hey… was released in December 1969 and spent 16 weeks on the Hot 100 music singles chart, displacing the Beatles’ Come Together. It sold up to 8 million copies.

• The song has endured for decades. Sports fans have sung it around the world because the lyrics are easily substituted: Na Na Hey Hey Adios or Au Revoir. Several artists have covered it. The tune has appeared in movies and TV shows, at sporting events, and even in Congress in 2017 after Republicans failed to overturn Obamacare.

• Paul Leka passed away in 2011, and Gary DeCarlo died in 2017. One can only imagine what song was sung at their funerals.

• Watch Steam’s lip-synched video here.