"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" is a 1969 song written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer, attributed to a then-fictitious band Steam. It was released under the Mercury subsidiary label Fontana and became a number-one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969, and remained on the charts in early 1970.[1][failed verification]
Original recording
Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer wrote a blues shuffle version of the song in the early 1960s when they were members of a doo-wop group from Bridgeport, Connecticut, called the Glenwoods, the Citations, and the Chateaus, of which Leka was the piano player. The group disbanded when Leka talked Frashuer into going into New York City with him to write and possibly produce. In 1969, DeCarlo (using the professional name Garrett Scott)[2] recorded four songs at Mercury Records in New York with Leka as producer. The singles impressed the company's executives, who wanted to issue all of them as A-sidesingles. In need of a B-side, Leka and DeCarlo resurrected an old song from their days as the Glenwoods, "Kiss Him Goodbye", with their old bandmate, Frashuer.
With DeCarlo as lead vocalist,[3] they recorded the song in one recording session. Instead of using a full band, Leka played keyboards and had engineer Warren Dewey splice together a drum track from one of DeCarlo's four singles and a conga drum solo by Ange DiGeronimo recorded in Leka's Bridgeport, Connecticut, studio for an entirely different session.[4] "I said we should put a chorus to it (to make it longer)", Leka told Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. "I started writing while I was sitting at the piano going 'na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na'... Everything was 'na na' when you didn't have a lyric." Gary added "hey hey".[5]
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" reached number one in the United States for two weeks, on December 6 and 13, 1969; it was Billboard's final multi-week number 1 hit of the 1960s and also peaked at number twenty on the soul chart.[6] In Canada, the song reached number six.[7] By the beginning of the 21st century, sales of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" had exceeded 6.5 million records,[8] attaining multi-platinum record status.[9]
In February 1983, UK girl groupBananarama released the song as a single from their album Deep Sea Skiving. This version became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom (number 5), but only a minor hit in the US (Billboard number 101) later that year.[10]
UK: London Records NANA 4; USA: London Records 810 115-7
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" 3:22
"Tell Tale Signs" 2:58
UK 12" vinyl single
London Records NANX 4
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" (Extended version) 4:52
"Na Na Hey Hey Na (Dub) Hey" 4:12
"Tell Tale Signs" (Extended version) 4:46
Music video
The music video directed by Keith McMillan features the band playing in a school playground and then being made to move by a group of men. They then decide to join a boxing club so the video features them singing the song whilst boxing. By the end of the video they return to the playground wearing leathers and this time make the group of men move away. They then ride off into the night on motorbikes.
In 1987, Canadian quartet the Nylons released an a cappella version of this song as a single under the shortened title "Kiss Him Goodbye". It became their biggest hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number twelve that summer,[12] and reaching number 15 in Canada.[13]
Track listing
Canada and USA 7" vinyl single
Canada: Attic Records AT 348; USA: Open Air Records OS-0022
"Kiss Him Goodbye" 3:24
"It's What They Call Magic" 3:49
Canada and USA 12" vinyl single
Canada: Attic Records AT 1240; USA: Open Air Records OS-12240
A 1970 cover by the Canadian R&B/funk band Wayne McGhie and the Sounds of Joy had no chart success on its own, but has been sampled in numerous hip hop recordings.[28] When the band's long-forgotten album was reissued in 2004, Canadian music critic Bill Reynolds wrote that their cover was so good it should be used at sporting events instead of Steam's original.[29]
In 1977, Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust began playing the song. It had previously been sung spontaneously by fans in the stands, possibly beginning in a series with the Minnesota Twins July 1–3, 1977, a four-game series swept by the White Sox. The fan version went "Minnesota, Minnesota, Hey Hey Good Bye". Nancy Faust began playing it regularly on the organ later that month. It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected, disqualified, or more often in baseball games, a pitching change is made during an inning (which is when Faust would play it). It has also been sung by crowds in political rallies, to taunt political opponents or to drown out and mock disruptive counter-protesters.[30]
This song was one of 164[31] included on the list of songs which were temporarily banned from public radio airplay by Clear Channel after 9/11.
The Paquette cartoon shows Jean Chrétien taunting Paul Martin by singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye".
On January 23, 2006, Paul Martin was defeated by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. Martin had acceded to the prime ministry following the ouster of Jean Chrétien. The next day's issue of La Voix de l'Est, a French newspaper in Granby, Quebec, included a cartoon by Paquette showing Chrétien calling Martin and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye".
On May 4, 2017, after the House of Representatives voted to pass the American Health Care Act which partially repealed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Democratic representatives chanted "Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye" to Republican representatives, implying that in voting for the bill, they would lose their House seats in the next election. DeCarlo was happy to hear of the song getting renewed exposure, but said he opposed Obamacare.[35] It was not the first time the song had been sung in Congress; in 1993, after Democrats voted for then-President Bill Clinton's tax bill, House Republicans sang "Goodbye".[36]
In January 2019, GMC launched an advertising campaign for its 2019 Sierra 1500 pickup truck, focusing on GMC's new MultiPro tailgate feature. The commercial shows owners of competing pickups carrying tailgates from those trucks and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" while heading to the top of a mountain.[37]
^Paul Leka confirmed some months before his death that the conga solo was in fact DiGeronimo's. It had been recorded in Bridgeport as part of a session with the band "Yazoo Fraud," then under contract with Leka's production company.
