Chubby Checker: "The Twist"

January 1, 1962 (6 weeks)

There are a couple of oddities surrounding "The Twist". Famously, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 on two occasions, first in September of 1960 and then at the beginning of '62. No single would repeat this impressive feat until Mariah Carey did it with her overplayed holiday favourite "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in 2019 and then the year after and the year after that and so on until the Sun devours our planet. But in the heady days of pop songs going in and out of style at the drop of a hat, its ability to come back is remarkable.

Another curiosity is that it wasn't much of a hit in Britain. Such a thing wouldn't be all that notable except for the fact that follow-up "Let's Twist Again" did very well in the UK. Topping the NME chart, it went to number two on the Record Retailer listings, which far outstripped its predecessor. It then came back in the mid-seventies, returning Chubby Checker to the Top 5. His other major success in old Blighty? "The Twist (Yo Twist)", a 1988 collaboration with comedy hip hop group The Fat Boys. As for the "The Twist" itself, it failed to make the Top 40 in its first go round before peaking at a respectable, if underwhelming, number fourteen.

Finally, Checker didn't simply have a command over the top of the Canadian charts at the start of '62, he also took the aforementioned "Let's Twist Again" to the runner up spot during the same period. This stranglehold was further emphasized by the similarly memorable "Peppermint Twist" by Joey Dee which was at number three. Was it Chubby Checker everyone had fallen for or was it this dance move everyone was suddenly on about?

These anecdotes really sum up the story of "The Twist", a single which kept coming back in tribute to a dance craze that wasn't just another fad like the hula hoop, the yo yo and lime jello salads with celery, fruit cocktail, whipped cream and tuna. Teenagers got into it then adults followed suit and now people the world over perform its simplistic moves even if they don't know what it's called. There's no holding down the twist and its song of the same name has had similar durability.

And why would you want it to be otherwise? While it may not be spun nearly as often at weddings as it used to be, it's still a roaringly good time. The cliche of dance music is that it can be difficult to simply sit down and listen to and this song is a good example as to why that is. You can't not at least be tempted into jiving around the room like a fool while its on.

I count myself a fan while it's playing but it is the sort of thing I can happily do without for years and even decades if I don't happen to encounter it. In fact, my memory wrongly tries to convince me that its hokey and terribly old fashioned. It no doubt doesn't help that Checker sings like he's going through an especially brutal bout of tooth ache yet he's a likable presence, more a figurehead bandleader in the style of a Cab Calloway than an accomplished vocalist. Plus, six weeks at the top is excessive for a single that had already had a lengthy run some fifteen months earlier. I can imagine still being into the dance long after getting utterly sick of the song.

The hits about dance fads trend had begun. At least one more will be coming up in this space but there were many during the early sixties, to the extent that Wilson Pickett's "Land of a Thousand Dances" ought to be seen as a jibe against them. But what separated the twist from the rest was that grandmothers did it and politicians did it and teachers on the last day of school did it and they all did so while keeping their dignity. Is it any wonder the running man had only the briefest of moments? It didn't even have a song all about it for god's sake.

Score: 7