Some songs are just meant to be fun.
After the look at Porsches and Ferraris in last week’s Song of the Week discussion, it seemed almost mandatory that I should move on to talk about Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz.” As you probably know, that is “a song of great social and political import” recorded only hours before Joplin’s death. To the extent it was meant to be fun, it didn’t end up that way.
“Do Wah Diddy Diddy” was meant to be fun song, it turned out to be a fun song and now – more than half a century later – it is still fun. I will talk about it, instead – because I’m a fun guy (at least that’s what the mushroom said).
“Do Wah Didddy Diddy” was written by the extremely successful husband and wife songwriting team of Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. From the time they met in 1959 until their divorce in 1965, Barry and Greenwich combined to write a string of hit songs, including “Tell Laura I Love Her,” “Be My Baby,” “Then He Kissed Me,” “Look of Love,” Christmas (Baby Please Be Home),” Leader of the Pack,” “Hanky Panky” and “Chapel of Love” (with some help from Phil Spector on that one). They also discovered Neil Diamond and produced all of his early hit records.
Most of those songs are just good old straightforward rock/roll/pop with a good beat that the kids could dance to. Few reached the poetic, nearly Shakespearean lyrical quality of a chorus like “Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do,” but we must remember that Barry and Greenwich had also written “Da Doo Ron Ron,” a hit for the Crystals in 1963. Phil Spector is also credited as a co-writer of “Da Do Ron Ron,” but Barry and Greenwich seem to have created “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” completely on their own.
After the recent success with the Crystals, they saw this composition as another vehicle for a girl group, so it was recorded by the Exciters, under the title “Do-Wah-Diddy,” also in 1963. That record met with little success, but fortunately it was played just enough to be heard by a British group, Manfred Mann, which changed the lyrics from “there he was, just a-walking down the street” to “there she was just a-walking down the street”; and released it in 1964 under the title “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.” The other “diddy” was for emphasis, I guess. Those changes certainly worked out as the song became a Number One single in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
I remember during my junior year in high school, at the end of each cross country practice Eric Martinez would start singing this song and everyone on the team would join in the chorus. Many years later, when my children were in their early years of elementary school, the song would come on the radio (oldies station) as we were driving somewhere and both of them would loudly sing along. Now I have played it a couple of times for my 18-month old grandson, and he too likes to sing along.
The song is also memorable from the movie Stripes (1981). Bill Murray and Harold Ramis begin singing the song while marching during their Army basic training, and it becomes a marching song for their company.
It is a fun song – about as much fun as one can have in less than 150 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vOAw2sAFU