Steam ~ Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye 1969 Pop Purrfection Version

One of the most iconic pop tunes of the 60's was "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" was written at the last minute and was calculated to be as cheesy as possible so that DJ's wouldn't play it and thus would allow the A side to gain the airplay. But their plans were foiled when Fontana Records flipped the single and helped to propel this one into the fabric of music history.

This all started when Paul Leka who co wrote and produced the Lemon Piper's #1 pop hit "Green Tambourine" and got him a contract with Mercury Records. Remembering his friend Gary DeCarlo who he met when he was brought into the Chateaus to record a few songs. DeCarlo was also signed to the label based on Leka's recommendation.

Gary brought four songs to record and with a few minutes of studio time left, wrote and recorded a B side designed to fail. Paul felt that all four songs DeCarlo brought were good enough to be singles issue and threw together a B side that used a composition "Kiss Him Goodbye" from 1961 written by bandmate Dale Frashuer and completed the song. DeCarlo had already adopted the stage name Garrett Scott and provided the vocals.

All four of the DeCarlo songs flopped, except that one throwaway that just would not die. It was the perfect marriage of voice and band. They used dummy lyrics with Na Na and Hey Hey and decided to just go with the stream of consciousness of those lyrics, doubled the vocals and left for the night.

On their way out, it was nearly 2AM and the manhole covers were spewing steam which gave Leka the idea to name the band Steam. When they took the song to the label, the exec felt that the song was too good for the B side and scheduled it for commercial release.

DeCarlo was miffed that all of his songs stiffed and refused to continue recording with Steam even though the band name was Steam featuring Garrett Scott for that iconic single. Too bad, who knows what other pop confection classics they could have come up with.