After writing about one too many lazy R&B jams, I’ve made the executive decision to narrow Throwback Weekends to the 50s through the 80s. I’m always excited to discover which songs were popular in those four decades, and seldom excited to relive the hits of the 90s and 00s, so why not make it official?

Part of the appeal of the earlier decades is that they all predate my adulthood. I was either a teenager, a kid, or not yet born when those songs came out. That makes for a more entertaining throwback than revisiting the hits of my 20s and 30s. Plus, popular music in the 90s and 00s frequently sucked.

So that means we’re throwing back to the week of October 19, 1954, when Rosemary Clooney had two songs in Billboard’s top three. Topping the chart that week was ‘Hey There,’ which spent six straight weeks at #1. Eddie Fisher’s ‘I Need You Now‘ sat at #2, and then it was Clooney again with ‘This Ole House.’

‘This Ole House’ was the B-side of ‘Hey There,’ and eventually became a #1 hit as well (though for just one week). It’s a recording of a song country artist Stuart Hamblen released earlier the same year.

Allegedly, Hamblin got the idea for the song while on a hunting trip with John Wayne. The two men came across an abandoned house with a man’s dead body inside. Hamblin imagined the man’s dying thoughts about the life he and his family had lived in their home.

Clooney’s version includes backing vocals by Thurl Ravenscroft, a bass singer whose voice you’ve heard even if you never knew his name. Ravenscroft is the voice of Tony the Tiger, the singer of ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,’ and a featured vocalist on a number of Disneyland and Disney World rides, including The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.