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Song of the Day #5,204: ‘Go Away Little Girl’ – Steve Lawrence

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that only nine songs have made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 by two different artists. Over the next nine weekdays I’ll reveal those titles, rolling them out chronologically based on the release date of the second single.

The first song to achieve this impressive feat is one I’d never heard before today. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, ‘Go Away Little Girl’ is a rather creepy song about a guy in a relationship telling the titular little girl to leave him alone lest he be tempted to cheat.

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Song of the Day #5,203: ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ – Ron Sexsmith

The Random iTunes Fairy must have felt bad for last week’s post calling Ron Sexsmith a “no-hit wonder.” She has brought him back for an encore performance just eight days later.

Today’s track is from the 2008 album Exit Strategy of the Soul. It’s one of Sexsmith’s more sonically interesting albums, adding horns to most tracks and getting a little more experimental in its production. That doesn’t apply to today’s selection, though, which is a pretty straightforward ballad.

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Song of the Day #5,202: ‘Goin’ to Acapulco’ – Bob Dylan

Today’s random selection is a cut from the 11th volume of Bob Dylan’s Bootleg Series, this one dedicated to the Basement Tapes album he recorded with The Band in 1967. Those recordings didn’t see an official release until 1975, a span that saw Dylan release eight other albums.

While the final album featured 16 songs from those 1967 recordings, along with eight more recorded by The Band in the ensuing years, there was a wealth of other material committed to tape during those sessions. Bootlegs of those songs have been passed around by fans ever since.

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Song of the Day #5,201: ‘Brændt’ – Lis Sørensen

I’m closing out these three weeks of “covers you didn’t know were covers” with a trip into the ‘Torn’ extended musical universe.

Most of us know today’s Song of the Day as ‘Torn,’ the 1997 pop song by Australian singer Natalie Imbruglia. It was a huge hit in both the UK and the U.S., though it was initially kept off the Billboard Hot 100 due to a rule that didn’t allow songs to chart unless they had been released as physical singles. That rule changed late in the song’s popularity, and it managed to reach #42 for a couple of weeks.

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Song of the Day #5,200: ‘(Love’s) Ring of Fire’ – Anita Carter

The first three songs featured this week originated with men but were popularized by women. Today’s song is the opposite.

June Carter, soon to be June Carter Cash, wrote ‘Ring of Fire’ with Merle Kilgore in 1963, using the song’s central image as a metaphor for falling in love. But rather than give the song to her husband-to-be, she gave it to her sister, folk singer Anita Carter.

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