#100 the week of December 22, 1958
What was #1? “The Chipmunk Song” by The Chipmunks With David Seville (The first of four straight weeks on the charts. That nonsense was still number one in mid-January!)
The first decade of the Billboard Hot 100 chart is perhaps the most chaotic time in popular music. You’ve got the early rock, soul, and doo-wop that would come to define the 1950s in the popular imagination, but also country, the last days of big band jazz, and nice soft music that ‘50s teens would roll their eyes at. A full seven tracks on this week’s chart are credited to So-And-So And Their Orchestra.
If you’ve ever been to a ‘50s themed diner, you’ve probably heard a satellite radio station that plays nothing but the music of the Fabulous ‘50s. So you’ll know from experience that at one moment you could be tapping your feet to something that holds up like Ray Charles, only to have the taste of your burger be soured by something that makes you ask “what is this shit?”*
*I can think of a bunch of Eisenhower-era songs that can fit this category, but none worse that Johnny Preston’s “Running Bear,” a song so racist it makes the Atlanta Braves look culturally sensitive. It held the top spot for three weeks.
The Olympics’ “(I Wanna Dance) With The Teacher” straddles the line between hip ‘50s and square ‘50s. The instrumentation is fun, if a bit generic, but the lyrics are just dumb. The plot of the song is that one day at a PTA meeting, a teacher slipped on “a ‘nana peel” and then landed “like a mop,” so our hero makes the logical assumption that teach can dance. So now he wants to dance with the teacher.
Who were these guys anyway? The Olympics were a doo wop group out of Los Angeles who were best known for their summer 1958 #8 hit “Western Movies.” The Olympics are basically one hit wonders* and their discography is more interesting as a time capsule than actual music. “Western Movies” is ostensibly about the narrator’s girlfriend being too busy to go out with him because she can’t stop watching westerns on tv. Eventually that song just devolves into a list of cowboys and western catchphrases.
*In addition to “Western Movies,” they had four other songs reach the top 25 on the R&B chart, and thirteen other songs chart at 40 or below on the Hot 100. So not technically a one hitter, but they are spiritually.
The rest of the Olympics’ discography isn’t much better, with one exception. In 1965, they were among the first artists to record Rudy Clark and Arthur Resnick’s “Good Lovin’.” Felix Cavaliere of The Young Rascals heard The Olympics’ track and The Young Rascals soon added it to their repertoire with an only slightly more lively arrangement. The Olympics’ version hit #81, while the Rascals took it all the way to #1 a year later*.
*One of these groups was all white; the other all Black, I’ll let you guess which based on chart position.
But that’s all in the future. Right now, it’s Christmastime of 1958 and the Olympics’ follow up to “Western Movies” is flailing. “(I Wanna Dance) With The Teacher” debuted at a pathetic #98, dropped off the charts for a week and came back this week in the 100 spot. Somehow, the song will manage to create just enough momentum that it will drag itself to #71.
There’s a long, bizarre history of songs about student crushes on teachers that range from the naively romantic (ABBA’s “When I Kissed The Teacher”) to the knowingly creepy (The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”), but this is just nothing. At a tight 1:47, the Olympics are able to shove in a few half ideas (They’re going to get new shoes like Betty Lou, whoever that is.), but the main point is that for reasons unknown they really want to dance with the teacher. The lyrics don’t even make it clear if the teacher is our narrator’s teacher; and given that the inciting incident happened at the PTA, there’s no guarantee he’s even a student. I know it’s a fool’s errand to dissect what is essentially a novelty song, but there had to have been something there to get it to chart.
So, I’m forced to devise a narrative around this skeleton of a song. Once upon a time, a neighborhood weirdo attended a PTA meeting to complain about suggestive dances like the Twist. A comely young teacher tripped on a banana peel, and our freak became lust blinded by a fetish he didn’t know he had. As security pulled him out, he repeated the only thought that could come to mind “I WANNA DANCE WITH THE TEACHER!” A subversive masterpiece.
2/10