“Runaround Sue” by Dion

"Runaround Sue" put Dion on top of the Hot 100 in 1961, not long after he'd split from the Belmonts, and it started out as a party trick. At a friend's birthday get-together he began making up words on the spot and got his friends to lay doo-wop harmonies over a handclap rhythm. He carried the idea to his friend Ernie Maresca, a songwriter just finding his feet, and together they shaped it into the tale of a lover who won't stay faithful. With the Belmonts gone, he found a new vocal group, the Del-Satins, to work it up with.

It's rock and roll on doo-wop bones, all swagger and heartbreak, and it reached No. 4 on the R&B chart too. The Grammy Hall of Fame inducted it in 2002, and Rolling Stone put it at 351 when it counted down 500 of the greatest songs ever in 2004.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.