“The Wanderer” by Dion

"The Wanderer" sits on Dion's 1961 album Runaround Sue, though it was never meant to be the hit, or even to be his. Ernie Maresca, who'd co-written the chart-topping "Runaround Sue", had it earmarked for Nino and the Ebb Tides, but they picked another of his songs, so it went out as the B-side of "The Majestic", the label's choice. DJs flipped the record, and by early 1962 it stood at number 2 in the US behind Gene Chandler's "Duke of Earl", with number 10 in Britain and number one in Australia.

A 12-bar blues verse and an eight-bar bridge carry a swaggering portrait of a man on the move and his many loves, and with the uncredited Del-Satins behind him it rocks harder than his Belmonts records. Rolling Stone later ranked it number 243 among its 500 greatest songs.

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