“Kiss On My List” by Hall and Oates

"Kiss on My List" was never meant to be a Hall & Oates record. Daryl Hall wrote it with Janna Allen, sister of his longtime girlfriend Sara Allen, for Janna to sing as she tried to get a music career going, and he cut a demo as a guide for her. Then their manager came across the tape in the studio and told the duo to keep the song for themselves.

What ended up on Voices, their ninth album, in 1980, is that demo: the team liked it too much to try another take, so Hall and John Oates, who produced it, layered background vocals and more instruments on top. As the album's third single it became their second number one on the Billboard Hot 100 after "Rich Girl", and its video was the 204th clip MTV aired on its very first day.

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