60-Year-Old Songs: Everybody Loves Somebody

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Today I want to begin with a salute to the Greatest Generation, who earned that name 80 years ago today when they stormed the beaches at Normandy. Thank you. Now…just to show you how diverse it was sixty years ago in the world of popular music, look at the five songs preceding this one. Beatles, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country and western….and now, for your dining and dancing pleasure…. Everybody Loves Somebody - Dean Martin So Dino hadn’t had a top ten hit since 1958’s “Return to Me,” and his last top 40 hit was the follow-up to that, “Volare.” He was on Reprise with fellow Rat Packer Sinatra, but by then rock and Beatlemania had made them both irrelevant. Dean said, “Hold my beer.” (Or whiskey glass.) This song’s co-writer, Ken Lane, was working on a session with Martin. With time to spare and a song in need to fill an album, Lane suggested the song that he’d written in 1947 to Martin. Dean agreed and they recorded it. The next thing you know, Reprise Records executives are falling over themselves to get the song done with full orchestration and to release it as a single. The Beatles won the war, but Martin won this battle: “Everybody Loves Somebody” knocked “A Hard Day’s Night” out of the #1 spot on the Billboard charts in August 1964. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that both the Beatles and Dean Martin fit on anybody’s playlist. Everybody Loves Somebody Written by Sam Coslow, Irving Taylor, and Ken Lane Recorded by Dean Martin From Everybody Loves Somebody, 1964 Something in your kiss: