In 1979, The Knack exploded onto the music scene with a song that took just 15 minutes to write, was inspired by a real woman and became the biggest hit of the year.
“My Sharona” began its six-week reign at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 47 years ago today.
Written by Knack frontman Doug Fieger and guitarist Berton Averre, the infectious power pop hit was the band’s debut single and would become its only No. 1. But behind the instantly recognizable riff and stuttering refrain was a real-life infatuation so intense that Fieger later said the girl who inspired it “induced madness.”
The Real Woman Behind ‘My Sharona’
Fieger was 25 when he met Sharona Alperin in Los Angeles. Alperin told NPR in 2010 that she was introduced to Fieger by his then-girlfriend, something he confirmed to The Independent.
“He had had the same girlfriend, a hairdresser named Lucy, for several years when she introduced him to Sharona Alperin, a 16-year-old shop assistant in a clothing store,” wrote the newspaper.
According to Alperin, Fieger quickly became convinced that they belonged together, telling her within a month or two that he was in love with her and believed she was his soulmate. Alperin, however, was in love with her own boyfriend and said it took about a year before she left that relationship.
Fieger later described his reaction to meeting Alperin in similarly dramatic terms.
“It was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat,” he said in the liner notes of the album. The encounter sparked an intense period of songwriting, and Alperin became the inspiration for numerous songs.
“She was my muse,” Fieger told The Independent years later, adding, “She induced madness.” He recalled that most of the songs on The Knack’s first two albums were inspired by Alperin.
But Alperin heard “My Sharona” before she and Fieger were even a couple.
In her NPR interview, she recalled stopping by a Knack rehearsal during a lunch break from her job at a clothing store. After some discussion among the band members about whether they should play the song for her, they did.
Alperin left the rehearsal and drove back to work with one thought running through her mind: “Did I just hear a song with my name in it?”
Fieger and Alperin eventually became a couple and were engaged, although they never married. They remained close long after their romantic relationship ended, and Alperin frequently visited Fieger during the final months of his life before his death from cancer in 2010.
She also became part of the visual identity of “My Sharona,” posing for the single’s picture sleeve while holding a copy of The Knack’s debut album Get the Knack.
Alperin told NPR that the song made her something of a celebrity in her own right. Some fans would even dress like her at Knack concerts, telling her they were dressed as “Sharonas.”
“Not everybody knew that Sharona was a person,” she recalled.
‘My Sharona’ Was Written in Just 15 Minutes
For a song that would follow The Knack for decades, “My Sharona” came together remarkably quickly.
Fieger claimed the song took only 15 minutes to write. He and Averre worked out its structure and melody together, although Averre was initially reluctant to use Alperin’s real name. Fieger insisted because he wanted the song to be a direct expression of his feelings for her.
Drummer Bruce Gary supplied another essential ingredient: the song’s distinctive stuttering beat. Gary later explained that he developed the surf-stomp-inspired rhythm using tom-tom and snare and incorporated a flam, in which two drum strokes are staggered to produce a fuller sound.
The finished recording quickly took off.
According to music historian Fred Bronson in “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits,” “My Sharona” entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 86 on June 23, 1979. By the time it reached No. 1, it had already been certified gold.
In August 20, 1979, “My Sharona” reached the top of the chart and stayed there for six consecutive weeks. It ultimately finished as Billboard’s No. 1 song of 1979.
The Knack Became an Overnight Sensation
The band’s debut album was nearly as unstoppable as its first single.
Get the Knack spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and became one of the year’s biggest-selling albums.
Its success was even more remarkable considering how quickly and cheaply the record was made. Bronson writes that Get the Knack was recorded virtually live with few overdubs, taking just 11 days and costing only $18,000. It was certified gold in 13 days and platinum less than a month later.
“My Sharona,” meanwhile, became Capitol Records’ fastest debut single to earn gold certification since The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1964. The song eventually sold more than 10 million copies.
The Beatles comparison was particularly fitting.
Fieger had been profoundly influenced by the Fab Four, and The Knack’s image and the packaging for Get the Knack deliberately evoked the British Invasion. But the bigger the band became, the more intense the backlash grew, eventually inspiring a “Knuke the Knack” campaign.
The Knack followed “My Sharona” with “Good Girls Don’t,” which peaked at No. 11 on the Hot 100, but the band would never again approach the enormous success of its debut single. After two more albums and mounting internal tensions, The Knack’s original run ended in 1982.
“My Sharona,” however, proved remarkably difficult to kill.
“Weird Al” Yankovic turned it into “My Bologna,” the parody that helped launch his career. Run-D.M.C. incorporated its famous riff into “It’s Tricky,” while “My Sharona” itself returned to the Hot 100 in 1994 after appearing in Reality Bites, reaching No. 91 during its second chart run.
The song even played an unlikely role in the creation of one of Michael Jackson’s biggest hits. While Jackson was making Thriller, producer Quincy Jones wanted him to come up with a rock song in the vein of “My Sharona.” Jackson’s answer was “Beat It.”
Decades after “My Sharona” first conquered the charts, Fieger had an apt description for the song that had come to define his career.
“We call it the ‘golden albatross,'” he told the BBC in 2007, “but it’s been good to us and afforded me a wonderful lifestyle.”
Forty-seven years after “My Sharona” began its six-week reign at No. 1, the song Fieger said took just 15 minutes to write remains The Knack’s defining hit, while the real Sharona remains forever entwined with one of 1979’s biggest pop culture phenomena.
Related: 1973 Hit, About a Forbidden Romance, Became Stories’ Only No. 1 53 Years Ago Today
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