In 1958, Paul Anka wrote a song that would change his career. The then-17-year-old penned “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” which became one of his biggest early hits and helped to establish him as one of the most enduring singer-songwriters of all time.
The romantic song featured a doo-woo feel with intimate lyrics, making it the perfect 1950s love ballad. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1959 and also solidified Anka’s status as a teen idol.
“I was a young kid with this dream,” Anka, now 85, told People magazine in an interview. “I didn’t have any great looks. I didn’t have any height. I was an athlete, but it stopped because then I stopped growing. So, I found something that really turned my life upside down.”
The song found new audiences in the 1970s
“Put Your Head on My Shoulder”gained new audiences over the years, sometimes in unexpected ways. In 1975, the song was performed by Anson Williams on the hit sitcom Happy Days. The episode, titled “They Call It Potsie Love,” featured Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran) falling hard for Williams’ Potsie Webber after he serenaded her with the love song during a band practice.
It was Williams’ idea to feature a ‘50s-style rock band on the show, and it's no wonder "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" was chosen as the perfect love song for the scene.
“One day, it dawned on me that David Cassidy got a record contract by singing on his show, and The Brady Bunch did, too,” Williams told Milwaukee Talks in an interview. “I thought, ‘I can sing, sort of, I just need to convince [showrunner Garry Marshall] to put me in a band on the show."
“I asked to talk to him, and he was really busy and said, ‘You have 60 seconds,’“ Williams recalled. “I said we needed to have a band on the show that played at Arnold’s. He stopped in his tracks and said, ‘A band? Do you sing?’ And I said, ‘I’m OK.’”
The Happy Days band went on to perform multiple times on the show, but the “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” serenade remains the show’s most memorable musical moment.
In 1978, the classic song found even more fans when teen idol Leif Garrett released a cover version that climbed the Billboard charts.
RELATED: 1953 Rock Classic, Reimagined by a 15-Year-Old, Became a Hit Twice
More than six decades after Anka wrote “Put Your Heart on My Shoulder,” the song continues to find new fans. In an interview with Ballinger Publishing, Anka noted, “’Put Your Head on My Shoulder’ had gone through the roof on TikTok, and I got this whole new fan base of 16 to 20-year-olds.”
The legendary singer-songwriter also ranked the song as one of his favorites from his very prolific catalog.
“All these years I’ve told people that my songs are like my children,” Anka said in 2021. “It’s tough to like one over another. ‘My Way’— because of that song and the participants—that’s probably my favorite track. I think ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder’ comes after that."
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