What is the first "hit" song you can remember hearing as a child?

The other day I heard mine on the radio and it got me thinking about this topic. How a mega pop hit can stick with you even as a child.

For me, it was the 1981 Kim Carnes single "Bettie Davis Eyes", I was 5 years old. I'm not sure a radio could be on that summer with this song playing.

 

Probably "Surfin USA"

 

"Sheri" by the 4 Seasons. I was a pretty neutral baby until I heard it, after which I apparently went bonkers and had to hear it all the time. They should have known something was up then...

 

My answer is exactly the same, but I also have vivid memories of hearing "Endless Love" on the radio (once at a family reunion BBQ) that year.

I would have answered "You Needed Me" (Anne Murray, 1978) but I was only 3 at that time and so I probably heard it in 1980 or 1981. I distinctly remember hearing it on the radio in my mom's car on a rainy day and there was a Shur-Fine truck on the highway next to us.

 

this popped into my head but it's not the first...Goodbye Baby-Jack Scott

 

Probably "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men from 2000's Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. I was 8. I'll do everybody a favor and not drop a YouTube link.

 

"Brandy" by Looking Glass...in 1972, I was around 4 and in a restaurant in El Segundo or Redondo Beach with my Dad

 

“I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover” by Art Mooney and his Orchestra. Number 1 for 14 weeks in 1948.

 

The sound of doubled 12-string guitar is a sound first heard by most folks in this hit from 1962. I was eight and wondered what that “New way of walkin’” was all about!

 

It was School's Out or Smoke On The Water. I was 6 or 7 years old.

 

"The Doggie in the Window" - Patti Page. #1 in March 1953.

 

Busted - Year 3000 in 2003 when I was 6.

What do I win?

 

My mother listening to Rumours is my actual earliest living memory, so the hit singles off of that would definitely be first.

The first song I ever noticed being a hit on the radio was probably "Billie Jean." I was seven at the time.

 

Youth.

 

One Night on Elvis' Golden Records Vol. 2 when I was 2 1/2 (at my Godparents' house Xmas '59).

 

I have no recollection of any kind of listening to the radio until I was about 13...

 

Not sure which was the first, but the two that stand out as the first songs I remember hearing are Duke of Earl by Gene Chandler and Goodbye Cruel World by James Darren. Both heard through my older sister playing her 45's, I'm sure.

 

Joy to the World

 

Some songs from 1971, when I was four years old. I remember Carole King's "It's Too Late", Paul McCartney's "Uncle Albert (Admiral Halsey)", the Doors "Riders on the Storm" and Ike and Tina Turner's version of "Proud Mary" from that summer or thereabouts. For the last one my mother had bought the single.

 

Dominique- The Singing Nun
Shortly before the Beatles broke in the US.

 

Coconut by Harry Nilsson. '72 or '73. I was five or so.

 

If hits from previous eras that my parents played (Sgt. Peppers, mammas and the pappas, etc.) don't count, and only the first song I remember hearing in the wild or the radio, it would be "Born in the USA." I was 9 when that came out...

Didn't like it then because I didn't understand it. Love it now.

P.s. my kids said to me, "it shouldn't matter where you are born" when hearing that song, which was exactly what I thought at 9...

 

"My Coo Ca Choo" - Alvin Stardust

I turned 3 around the time it was on the charts - good times.

 

Devil Gate Drive by Suzi Quatro

 

I Want To Hold Your Hand. My mother bought it for me. I also had a change purse, with the Beatles heads, when I went to grade school for my lunch money. Boy, I wish I had it now.