NAH-NAH NAH NAH - NAH-NAH NAH NAH, HEY HEY GOODBYE LYRICIST SAYS GOODBYE

RIP MR LEKA:

Probably the most-heard song at American sporting events, beside the National Anthem, is Na Na, Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye, the only song I know that prompted the creation of a rock group instead of the other way around. Leka, a songwriter and producer, wrote the chorus that you’ve heard a million times if you’ve ever been to a high school football game: Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye.

As the story goes, in 1969 Leka was helping a musician friend, Gary De Carlo, fill the B side of a 45 record, and decided to record a song Leka had written a few years earlier. But at a playing time of two minutes, it was too short — the pair wanted to insure that radio stations didn’t play it instead of the A-side selection. So Leka lengthened it with the long chorus of Na na na na, etc.

But the record company liked it anyway and released it as an A-side selection, using the fictitious band name, Steam, that De Carlo and Leka had invented for record labeling purposes.

The song did fairly well. Then, eight years later, the Chicago White Sox got involved.

In 1977, the organist for the Chicago White Sox, Nancy Faust, began using the song to stoke the crowd into taunting the opposing team when visiting players struck out, say, or when their pitcher was removed. It is unclear how it spread, but within a few years the chant had become an anthem of sports conquest

Goodbye Mr. Leka...