Buddy Holly

"Buddy Holly" is a song by the American rock band Weezer. The song was written by Rivers Cuomo and released as the second single from the band's debut album, Weezer (The Blue Album), on September 7, 1994, which would have been Buddy Holly's 58th birthday. The lyrics reference the song's 1950s namesake and actress Mary Tyler Moore. It reached number two on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay chart. Outside the US, the song peaked at number six in Canada, number 12 in the United Kingdom, number 13 in Iceland, and number 14 in Sweden. The song's music video earned considerable exposure when it was included as a bonus media file in the initial release of Microsoft's successful release of the operating system, Windows 95. Rolling Stone ranked "Buddy Holly" number 484 in its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" (2021), raising it 15 spots from number 499 (2010), and raised from around 19 years prior, being ranked number 497 (2004). The digital version of the single for "Buddy Holly" was certified gold by the RIAA in 2006. VH1 ranked it as one of the "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s" at number 59 in December 2007. Writing Songwriter Rivers Cuomo wrote "Buddy Holly" after his friends made fun of his Asian girlfriend. He originally planned to exclude it from the album; he felt it was "cheesy" and perhaps did not represent the sound he was pursuing for Weezer. Producer Ric Ocasek persuaded him to include it. In the book River's Edge, Ocasek is quoted saying: "I remember at one point he was hesitant to do 'Buddy Holly' and I was like, 'Rivers, we can talk about it. Do it anyway, and if you don't like it when it's done, we won't use it. But I think you should try. You did write it and it is a great song. Bassist Matt Sharp recalled: "Ric said we'd be stupid to leave it off the album. We'd come into the studio in the morning and find little pieces of paper with doodles on them: WE WANT BUDDY HOLLY." An early demo of "Buddy Holly" recorded by Cuomo in 1993 has a different feel, as the song is played at a much slower tempo than the version that appears on the album. This version appeared on Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo. The liner notes for Alone explain that the chorus, in its most primitive form, originally was sung as: "wee-oooo you look just like Ginger Rogers / Oh, oh, I move just like Fred Astaire". The rest of the chorus stayed the same as the Blue Album version.