After having attended an Elvis Presley gig at his High School in 1955, Buddy Holly was striving to pen a song for his rockabilly band (Jerry Allison, Joe B. Maudlin and himself). One day, Buddy and Jerry went to see “The Searchers” (1956), a Western movie starring John Wayne. Throughout the picture, Wayne kept replying “That’ll be the day” whenever another character predicted or proclaimed something that he (Wayne) felt was unlikely to happen. The phrase stuck in Jerry’s mind. One evening, Buddy told Jerry how it would be nice if they could record a smash. And lo and behold, Jerry spontaneously answered, “That’ll be the day”. Hence the famous title of the iconic lay soon composed by Buddy Holly, Jerry Allison and Norman Petty❕ Buddy Holly and The Three Tunes first recorded “That’ll Be The Day” in 1956, but it was not released. In 1957, he re-recorded it with The Crickets. Their version achieved widespread success and turned Holly into a STAR❕ In 1958, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, called the Quarrymen (or the Quarry Men) back then, recorded “That’ll Be The Day”. It was not heard until 1985, in a documentary on Buddy Holly, and was released at long last in 1995, on the Anthology 1 collection. Some evidence of Buddy Holly’s influence as a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll : - The Beatles chose their appellation as a takeoff on Holly’s backup band The Crickets. - The Hollies literally named themselves after Buddy Holly. - The Rolling Stones’ first top single was Holly’s “Not Fade Away”. - Tommy Roe’s “Sheila” stemmed from Holly’s “Peggy Sue”… and so on and so forth… In 1959, 22-year-old Buddy Holly died in a plane crash, along with Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. The preventable accident was caused by bad weather and a 21-year-old pilot who was not qualified to fly in low visibility using just instruments. In Don McLean’s “American Pie” (1971), the line “The day the music died” refers to that sadder than sad Tuesday. How many more musical jewels would the bespectacled legend have crafted had he been given half a chance⁉️ We will never know❕ 💚💎💛 Always loved, never forgotten, forever missed will you remain, Charles Hardin Holley, a.k.a. Buddy Holly (September 7, 1936 - February 3, 1959)… 🌹
Great music. Loved Buddy,Richie, and the Big Bopper. Remember the day when they died. I am 72 years old now and seems like yesterday. It was a very sad time.
What a fantastic Era !!! Including Buddy, Elvis Bill Haley, Richie & the Bopper just to name a few. To think that this was all brand new for it's time !! Amazing that Buddy was primarily helping to start the whole Rock & Roll Movement. This song is timeless as it still works at my live gigs on land and on Cruise ships. (Pre Covid). My Students love to learn this song and if you need it transposed into a different key to make it easier to sing, I can help you with that as well. Love the classics. ;-)
There are some interesting phrases in the lyrics of this song, such as "We-Hell", "Sti-Hill" and "Cry-High". Maybe he means, "Hell, you know you love me baby..."
