Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" is a song written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer, attributed to a then-fictitious band they named "Steam". It was released under the Mercury subsidiary label Fontana and became a number one pop single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in late 1969, and remained on the charts in early 1970.
Original version.
Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer wrote a blues shuffle version of the song in the early 1960s when they were members of a doo-wop group from Bridgeport, Connecticut, called the Glenwoods, the Citations, and the Chateaus, of which Leka was the piano player. The group disbanded when Leka talked Frashuer into going into New York City with him to write and possibly produce. In 1968, DeCarlo recorded four songs at Mercury Records in New York with Leka as producer. The singles impressed the company's executives, who wanted to issue all of them as A-side singles. In need of a B-side, Leka and DeCarlo resurrected an old song from their days as the Glenwoods, "Kiss Him Goodbye", with their old bandmate, Frashuer.
With DeCarlo as lead vocalist, they recorded the song in one recording session. Instead of using a full band, Leka played keyboards and had engineer Warren Dewey splice together a drum track from one of DeCarlo's four singles and a conga drum solo by Ange DiGeronimo recorded in Mr. Leka's Bridgeport, Connecticut studio for an entirely different session. "I said we should put a chorus to it (to make it longer)", Leka told Fred Bronson in "The Billboard Book of Number One Hits". "I started writing while I was sitting at the piano going 'na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na'... Everything was 'na na' when you didn't have a lyric." Gary added "hey hey". The group that is seen on the album cover and in the old black and white video was a road group that had nothing to do with the recording. The road group was lip syncing to DeCarlo's vocal in the video.
"Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" reached number one in the United States for two weeks, on December 6 and 13, 1969; it was "Billboard"s final multi-week number 1 hit of the 1960s and also peaked at number twenty on the soul chart. In Canada, the song reached number six. By the beginning of the 21st century, sales of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" had exceeded 6.5 million records, attaining Multi-Platinum record status.
Bananarama version.
In February 1983, UK girl group Bananarama released the song as a single from their album "Deep Sea Skiving". This version became a top ten hit in the United Kingdom (#5), but only a minor hit in the US (Billboard #101) later that year.
This was the fifth single released from their first album in 1983.
It peaked at number five in the UK singles chart, and number 38 in Australia on the Kent Music Report chart.
Track listing.
"UK: London Records NANA 4; USA: London Records 810 115-7"
"London Records NANX 4"
Music video.
The music video features the band playing in a school playground and then being made to move by a group of lads. They then decide to join a boxing club so the video features them singing the song whilst boxing. By the end of the video they return to the playground wearing leathers and this time make the group of lads move away. They then ride off into the night on motorbikes.
The Nylons version.
In 1987, Canadian quartet The Nylons released an a cappella version of this song as a single under the shortened title "Kiss Him Goodbye". It became their biggest hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at number twelve that summer.
Track listing.
"Canada: Attic Records AT 348; USA: Open Air Records OS-0022"
"Canada: Attic Records AT 1240; USA: Open Air Records OS-12240"
In popular culture.
In 1977, Chicago White Sox organist Nancy Faust began playing the song. It had previously been sung spontaneously by fans in the stands, possibly beginning in a series with the Minnesota Twins July 1-3, 1977, a four-game series swept by the White Sox. The fan version went "Minnesota, Minnesota, Hey Hey Good Bye". Nancy Faust began playing it on the organ later that month. It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected or disqualified. It has also been sung by crowds in political rallies, to taunt political opponents or to drown out and mock disruptive counter-protesters. In 2005, after the White Sox won the World Series, during the credits on Fox Sports, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" was the first song to be played.
The song has been used several times on WWE in which it is sung by the crowd when a superstar/general manager (mostly a heel) is fired or forced to leave the arena, e.g. legal reasons etc., from Steve Austin, to Chris Jericho, from Edge, to Paul Heyman, from Jonathan Coachman, to John Laurinaitis, from Eric Bischoff, to Vickie Guerrero, from Dolph Ziggler, to the IIconics, from Stephanie McMahon, to her father.
The song is typically sung by the crowd in NBA games, as a noteworthy opposing player is ejected due to personal, technical or flagrant fouls.
The MTV game show "Remote Control" featured the song as one of several songs the audience would sing as a player was eliminated. (Audiences sometimes sang "Hit the Road Jack" instead.)
Since 2003, it has been used at cricket matches in England and Wales during the T20 Blast to celebrate wickets.
The song is sung a cappella by the crowd at ice hockey games in Canada, particularly in Montréal and Québec City, at the end of games in order to say goodbye to the losing team.
On January 23, 2006, Paul Martin was defeated by Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada. Martin had acceded to the prime ministry following the ouster of Jean Chrétien. The next day's issue of "La Voix de l'Est", a French newspaper in Granby, Quebec, included a cartoon by Paquette showing Chrétien calling Martin and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye".
At the 2009, 2017, and 2021 presidential inaugurations some audiences were chanting "Na na na na" to the departing Presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump respectively.
On May 4, 2017, after the House of Representatives voted to pass the American Health Care Act which partially repealed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Democratic representatives chanted "Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye" to Republican representatives, implying that in voting for the bill, they would lose their House seats in the next election. DeCarlo was happy to hear of the song getting renewed exposure, but said he opposed Obamacare. It was not the first time the song had been sung in Congress; in 1993, after Democrats voted for then-President Bill Clinton's tax bill, House Republicans sang "Goodbye".
In January 2019, GMC launched an advertising campaign for its 2019 Sierra 1500 pickup truck, focusing on GMC's new MultiPro tailgate feature. The commercial shows owners of competing pickups carrying tailgates from those trucks and singing "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" while heading to the top of a mountain.