When the song became a smash hit, Eva Boyd ended up having to create a dance to go along with the song. Īs the song came before the dance, there was no dance when the song was originally written. Carole King stated this during an interview on National Public Radio (NPR) shortly after Little Eva died. Eva Boyd was introduced to Goffin and King and they realized she had a good singing voice, so they had her record "The Loco-Motion". The widely believed story of how the song "The Loco-Motion" came to be is that Carole King was playing music at home and Eva Boyd was doing some chores and started dancing to it the dance The Loco-Motion was born. "The Loco-Motion" is ranked No. 359 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of " The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The Little Eva version of the song was later featured in the David Lynch film Inland Empire (2006).
It re-entered the chart some ten years later and almost became a top ten again, peaking at No. 11. The Vernons Girls' version stalled at No. 47 in the UK, while the Little Eva version reached No. 2 on the UK charts. A cover version of the song was recorded quickly by British girl group The Vernons Girls and scored the chart the same week as the Little Eva version.
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In March 1965, Little Eva sang the song on the ABC-TV series Shindig!, and this is the only known video of her singing this song. It was also the third most successful single of 1962 in South Africa. In the United States, "The Loco-Motion" was the sixth most successful single of 1962 according to Billboard. King performed the backup vocals in the recording. There are two common versions of the song in circulation one includes handclaps during the verses, the other has no handclaps. "The Loco-Motion" was the first release by the new Dimension Records company, whose releases were mostly penned and produced by Goffin and King. Boyd was actually Carole King's babysitter, having been introduced to King and husband Gerry Goffin by The Cookies, a local girl group who would also record for the songwriters. Her version was released and her name was changed to Little Eva. Sharp passed on the song leaving the opportunity open for Eva Boyd who had recorded the demo. King and Goffin wrote "The Loco-Motion" in hopes to have it recorded by Dee Dee Sharp who had a smash hit with " Mashed Potato Time".
The earlier song to do this was " Go Away Little Girl", also written by Goffin and King. "The Loco-Motion" was also the second song to reach No. 1 by two different musical acts. The song is a popular and enduring example of the dance-song genre: much of the lyrics are devoted to a description of the dance itself, usually done as a type of line dance. No. 1) and finally by Australian singer Kylie Minogue in 1988 (U.S. No. 1) in 1974 by American band Grand Funk Railroad (U.S. The song is notable for appearing in the American Top 5 three times, each time in a different decade: in 1962 by the American pop singer Little Eva,(U.S. "The Loco-Motion" was originally written for Dee Dee Sharp but Sharp turned the song down. " The Loco-Motion" is a 1962 pop song written by American songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King.