An addition to my “na na na” posting, with an xkcd cartoon compressing a collection of “na” songs into a chart: the song “Get a Job” and the name Sha Na Na for the rock group that took its name from the song. Nonsense syllables rule!
On the song, from Wikipedia:
“Get a Job” is one of the best known doo-wop songs of the 1950s. Recorded by The Silhouettes in October 1957, the song reached the number one spot on the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts in February 1958.
“When I was in the service in the early 1950s and didn’t come home and go to work, my mother said ‘get a job’ and basically that’s where the song came from,” said tenor Richard Lewis, who wrote the lyrics. The four members of the group shared the credit, jointly creating the “sha na na” and “dip dip dip dip” hooks later imitated by other doo-wop groups.
The Silhouettes’ recording:
Repeated: sha na na na – sha na na na na
Then Sha Na Na, also from Wikipedia:
Sha Na Na is an American rock and roll group. The name is taken from a part of the long series of nonsense syllables in the doo-wop hit song “Get a Job”, originally recorded in 1957 by the Silhouettes.
Billing themselves as “from the streets of New York” and outfitted in gold lamé, leather jackets, and pompadour and ducktail hairdos, Sha Na Na performs a song and dance repertoire of classic fifties rock and roll, simultaneously reviving and sending up the music and 1950s New York street culture. Sha Na Na hosted the Sha Na Na syndicated variety series that ran from 1977 to 1981.
Here they are performing “Don’t You Just Know It”:
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