Song of the Day 7/21: Connie Francis, “Stupid Cupid”

Guest post by Nathan Arizona

She watched this year as she became a TikTok sensation. She was a pop sensation for the first time 67 years ago when she released “Who’s Sorry Now” on those little records that went around 45 times a minute and had big holes in the middle. There’s been a lot of Connie Francis in the pop music world. “Who’s Sorry Now” itself had first been a hit by Bert Kalmer and Harry Ruby in 1923.

Francis, who died last week, became a hit with TikTokkers from Kim Kardashian to Stacey in her bedroom when they discovered her 1962 song “Pretty Little Baby” and posted it to accompany all kinds of videos. She said her first response to learning about it was, “What is TikTok?” “Pretty Little Baby” was one not one of her hits. She had even forgotten she recorded it until she heard it again online.

Francis learned accordion as a child in Newark, N.J., prompted by a stern Italian-American father who kept a close watch on her as she impressed in amateur performances. She started singing at 18 after turning down a scholarship to NYU to study pre-med. Her singing career began slowly, but she had a string of hits from 1958 to 1964 that included 16 that reached the Billboard Top 10. They included “Lipstick on Your Collar,” ”Stupid Cupid” and, in 1960, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” the first song by a female to top the Billboard pop chart.

The AllMusic web site calls her “the prototype for the female pop singer of today.” She favored songs by Neil Sedaka and other writers from Don Kirshner’s Aldon Music. She had a brief romance with Bobby Darin, who was then a writer there. The story goes that her father pulled a gun on him and sent him scurrying.

Her best known song might be the title track for the spring-break movie “Where the Boys Are.” An attractive, dark-eyed brunette, she was also a natural to be cast in a leading role.

But her life was not always a frolic in the sun. She was raped at knife-point after a 1974 show at Westbury Music Fair in New York. She lost her voice for several years in the late ‘60s after nasal surgery to make her nose narrower. In 1981 her attorney brother was shot to death, apparently by Mafia hitmen.

She had become popular in night clubs after her Top 40 career faded. She also had success with “ethnic” albums like “Connie Francis Sings Italian Favorites.” But these are not what excited the TikTokkers. They went for her Top 40 work, just like millions of others.

Here’s Connie Francis doing “Stupid Cupid.” The writers, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, thought some of their other songs would be more appropriately “classy” for her. But the first time she heard it she “started jumping up and down” and said, “’That’s it! You guys got my next record!’.”

This is the title song from “Where the Boys Are,” which she also appeared in. In the first shot of her, with two other girls, she’s the one on the right with dark hair, later seen wearing a red swimsuit and then a green one.