The Deception Behind Steam’s ‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye’
Dreams of fame quickly evaporated for its singer, Gary DeCarlo
The Jimmy Kimmel Show aired a humorous animated video on Jan. 21, 2021 to commemorate the inauguration of Joe Biden. The video was set to Steam’s 1969 monster hit, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.” But the song never gave its lead vocalist, Gary DeCarlo, much to laugh about.
Although Steam was a one-hit wonder band, that one hit is heard in movies and TV commercials 50 years later and is sampled by other artists. DeCarlo was for years deprived of the income and fame the song’s success would have provided.
In the early 1960s, DeCarlo, Paul Leka and Dale Frashuer were members of doo wop groups named the Glenwoods, the Citations, and the Chateaus. The three got together again in 1968 when DeCarlo recorded four new singles for Fontana Records.
“The record company wanted me to put out a song called ‘Sweet Laura Lee,’ which was written by Larry Weiss who wrote ‘Rhinestone Cowboy,’” DeCarlo told Jennifer Dodge in 2014. “I didn’t really want to lead with a ballad, but they said that that’s what they wanted, so . . .
“We needed a B-side for it, and ‘Na Na’ became the B-side. It didn’t have the chant, though. The chant was born the night in the studio. Actually ‘Na Na’ was written a few years before, and it was just called ‘Kiss Him Goodbye.’ It was a blues shuffle. I always liked it, and I said to Dale, ‘Dale, I want to do “Kiss Him Goodbye.” Tell Paul that that’s what I want to do.’ When we went to the studio that night, the chant was born, and that was it. We went in around seven o’clock that night, and by five the next morning it was done, just the way you hear it on the radio.”
DeCarlo told Classic Bands that when the record company decided to release “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” as a single, he was promised that a road band would be formed around him. It never happened. A band named Steam toured the country with the song but DeCarlo was not a part of it. “All they did basically was go out and when they did the video, they lip-synched. And when they went out and did the shows, people would say to them, ‘How come you don’t sound like the record?’ That’s because they didn’t. There was no guitar on the record. There was no bass on the record. So these guys didn’t even know what they were doing.”
“That hurt me,” DeCarlo recalled in the Connecticut Post in 2016. “I remember driving to the railroad station hearing the song on the radio and just wanting to yell out the window ‘That’s me!’ I fell into a deep depression.”
“Na Na Hey Hey” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on Dec. 6, 1969. While DeCarlo received one third of the songwriting royalties, he was unable to tour as a member of Steam.
DeCarlo performed the song on ’60s Pop, Rock & Soul: My Music, the 2011 PBS concert special produced by TJ Lubinsky, which helped bring his story to a national audience. In 2014, DeCarlo recorded a new version of “Na Na Hey Hey” for his album Long Time Comin’.
Today “Na Na Hey Hey” is a popular sports stadium anthem, often played when a visiting player leaves the field in defeat. DeCarlo, 75, died in June 2017 after a long battle with lung cancer.
