Oh Boy! (1957) – Buddy Holly and the Crickets

If I was to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I’d have to start with Buddy Holly. Buddy died when I was about eighteen and he was twenty-two. From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related, like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him. Buddy played the music that I loved – the music I grew up on: country western, rock ‘n’ roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre. One brand. And Buddy wrote songs – songs that had beautiful melodies and imaginative verses. And he sang great – sang in more than a few voices. He was the archetype. Everything I wasn’t and wanted to be. I saw him only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone. I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play, and I wasn’t disappointed.

He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than twenty-two. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn’t know what. And it gave me the chills.

The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of Bob Dylan’s 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature speech

Last weekend the family and I were repeatedly bludgeoned with the first verse of Buddy Holly’s ‘Oh Boy!’. When my 8-year-old daughter Katherine first heard it, it was love at first listen. She tried to mimic Buddy, but it was an indecipherable, rambling mess. ‘Oh Boy!’ 😟

I told her, if you’re going to sing Buddy then get it right. So, we pulled apart each line until she understood its meaning in Spanish. The line Kathy-Path (my nickname for her) had the hardest time with was ‘You don’t know what you’ve been a-missing‘. But we broke it down on Sunday morning over a hearty Colombian breakfast and walk to the park until she nailed it. Even my son Jesus Mateo got in the act (see image inset).
Oh Boy! is the third song to appear here from Buddy Holly after his previous entry – Heartbeat.

[Chorus]
All of my love
All of my kissing
You don’t know what you’ve been a-missing
Oh boy (Oh boy), when you’re with me
Oh boy (Oh boy), the world can see
That you, were meant, for me

[Verse 1]
All of my life
I’ve been a-waiting
Tonight there’ll be no, hesitating
Oh boy (oh boy), when you’re with me
Oh boy (oh boy), the world can see
That you, were meant, for me
Stars appear and shadows are falling
You can hear my heart a-calling
A little bit a-loving makes everything right
I’m gonna see my baby tonight

[Chorus]
All of my love
All of my kissing
You don’t know what you’ve been a-missing
Oh boy (Oh boy), when you’re with me
Oh boy (Oh boy), the world can see
That you, were meant, for me

Most of the following are excerpts of the Wikipedia article below:

It was written by Sonny West, Bill Tilghman and Norman Petty. The song was included on the album The “Chirping” Crickets and was also released as the A-side of a single, with Not Fade Away as the B-side. The song peaked at number 10 on the US charts, number 3 on the UK charts in early 1958, and number 26 in Canada. The song was originally recorded as a demo by Sonny West and Petty presented West’s demo to Buddy Holly with the intention of Holly recording the song.

On the BBC’s Classic Albums series in 2019, West said, “I had a decision to make whether to say I want to do it myself and I said ‘No, I want Buddy to do it‘, it can’t hurt anything and if it didn’t work I could go back and do it myself someday.” It was subsequently recorded by Buddy Holly and the Crickets between June 29 and July 1, 1957, at Norman Petty Studios with Holly singing lead vocals.
I have presented below the original studio recording and Buddy’s live appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.

References:
1. Oh, Boy! (The Crickets song) – Buddy Holly

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand