"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets (1954)

Do you know any little girls who own white dresses with voluminous petticoats? I know just the song they can dance to!

"Rock Around the Clock" was more or less the first rock and roll song (or let's say the first one for white people), though it didn't make much of a splash until it was used over the opening credits of the film The Blackboard Jungle in 1955 (bonus Glenn Ford connection!). It was later used in American Graffiti, and then as the theme song for the first season of "Happy Days", which is how 80s brats like me got to hear plenty of it and wonder why everyone was so goddamned apple-cheeked back then.

It's a song perfectly evocative of its time -- a brightly-colored, spit-curled era of sock hops and soda jerks -- yet timeless and inexhaustible. Whereas the likes of "Teen Angel" now sound hopelessly mired in 50s goo, this song remains as fresh and spunky as the day it was recorded. (Or, uh, re-recorded, since Haley sang a shorter version specifically for "Happy Days". And since this is rock, please feel free to read "spunky" as a double entendre).

This song works because it's rock and roll to the core: playful and dangerous, fun yet menacing. Get up and dance, dammit! Those opening drum hits -- they propel you out of your seat, but maybe straight into the fist of an angry teenager. The song travels on a great journey that takes you from happy clappy to "I think the guitarist is stalking me". You count along with Bill because you're afraid not to, but then the band winds it up and lets you go....back to their van!

Go ahead, try to listen to this swing rhythm-and-blues without tapping your foot and bopping your head. Even bad dancers can dance to this one.

Put your glad rags on and join me, honey!