Pretty Little Baby goes viral after 63 years

Cuteness has no limitations. What was cute in 1962 will still be cute 63 years later. That is if it was really cute in the first place. A case in point is the song Pretty Little Baby, which you have to admit really sounds cute.

Composed by Don Stirling and Bill Nauman, it was recorded by Connie Francis in 1962 as a B-side for a single and an album cut. A kind of filler. So, Pretty Little Baby languished in near anonymity for 63 years. But then somebody discovered it and thought it might make a good background for a little TikTok reel.

Little did that somebody envision what would happen next. Those who saw his feed came up with their own. They used Pretty Little Baby to show off their loves, their babies, fur babies, etc., even their tattoos in cutesy-wootsy moments.

Pretty Little Baby became a cuteness overload going viral on TikTok. Soon the Connie Francis single was racking up views by the billions.  A recent count said it had already been heard 10 billion times on TikTok alone and that number is still going up.

Connie was the biggest-selling girl singer of the early rock and roll era in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, a female Elvis Presley. She is the first girl ever to make No. 1 in the Hot 100 hit list with Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool in 1960. She is estimated to have sold over 200 million records. Among her biggest hits are Stupid Cupid, Lipstick on your Collar, Wishing It Was You, Who’s Sorry Now? My Happiness, Among My Souvenirs, Never on Sunday, Mama and Where the Boys Are.

Now, Connie, at 87 years old and retired in Florida, is enjoying a resurgence. With billions of hits on TikTok, it will not be long before Pretty Little Baby also makes the charts of YouTube, Spotify, etc. The song has already entered the Billboard Philippines’ Hot 100 chart at No. 99.

This reminds me of how Brenda Lee’s Rocking Around the Christmas from 1958 topped the hit charts last holiday season. That took 67 years but the Dynamite Brenda really put one over Christmas queen Mariah Carey with her rocking ditty.

Thanks to today’s digital platforms and to social media, old songs need not stay hidden anymore. All it takes is that little push from TikTok.

And so we go, “Pretty little baby, you say that maybe/ you’ll be thinking of me/ and try to love me/ pretty little baby/ I’m hoping that you’ll do…”

Meanwhile, Cup of Joe’s Multo remains a strong No. 1 with over 1.5 million streams a day on Spotify and over a million views a day on YouTube. Given these, it follows that this unstoppable ghost is also the No. 1 tune in Billboard’s Hot 100 Philippines.

Here goes the latest Spotify Daily Chart: Multo by Cup of Joe. Tibok by Earl Agustin; You’ll be in my Heart by NIKI; My Day by HELLMERRY; Nicotine by SAJKA; Tingin, also by Cup of Joe with Janine Tenoso; Marilag by Dionela; Sa Bawa’t Sandali by Amiel Sol; B4 I LET YOU GO by Ryouji with CK YG; back to friends by sombr; The Man Who Can’t Be Moved by The Script; Dalangin by Earl Agustin; Kalimutan Ka by Skusta Clee.

Isa Lang by Arthur Nery; sining by Dionela with Jay R; Misteryoso, again by Cup of Joe; Don’t Say You Love Me by Jin; supernatural by Ariana Grande; Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls; Pwede Bang? by Hev Abi; luther by Kendrick Lamar; Umaasa by Calein; Naiilang by Le John; BIRDS OF A FEATHER by Billie Eilish; and Like JENNIE by JENNIE.