"Come on-a My House" | ||||
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Single by Rosemary Clooney | ||||
from the album Come On-A My House | ||||
B-side | "Rose of the Mountain" | |||
Released | June 6, 1951 | |||
Format | 78 rpm vinyl | |||
Recorded | 1951 | |||
Genre | Traditional pop | |||
Length | 2:02 | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Writer(s) |
Ross Bagdasarian William Saroyan |
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Producer(s) | Mitch Miller | |||
Rosemary Clooney singles chronology | ||||
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"Come on-a My House" is a song performed by Rosemary Clooney on her album Come On-A My House, released on June 6, 1951. The song was written by Ross Bagdasarian and his cousin, the Armenian American Pulitzer Prize winning author William Saroyan, in the summer of 1939, while driving across New Mexico. The melody is based on an Armenian folk song.
It was not performed until the 1950, off-Broadway production of The Son. The song did not become a hit until the release of Clooney's recording.
It was probably Saroyan's only effort at popular songwriting, and it was one of Bagdasarian's few well-known works that was not connected to his best-known creation, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Bagdasarian, as David Seville, went on to much fame with his Chipmunks recordings.
The song was first performed during 1950 in an off-Broadway production of The Son, but did not become a hit until the release of Clooney's recording.
The song was a major hit for Clooney in 1951; it was the first of a number of dialect songs she did. She recorded the song with Mitch Miller leading an ensemble of four musicians, including harpsichordist Stan Freeman in the early part of 1951, and the song reached #1 on the Billboard charts, staying in the top position for six weeks.
Clooney sang the song in the 1953 film The Stars Are Singing in a scene where she ended up mocking the song and said no one would listen to it.
Although she performed "Come on-a My House" for many years, Clooney later confessed that she hated the song. She said she had been given a practice record of the song and told Miller that the song wasn't for her. Miller gave her an ultimatum: record the song or be fired. During a 1988 interview, Clooney said that whenever she listened to the recording she could hear the anger in her voice for being forced to sing it. Little did she know that the song would become one of her biggest hits.