Peggy Sue

Buddy Holly wrote this song as "Cindy Lou." It went: If you knew Cindy Lou Then you'd know why I feel blue without Cindy When his drummer, Jerry Allison, heard it, he asked Buddy if he would change the name to "Peggy Sue" after a girl he had dated named Peggy Sue Gerron. Holly agreed; the song probably wouldn't be heard outside of Lubbock, Texas, and it would really mean some brownie points for Jerry. The gambit worked for Allison: he and Peggy Sue eloped in 1958, but they divorced nine years later.

This was the first hit credited to Holly without his backing band, The Crickets. The Crickets did play on this, but Holly's songs were released on one of two labels, Coral Records crediting him as a solo artist and Brunswick with The Crickets. Both labels were owned by Decca Records.

Drummer Jerry Allison had trouble keeping the right beat when they recorded this. The song had been written in cha-cha time. The engineer came on the mike and told Jerry: "If you don't get it right in the next take we're gonna change the name back to Cindy Lou." Jerry thought the guy might not be kidding so he asked for a few more minutes to "go through some exercises." He did just that. As he was going through the "new" warm-up, the beat to the song was changed from cha-cha to Jerry's new beat that was merely a part of his warm-up routine for the high school band. Buddy began to change the guitar licks to fit the beat and the new rhythm developed right there on the spot.