Wake Up Little Susie

From Wikipedia:

“Wake Up Little Susie” is a popular song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and published in 1957.

The song is best known in a recording by the Everly Brothers, issued by Cadence Records as catalog number 1337. The Everly Brothers record reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop chart and the Cash Box Best Selling Records chart, despite having been banned from Boston radio stations for lyrics that, at the time, were considered suggestive, according to a 1986 interview with Don Everly. “Wake Up Little Susie” also spent seven weeks atop the Billboard country chart and got to No. two on the UK Singles Chart. The song was ranked at No. 318 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

Song premise

The song is written from the point of view of a high school boy to his girlfriend, Susie. In the song, the two go out on a date to a cinema (perhaps a drive-in), only to fall asleep during the movie. They do not wake up until 4 o’clock in the morning, well after her 10 o’clock curfew. They then contemplate the reactions of her parents and their friends. The boy fears that having stayed out so late, their friends and families will assume that they slept together and that in spite of the two of them being perfectly innocent, they’ve both now lost their good reputations. […]

During the recording session for “I Me Mine“, on January 3, 1970, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr performed a brief rendition of “Wake Up Little Susie“, which was released on the Let It Be (50th anniversary boxset) in 2021.

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.

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