| "Palisades Park" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Freddy Cannon | ||||
| A-side | "June, July and August" | |||
| Released | 1962 | |||
| Length | 1:53 | |||
| Label | Swan Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Chuck Barris | |||
| Freddy Cannon singles chronology | ||||
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"Palisades Park" is a song written by Chuck Barris and recorded by Freddy Cannon. A tribute to New Jersey's Palisades Amusement Park, the song is an up-tempo tune led by a distinctive organ part. It also incorporates amusement park sound effects.
Barris wrote a song about an amusement and it was suggested he use the name of an amusement park as the title. One night he was in Manhattan when he looked toward the New Jersey Palisades Cliffs, on which the amusement park sat. That was when inspiration hit and the title was added. The Palisades Amusement Park closed on September 12, 1971.[1]
Released by Swan Records as a B-side to "June, July and August," "Palisades Park" broke in when a Flint, Michigan radio DJ played it by mistake. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 on March 12, 1962, the biggest hit of Cannon's career.[2]
It was covered by Shelley Fabares on her 1962 album The Things We Did Last Summer, Gary Lewis and the Playboys on their 1965 album A Session With Gary Lewis And the Playboys, The Beach Boys on their 1976 album 15 Big Ones, and The Ramones on their 1989 album, Brain Drain.
Though never officially recorded and released, the song was also performed by Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band on their Tunnel of Love Express Tour in 1988.[3]
The song was also performed live by The Stompers, a Boston-based band with members from Lynn, MA (Freddy Cannon's home town, although Freddy was born in Swampscott, MA as Frederick Picariello)) beginning in the late 1970s, but it was only recorded by the band on a live album released in 1994.[4][5]
New York City Garage Punk band The Devil Dogs covered the song for their 1990 album, Big Beef Bonanza.
Cannon recorded "Kennywood Park" (which, unlike Palisades Park before it, is still in operation) in the mid-1980s, a reworking of the song about the Pittsburgh amusement park of the same name. It was issued as a limited edition 45 vinyl single.
Cannon also used a version of the song as a jingle for Boston's Oldies station WODS-FM, Oldies 103 in the 90's (Freddie's hometown is Lynn, Mass).[6]
More recently "Palisades Park" was featured in the films Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, picturing the life of the song's writer Chuck Barris, and X-Men: First Class, where it was used during a scene set in 1962, the year of the song's initial release.