"My Boomerang Won't Come Back" was a novelty record by British comedian Charlie Drake which became a surprise hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1961.

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"Are You Sure?" is a song by British pop duo The Allisons, that represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest 1961, performed in English. The song received 24 points, placing 2nd in a field of 16.

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Del Shannon - Runaway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S13mP_pfEc

"Running Scared" is a 1961 American pop song written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson and sung by Roy Orbison. An operatic rock ballad, the song was released as a 45rpm single by Monument Records in March 1961 and went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Running Scared" also reached #9 in the UK chart. The song was recorded as part of Roy's 1961 album "Crying" as the final track on the album.


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"Crying" is a ballad written by Roy Orbison and Joe Melson that was a hit for Roy Orbison in 1961. The song was released as a 45rpm single by Monument Records in July 1961 and reached No. 1 on the United States Cashbox chart for a week on October 7, 1961, and peaking at No. 2 on the rival Billboard Hot 100. Despite not reaching the summit in the latter publication, Billboard ranked the record as the No. 4 song of 1961. In 1987, Orbison rerecorded the song as a duet with K.D. Lang as part of the soundtrack for the motion picture Hiding Out.

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"Funny How Time Slips Away" is a song written by Willie Nelson and first recorded by country singer Billy Walker in 1961. Walker's version peaked at number 23 on the Hot C&W Sides chart.

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"Together" became a Top Ten hit in the summer of 1961 via a recording by Connie Francis cut in New York City on 3 June 1961 with Cliff Parman acting as arranger and conductor.

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"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics written by Johnny Mercer. It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its first performance by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. It also won Mancini the 1962 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Mercer the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. The song has been covered by many other artists.

It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in 1961 and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremonies in 1962.

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"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics written by Johnny Mercer. It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its first performance by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie Breakfast at Tiffany's. It also won Mancini the 1962 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Mercer the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. The song has been covered by many other artists.

It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in 1961 and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremonies in 1962.

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"Ebony Eyes" is a song written by John D. Loudermilk, recorded in 1961 by The Everly Brothers (b/w "Walk Right Back"), and reached No. 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The lyrics tell a young man's tragic story of losing his beloved fiancee in an airplane crash during the dark, bad weather, which reminds him of her "ebony eyes". The single, with reversed sides, reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song was initially banned by the BBC as its lyrics were considered too upsetting to play on the radio.

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The Marcels, "Blue Moon"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwpbP9UeLMc

The Marcels, "Blue Moon"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwpbP9UeLMc
Used in the movie "An American Werewolf In London".

"Crazy" is a ballad composed by Willie Nelson. It has been recorded by several artists, most notably by Patsy Cline in 1961, whose version was a #2 country hit in 1962.1961, Cline was still on crutches after going through a car windshield in a head-on collision two months earlier and had difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs. 'Crazy' spent 21 weeks on the chart and eventually became one of her signature tunes.

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This one is pretty fun and clever (and has some good pictures):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcFkUHvlf5A

Written by John D. Loudermilk and released as a single in 1961, "Sad Movies (Make Me Cry)" was Sue Thompson's first song to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it peaked at number five in October. The song also reached the top of the Billboard Easy Listening chart, which had been created earlier in 1961, becoming the second song by a female vocalist to top this list. In Australia, the song topped out at number six on the Kent Music Report, while in the United Kingdom, it peaked at number 46 on the UK Singles Chart.

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"Johnny Remember Me" is a song which became a 1961 UK #1 hit single for John Leyton, backed by The Outlaws. It was producer Joe Meek's first #1 production. Recounting the haunting – real or imagined – of a young man by his dead lover, the song is one of the most noted of the 'death ditties' that populated the transatlantic pop charts in the early to mid-1960s. It is distinguished in particular by its eerie, echoing sound (a hallmark of the Joe Meek production style) and by the ghostly, foreboding female wails that form its backing vocal (by Lissa Gray). The recording was arranged by Charles Blackwell. The song was banned by the BBC, along with many other 'death discs', which were popular at the time.

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"Fool #1" is a song written by Kathryn R. Fulton and performed by Brenda Lee. The song reached No.3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No.38 in the UK (where it was entitled "Fool No.1", because the # symbol was not synonymous with the word 'number' for British audiences) in 1961. The song also reached No.23 in Australia. The song was featured on Lee's 1962 album, Brenda, That's All.

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"It Was a Very Good Year" is a song Ervin Drake composed in 1961 for and originally recorded by Bob Shane with The Kingston Trio. It was subsequently made famous by Frank Sinatra's version five year later, which won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male.

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"Forty Shades of Green" is a song about Ireland, written and first performed by American country singer Johnny Cash. Cash wrote the song in 1959 while on a trip to Ireland; it was first released as a B-side of the song "The Rebel–Johnny Yuma" in 1961. It is also included in two of Cash's albums: Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1963, and Johnny Cash: The Great Lost Performance – Live at the Paramount Theatre, Asbury Park, New Jersey, recorded live in 1990 and released in 2007. Cash once recalled performing the song in Ireland and being told by an old man afterwards that it must have been an old Irish folk tune. "Forty Shades of Green" has also been recorded by Daniel O'Donnell, Foster and Allen, and Ruby Murray, among others.

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"Can't Help Falling in Love" is a pop ballad originally recorded by American singer Elvis Presley and published by Gladys Music, Presley's publishing company. It was written by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss. The melody is based on "Plaisir d'amour", a popular romance by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1784). The song was featured in Presley's 1961 film, Blue Hawaii. During the following four decades, it was recorded by numerous other artists, including Tom Smothers, Swedish pop group A-Teens, and the British reggae group UB40, whose 1993 version topped the U.S. and UK charts.

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"Cotton Fields" is a song written by American blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who made the first recording of the song in 1940. Covered by The Highwaymen in 1961, and famously covered by the Beach Boys in 1970.

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"Stand By Me" is a 1961 song originally performed by American singer-songwriter Ben E. King and written by King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller. According to King, the title is derived from, and was inspired by, a spiritual written by Sam Cooke and J. W. Alexander called "Stand by Me Father," recorded by the Soul Stirrers with Johnnie Taylor singing lead. There have been over 400 recorded versions of the song, performed by many artists.

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"I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" (also "I'm Henery the VIII, I Am" or "I'm Henry VIII, I Am"; spelled "Henery" but pronounced "'Enery" in the Cockney style normally used to sing it) is a 1910 British music hall song by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston. It was a signature song of the music hall star Harry Champion. In 1961 this song was recorded and extensively performed live by the British star Joe Brown, who revived the song and made it largely known in the British pop world. His version has two choruses either side of his guitar solo. He performs it live still today.

In 1965, it became the fastest-selling song in history to that point when it was revived by Herman's Hermits, becoming the group's second number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In the film Ghost, Sam (Patrick Swayze) sings this song on a continuous run in a bad English accent all night long, convincing Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) to help him; Sam's girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore) later reveals that Sam used this tactic to get her to agree to go out with him.

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"The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is a song originally written and recorded by Solomon Linda under the title "Mbube" for the South African Gallo Record Company in 1939. Linda's original was written in Zulu, while the English version's lyrics were written by George David Weiss. In 1961, it became a number one hit in the United States as adapted in English with the best-known version by the doo-wop group The Tokens.

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Please remember that lions do not sleep in a jungle, they sleep on the open savannahs and grasslands.

"Stranger on the Shore" is a piece for clarinet written by Acker Bilk for his young daughter and originally named "Jenny" after her. It was subsequently used as the theme tune of a BBC TV drama serial for young people, Stranger on the Shore. It was first released in 1961 in the UK, and then in the US, and reached number 1 in the US and number 2 in the UK.

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"Walk on By" is a song written by Kendall Hayes and performed by American country music artist Leroy Van Dyke. It was released in June 1961 as the first single and title track from the album Walk On By. The song was Van Dyke's most successful single, spending 37 weeks on the country chart and a record-breaking 19 at the number-one position. "Walk on By" crossed over to the pop chart peaking at number five, and was named by Billboard magazine as the biggest country music record in history.

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"Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" is a pop song released in 1961 by Neil Sedaka. Sedaka wrote the music and performed the song, while the lyrics were written by Howard Greenfield. The song reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and no 3 on the UK Singles Chart.

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"Moody River" is a song released in May 1961, which was performed by Pat Boone. It reached number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the following month. It was written by and originally performed by country rockabilly singer Chase Webster (real name Gary Daniel Bruce, not to be confused with Gary Bruce of the Knack). Webster was a labelmate of Boone's at Dot Records.

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"Sea of Heartbreak" is a song written by Paul Hampton and Hal David and recorded by Don Gibson in 1961. The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

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