Dang Me

"Dang Me"
Single by Roger Miller
from the album Roger and Out
B-side	"Got Two Again"
Released	May 1964
Genre	Country
Length	1:47
Label	Smash
Writer(s)	Roger Miller
Producer	Jerry Kennedy
Roger Miller singles chronology
"Lock, Stock and Teardrops" (1963) "Dang Me" (1964) "Chug-a-Lug" (1964)

"Dang Me" is a 1964 song by American country music artist Roger Miller, and that year's Grammy Award winner for Best Country & Western Song. Miller's first major country hit and first Top Ten pop music hit,^[1] it was a novelty song^[1] whose "jazzy instrumental section" helped make it "the quintessential example of Miller's lighthearted humor, which brought him many more hits".^[1]

History

Newly signed with the Mercury Records subsidiary Smash Records, Miller gathered on January 10-11, 1964, with music producer Jerry Kennedy, music arranger Bill Justis, and session musicians Ray Edenton and Harold Bradley (guitars), Hargus "Pig" Robbins (piano), Bob Moore (bass), and Buddy Harman (drums) at the Quonset Hut Studio on Nashville, Tennessee's Music Row.^[2] On the second day, they recorded "Dang Me," which Miller, in his official biography, recalled as having written in four minutes in a Phoenix, Arizona hotel room. Johnny Cash in his last major interview would claim Miller wrote the song at the Joshua Tree in California when Miller got out of the car with pen and paper to go write the song. Cash asked Miller what he was doing to which Miller replied "I'm writing a song. You can't come look."^[3]

Kennedy had already started work on many other of that sessions' songs before he eventually brought the recording of "Dang Me" to his home. Upon playing it, he recalled, "My kids came screaming down the stairs when 'Dang Me' came on. They thought that was the greatest thing they'd ever heard. I started playing it over and over and over again...".^[2] Kennedy and Mercury Records chose "Dang Me" (copyrighted by Tree Publishing, BMI) as the first single of the May 1964 LP Roger and Out (Smash SRS-67046).^[4] The album was shortly retitled and rereleased that year as Dang Me (Smash SRS-67049)

The song spent 25 weeks on the Billboard country-music chart,^[2] reaching number one,^[5] and peaked at number seven on the magazine's pop chart. It went on to appear on numerous Miller compilations. On film or tape, Miller performs it, with other songs, in the 1966 concert film The Big T.N.T. Show, and as part of a closing-number medley on season three, episode #21, of The Muppet Show in 1979.^[6]

Cover versions

"Dang Me" has appeared on recordings by at least eight other performers as disparate as Johnny Cash on his 1999 album Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Rivers recorded live in 1964 on Here We à Go Go Again!, and Sammy Davis, Jr. on the live album That's All (1967).

Chart performance

Chart (1964)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	7
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	3
Canadian RPM Top Singles	6

Preceded by "My Heart Skips a Beat" by Buck Owens

Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single July 18-August 22, 1964

Succeeded by "I Guess I'm Crazy" by Jim Reeves

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Ruhlmann, William. AllMusic.com: "Dang Me"
2. ^ ^{a b c} Roger Miller official site: Biography, page 2
3. ^ "#23: Roger Miller". In CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music. Country Music Television. 28 March 2003.
4. ^ LP Discography - Covers & Lyrics: Roger and Out
5. ^ LP Discography - Covers & Lyrics: Roger Miller
6. ^ DVD: The Muppet Show - The Complete Third Season (Walt Disney Video, 2008)