YMMV / Buddy Holly

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• Accidental Innuendo: "Everyday" got some memetic mileage out of the handclaps as it sounded like Holly was having some private time with himself.
• Epic Riff: "Peggy Sue"
• First and Foremost: Because Buddy's originals are associated with the innocence of the 1950s, this is strongly enforced.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: He was particularly popular in Britain, partly because he toured there when other contemporary American stars like Elvis never did. Notably, the British press always had the Crickets pose with cricket bats for photos, even though their name was a reference to the insect rather than the sport.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "It Doesn't Matter Anymore". Released shortly before the plane crash - and hitting number one directly afterward - it's hard not to read lyrics like "Well, you go your way and I'll go mine / Now and forever till the end of time" as just a little disconcerting.
  • When Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the flight, Buddy Holly jokingly told him, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up". (The heating on the bus was broken). Jennings replied, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes". Those words haunted Jennings for the rest of his life.
• Memetic Mutation: Buddy's glasses. He needed them, but Elton John didn't. He started wearing them as a tribute to Buddy. John Lennon also to some extent. And even these days thanks to Rivers Cuomo. Elvis Costello genuinely needed glasses but the style he wore when he broke through created a resemblance to Holly.
• Misattributed Song: YouTube is prone to people failing the spot check and misattributing recordings by Bill Haley to Buddy Holly, and vice-versa.
• Pop Culture Holiday: A somber variant: Holly and his band died in a plane crash on February 3rd, "The Day the Music Died." To honor him, fans hold memorial concerts on February 3rd every year at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the site of the band's final performances.
• Replacement Scrappy: The Fireballs, Norman Petty's early '60s house band, who were used to overdub the demo tapes Holly left behind.
• Signature Song: Arguably "Peggy Sue."
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Hardcore fans hated the '60s overdubs. All of the undubbed originals were eventually released.
  • In the 1980s, The Picks, a vocal group that provided Jordanaires-like backing vocals on some of Holly's recordings, overdubbed new backing to dozens more Holly recordings. Reaction to these overdubs is very mixed, especially as many of the overdubbed tracks have been reissued without indication that they are overdubs and not the original edits.

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