In 1964, Bert Berns (writing as Bert Russell) and Wes Farrell put together a song which they called “My Girl Sloopy”, possibly inspired by jazz singer Dorothy Sloop. The song was recorded by The Vibrations with lead vocals by Carl Fisher.

The Strangeloves, the band composed of three Brooklyn songwriters posing as Australian sheep farmers, began playing a poppier modified version of the song, called “Hang On Sloopy”, live during concerts and they planned on making it their next single. But then members of The Dave Clarke Five, who were touring with The Strangeloves, let it be known that they were planning on recording a version of “Hang On Sloopy” using The Strangelove’s arrangement. Though they couldn’t record the follow-up themselves, The Strangeloves enlisted a back-up band they’d used in Ohio called Rick & The Raiders (with lead vocalist Rick Derringer) to record their version before the DCF could finish theirs. The Raiders were renamed The McCoys so as to not be confused with Paul Revere and the Raiders. The McCoy’s version, produced by The Strangeloves, came out first in July 1965 and hit #1 on October 2nd of 1965.

Though originally written and recorded with three verses, this version was cut down to two for the single and album. The three verse version did not appear until Bang Record’s 1970 compilation release Bang & Shout Super Hits. It later appeared in a 1991 Rhino records compilation.

On October 9, 1965, John Tatgenhorst, a music student at Ohio State University convinced the marching band director to play his arrangement of the song at a game. The song went over so well that they continued using it and to this day, they play it before the start of the fourth quarter at every game. The OSU band even have a downloadable ringtone of them performing a snippet of the song.