“Buddy Holly” was the second single from the band’s 1994 debut album Weezer, popularly known as The Blue Album.

The single was released on September 7 1994, on what would have been Buddy Holly’s 58th birthday. The song was an international hit, reaching #17 on the US pop charts, and #12 in the UK.

In 2011, Rolling Stone named “Buddy Holly” one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Despite its popular and critical success, songwriter Rivers Cuomo had little confidence in the song, and had to be prodded by producer Ric Ocasek to include it on the album.

Bassist Matt Sharp described how hard Ric pushed for the song:

Ric said we’d be stupid to leave it off the album. We’d come into the studio in the morning and find little pieces of paper with doodles on them: “WE WANT BUDDY HOLLY!”

The groundbreaking music video for “Buddy Holly” was filmed by Spike Jonze, later famous for directing films such as Being John Malkovich and Her. Jonze digitally inserted the band playing at “Arnold’s” diner from the television show Happy Days, interspersed with footage from the show.

In 2007, Rivers Cuomo released a demo of the song as a part of his solo album Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.