Sleepwalk (1 hour) Ritchie Valens

If you watch a movie about the 1950s or early 1960s, it is likely that at some point you will hear a familiar instrumental song that you recognize but might not know its name. If you have wondered about the story behind the familiar song with the steel guitar, the name of the song is “Sleep Walk,” written and recorded by brothers Santo & Johnny Farina in 1959.

“Sleep Walk” was recorded at the end of the 1950s, so the song was probably still playing on the radio as the 1960s began. And in retrospect, it seems like it was a last gasp of capturing the perceived innocence of the 1950s before the start of the turbulent changes of the 1960s, as well as following the tradition of 1950s instrumental guitar songs. Perhaps those reasons are why “Sleep Walk” is so often used in movies to evoke the 1950s, such as when the song pops up at the end of La Bamba (1987) after Ritchie Valens’s family learns of his death in February 1959.

Santo and Johnny perform the song on the August 1, 1959 episode of the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Dick Clark tells how the brothers wrote the song at 2:00 a.m. after one brother woke up the other because he had the idea for the song in his head (although another article just reports that the brothers stayed up late to write the song). The story explains the name of the song.