Eddie Cochran: Twenty Flight Rock (1957)

Eddie Cochran (Ray Rdward Cocharn) was born in Albert Lea Minnesota in 1938, but always said he was from Oklahoma (his parents were from there). As a kid, like many other rock stars, he would learn guitar by playing along with the radio. He moved to California and dropped out of high school to perform professionally.
He connected with Hank Cochran(not related) and began to record and write, but his first break came in the movies.

Eddie had co- written a song with Nelda Fairchild called "Twenty Flight Rock". He was asked to perform the song in a movie called "The Girl Can't Help It". This would lead to another movie appearance and his only album released during his lifetime called "Singin' to My Baby".

He would go on to write and perform some highly regarded and influential songs like "Summertime Blues" and "C'mon Everybody". Both are great songs that charted, but we like Twenty Flight Rock and a must have Cochran song. The amped up rockabilly piece tells the story of a frustrated teen who is "too tired to rock" once he climbs up to her 20th floor apartment, all because the elevator doesn't work:

When she calls me up on the telephone
Said c'mon over honey, I'm all alone
I said baby, you're mighty sweet
But I'm in the bed with a achin' feet
This went on for a couple of days
But I couldn't stay away

So I walked one, two flight, three flight, four
Five, six, seven flight, eight flight more
Up on the twelfth I'm ready to drag
Fifteenth floor I started to sag
Get to the top, I'm too tired to rock

Says guitar legend Brian Setzer, who would play Eddie Cochran in the movie "La Bamba":
“Eddie Cochran. He’s my biggest inspiration, when I saw a picture of him I said, ‘I want to look like that guy,’ then when I heard his music, ‘I want to pattern myself after this guy.’ I wanted to sound like him and look like him and it evolved from there."


Eddie was great friends with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper  (Jiles Perry "J.P. Richardson)who would both die together in a plane crash. Eddie became obsessed with his own death, thought his number was up and wanted to quit traveling. The road was the only way to earn money so he toured England in 1960. He along with his fiancee and Gene Vincent, hopped into a cab driven by someone named George Martin (hmmm).
Martin blew a tire at high speed and the ensuing crash killed Eddie.


The number of people and bands who covered Eddie Cochran's songs are too numerous to mention here. One example, (other than The Who doing "Summertime Blues") was Paul McCartney. When asked by John Lennon to play something for him, he played "Twenty Flight Rock". This would lead to his joining The Quarrymen, later to become the Beatles...

The first version is from his single released on the Liberty label. The second is from the movie mentioned previously called "The Girl Can't Help it".