You can’t go on TikTok these days without seeing a video set to “Pretty Little Baby,” an obscure 1962 song by Connie Francis: It’s gone viral with more than 27 billion views. Francis, 87, has now joined the social media platform, even though she wasn’t familiar with it at first.
Francis tells ABC Audio that when the head of her record label called her and said, “Your song went viral,” she was confused. “I said, ‘What’s that?'” Francis recalls. “I thought, like, there was a virus in the computer or something like that. And he said, ‘No, it’s important, Connie.'”
“I’d love to be able to find out who first put it on TikTok. Who was the first person … to have the foresight to do that?” she muses. “It wasn’t a hit single.” In fact, the song was all but forgotten — including by Francis.
“I recorded so many songs that I don’t even remember ‘Pretty Little Baby,'” she reveals. “I had to listen to it to familiarize myself with it.”
But now that “Pretty Little Baby” has introduced a whole new generation to her work, perhaps they’ll discover her legendary hits — including “Who’s Sorry Now” and “Where the Boys Are” — and learn that she’s sold 200 million records and was the first woman ever to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, Francis is a major character in the current Broadway musical Just In Time, about the life of her ex-boyfriend, singer Bobby Darin.
Despite many accolades over the years, one has eluded Francis: the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
“It’s very important to me. I don’t know why I haven’t been in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame up until now,” Francis tells ABC Audio. “But of course, it would be an honor.”
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