Little Eva

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Born in Belhaven, North Carolina, she moved to the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, at a young age. As a teenager, she worked as a maid and earned extra money as a babysitter for songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. It is often claimed that Goffin and King were amused by Boyd's particular dancing style, so they wrote "The Loco-Motion" for her and had her record it as a demo (the record was intended for Dee Dee Sharp).

However, as King said in an interview with NPR and in her "One to One" concert video, they knew she could sing when they met her, and it would be just a matter of time before they would have her record songs they wrote, the most successful being "The Loco-Motion."

Music producer Don Kirshner of Dimension Records was impressed by the song and Boyd's voice and had it released.  The song reached #1 in the United States in 1962. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.  After the success of "The Loco-Motion," Boyd was stereotyped as a dance-craze singer and was given limited material.

The same year, Goffin and King wrote "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)" (performed by the Crystals) after discovering that Boyd was being regularly beaten by her boyfriend.  When they inquired why she tolerated such treatment, Eva replied without batting an eyelid that her boyfriend's actions were motivated by his love for her.

Phil Spector's arrangement of the song was ominous and ambiguous.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKpVQm41f8Y

"The Loco-Motion" is a 1962 pop song written by American songwriters Gerry Goffin and Carole King. "The Loco-Motion" was originally written for Dee Dee Sharp, but Sharp turned the song down. The song is notable for appearing in the American Top 5 three times, each time in a different decade: in 1962 by the American pop singer Little Eva,(U.S. No. 1);  in 1974 by the American band Grand Funk Railroad (U.S. No. 1);  and finally in 1988 by the Australian singer Kylie Minogue (U.S. No. 3).

The song is a popular and enduring example of the dance-song genre: much of the lyrics are devoted to a description of the dance itself, usually performed as a type of line dance. However, the song came before the dance.

"The Loco-Motion" was also the second song to reach No. 1 by two different musical acts. The earlier song to do this was "Go Away Little Girl", also written by Goffin and King. It is one of only nine songs to achieve this feat.