Connie Francis was an enormous of Fifties and ’60s sugary-sweet pop, notching greater than a dozen hits. Within the months main as much as her demise, introduced Thursday, she skilled yet another in “Pretty Little Baby,” which has turn into a viral hit on TikTok six a long time after its launch.
As of Thursday, greater than 22.5 million TikTok movies have been created utilizing the sound, typically partnering movies of child animals, toddlers, make-up tutorials and retro fashions. In response to TikTok, these movies have amassed greater than 45.5 billion views, globally. Celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian and North West have used it, too, with West lip-syncing alongside to the observe.
Hooky, feel-good pop songs are inclined to do effectively on TikTok, and 1962’s “Pretty Little Baby” is an exemplar of that phenomenon. Customers gravitated towards the track’s healthful simplicity, candy vocals, delicate organ and upstroke riffs. “You can ask the flowers / I sit for hours / Telling all the bluebirds / The bill and coo birds / Pretty little baby, I’m so in love with you,” Francis swoons on the verse that has picked up steam on the platform.
And all of this has transpired in mere months: In response to Luminate, an trade information and analytics firm, “Pretty Little Baby” was incomes simply over 17,000 on-demand audio streams within the U.S. throughout the week ending April 10. A month later, that quantity had climbed to 2.4 million. That’s a progress of over 7,000%. The track has earned over 29 million streams this 12 months thus far.
In a single fashionable video, which garnered over 56 million views, a person posted about child teething hacks for first-time mothers. One other person, Amari Goins, posted a video, with over 112 million views, of her 2-year-old daughter singing alongside to the lyrics, noting that her toddler picked up the track due to how typically they heard it on TikTok.
Most just lately, TikTok customers have begun posting covers of “Pretty Little Baby” as a part of a singing problem, the place they exaggerate Francis’ efficiency with their very own stylized vocal runs. Francis, who died at 87, herself joined TikTok because of her track’s reputation, and her first two movies — which earned 16.3 million and 31.2 million views, respectively — furthered engagement. In her first video, posted in early June, she stated she was “flabbergasted and amazed” on the track’s resurgence.
“To think that a song I recorded 63 years ago is captivating new generations of audiences is truly overwhelming for me,” Francis stated in that first put up, which she adopted with a clip of herself lip-syncing to the track.
For many years, the track lived in relative obscurity — written by Don Stirling and Invoice Nauman for Francis, it was by no means a single and was initially launched within the U.Ok. because the B-side of her 1962 single “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter.” It seems on her album “Connie Francis Sings ‘Second Hand Love,’” launched the identical 12 months. Greater than 60 years later, the track reached No. 20 on Billboard’s Digital Tune Gross sales chart in June 2025 and hit each the Scorching 100’s Effervescent Beneath chart and the Billboard World 200.
In Francis’ final TikTok video, posted late final month, she thanked the “many wonderful artists” who paid tribute to her, and all of the customers who sang alongside along with her.
Peter Lemongello Jr., a singer and performer who referred to as Francis a pal, posted a TikTok in Might the place he sang the track to Francis, what he wrote on Fb was “one of the greatest and most exciting moments of my career so far.” The video garnered over 15 million views.
“There are no words to express this monumental loss,” he wrote in a Fb put up on Thursday. “I will be forever grateful to her for the help she gave me with my career.”
Ian Paget, a TikTok creator, posted a tearful video Thursday and stated he hopes Francis and her household “have felt that love from the younger crowd learning who she is.”
The TikTok reputation of “Pretty Little Baby” prompted her label Republic/UMe Data to reissue variations Francis had sung in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish in 1962. Bruce Resnikoff, president and CEO of UMe, wrote in an announcement that the worldwide catalog division was saddened however took “comfort in knowing how joyful and fulfilled she felt in these last few months, as a new generation discovered her music and celebrated her legacy.”
In Might, because the track took off, Francis thanked TikTok and its customers for “the wonderful, and oh so unexpected, reception” in a Fb put up.
As for her response to having a “viral hit”? She continued: “Clearly out of touch with present day music statistics terminology, my initial response was to ask: ‘What’s that?’ Thank you everyone!”
