| "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Side A of UK 7-inch single | ||||
| Single by Meco | ||||
| from the album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk | ||||
| B-side | "Funk" | |||
| Released | 1977 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 3:32 7:34 (DJ promo) | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) | John Williams | |||
| Producer(s) | ||||
| Meco singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Licensed audio | ||||
| "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" on YouTube | ||||
"Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" is a song recorded by Meco, taken from the album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 1, 1977, holding on to the spot for two weeks[1] and peaked at no. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, remaining in the charts for nine weeks.[2] The single was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, having sold a million units.[3]
"Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" is one of two songs that became hits featuring music from the Star Wars movie. The other is "Star Wars (Main Title)," which is original music from the movie soundtrack by John Williams. The song reached the Top 10 concurrently with Meco's more popular version. Meco again jousted with Williams a few months later, with both artists issuing competing versions of music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both reaching the US and Canadian Top 40, but with Williams's version being more successful than Meco's.
As Meco was unavailable at the time to appear on TopPop during the peak commercial performance of the song, Penney de Jager's choreographed ballet ensemble was instead asked to perform an interpretive dance on the show, which aired on 5 November 1977 in the Netherlands.[4][better source needed]
- ^ "The Hot 100 - 1977 Archive". Billboard. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "Meco". Official Charts Company. Retrieved July 15, 2014.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
RIAAwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Meco - Star Wars Title Theme/Cantina Band (Ballet by Penney de Jager) • TopPop". YouTube. Netherlands. 1977-11-05. Archived from the original on 2024-02-12. Retrieved 2017-03-03.