Big Star – Thirteen

“Thirteen” – Single by Big Star from the album #1 Record
B-side: “Watch the Sunrise”
Released: 1974
Recorded: 1971
Studio: Ardent, Memphis
Label: Ardent
Songwriters: Alex Chilton, Chris Bell
Producer: John Fry

Big Star – “Thirteen” [Alternate Mix] (Official Music Video) from the greatest-hits album ‘Keep An Eye On The Sky’ (2009). “Thirteen” originally appeared on ‘#1 Record’ (1972). The video features archival footage of Big Star members Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummel.

Rolling Stone describes it “one of rock’s most beautiful celebrations of adolescence”, and rated it #396 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

The name of the album was #1 Record, which was bitterly ironic, as it ended up selling under 10,000 copies upon its initial release in 1972. The name of the band, Big Star, also proved to be an unfortunate misnomer, because outside of critics and other musicians, they remained virtually anonymous during their brief time together.

Despite all these negatives and contradictions, Big Star included on #1 Record one of the best ballads of the rock-and-roll era, the hauntingly yearning “Thirteen.” The title comes from the age of the narrator, and the song is one of the most accurate depictions ofan era in life when the first pangs of romance arrive to simultaneously enthrall and torture. On #1 Record, their debut album, Big Star wielded an impressive duo of singer-songwriters in the Memphis-raised pair Alex Chilton and Chris Bell. Chilton had already achieved chart success as a teenager with The Box Tops, displaying gritty vocals that were soulful beyond his years on a string of rhythm and blues-influenced singles. But when he joined up with Bell, a proponent of a combination of Byrdsy jangle and Beatles-y catchiness that would come to be known as power pop.