The Knack's Fieger Dies at 57

Doug Fieger, front man for the New Wave group, the Knack and co-author of the 1979 #1 hit, My Sharona, died yesterday of lung cancer.

The song was written for a 17 year old girl with whom he became obsessed. After she grew up a bit, they became very good friends (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, yaknowwhatimean?.) It was my favorite song of that year, re-capturing, it seemed to me, the clarity and straightforward simplicity of mid-60s American and British-invasion rock.

I was dating a finishing school girl at the time who was two years older than this Sharona of musical repute. Her country-clubbing Texas mother gave me a disc of the song: