Another peculiar songwriting credit has to do with Bobby Darin’s first hit song, “Splish Splash”, as I have mentioned previously. The story is that the famous New York disc jockey Murray the K (real name: Murray Kaufman) – who later helped promote the Beatles in this country and often referred to himself as the “fifth Beatle” – made a bet with Darin in 1958 that he could not write a song that started out, “Splish splash, I was takin’ a bath” – the phrase was suggested to him by his mother Jean Kaufman. Bobby Darin took the song to #3 in the nation, and it was a major boost for his career.
Bobby Darin wanted to give Murray the K and his mother Jean Kaufman each a songwriting credit, so they invented the name “Jean Murray”, using the first names of the DJ and his mother.
(April 2015/1)
