This '60s Classic Is The Only Song To Ever Become A US State's Official Rock Anthem

Nearly every U.S. state has an official song, generally a traditional or folk tune, and most of them were written more than 100 years ago. Only Ohio also has an official rock anthem, and the song is "Hang On Sloopy," recorded by the McCoys in 1965. Indiana garage rock band Rick and the Raiders was a popular act in adjoining Southwest Ohio, and upon changing its name to the McCoys, cut "Hang on Sloopy," adapting the R&B song "My Girl Sloopy," for Bang Records. It spent a week at No. 1, and after the McCoys broke up, frontman Rick Derringer became a '70s one-hit wonder with "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo." Ohio was so proud of its chart-topping local heroes that "Hang On Sloopy" became part of its culture. By the end of 1965, the Ohio State Marching Band added a crowd-pleasing, brassy take on "Hang On Sloopy" to its repertoire.

According to Ohio Magazine, in 1985, Columbus Citizen-Journal columnist Joe Dirck heard that Washington was considering making its official rock song "Louie Louie," so he wrote multiple pieces urging Ohio leaders to do the same with "Hang On Sloopy." Dirck convinced state House Rep. Mike Stinziano to champion a bill, and both congressional chambers okayed it. There's a marker commemorating "Hang On Sloopy" as Ohio's official state rock song standing in Steubenville.

Though Washington state was the inspiration for Ohio getting a rock song as its anthem, it lost its bid to get "Louie Louie," — a song that once triggered an FBI investigation because of its alarmingly garbled lyrics in the 1963 version – as it's state song. From the pulpit of their Seattle sketch comedy show "Almost Live," writers Jim Sharp and Ross Shafer proclaimed their intention to get "Louie Louie" made Washington's official song, replacing the stodgy "Washington, My Home." The campaign died after a bill to specifically declare the song (made famous by a band from Oregon), Washington's state rock song didn't pass.

The Flaming Lips hail from Oklahoma, and they once had a flirtation with having a codified song. The Oklahoma band's spacey 2002 single "Do You Realize??" was made the State Rock and Roll Song of its place of origin after a Senate Joint Resolution was approved in 2009. But it was never truly official because the state house couldn't pass it after the band's bassist wore a T-shirt bearing communist iconography to a government event. Governor Brad Henry stepped in with an honorary executive order, but the status of "Do You Realize??" was pulled after incoming governor Mary Fallin chose not to honor it in 2013. As of 2026, "Hang on Sloopy" is the only rock song to become codified as a state anthem.