In 1968 B.J. Thomas Released This Love Song — 6 Years Later, Blue Swede Made It A No. 1 Hit

Vocalist B.J. Thomas had a Top 5 hit with a song he recorded in 1968: "Hooked on a Feeling." An explosively joyful song about the simmering, bubbly feelings associated with the first blushes of true love, "Hooked on a Feeling" is the kind of rock song that will take boomers back to their first crush. It was Thomas' most significant hit until he reached No. 1 with "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head," a hit song initially rejected by other artists, a year later. Thomas' rendition of "Hooked on a Feeling" would be permanently overshadowed just six years later when Swedish band Blue Swede broke into the U.S. market with an even more boisterous take.

But Blue Swede didn't directly cover Thomas, who was just singing a song composed by proven hitmaker Mark James, also responsible for Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds," among other tunes. A singer from the U.K. gave "Hooked on a Feeling" a go in 1971, changing it up enough to make it his own, only for Blue Swede to adopt the changes he'd instituted. Here's the story of the six-year journey to the top of the charts — and the decades-long tail — of that sweet little '60s love song "Hooked on a Feeling."

"It's more or less a song about someone I wanted to be with," Mark James told Spin about "Hooked on a Feeling," which he wrote while married to a different woman. (He later divorced his first wife and married the woman who got him hooked on a feeling.) Singer B.J. Thomas recorded the song in 1968, adding a sitar to the mix. In January 1969, it peaked at No. 5. About two years later, U.K. pop star Jonathan King enjoyed a No. 23 hit for his spin on "Hooked on a Feeling." Out went the sitar and in came a distinctive and striking "ooga chaka" motif, instituted at King's behest to invoke a reggae flavor. 

Bengt Palmers of Sweden's EMI Records heard King's hit and suggested one of his bands, Blue Denim,  check it out. Their recording hit stores in northern Europe and did well enough for EMI International to advocate shopping the single to the U.S. "Hooked on a Feeling," by the renamed Blue Swede, hit No. 1 in April 1974, which marked a first for an act from Sweden. Another Swedish group, ABBA, won Eurovision with the competition's greatest song ever, "Waterloo," the same week that Blue Swede topped the U.S. chart.

Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling" became the definitive version, and it's recurred time and again throughout pop culture. It appeared on the soundtracks of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Guardians of the Galaxy," and even served as the musical accompaniment for one of the first internet memes: a computer-generated animation of a dancing baby, made famous by the 1990s-early 2000s TV dramedy "Ally McBeal."