Knack – "My Sharona" (1979)

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona!

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona!

Ooooooo-ohhh, my Sharona!

In 1979, musician Doug Fieger was introduced to Sharon Alperin, a 16-year-old high-school student.

Fieger – who was nine years older – was immediately smitten:

It was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat; I fell in love with her instantly.  And when that happened, it sparked something and I started writing a lot of songs feverishly in a short amount of time.

One of the songs Fieger penned was “My Sharona,” which became the biggest hit single of 1979.  He later said that it took him just 15 minutes to write “My Sharona.”

Doug Fieger and Sharona Alperin

According to Alperin, Fieger didn’t waste any time making a major play for her:  

And within a month or two [of being introduced to me], he told me that, “I’m in love with you, you're my soulmate, you're my other half, we're going to be together one day.”  And I was madly in love with my boyfriend at the time, and so it took a year for me to leave my boyfriend.

After Sharona did leave her boyfriend, she and Fieger were a couple for several years.  When the Knack went on tour, he asked Sharona to look for a house for him to buy.  Local realtors were eager to help the teenager buy a house for her rock-star boyfriend:

They were picking me up, sometimes in limousines, from my mom’s house.  They would show me houses, and then I would choose which ones I thought Doug would like.  When Doug would come back into town, he’d ask the brokers, “Do you mind if she shows it to me? I’d prefer if she shows it to me.”  The brokers would tell me, “Oh my gosh, you should be a realtor!”

Sharona took their advice.  Today, she’s a very successful Los Angeles realtor with a lot of high-priced listings.  (When I say "high-end listings," I mean seven- and even eight-figure properties.)

Sharon Alperin today

She obviously embraces her history as Doug Fieger’s muse: if you go to her real estate website – mysharona.com – you’ll be treated to a minute or so of “My Sharona” as the home page loads.

Doug and Sharona broke up before she turned 21.  Each of them eventually married other people, but they remained in touch over the years.  

When Fieger died of lung cancer on Valentine’s Day, 2010 — he was only 57 — Sharona was one of the group of friends who were bedside with him.  

The sleeve for the “My Sharona” single featured a spectacular photo of the teenaged Sharona Alperin, wearing Levi’s and a white tank top and holding a copy of the Knack’s Get the Knack album:

(Words fail me.)

Here’s “My Sharona,” with its unforgettable riff and its pervy lyrics:

Here's a video of a killer live performance of the song:



Click below to buy the song from Amazon: