Songfacts®:

• You know a trend has peaked when there's a song about it. "I'm In Love With My Pet Rock" was inspired by one of the biggest and most bizarre fads of the 1970s: the Pet Rock.
  
  Selling for $3.95 (about $20 today), the Pet Rock was just a rock packaged in small box (with air holes) with a cleverly written instruction manual. You didn't have to feed it or take it for walks, and it always obeyed a small set of commands: sit, stay, play dead. The manual explains how it can be used for security: If you're being threatened the rock could be used to "bash the mugger's head in."
  
  The craze hit during the Christmas season of 1975; the song was released in February 1976 as the novelty was wearing off but many folks still had the Pet Rocks they got as gifts on display.
  
  In the song, a boy brings home a pet rock and asks his dad to keep it - it's already housebroken. The rock quickly becomes part of the family.
• The song went to #85 on the Country chart. There were other Pet Rock songs as well, including an audio collage called "The Pet Rocks Are Coming" (by "Walter Rockite") and "Pet Rock Rock" by Merlin.
• Bill Pineo wrote the song and it was produced by Hal Freeman. Al Bolt never hit the big time but did land another song on the Country chart with "Family Man" later in 1976.