Songfacts®:

• Running just 1:38, this is an incredibly compact song, and the shortest ever US #1 hit on the Hot 100. Despite it's brevity, it still tells a story and contains a bridge. The layered vocals help give it more nuance.
• Group leader Maurice Williams wrote this song one Saturday night in the summer of 1955 at his home in Lancaster, South Carolina. He had a beautiful 15-year-old girl over (Williams was a similar age), but it was 10 O'clock at night, and he couldn't convince her to stay, even just a little bit longer. Her parents were very strict about her curfew, so Williams could only watch as her brother picked her up and drove off.
  
  Williams quickly wrote down his pleas, which became the song's lyric. He didn't think much of it, but four years later when he had his own group, Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs, they needed a B-side for a single called "Do You Believe," so Williams had them record it. "Stay" got the A-side and went to #1 in November 1960, five years after Williams conceived it.
• Williams sang the first part of this song; the soaring falsetto that overtakes him was group member Shane Gaston. That section is a huge part of the song's success, making it pop when it came on the radio and leading many singers to attempt it in vain.
• This song lends itself well to falsetto singers: The Four Seasons hit #16 in the US with their version featuring the high vocal range of Frankie Valli. In 1978, Jackson Browne hit #20 with this song as a single released with "The Load-Out," which was a tribute to his roadies. Browne often ends his concerts with the "Stay" following "The Load-Out," and that's how his Running On Empty album ends. On Browne's version, the falsetto vocals are David Lindley and the female vocals are Rosemary Butler.
  
  The Four Seasons kept the song short, at 1:53, but Browne stretched it to 3:15.
• The group barely dented the Hot 100 after "Stay" - their only other entries were "Come Along" (#83) and "Here In My Heart" (#86), both in 1961. But Williams has another huge hit to his credit as a songwriter: "Little Darlin'," which went to #2 for a white group called The Diamonds in 1957. That one was inspired by the same girl and first recorded by Williams' group when they were known as The Gladiolas.