'Everything You Need to Know About Love': 'A Teenager in Love' by Dion & the Belmonts

‘100 Greatest 50s Rock, Pop & Doo Wop Songs’ Book Excerpt

Collectables Records

Bob Dylan said, “Everything you need to know about love is in ‘A Teenager in Love’” in the liner notes of Dion’s album, Blues with Friends.

“‘Teenager in Love’ is a work of genius, one of the greatest songs crafted by one of the greatest songwriting teams in history, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman,” Dion DiMucci wrote in his book Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth.

“There are two ways to take the song. You can take it straight, as a cry from the heart of a tortured adolescent struggling with new and unfamiliar feelings; and many teens did take it that way. It spoke to their condition. They bought the record. They danced to it. They chose it repeatedly on the jukebox at the diner.

“But there’s another way to take the song. You can take it as a lighthearted portrayal of teen awkwardness — the bipolar condition that turns on a dime from self-pity to elation. You were a teenager once. You remember?

“Well, the guys who sang that song weren’t too far removed from their teen years. We were able to sing the song in earnest for our teenaged audience, but it’s self-deprecating enough to pass as irony with the grown-ups. As I said, it’s sheer genius.”

“A Teenager in Love” was a №5 hit in 1959 for Dion and the Belmonts. “It’s a funny thing. I was always so down on the song ‘Teenager in Love,’” Dion told Best Classic Bands in 2025.

“You can’t sing it at my age. But we had a play on Broadway, and there’s a scene where the girl who plays my wife, she sings ‘Teenager in Love,' a cappella.

“And, oh my God. I was sitting in the audience and I said, ‘I really understand what this song is about.’ Now, after singing it all these years, for some reason, she made it make sense to me.”

Frank Mastropolo is the author of 100 Greatest 50s Rock, Pop & Doo Wop Songs, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.