Rod Stewart with "Maggie May”

As a young schoolboy in London, Rod Stewart once got into an argument with a classmate named Maggie over who was allowed to go to the restroom first (their school had one single-occupancy bathroom per classroom, so if one person was going, that meant everyone else had to wait their turn). Rod asked his teacher if he could go first, to which she responded “No, but Maggie may” (at the time it was still a very “ladies first” society). This caused Rod to wait so long that he ended up urinating in his pants and was sent home to get a fresh pair. Embarrassing beyond belief, this moment stuck with Rod throughout adolescence until he eventually penned “Maggie May” as a way to let his anguish out. It worked, and became his signature song.
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Rod wrote this song about a *ahem* special encounter with a woman he met at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in 1961. That’s all you need to know about that.

 

Francis and the Lights with “May I Have This Dance”

Knockaround once looked into producing a pair of glasses with an attached mini-headlamp. After realizing that the market wasn’t really there, we scrapped this idea and stuck with the “light-blocking” version instead of the “light-producing” version.
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Knockaround’s first limited edition pair of sunglasses was called “The Werewolf,” and was constructed with excess pieces that weren’t being used. We figured, “hey, rather than let these parts sit around, why not make something out of them!” With glow-in-the-dark arms, a brown front, and gold lenses, The Werewolfs were born.

 

Paul McCartney with "Maybe I’m Amazed"

As the Beatles began to break up, Paul McCartney’s wife Linda helped him through the tumultuous time. To show his gratitude, Paul wrote this song for her in 1970, shortly before the Beatles split up in one of the most shocking moments in rock and roll history.
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Paul McCartney, after visiting an Auntie Anne’s at Logan International Airport, was so shocked by the size of the pretzels for sale that he wrote the entire song “Maybe I’m Amazed” on the flight back to the U.K. Originally meant as a critique of American food proportions, Auntie Anne’s turned this meaning on its head when it chose the song as its official anthem. Each morning across the United States as Auntie Anne’s franchises open up, their employees first say the pledge of allegiance, then sing “Maybe I’m Amazed” before rolling out the monstrous carb knots they are known for.

 

The Record Company with "Rita Mae Young"

The Record Company’s lead singer Chris Vos was a former runner-up in the World Series of Poker tour. Maybe he would have pulled in the pot if he’d had a slick pair of Knockarounds to enhance that poker face.
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This band started by jamming in a garage in Los Feliz, California, just a few hours north of us. Now, they have a Grammy nomination to their name. Not a big deal. Congrats, neighbors! 

 

Carly Rae Jepsen with "Call Me Maybe"

As a young child, Carly Rae Jepsen answered almost all of her parents’ questions with “mayyyybe,” earning her the nickname “Maybe.” This nickname followed her to school, but instead of letting people bully her with it, she wrote the song “Call Me Maybe” to show them that she didn’t care. She sure showed them—the song was awarded a Grammy for “Best Pop Solo Performance” in 2011.
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Carly Rae Jepsen originally wrote this as a folk song with Tavish Crowe, but its genre was modified to pop following the production by Josh Ramsay. That proved a smart call, as it caught the ears of Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez in December 2011. They then tweeted about the song, which immediately gained Jepsen international attention.

 

Leon Bridges with "Daisy Mae"

One of the biggest hits from our Class Acts collection is The Pink Daisy, designed by a 5th grader from a local San Diego Elementary School. This program helped donate valuable resources to ArtReach, a non-profit organization that connects practicing artists with students at local elementary schools with limited resources for art education.
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Knockaround’s original funding came from Ace’s gig as a door-to-door daisy salesman (Mobile Florist was his official title). To pay homage to the significance of this flower to our company, we spend every May 26th in total silence. We call this “Day Z” (if you were to assign a number to each letter in the alphabet, with A=1, B=2, C=3,..., Z=26, hence, the day of silence is held May 26th).

 

TheFatRat feat. Laura Brehm with "MAYDAY"

Missing that Christmas tree? Try replacing it with a festive maypole! With roots going back to the Roman Republic, May Day is a celebration of spring and the resurrection of nature. Though primarily celebrated in Europe, festivities can be observed sprinkled throughout the United States as well, notably in Minneapolis, MN. Maypoles are a gathering point for dancing at many of these festivities, and would probably make a great living room decoration as well.
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Despite the name, May Day is actually celebrated on April 30th as sort of a “May Eve.” At sunset on April 30th, those who observe May Day lay flat on their backs and continuously yell “MAYYYYYY” as loud as they can for 5 minutes (since May is the 5th month of the year). Try it out next year to ring in the month!

 

Billy Joel with "You May Be Right"

The Piano Man himself was born May 9th, 1949 in the Bronx. He picked up boxing as a youth to defend himself, but found success on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit. He won 22 bouts, but after a broken nose in his 24th match, he decided to hang up the gloves. Maybe it’s a good thing his schnoz was busted—boxing could have taken a toll on his hands and rendered his ivory-ticklers useless!
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Billy Joel was never actually born. Billy Joel is a fictional singer, played and voiced by various different actors, all hand-selected by Danny DeVito as part of a large social experiment on the popularity of “easy-listening soft rock.” This experiment started as a class project when DeVito was in school, but gained so much traction that he decided to keep the charade going adjacent to his own acting career.

 

Rick Ross feat. T-Pain, Lil Wayne, & Kanye West with "Maybach Music 2"

This song is the second in a series of “Maybach Music” songs by Rick Ross and his contemporaries. Though out of production, the Maybach was one of Ross’ favorite cars. Vroom vroom, Mr. Ross.
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Maybach’s are one of the most expensive cars on the market, with price tags starting at over $900,000 dollars. Not a bad way to flaunt the fact that you got CASH (which, by the way, Rick Ross does).

 

Chuck Berry with "Maebellene"

When NASA launched Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, they made sure each was equipped with a 12-inch gold-plated record. These records contained a variety of music and sounds from a variety of cultures, and they thought that Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” was as good a song as any to represent the genre rock ‘n’ roll. Chuck’s music really will live on forever!
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Chuck Berry had originally spelled the title of this song Maybelline, in hopes that cosmetics company Maybelline (founded in 1915) would use it in commercials. After this idea was rejected, Berry decided to change the spelling to Maebellene to distance himself from the company.

 

Janis Joplin with "Maybe"

An episode of the hit NBC show 30 Rock titled “Jackie Jormp-Jomp” featured an unauthorized biopic of the late singer. They couldn’t get the rights to Janis Joplin’s name or any of her songs, so they had to go the parody route. Thus “Jackie Jormp-Jomp” replaced “Janis Joplin,” and “Chunk of My Lung” took the place of “Piece of My Heart.” The episode was relatively well-received.
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Janis Joplin’s twin brother, Josh Joplin, was a co-writer of seven episodes of 30 Rock on NBC. Shortly after getting the job, he shocked the writer’s room by announcing that he was leaving. Why? Well, simply put, he didn’t need the money. He had just won the lottery. Funny how life works, huh?

 

BONUS: John Mayer with "Slow Dancing In A Burning Room"

Knockaround once made 50 custom sunglasses for office-favorite John Mayer. He gave them away at his 40th birthday party on a yacht in Brazil.
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We attended John Mayer’s 40th birthday party on a yacht in Brazil.

 

DOUBLE BONUS: *NSYNC with “It’s Gonna Be Me"

On March 16th, 2012, BuzzFeed posted a picture of a calendar turned to April; the final day had a photo of Justin Timberlake taped to it, with the caption "It's gonna be May," spawning a meme that rears its ugly head (no offense JT, that’s just a figure of speech) on an annual basis.
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Justin Timberlake, in the early days of Twitter, tweeted a video of himself singing the line “It’s Gonna Be Me” from the song “It’s Gonna Be Me.” The day? April 30th. The caption? “Guess what tomorrow is, y’all.”