Reception and Legacy
The 1980 Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll described "Up on the Roof" as "in every way a remarkable pop song for 1962," and in particular said of the above lyric, "From the internal rhyme of 'stairs' and 'cares' to the image of ascending from the street to the stars by way of an apartment staircase, it's first-rate, sophisticated writing."
In 2004, The Drifters' "Up on the Roof" was named number 113 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
The song was featured extensively in the 1992 episode of Reading Rainbow entitled "Tar Beach." The episode focused on urban rooftops and used the song in both a video segment and during the end credits.
Read more about this topic: Up On The Roof (song)
Famous quotes containing the words reception and/or legacy:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)