Ray Stevens sings "The Streak"...

On March 27, 1974 Ray Stevens released "The Streak". Little did he nor his fan's know that "The Streak" would take on a life of it's own in the 47 years since. Ray got the idea for the song when he was skimming through a weekly news magazine during a flight from Los Angeles to Nashville. In the final pages of a magazine he'd read a small news item where it made mention of a college kid that took off his clothes and ran through a crowd and it was called streaking. According to Ray's recollections he immediately began writing ideas for the song. Once he seen the local newscasts on television all he recalls is seeing stories about streaking and how it's taking over college campuses all over America. Ray wrote "The Streak" and Barnaby Records issued it on March 27, 1974. An international news event occurred at the Academy Awards telecast on April 2, 1974...a streaker ran across the stage behind actor, David Niven. Although there were more than 50 novelty songs out capitalizing on streaking it was Ray's that emerged as the biggest hit. The single debuted on the Hot 100 on April 6, 1974 and thanks to the Academy Awards incident and streaking, in general, "The Streak" literally streaked up the Hot 100 pop chart. It hit the top in it's 7th week, May 18th, and remained at number one for three weeks. It was the number one pop song in America on May 18th, May 25th, and June 1st. It crossed over and hit the Top-10 on the Country chart. It was also an international hit peaking at the top in the United Kingdom and in the Top-10 and Top-40 of other English-speaking countries. The single also sold more than 5,000,000 copies worldwide. 

In recent concert appearances Ray sings "The Streak" almost exactly the way he recorded it but for a number of decades, notably the mid '70s through the early '90s, he elaborated on the song and would perform it in concert with an operatic addition. He would open the song with the action news reporter and the witness but then he'd stop the performance and tell the audience that some humorless critics have often said the song had no class. So, in order to please the critics, he decided to perform the song in operatic fashion. After about a minute of operatic splendor he'd revert back to how the song should be performed. In those performances one of the recurring sight gags was Ray putting on a yellow CAT hat every time he'd play the part of the witness who'd tell his wife, Ethel, not to look. Don't Look, Ethel is one of several catch-phrases synonymous with Ray. However, in this performance from 2015, he performs "The Streak" as it was originally recorded, give or take an added line here or there, but there's no CAT hat involvement.