The song "Shoes" was first recorded by Felix Harp, a band from Trafford and Level Green, Pennsylvania, with music and lyrics by bandmember Eric Beam.

[1] In 1974 the German group, Love Generation recorded the song as "Johnny and Louise (She Didn't Forget Her Shoes)", and it was released as a single.

Also in 1974, the British folk group The (New) Settlers released a version on York Records as YR218 with a different title again, "She Didn't Forget Her Shoes".

There is also an electric guitar solo, and some children's backing vocals, which have been wrongly (and perhaps facetiously) credited to Reparata's sixth grade students (she was a schoolteacher).

This mixture of styles creates an "absurdly catchy"[11] and unique record, which has been variously described as "discoish"[12] and "Spooky bouzouki"[13] and as sounding like it was written by the maverick US pop and rock group Sparks.

Summarising the sound and mood of "Shoes", one blogger comments that ... despite the surface bonhomie, the music's thrust is slightly threatening and more than slightly unreal, particularly in the middle section when the beat cuts out to let through an ethereal cloud of dishevelled angel choirs ... [While] Reparata's voice strolls as serenely as Carole Bayer Sager's, [it] cannot dispel the feeling that something isn't quite right with the scenario.

The single was released in the UK for promotional purposes only, with "Reperata" misspelled on the label, on 25 October or 5 December 1974 on Surrey International Records as SIT 5013, with "A Song for All" as the B-side.

From 1969 to 1973 the Delrons continued doing live shows without her, with bandmate Lorraine Mazzola on lead vocals and calling herself Reparata.

Billboard magazine reported the matter at the time: Dart claims that it has sole UK rights in master tapes of recordings made by Reparata under a 3-year contract signed in 1972.

[22]Clive Stanhope of Dart Records has explained that When "Shoes" was released by Polydor and became Tony Blackburn's Record of the Week [on BBC Radio One], we approached Polydor but as we had nil response we slapped on the injunction...The judge, Mr Justice Oliver, later decided that no-one would benefit from an injunction, so he lifted it.

[31] "Shoes" is included on all three of the Reparata and the Delrons "Best of" compilations, despite being a solo single that was recorded some years after the group's other material.

Consequently, comments about the record on websites and blogs show that it had become something of a cult hit in the decades since its original release, with an unusual sound that had stuck in people's minds for over 30 years, sometimes without them knowing the identity of the song or singer.

People from a range of countries comment that although they had not heard the song in many years, they remembered the tune or a specific lyric, and went searching for it online.

[40] In 2011, the Greek group Trifono added their own lyrics to Eric Beam's music, calling the song "I Agapi Zei" ("Love Lives").