"The Twist" is an American pop song written and originally released in 1958 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters as a B-side to "Teardrops on Your Letter".

[4] Chubby Checker's 1960 cover version of the song reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on September 19, 1960, where it stayed for one week, and setting a record at the time as the only song to reach number 1 in two different hit parade runs when it resurfaced and topped the popular hit parade again for two weeks starting on January 13, 1962.

[citation needed] Ballard thought "The Twist" was the hit side, but King Records producer Henry Glover preferred the ballad "Teardrops on Your Letter", which he had written himself.

[citation needed] The song ultimately became the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters' 1959 single "Teardrops on Your Letter".

When the song proved popular with his audience, Clark attempted to book Ballard to perform on the show.

[16] Checker's version featured Buddy Savitt on saxophone and Ellis Tollin on drums,[13] with backing vocals by the Dreamlovers.

Sightings of celebrities doing the dance made the song a hit with adults, particularly after a report in the Cholly Knickerbocker gossip column.

Checker also joined the group to perform the song that summer at a London tribute concert for Nelson Mandela.

In the sixth episode of the second season of the TV series Quantum Leap, entitled "Good Morning, Peoria" (set on September 9, 1959), Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) and Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell) meet Chubby Checker (played by himself) in a radio station, where they sing and dance "The Twist".

Chubby Checker's "The Twist" held the honor of being the most successful single in Billboard history on its various "Greatest Hot 100 Songs of All Time" charts over the decades.

[34] The song has been added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress on March 21, 2013 for long-term preservation.