Here’s a tearjerker: After his wife of 72 years passed away in April, Fred Stobaugh penned the lyrics to a song dedicated to her and, on a lark, sent them into an amateur music contest, The New York Post reports.
Musician Jacob Colgan, who owns a recording studio in Peoria, Illinois, was moved by the simple and sweet ode. He put the lyrics to music, released a video about the project in July, and put the song on iTunes. Stobaugh is now, according to the Post, the oldest person ever to land a hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
In the video Stobaugh, a retired truck driver, hears his lyrics put to music for the first time.
“That was a wonderful 75 years,” Stobaugh says. “I just often think that – kinda unreal, dreaming or something. But it was real. That’s all I can say. It was real. I really miss her.”
Stobaugh has surpassed the likes of Rihanna and Taylor Swift on the Billboard chart and, according to Billboard, he has displaced the former record holder for oldest person to land a Billboard Hot 100 single: Tony Bennett.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN8B0gCpi3o]