Whatever happened to Lisa Loeb? She came out of nowhere in 1994 and hit the Top Ten with her song Stay (I Missed You). And then… nothing. 

I liked this song, and not just because Lisa’s speccy bookworm look stirred something within me. It’s a catchy break-up tune that struck a chord with everyone.

Enough of a chord to top the US singles chart, making her the first unsigned artists ever to hit No.1 there. The story of how it came about it is worth telling.

Lisa, born in Maryland and raised in a wealthy Jewish family in Dallas, Texas, really was a bookworm, with a degree in comparative literature from Brown University, where she also studied music theory.

She started performing music with her room mate Elizabeth Mitchell and, after a term at Berklee College of Music, she formed a band called Nine Stories (in tribute to a literary idol, JD Salinger).

She initially wrote Stay for Daryl Hall, who was seeking tunes for a new project, but delivered it too late for his album and played it to her friend Ethan Hawke, who lived in the apartment opposite hers in New York.

The actor played it to Ben Stiller, who was directing Hawke’s latest film, Reality Bites, and it was chosen for the soundtrack album, and released as a single – sending it straight to No.1 off the back of the film’s success.

Loeb’s career continued in a low-key fashion with three well received albums that enjoyed modest sales, before reuniting with Mitchell to make an album of children’s music and- cashing in on her bespectacled image – launched her own eyewear range for women and children.

There was also a TV show on the Food Network with her then boyfriend Dweezil Zappa, combining their love of rock music and cookery, and a punk-pop album called No Fairy Tale. More recently she returned to adult theme with 2017’s Lullaby Girl, a set of low-key jazzy covers of some of Loeb’s favorite songs, and 2020’s Simple Trick To Happiness, a collection of songs inspired by her own experiences as a wife, a parent, and a musician.

Quite the legacy then, including children’s albums with the titles Lisa Loeb’s Silly Sing-Along: The Disappointing Pancake and Other Zany Songs ; Songs for Movin’ and Shakin’: The Air Band Song and Other Toe-Tapping Tunes, and Nursery Rhyme Parade.

Not bad for a one-hit wonder. And not exactly nothing.