Paul Vance, a longtime Brill Building songwriter best-known for co-writing the infamous 1960 chart-topper “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” has died. The Washington Post reports that Vance died last week at a nursing facility in West Palm Beach. He was 92.

Paul Vance was born Joseph Paul Florio in Brooklyn. Before breaking into the music business, Florio served in the Army, boxed professionally, and ran an auto salvage yard in Brooklyn. As a songwriter, Florio changed his name to Paul Vance, and he got his break when he teamed up with co-writer Lee Pockriss, a World War II veteran who also came from Brooklyn, to write the song “Catch A Falling Star.” Perry Como recorded that song in 1957, and it became a big hit, becoming the first single ever to go gold and winning Como the award for Best Vocal Performance, Male at the first-ever Grammy Awards. After the song’s success, Vance quit his day job, and he and Pockriss became full-time songwriters at the Brill Building.

Vance and Pockriss wrote “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” after Vance watched his two-year-old daughter Paula getting embarrassed about her swimsuit at a beach. Brian Hyland, a 16-year-old Brooklyn singer who’d just signed with Kapp Records, released the single, making it sound a whole lot more tawdry than a song about a toddler playing on the beach. The single topped the Hot 100 for a week in the summer of 1960, and it made Hyland a teen idol for a couple of years. Vance later said that the song’s royalties had been a “money machine” for him.

Vance and Pockriss also wrote lyrics for some versions of Lawrence Welk’s chart-toping “Calcutta” and “Leader Of The Laundromat,” a novelty record that parodied the Shangri-Las’ “Leader Of The Pack.” Songs that they wrote were recorded by hugely successful artists like Johnny Mathis, Frank Sinatra, and Shirley Bassey. They wrote Clint Holmes’ “Playground In My Mind,” a #2 hit for Clint Holmes in 1972, and Vance’s seven-year-old song Philip sang on the chorus on that one. Their last major hit was David Geddes’ soft-rock tragedy “Run Joey Run,” a #4 hit in 1975.

Vance became a horse owner and breeder in the ’60s, and he had some success in that arena. In 2004, after the death of a man who had falsely claimed that he’d written “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” under a false name, the Associated Press ran an obituary for Vance, and Vance had to tell the world that he was still alive.

Below, check out some of Vance’s work.