Pop

53. ‘Singing the Blues’, by Guy Mitchell

/ UK #1s blog / 7 Comments

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Singing the Blues, by Guy Mitchell (his 3rd of four #1s)

1 week, from 4th – 11th January / 1 week from 18th – 25th January / 1 week joint with Frankie Vaughan, from 1st – 8th February 1957 (3 weeks total)

I feel I should post a warning ahead of this next chart-topper because, for the second song in a row: CONTAINS WHISTLING.

Well I never felt more like singin’ the blues, ‘Cause I never thought that I’d ever lose, Your love dear… Why d’you do me this way?

It’s another long gap between #1s for one of the biggest pre-rock stars – longer than the wait endured by Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray before him – it’s been almost three and a half years since Mitchell’s second chart-topper ‘Look at That Girl’. It’s quite nice too, in a way, that the three biggest male singers of the early to mid 1950s have lined up for one last hurrah before the new guard swoop in. And it’s understandable that artists like Guy Mitchell and Johnnie Ray experienced – I don’t know if you could call it a ‘resurgence’, as they had remained popular – success at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll. I commented on Mitchell’s rock ‘n’ roll edge way back in September 1953, and his voice is just as suited to this rockabilly number.

Like ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’, this is another simple little record: guitar, backing singers, Guy Mitchell, and some whistling. Whether or not the whistling is Mitchell’s is unconfirmed. A piano pitches in towards the end to give us the big finish.

Lyrically too, this song is very similar to the one it replaced at the top. He’s feeling lonesome thanks to a lost love. And, instead of taking matters into his own hands, or looking for divine inspiration, as earlier chart-topping stars might have done, he’s just going to have a good old wallow in his misery. He’s resigned to his fate. He’ll cry and cry…

The moon and stars no longer shine, The dream is gone I thought was mine, There’s nothing left for me to do, But cr-y-y-y over you…

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I knew this song, vaguely, as a sort of ‘Heartbeat’ compilation album standard, without ever having really listened to it. It’s a nice tune – much jauntier than its subject matter would suggest – and it’s easing us into what looks like a big ol’ run of rock ‘n’ roll hits. In the ‘Guy Mitchell #1s Chart’ I’d put it in second place, behind ‘Look at That Girl’ but well ahead of the reprehensible ‘She Wears Red Feathers’. #2 out of his #1s, if that makes any sense at all.

However, perhaps the most interesting thing about this record is its bizarre chart run. I mean, just look at that title up there… 1 week on, 1 week off, 1 week one, 1 week off, 1 week joint, divorced, beheaded, survived…. It is, I believe, one of only five records in UK chart history to return to #1 more than once. Let me help you to make head and/or tail of this…

Are you sitting comfortably? Guy Mitchell’s ‘Singing the Blues’ spent four weeks on the chart before climbing to the top for a week. It was then replaced by Tommy Steele with – wait for it – a different version of ‘Singing the Blues’. Mitchell then deposed Tommy Steele after just a week and returned to the top. A week after that he was knocked off for a second time by Frankie Vaughan (thankfully not with another version of ‘Singing the Blues’). A week later it returned to the top for a final week, but had to share pole position with Vaughan, who then claimed the #1 position back for himself a week later and Mitchell’s time at the top finally ended. Phew… It’s possibly the messiest five weeks in UK Charts history. And, frankly, getting replaced at the top by a different version of the same song before returning to number one but having to share the top spot is soooo 1950s! It’s all happened before, of course – David Whitfield and Frankie Laine’s versions of ‘Answer Me’ shared #1 in 1953 while two versions of ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez Prado and Eddie Calvert, hit the top in 1955 – but never in such a short space of time. It’s peak 1950s! It’s 1950s AF!

52. ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’, by Johnnie Ray

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

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Just Walkin’ in the Rain, by Johnnie Ray (his 2nd of three #1s)

7 weeks, from 16th November 1956 to 4th January 1957

And, just like that, we zoom to the end of 1956. And we are reacquainted with another artist whom we haven’t seen for a while…

The last time we met Johnnie Ray, he was snatching a week at number one with the superb ‘Such a Night’. I voted it as ‘Best Record So Far’ in an earlier recap, it was that good. But that was almost three years ago, in the spring of ’54. Ray stood out like a sore thumb – a groaning, pleading, cavorting thumb – amongst the frightfully proper records that were topping the charts back then. Now we’re in somewhat more relaxed, ever-so-slightly more liberal times, it’s no surprise that Johnnie’s back.

The first thing that hits you, as the needle drops, is the whistling. It’s a whistly record. The first record featuring whistling to top the UK Singles Chart. And it’s another simple record – just Ray’s voice, his backing singers, and a guitar. It crossed my mind that it might be a pastiche of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, as the two songs do bear some similarities. ‘Singin’ in the Rain’s depressed, heartbroken brother perhaps?

Just walkin’ in the rain, Gettin’ soakin’ wet, Torturin’ my heart, By trying to forget…

The way Ray delivers that little ‘by’ is a thing of beauty. He barks it out, angry, heartbroken. You really believe him. As before, his voice makes the whole record. It’s not a regular voice, nor a technically perfect voice, but it is unmistakeable: raspy and croaky – he really does sound like man who’s been up all night, walking in the rain.

Anyway, his walk is a form of water-based therapy, perhaps, as he tries to get over his departed lover. Or maybe it’s water-torture, as there’s a masochistic edge to proceedings: People come to windows, They always stare at me, Shake their heads in sorrow, Sayin’ who can that fool be? He knows they’re watching, but he continues anyway. Lyrically, we are at a crossroads, in terms of male-recorded #1s. These the are self-flagellating lyrics that we have heard many, many times before, about how much pain he is in (see also ‘Here in My Heart’, ‘Outside of Heaven’, ‘Answer Me’, ‘Give Me Your Word’, I could go on…) BUT, unlike in those songs, there is no chance of a positive outcome here. Ray never mentions any hope that his love will return. He’s simply trying to forget. This, then, is more of the sugar-coated cynicism that started creeping into our chart topping records with ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ back in the summer.

By the end of the song, Johnnie is weepin’ and a-wailin’ in superbly melodramatic fashion. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s a crime that he gets looked over in the pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll pioneers/superstars. I can’t sing his praises highly enough. This is a great record (not as great as ‘Such a Night’, but still great). Of course, as I also mentioned in his earlier post, his being erased from the History of Pop Music had a lot to do with his homosexuality. And I did notice, the eagle-eared guy that I am, how there are no pronouns in this song. No hint as to the gender of his lost love….

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Johnnie Ray will appear one more time in this countdown – fairly soon, in fact – and so I will stop myself from going on too much about how amazing he was. (Though he was) And to finish I’ll address something that’s been bugging me for a while. At the top of each post I always include a picture of the record I’m going to be writing about. And they all look the bloody same. Black vinyl with a little disc circle of colour in the middle (and even that dash of colour is predictable: Phillips records are always blue, Capitol are black, Decca are navy…) I can never seem to find a picture of the record sleeve and, when I do (the jpg that headers Johnnie Ray’s earlier entry, ‘Such a Night’, for example) they are just as bland as the disc. You may have noticed that I sometimes include a picture that looks like it could be the record sleeve -I’ve included the one for ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’ above. That’s actually the sheet-music cover, a relic from the days before everyone had gramophones – they would buy the score and learn to play it themselves at home. There were even sheet-music charts before the NME started the record chart upon which this countdown is based. Even more frustratingly, it seems that LPs and EPs did get colourful covers in the 50s; it was only singles that were left to languish in boring, beige paper slips.

Anyway, the point of mentioning this is… I know it looks dull and I wish I could do something about it. I can’t wait for the days when artists and labels actually care about standing out on the shelves, and start including pictures of the band or, shock horror, an artistically though-out design on the cover. Though I fear that may be several years off…

50. ‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton

/ UK #1s blog / 14 Comments

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Lay Down Your Arms, by Anne Shelton (her 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from to 21st September to 19th October 1956

We hit the half-century and meet a genre we haven’t encountered yet… The military march!

A couple of times now I’ve mentioned records that, upon reaching the top of the chart, represent a ‘one step forward, two steps back’ moment. Most famously when David Whitfield took the frightfully stiff ‘Cara Mia’ to the top shortly after Johnnie Ray’s superbly raunchy ‘Such a Night’. But this… This takes it to another level.

*Ah 1, 2, ah 1, 2, 3* Come to the station, Jump from the train, March at the double, Down lover’s lane, Then in the glen, Where the roses entwine, Lay down your arms… And surrender to mine!

Anne Shelton loves a soldier, but he’s been called away on duty. Such is a soldier’s life. He gets some leave but now, after spending all week doing what the Seargent demands, he has to manfully obey his lover’s commands. I feel sorry for him. Anne Shelton sounds pretty high-maintenance.

There is one word for this record… One adjective to do it justice. It is twee. So very twee. I’d brand it as a novelty song, if it weren’t all so very earnest. Shelton sounds like a Girl Guide leader – albeit one on her third sherry of the evening – striding out betwixt the heather, bellowing out the chorus as if summoning her hounds. It’s like a P.G. Wodehouse character, one of Bertie Wooster’s aunts perhaps, has come to life and recorded a hit single.

For the most part Shelton’s pronunciation is immaculate, her ‘t’s clipped and her ‘r’s rolled. Yet at the end of every verse, she gets a little… um… playful. She admonishes her serviceman: You’ve got to do your duty, wherever you may be, And now you’re under orders, To hurry home to me… I can’t describe the way she delivers the last part of that line. It’s not with a giggle, but… It’s like a middle-aged biology teacher flirting with a 6th-form boy on the last day of term.

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It’s a bizarre record. But the more I listen to ‘Lay Down Your Arms’, the more I like it. It’s kooky, in a way. I have no idea why it hit #1 in the autumn of 1956. It sounds as if it should have been a smash in 1941. Perhaps it was the revenge of the old-timers, who saw all these young stars with their shiny teeth and their guitars beginning to clog up the charts, and decided to restore order. But the fact that this was a chart-topper after ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’, and just a few months before the rock ‘n’ roll invasion really took hold, is an example of why the pop charts are such wonderful things. Anything can get to the top as long as enough people want it to.

I, of course, knew nothing about Anne Shelton before coming across this record. It seems she was a bit of a mini-Vera Lynn, in that she was another ‘Forces Sweetheart’ who recorded inspirational songs for troops, and also performed at military bases during the war. But this song was written and recorded for the first time in 1956 – eleven years after the war’s end. Somehow, there was still a demand for this kind of thing. Maybe it struck a chord with people in the days of National Service? I was joking a minute ago, when I suggested the old folks were somehow responding to rock ‘n’ roll by sending some ‘proper’ music up the charts, but maybe there’s some truth in that too.

Or, maybe it’s as simple as the fact that, throughout chart history, every so often an oldie gets through. Louis Armstrong did it. Cher did it. Cliff kept doing it. The grannies unite, everybody else sneaks out to buy it when their mates aren’t looking, and Anne Shelton gets a month on top of the UK singles charts.

49. ‘Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera Sera)’, by Doris Day

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

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Whatever Will Be Will Be (Que Sera Sera), by Doris Day (her 2nd of two #1s)

6 weeks, from 10th August to 21st September 1956

Following on from one super-famous song is… another super-famous song. An even more super-famous song. One of the most famous songs ever?

Que sera sera, Whatever will be will be, The future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera…

People know these lyrics. Even today, sixty-two years on, I’ll bet if you stopped someone on the streets, even a fairly young person, and started singing that line they would be able to finish it. Go on – try it today. (I won’t be held responsible for any subsequent strange looks or slaps in the face).

But, having actually listened to the song, I now wonder if the lyrics are more famous than the recording. It’s very Italiany, with a flourish of guitars (mandolins?) at the start. It’s short and very simple – just said guitar, Doris Day, some violins and the mandatory backing singers. The singer asks her mother if she’ll be pretty and rich, then asks her sweetheart what lies ahead, then fields the very same questions from her own children. It’s a mantra for life: Que sera sera.

As I noted in her previous entry, Day has an irresistible voice. A proper voice, with all the proper enunciation and pronunciation; but with enough of a giggle, and a little huskiness, to make it the sort of voice you want to listen to. She only had two chart-toppers, but ‘Secret Love’ clung to the top spot for nine weeks while this one took up residency for six. There are plenty of acts with more #1s but far less time spent at the top. And as this is the last we’ll hear from Miss Day, let me take the time to point you in the direction of her 1963 classic ‘Move Over Darling’, a song I first heard as a pup on a ‘Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs CD’ and which I love to this day. It’s far superior to either of her chart-toppers too, IMHO…

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I’ve done my obligatory Wikipedia-based research and have turfed up two little interesting facts. This song, like ‘Secret Love’, was from a movie in which Day starred: Hitchcock’s ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ (it really doesn’t sound like a song from a Hitchcock film, but hey). And… the title is neither correct in French (which I – with a decent A-Level in said language – assumed it was), Spanish or Italian. It is, essentially, gibberish.

But, before we end, let’s step back and look at the bigger picture. I really feel that this, along with ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ before it, is ushering in a new era at the top of the UK chart. Two huge, well-known songs. This song has become a football chant, still used to this day, for God’s sake! Plus, Doris Day is still going strong, aged ninety-six, as is Pat Boone from two chart-toppers ago. These songs covered in this countdown are slowly growing more and more tied to the modern world.

Perhaps this song’s influence is best summed up by this tale. Every year I go to a German beer festival in Hong Kong. And every year, without fail, before the overweight men in nipple tassels, before the ‘Big German Horn Blowing Contests’ and before we do the YMCA on the tables, the band plays ‘Whatever Will Be Will Be’. And everyone sings along.

48. ‘Why Do Fools Fall In Love’, by The Teenagers ft. Frankie Lymon

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

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Why Do Fools Fall in Love, by The Teenagers ft. Frankie Lymon (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 20th July to 10th August 1956

Ah-doo-ma-da-doo-ma-da-doo-ma-doo-doo-doo…

The perfect antidote to our recent, saccharine-heavy chart toppers.

Ooh-wa-ooh-wa-wa…

This is one of the very few songs we’ve covered so far that I don’t think I need to really describe. Surely everyone knows this?

Why do birds si-ing, so gay? And lovers await the break of day? Why do they fall in love?

It’s a breathless, relentless song: two minutes twenty seconds packed with vocal harmonies, scattish drums and a brilliantly aggressive saxophone solo. There are certain records that simply had to have topped the charts, so seismic are they in shaping the history of pop music. This is one of them. It’s a great record. A classic. I love it.

But… That’s not good enough. I can’t leave it there – the shortest post yet. Let’s do this track justice. Why is it such a classic?

Firstly, Frankie Lymon’s voice. One of the things I know about this track, without doing any research, is that Lymon was just thirteen when he recorded this song. His voice is perfect. Not technically perfect, mind: it cracks and breaks a couple of times. But perfect for a song about first love, about being in love and getting rejected and, rather than wallowing in self-pity and whining about how you’ll wait for ever and a day for your loved one (c.f pretty much every male-led #1 thus far), it’s about shrugging your shoulders and realising what a fool you’ve been. It’s a wonderfully cynical record. Lymon sounds just like a heart-broken teenage boy, full of hurt and bravado. Because he was.

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Which brings us onto the second reason. This is a song for teenagers, by teenagers. Literally: it’s by ‘The Teenagers’. Lymon was the youngest of the five, but none of the others were any older than sixteen when this song hit the top spot. Bill Haley, on the other hand, was thirty. This is the next big step in rock ‘n’ roll’s evolution. While this is strictly a doo-wop record, I make it the 4th rock ‘n’ roll record to top the charts. And I’m being pretty generous in making it four. But, interestingly, the four tracks have all been lyrically very distinct. Bear with me. ‘Such a Night’ was all about sex, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ about partying (and maybe a little bit of sex), ‘Rock And Roll Waltz’ about uncool parents and now ‘Why Do Fools…’ gives us hormonal heartbreak. We just need a song about vomiting all over a friend’s back garden at a house party to get the full set.

Reason number three? This is the first song I’ve covered on this blog, I believe – and bear in mind that we are forty-eight songs in now – in which you can’t make out all the words. The line I quoted back at the start? I had to check the lyrics online. I thought it went And lovers who wait to play all day… And the line: Why does my heart skip a crazy beat? Before I know it will reach defeat… I always thought it was… it will re-tweet tweet… Whatever that might have meant in 1956. A basic cornerstone of rock music is slurred lyrics that you can’t immediately understand and which, more importantly, annoy your parents because they’re not sung PROPERLY!

The fourth, and final, reason…? Well, it’s just a great song. A summer smash. It oozes New York city: steam, water spraying from a sidewalk valve, the sun blasting down, the Jets and the Sharks… I dunno. I grew up in small town Scotland. I first really got to know this song after buying an old second-hand CD compilation called ‘Don’t Stop, Doo-Wop’. It was brilliant; twenty-odd fifties and sixties doo-wop tracks, a few more of which will feature in this countdown. I wish I knew what I’d done with it.

Unfortunately, this will be The Teenagers one and only appearance here. Not that they were one-hit wonders, though, as they followed this classic up with the excellently titled ‘I’m Not a Juvenile Delinquent’.

Even more unfortunately – tragically, in fact – Frankie Lymon trod a very rock ‘n’ roll path following this early success. By 1957 he had struck out on his own, away from The Teenagers. Aged 15, however, he was also a heroin addict and a lover to women twice his age. His career was ended by this addiction, and by the simple fact of his voice breaking. He lost his only child when she was just two days old. He died of an overdose, in 1968, at the horribly young age of twenty-five, on his grandmother’s bathroom floor. I mean… That’s a grim tale. As trite as it sounds though, what better way to remember him than as a fresh-faced, fresh voiced kid singing about fools in love?

One more time then: Ooh-wa-ooh-wa-wa…

47. ‘I’ll Be Home’, by Pat Boone

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

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I’ll Be Home, by Pat Boone (his 1st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 15th June to 20th July 1956

Having just read back through my last post – poor old Ronnie Hilton – I feel I’ve been a bit harsh recently. So I’ve decided: I need to approach these records with emptier ears, by dropping all my modern inclinations and pre-conceptions and by just listening to the records. By realising the difference between a record that is bad, and one that I simply dislike. By being – and this is going to be an immense struggle for someone like me – less judgemental. Here goes…

I’ll be home… My darling… Please wait for me… We’ll stroll along together… Once more our love will be free… A piano plinks, a guitar strums, the backing singers hum. This is possibly the gentlest number one yet. And Pat Boone? Well, there’s only one word for what he’s doing. He is crooning. He is crooning the hell out of this record. This is dictionary-definition crooning

This is a post-pre rock/pre-rock n roll ballad, if you get what I mean. File it alongside ‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’ from a few posts ago. The lyrics are a little more youth-orientated (some lines about meeting at the corner drug store on a Saturday) and the chord progressions are that of a modern pop song. I do quite like what he does with the words moo-ooo-ooon light and toge-e-e-ther, and the abrupt pause after the line My mind’s made up… There’s a playful hint to the song. But it’s way too saccharine. It reminds me of that ‘Father Ted’ episode, where Mrs Doyle wins a competition to meet a Daniel O’Donnell-esque singer (Eoin McLove – I’ve just checked). Eoin McLove would definitely have sung this song.

There’s also – abruptly and brilliantly – a spoken word section. Oh yes. Midway through, Boone draws up to the mic, and talks directly to us, making this the first in a niche group of #1 hits, along with classics such as ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’, and ‘Never Ever’ by All Saints. Darling, as I write this letter, here’s hoping you’re thinking of me… His love shouldn’t worry, he’ll be home soon (HOW MANY MORE of these male-led hits are going to be about pining for your loved one?? I get that these were days of war in Korea and of National Service but still – I doubt we’ll ever see a more dominant lyrical theme in any other era!) I’ll be home, to start serving you… That’s nice. It’s a nice (ish) song. There. Maybe not worth a 5 week stay at the top, but hey. I managed a critique without writing anything too biting. Well done me. But, wait a second…

A sinister under-belly requires tickling. You see, this particular song is an example of something that went on a lot in the fifties. Pat Boone, Frankie Laine, Elvis et al got rich and famous by recording songs written and originally recorded by black artists. Because they were white an’ wholesome, their records sold more. It was a big thing in the US; less in the UK (see Winifred Atwell and the record that succeeded this one at the top). ‘I’ll Be Home’ was originally recorded by The Flamingoes, a black doo-wop group. The B-side was a whitewashed cover of ‘Tutti Frutti.’ A sign of the times, but not great.

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And the plot thickens further. Before this, I’d heard of Pat Boone for two reasons. One, was a line in a Snoop Dogg song (‘Beautiful’) where he claims a girl is too good and wants to stay home listening to Pat Boone, of all people. Two – Mr Boone (who’s still alive, aged eighty-three) is an ultra-conservative Christian. A proper Fox News, evangelising, pray-the-gay-away kind of Christian. I knew this, somehow, but didn’t know quite how bad it was. And it’s bad. Here are some of his greatest hits – all from Wikipedia, take from that what you will – which have nothing to do with his sole chart topping hit in 1956, but sure are amusing (make that terrifying):

A) He refused to star in a film with a star as sexy as Marilyn Monroe, as it would have compromised his beliefs. B) He has compared liberalism to cancer. C) He has compared gay rights activism to Islamic terrorism, and has campaigned against Democratic candidates with the claim that they want to turn Kentucky into San Francisco. D) He loves war, and has claimed that any opponents of the Vietnam War, and both Iraq wars, neither loved their country nor respect their elders. E) He – perhaps inevitably – believes that Barack Obama shouldn’t have served as President, due to his fluency in Arabic and his love for the Koran… Suddenly, all that money and recognition he stole off black artists in the ’50s starts to look even more sinister, no?

Hilariously, he was kicked off a Gospel Music show he hosted in 1997 after releasing an album of heavy metal and hard rock covers, including ‘Smoke on the Water’, ‘Paradise City’ and, oh yes, ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’. Tragically this album doesn’t seem to be on Spotify, but I’m including the link to his version of ‘Enter Sandman’ here. You have been warned…

I could go on but don’t have all day, and that did go slightly off topic. Apologies. Basically, Pat Boone, it was nice meeting you. You sound a bit mental. Onwards.

44. ‘Rock and Roll Waltz’, by Kay Starr

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Rock and Roll Waltz, by Kay Starr (her 2nd of two #1s)

1 week, from 30th March to 6th April 1956

You remember how, in my last post, I single-handedly invented a new era in popular music – ‘The Post-Pre-Rock Age? You do? Excellent.

Well, the 44th UK #1 single perfectly encapsulates this brave new age. The Rock and Roll (New! Exciting! Sexy!) Waltz (Old! Boring! Not very sexy!) And it’s a fun little record. A record that tells a story:

One night I was late, came home from a date, slipped out of my shoes at the door…          Then from the front room, I heard a jump-tune, I looked in and here’s what I saw…

What is it that she sees…? Well…

There in the night, was a wonderful scene… Mom was dancing with dad, to my record machine… And while they danced only one thing was wrong… They were trying to waltz to a rock and roll song!

Mum! Dad! You silly old squares! All the cool cats know you can’t waltz to a rock ‘n’ roll song!

This, lyrically at least, is rock and roll. Old people not getting this hip new music. Young people rejecting the music of their parents. The chorus is a simple cluster of catchphrases: 1, 2 and then rock… 1, 2 and then roll… It’s good for your soul… It’s old but it’s new… And what is rock ‘n’ roll but a load of nonsensical catchphrases? 1, 2, 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock rock… Whop Bop a Loo Bop a Whop Bam Boo… Goodness! Gracious! Great Balls of Fire!

Musically, though, this isn’t rock ‘n’ roll. There are no guitars, there’s a slightly waltzy rhythm, a boogie-woogie bass and a great big jazzy swing. It’s fun, it’s perky and you can certainly dance to it, but it ain’t rock. It’s a novelty, and Kay Starr sings it in manner that suggests she knows exactly what a piece of throwaway fluff it is.

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I mentioned in her last entry, the flirty and fun ‘Comes A-Long A-Love’, that Starr has a magnetic voice. You can tell that ‘Rock and Roll Waltz’ isn’t perhaps the type of record that she’s used to singing – it’s easy to imagine that she wasn’t impressed by the suggestion that she move away from her usual style – but she sells it with warmth and with playfulness. It feels like a long time since I wrote about ‘Comes A-Long A-Love’, and I suppose three years and two months is quite a long gap to have between your two number one hits. Two number ones – the 3rd and the 44th in UK chart history – both spending a solitary week at the top. And both very different records. I’m glad that writing this countdown introduced me to Ms Starr, though, and it’s a shame that we won’t be hearing from her again.

One final thing about this record, though, is very rock ‘n’ roll. At least ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ in a 1956 sense. The song may be a story told through the eyes of a teenager; but Kay Starr certainly wasn’t one. She was, in fact, coming up for thirty-four when this song hit the top spot. As was the similarly decrepit Bill Haley as he rocked around the clock. This new style of music may have been for teenagers, but it wasn’t being recorded by teenagers just yet.

And to finish on a personal note – this was number one on the day my dad was born. Fitting, perhaps, that it’s a song about two uncool parents attempting to dance around their living room. Or not, seeing as my father has never danced a step in his life, I don’t think. Still, it’s not a bad song to have as your birthday #1. OK, it’s a strange little number that nobody has actually listened to for many years; but there are far, far worse songs to have been born under…

42. ‘Memories Are Made of This’, by Dean Martin

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Memories are Made of This, by Dean Martin (his 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 17th February to 16th March 1956

Sweet sweet mem’ries you gave to me…

This is one of those #1s that fall into the ‘I can sing a line or two before listening to it’ category. See also ‘That Doggie in the Window’ and ‘This Ole House’. At first I thought I might have sung this in my days as a primary school choirboy. But then, after listening more closely, I realised that the lyrics are perhaps a bit rich for a group of eight year olds.

Take one fresh and tender kiss, add one stolen night of bliss…

So, yeah… Then I got to thinking that the intro sounds a lot like the intro to ‘King of the Road’ – that sliding da dum dum dum guitar – which I definitely did sing in my primary school choir. So maybe that’s what I was thinking of.

Anyway. I wrote in the last post that we were having a bit of a minimalist phase in terms of our chart topping records, after the bombast of ’53 and ’54, and this track follows suit. There’s a guitar, some backing singers, and Dean Martin. It’s nice.

Lyrically, the song describes the ‘recipe’ for a happy life. Lots of ‘taking’, ‘adding’ and ‘folding’. With His blessings from above, Serve it generously with love… Which is fine. It actually reminds me a bit of ‘Christmas Alphabet’, in a way – another pop song as step by step guide. It is, though, a metaphor which can only go so far. The lines: Then add the wedding bells, One house where lovers dwell, Three little kids for the flavour… Stir carefully through the days, See how the flavour stays… Are either a little too saccharine, or a little too cannibalistic, to really work.

These lines, however, come during the middle-eight in which – and I may be going out on a limb here but bear with me – we have a bit of a rock ‘n’ roll chord progression. I am completely incapable of describing it in words, having no musical ability on which to base my idea, so you’ll just have to take a listen below to see what I mean. The very fact that this is a Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Middle Eight Verse Chorus (Ok, the chorus is one line, but still) kind of song is interesting in itself. It’s by no means a ‘rock’ song; but there’s a whiff of something there.

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And it’s another one of those occasions in which we tick off a musical legend’s sole moment at the top of the UK charts. Vera Lynn’s had her moment, Tony Bennett’s had his, now it’s Dean’s turn. It just seems right that he got there at least once. To be honest, I know very few concrete facts about about Dean Martin – I tend to get all the rat-pack type singers muddled up together – but I see that he sang songs that are probably more famous than he now is: ‘Volare’, ‘That’s Amore’, ‘Sway’… In fact, it seems safe to say that ‘Memories Are Made of This’ is Dean Martin’s most famous song in which he wasn’t hamming up his eye-talian side. It sounds like I imagine all Dean Martin records to sound like: laidback, slightly louche, very nonchalant… He sounds as if he’s phoning it in, to an extent, but that just adds to the appeal. ‘The King of Cool’, indeed.

41. ‘Sixteen Tons’, by Tennessee Ernie Ford

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

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Sixteen Tons, by Tennessee Ernie Ford (his 2nd of two #1s)

4 weeks, from 20th January to 17th February 1956

Hmmm… What’s going on here, then?

It is more interesting, I suppose, approaching these distant number ones – apart from the handful that I already knew – and not knowing what I’m going to get. It wasn’t always like this – for most of 1953 and ’54 the chart toppers followed a rather overwrought formula. Now they are growing much more eclectic.

But, at the same time, I feel ‘Sixteen Tons’ has been done before. We’re back on ‘Man from Laramie’, ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’ territory here – back in the cheesy Western soundtrack album. This is what I expected from a man named Tennessee Ernie Ford, much more so than his earlier, bombastic #1: ‘Give Me Your Word’.

It’s a song about loading something… coal, I think… Loading sixteen tons of it, to be precise. You load sixteen tons, what d’ya get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St Peter don’t you call me cos I can’t go, I owe my soul to the company store… The singer is a hard man; shovellin’ sixteen tons ain’t nothin’ to him, no Sir.

After describing his working day, he goes on to big himself up: raised by a lion, fightin’ and trouble are his middle names, if you see him coming then you better step aside etc. etc. One fist of iron, the other of steel, If the right one don’t get you then the left one will… It’s all a bit silly, but Ford sings it with tongue firmly in cheek. He even giggles at one point, as he delivers the line: Can’t no high-toned woman make me walk the line… He knows it’s silly – and the listener can enjoy it for what it is. But, importantly, he doesn’t disrespect the song. It’s skilfully done. I kind of wish it had been Tennessee Ernie singing ‘The Man from Laramie’, rather than stiff old Jimmy Young, as what that song dearly needed was a slightly looser delivery; a delivery with the eyebrows raised. I’ve had a look, but unfortunately can’t find any sign that he ever recorded a version.

The only musical accompaniment to the lyrics is a guitar/clarinet combo, some light drumming, and some finger clicks. It’s minimalist. In fact, almost all of the most recent number ones have toned down the orchestral accompaniment and the backing singers (‘Rose Marie’ and ‘Christmas Alphabet’, the simple guitar riff of ‘The Man from Laramie’ and ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’s castanets). Unfortunately, at the same time, ‘Sixteen Tons’ resurrects a technique that we haven’t heard for a while – the THIS IS THE END OF THE SONG! technique. We end on a long, drawn out repetition of the final I OOOOOWWWWEEEEEE MY SOOUULLL blah blah blah… line. It spoils the whole song, truly it does. The sooner this trick dies a death the better!

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Each time I’ve listened to this track over the past half hour, somewhere in the back of my mind is the nagging suspicion that I’ve heard this somewhere before. I probably have – it is Ford’s signature hit, after all. And it’s a simple song. So simple that it sounds like it might be… Nope, I can’t place it.

And on that note, we will bid farewell to Tennessee Ernie Ford. But don’t you worry about him. He had a long and distinguished career back in the US, in the Country & Western world, releasing albums such as ‘This Lusty Land’, ‘Great Gospel Songs’, ‘Civil War Songs of the North’ and, er, ‘Civil War Songs of the South’ (maybe it was a ‘Use Your Illusion’ I & II kind of thing?) Whatever, he had clearly found his niche. He also had a TV show – ‘The Ford Show’ – and a catchphrase: ‘Bless your pea-pickin’ heart.’

Yee-hah! Let’s leave it there…

35. ‘Dreamboat’, by Alma Cogan

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

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Dreamboat, by Alma Cogan (her 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 15th to 29th July 1955

This is more like it! This is a pop song – a pop song as we would recognise one today. In our countdown so far I would count perhaps only Guy Mitchell’s ‘Look at that Girl’, and now this, as examples of The Modern Pop Song. No orchestras, no silly declarations of love, no grandstand finishes… Just a quick beat, a doo-doo-doo, and some lyrics about how in love the singer is.

I know this song quite well, and have it in regular rotation in my Spotify library, though I’m not sure how or why. I know next to nothing about Alma Cogan and, as you may have been able to tell from previous posts, I haven’t explored this era in popular music very extensively at all. It must have popped up as a suggestion – Spotify does love a suggestion – and I must have liked it enough to save it.

Anyway, know it I do. In fact, I don’t just know it – I love it! Cogan has this little flip in her voice at the start of every line, which makes her sound like an excitable school girl. And, for this song it really works. She’s got a crush, you see: You dreamboat, you loveable dreamboat, the kisses you gave me, set my dreams afloat… She’s besotted, and would follow the object of her desire anywhere – she would sail the seven seas, in fact: even if you told me to go and paddle my own canoe (I can’t help but think that sounds like a euphemism – ‘Just off to paddle my canoe darling, don’t wait up’).

There isn’t much else to ‘Dreamboat’ -it’s a fun little ditty. Cogan sings it well, with the perfect pronunciation we’ve come to expect but also with a light, playful touch that’s been missing from many of the number ones thus far. She sounds like she’s having a ball, as if she has a big, broad smile on her face while belting it out. Again, it’s a female singer having a good time. Contrast this with the song it replaced at the top – Jimmy Young’s painfully earnest take on ‘Unchained Melody’. Even in 1955 girls were having all the fun. It’s a noticeably shorter record than all the previous chart toppers as well, clocking in at well under two minutes, and that’s one of the most important things to consider when writing a brilliant pop song: make sure that it doesn’t outstay its welcome!

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It’s a shame, I think, that this is Alma Cogan’s only song on this countdown. I like the cut of her gib. She was another young, British-born singer who, along with Ruby Murray and Dickie Valentine earlier in 1955, was dragging popular music away from old crusties like Vera Lynn and David Whitfield and towards the teenagers, towards rock ‘n’ roll. This is a song, essentially, about a hunk and his sweet kisses.

A quick look at Cogan’s Wiki throws up a colourful picture: the highest paid female star of the late ’50s, serial winner of the NME Outstanding British Female Singer award, and perennial visitor to the Top 10. Parties with Princess Margaret, Cary Grant and Noel Coward. An affair with a young John Lennon just as the Beatles were shooting to fame. And then dead at the tragically young age of thirty-four…

A life well lived, though cut far too short. I have a feeling that I’ll miss her even more – this ‘Girl with the Giggle’ – when we return to the bog-standard, plodding ‘pre-rock’ songs that I fear are still to clock up the charts, before rock truly lands.