Rock ‘n’ Roll

634. ‘That’s What I Like’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

He’s back! The biggest chart star of 1989, the hottest medley-maker of the decade, the most successful rabbit in pop history, returns!

That’s What I Like, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers (their 2nd of three #1s)

3 weeks, from 15th October – 5th November 1989

C’mon everybody… Jason Derulo, DJ Khaled, Pitbull: all the biggest morons have their own call-signs by which to announce themselves at the start of a new record, and Jive Bunny is no exception… C-C-C’mon everybody! After that, we’re off on another double-speed tour around some golden oldies: ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘Great Balls of Fire’, ‘Runaround Sue’ and more… Bill Haley, Eddie Cochran and Little Richard have the honour of appearing on their second straight Mastermixers’ release. (I’ve just realised something truly upsetting – these are as close as Little Richard ever came to a #1 single…) Though, as in the first Jive Bunny record, a lot of the vocals are clearly performed by impersonators. The theme to ‘Hawaii 5-0’ does the job of ‘In the Mood’ here, and bookends the entire party.

As before, the whole thing is completely incongruous, and wholly ridiculous. And yet, I still can’t hate it. In fact, it gives you a new-found respect for what are already classic songs, that they can be dropped from a great height into this hot mess and still shine through. In the Mastermixers’ defence, the transitions between the songs are slightly smoother here than in ‘Swing the Mood’. They were clearly honing their craft.

And let’s be clear: the fact that this topped the charts just six weeks after their first #1 confirms that Jive Bunny fever was clearly sweeping the country in the autumn of 1989. They were just giving the public what they so craved – what they liked, as it were. (The title comes from the Big Bopper’s lascivious Oooh baby that’s what I like… in ‘Chantilly Lace’.)

As with ‘Swing the Mood’, ‘That’s What I Like’ was a huge hit throughout Europe (though returns were slowly diminishing, and the UK was the only territory in which it made #1). Even the US wasn’t immune to the rabbit’s charms, with this making #69 on the back of a very impressive #11 peak for ‘Swing…’ Twas, for a short time, Jive Bunny’s world, and we were just living in it.

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632. ‘Swing the Mood’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

Welcome to the second half of 1989, the final few months of the decade. We have twenty-three weeks’ worth of chart-toppers left to go. Nine of those will be taken up by a cartoon rabbit, peddling medleys of golden-oldies…

Swing the Mood, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers (their 1st of three #1s)

5 weeks, from 30th July – 3rd September 1989

First thing to establish is that, yes, this did indeed happen. I know April Fool’s is just around the corner but no – it’s real. I’m too young to remember it and I can’t recall the last time I heard Jive Bunny mentioned, in any context, so I imagine that those responsible for buying these records, and contributing to his short period of chart domination, regret it wholeheartedly.

‘Swing the Mood’ is a journey through rock ‘n’ roll history, bookended rather incongruously by Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’, which predates rock ‘n’ roll by a good decade. Still, it’s catchy, a great hook, and has even already featured in a #1 single … Yes, in the fade-out to ‘All You Need Is Love’. Then we’re off, off on a breakneck journey past Bill Haley & The Comets, Elvis, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, The Everly Brothers, and Eddie Cochran.

Three former #1s appear – ‘Jailhouse Rock’, ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and ‘All Shook Up’ – which is not something happens very often (in fact, the only #1 I can think of that features an earlier chart-topper is, again, ‘All You Need Is Love’, which had a snippet from ‘She Loves You’). The whole shebang was the brainchild of a father and son duo from Rotherham, John and Andrew Pickles, though the original ‘Swing the Mood’ had been created by a Doncaster DJ named Les Hemstock. Either way, it’s a South Yorkshire creation, though I could find no information on who wore the (genuinely quite terrifying) rabbit head for promotional activity.

Listening to the various versions of ‘Swing the Mood’ available to us on Spotify and YouTube, it becomes clear that not every song in the medley features the original vocals. Danny and the Juniors sound legit; but that sure ain’t Elvis. This was a problem that plagued Jive Bunny from the start: even as the record was climbing the charts they had to put out a re-recorded version with impersonators singing the bits they didn’t have the rights for.

I mean, I guess it’s fun. I can’t hate it, because I like all the songs featured in it, and the good thing about medleys is that they jump around so fast that you could never call them boring. (Though, for a much better medley of rock ‘n roll tunes, check out Status Quo’s ‘Anniversary Waltz 1 and 2’, which perhaps rode the Jive Bunny wave to reach #2 a year later.) Some of ‘Swing the Mood’s transitions are very clunky, though; and what they do to The Everly Brothers as they segue into ‘Wake Up Little Susie’ is borderline sacrilege. Calling themselves ‘The Mastermixers’ seems a bit of a stretch…

At the same time, medleys had been a big thing throughout the 1980s, and we were probably overdue one at the top of the charts. ‘Stars on 45’, ‘Hooked on Classics’ and the like, had all been big hits. Once the floodgates opened – and boy did they open, with ‘Swing the Mood’ becoming the second highest-selling hit of the year – the #1 hits kept coming. There’ll be more from Jive Bunny very soon…

608. ‘Perfect’, by Fairground Attraction

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

Following on from the sweaty, pounding ‘Theme from S-Express’ comes the jaunty, acoustic ‘Perfect’. One of the biggest style switches between consecutive chart-toppers?

Perfect, by Fairground Attraction (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 8th – 15th May 1988

I’ve always liked ‘Perfect’, long before I knew it had been a number one hit. It’s the sort of song that plays in the background, throughout your life: the sort of song you think you’ve heard even when you haven’t. A little rockabilly ditty, with a cutesy hook: It’s got to be-e-e-e-e-e-e, Perfect…

But, like I said, I knew the song long before I knew it had made #1. And I’m thinking there must have been some sort of story behind ‘Perfect’ making top spot, because it’s just not the sort of song that should have been making #1 in 1988. Was there a movie? An advert? A climactic scene in ‘Brookside’…? Seems not. It wasn’t even basking in the glow of a big preceding hit, as it was Fairground Attraction’s debut single.

To be fair, it’s not as if rock music didn’t exist in the 1980s, it was just largely absent from the top end of the charts. Maybe ‘Perfect’ was at the sweet spot between ‘80s indie (Smiths, Housemartins) and ‘80s rockabilly (the solo here features twanging guitars last heard in a Shakin’ Stevens hit, and might just be my favourite bit of the song), which gathered it enough steam to sneak a week on top. And hey, let’s not quibble! Guitars are back on top for a week! Having glanced ahead at the #1s to come… we’ll take what we can!

My second favourite part of the song is Eddi Reader’s vocal performance. Crisp and clear, playful on the verses, near soaring on the chorus, Reader had been a busker and a session vocalist before finding fame with Fairground Attraction. Their success didn’t last long, as the group split while recording their second album, but Reader has gone on to have a lasting folk career, re-recording ‘Perfect’ in Irish and interpreting the songs of Robert Burns among many other things.

To finish… Here’s where I’m going to get a bit picky. As nice as this record is – and ‘nice’ is an apt adjective – I do wish that our first rock (with a small ‘r’) #1 in a while had a bit more substance to it. A bit more beef. But it is what it is. We take what rock we can get and we move on…

595. ‘La Bamba’, by Los Lobos

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

We’re hitting a bit of a latin groove in the summer of ’87. After Madonna’s two ‘¿hablas español?’ chart-toppers, here are some actual Mexicans…

La Bamba, by Los Lobos (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 26th July – 9th August 1987

OK. Los Lobos (The Wolves) are from California, but they’re of Mexican heritage, and sound to these untrained ears like the real deal. This is a nice, insanely catchy, interlude at the top of the charts – not just because it’s something a little different, but also because actual guitar-led number one singles were rarer than hens’ teeth in the mid-1980s.

It’s also not often that we get a fully foreign-language record at the top, either. In my initial notes on this, I wrote that it was only the 3rd of the decade. Now I’m struggling to think what the other two were… There’s Julio Iglesias’s similarly Spanish smoothy ‘Begin the Beguine’ (which, to be fair, has a couple of lines of English). Oh yes, and how could I forget Falco’s ‘Rock Me Amadeus’ which, title aside, was fully auf Deutsch.

What is a ‘Bamba’, I’m wondering? It’s not a thing, as such… More of a dance. There’s no direct translation, but the verb bombolear means to shake, or wobble, and so a derivative dance would presumably have a bit of hip wiggling. Put the rest of the Spanish lyrics through a translator, and it turns out to be a bit of a nonsense tune: To dance ‘La Bamba’, You need a bit of grace… I’m not a sailor, I’m a captain… Bam-ba, Bamba…

‘La Bamba’ was originally a hit for Ritchie Valens, and the Los Lobos version featured in a biopic released at the same time as the hit record. Which taps into another emerging theme of 1987: soundtrack hits. ‘Stand by Me’, ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’, ‘Who’s That Girl’, now this, have all made top-spot at least in part thanks to movies. The Valens film told the story of the first Latino rock ‘n’ roll star, whose rise to fame ended in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper when he was just seventeen.

‘La Bamba’ has a much longer history, though. It’s a Mexican folk song, of the son jarocho school, meaning that its roots stretch back centuries and that this is actually a pretty unique and culturally significant chart-topper. The earliest recording of ‘La Bamba’ is from the ‘30s. Valens took a song he presumably knew from childhood and gave it a rock ‘n’ roll twist… And it eventually ended up on top of the British charts some thirty years later, sandwiched between Madonna and Michael Jackson. The instrumental fade-out in particular sounds very authentically Mexican, though I think that was cut from the single edit.

Los Lobos had been around since the 1970s, and remain around today – having just released an album last year. This cover was by far their biggest hit, though, and what a hit: a #1 from the USA to New Zealand, via the UK, France and seemingly everywhere in-between. And, like I said in the intro, it’s been a refreshing change of pace. Up next, though, we’re back with the eighties big-hitters. The biggest of hitters: MJ himself.

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502. ‘Goody Two Shoes’, by Adam Ant

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

In which Adam breaks away from the Ants, and goes solo with a chilled-out, lo-fi, slow-burn debut…

Goody Two Shoes, by Adam Ant (his 1st and only solo #1)

2 weeks, 6th – 20th June 1982

Or not. ‘Goody Two Shoes’ is even more frenetic than either of his band’s chart-toppers. It’s a bit of throwback – twanging rockabilly mixed with a jiving big-band brass section – and it’s all kept galloping along by a relentlessly simple drum beat that Does. Not. Let. Up. Once.

Like ‘Prince Charming’ it is a repetitive song that you need to be in the mood for. Goody two goody two goody goody two shoes… I can see why this might get on some people’s nerves. But if you are in the mood for Adam’s hyperactive musical mind, then this is a great pop single, and the perfect song on which to launch a solo career. We don’t follow fashion, That would be a joke…

People repeat to Adam (in the video it’s a crowd of journalists) the song’s iconic hook: Don’t drink, Don’t smoke, What do you do…? He doesn’t give the press what they want! He doesn’t conform! Is he up to something…!? This might be the first chart-topping example of a ‘haters gonna hate’ hit, the art form so beloved of Taylor Swift. No-one’s gonna tell me, Who to eat with, Sleep with…

What does he do, then? In the lyrics, the answer is an ambiguous: Must be something inside… In the video it’s a little less subtle: he takes the sexiest journalist to bed and shows her just what he does do. Phwoar! It is a bit repetitive, but it’s short, and pacy, and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Of Ant’s three number ones in just over a year, I’d sandwich this nearer to ‘Stand and Deliver!’ (the best) than ‘Prince Charming’ (the worst).

For this record he kept a guitarist and the drummer from his earlier band, letting the other members go due to a ‘lack of enthusiasm’. Sadly this didn’t launch Adam Ant to a long-lasting solo career. He’d have two more Top 10s and two more albums before moving into acting later in the decade (shout out here for my favourite of his solo singles, the characteristically bonkers ‘Apollo 9’). There have been a few comeback albums, alongside some mental health issues. He still writes and performs, and has a tour ready to go when covid allows.

I may not have truly loved any of his chart-toppers, but I am glad that Adam Ant has had his moment at the top of the UK charts. A year in which he was undeniably the biggest pop star in the country. He’s a true British eccentric, always interesting, with a great sense for the theatricality of pop. Line this up alongside the preceding #1, Madness’s ‘House of Fun’, and it has made for a technicoloured, hyperactive double at the top of the charts.

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493. ‘Oh Julie’, by Shakin’ Stevens

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

Shaky’s back, the biggest selling British artist of the decade (!), with his third chart-topper in less than a year.

Oh Julie, by Shakin’ Stevens (his 3rd of four #1s)

1 week, 24th – 31st January 1982

While his first two #1s lent heavily (and happily) on the sounds of the 1950s, his third lends very heavily on the sounds of a German Bierfest. As, for better or for worse, there is a lot of accordion involved here. (Though according to folks who know better than me – i.e. Wikipedia – it is more Cajun than German. Just FYI)

It’s another short and sweet slice of retro rockabilly but, compared to ‘This Ole House’ and ‘Green Door’, Stevens has lost his edge. (Whatever ‘edge’ Shakin’ Stevens ever had – these things are all relative!) It’s very middle of the road, very schlager – which fits with the Bierfest vibe, I suppose – and just a little bit safe. He’s coasting here. Again, I’m not claiming that ‘Green Door’ was punk, or anything, but it was a fun moment of rock ‘n’ roll revival at the top of the charts. This isn’t.

‘Oh Julie’ improves after the midway point, when the guitars start to drown out the accordions and it starts to show the charms of his earlier hits. But it’s not quite enough. And again, Shaky gives it his all. He sells it like the seasoned pro he is. I’m getting Elvis, of course, and Orbison, but most of all Jerry Lee Lewis in this one. The way he oooohs, and then yelps the line honey don’t leave me alone… Pure Killer.

I had assumed that this must have been a cover of an oldie, as his first two #1s were, but no. It’s a Shaky original, and it is impressive how authentic this record sounds. I can’t hate it: it’s catchy, it’s well-performed, it’s thankfully short. But nor can I love it. And I feel this is another type of January hit… ‘The Land of Make Believe’ was a Christmas leftover that belatedly made the top; this is an early in the year release that, perhaps, sneaked a week at #1 without too much competition. Of course, stick a girl’s name in a song and you’ll always sell a few more copies – Julie joins Annie, Clair, Maggie May, Rosemary, Juliet, and quite a few others, in having a song written just for her.

I have no proof for these cynical theories, though. My apologies to Shaky if this turns out to have been his biggest-selling hit (apart from, you know, that other one). Either way, ‘Oh Julie’ was a hit across Europe. Stevens went on scoring Top 10 hits throughout the early to mid-eighties, but it’ll be a little while before he’s back with his final chart-topper. A song that British readers, at least, may have heard once or twice before…

483. ‘Green Door’, by Shakin’ Stevens

/ UK #1s blog / 16 Comments

Proving that the British public can only remain serious for so long (three weeks, to be precise) here is Shakin’ Stevens knocking The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ off the top with another slice of old-style rockin’ and rollin’…

Green Door, by Shakin’ Stevens (his 2nd of four #1s)

4 weeks, 26th July – 23rd August 1981

‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ was obviously the motto pinned to the wall of Shaky’s recording studio. He takes the fun rockabilly of ‘This Ole House’, and ups both the fun and the rockabilly. A boogie-woogie piano and some clicking fingers lead us in to a tale of mystery and intrigue… Just what is behind the green door?

There’s an old piano and they’re playin’ hot, Behind the green door… Is it a bar? Don’t know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot, Behind the green door… Is it more than a bar…? A speakeasy? A strip-club? A brothel?? And why does it sound like the door leads directly off from Shaky’s bedroom, as he lies awake all night…?

It’s not a record that holds up much under scrutiny. But, you suspect, that was never the point. This wasn’t written with an eye on it being dissected in literature classes. The grannies and the kids ran out and bought Stevens’s first #1 in their droves, and this is aimed at the same crowd. And I personally can’t say no to some good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n’ roll, especially in an era where traditional ‘guitar’ music was in short supply at the top of the charts. There’s a great, twangy solo too, which ends in a note for note replica of the solo from ‘That’ll Be the Day’.

Shaky tries his best to get in to this here club, but has the door slammed in his face each time. I do like the hospitality’s thin there… line. It’s never specified why he isn’t allowed in – maybe the singer’s just got a baby face? I can sympathise, having spent most of 2002-03 trying, and largely failing, to get into nightclubs with a fake I.D. Wikipedia lists the song’s possible inspirations as including a Chicago speakeasy, London’s first lesbian bar, and a short story by H.G. Wells, among others.

‘Green Door’ is a cover – it had to be, right? – of a 1956 US #1 originally recorded in fairly pre-rock fashion by Jim Lowe. Frankie Vaughan took a fun big-band version to #2 over here. But I like Shakin’ Stevens’ version just as much. It rocks. And I don’t mean in a karaoke-ish, Elvis-impersonating way. It rocks, in a way that I wish more of the mid-seventies rock ‘n’ roll revival hits from the likes of Mud, Showaddywaddy and Alvin Stardust did. It still sounds completely out of place, considering ‘Ghost Town’ before, and the record coming up next, but who cares? Variety is, as they say, the spice of life, and in 1981 Shaky was bringing it to the top of the charts. He was in the middle of a red-hot streak here, and will be back in pole position again soon.

477. ‘This Ole House’, by Shakin’ Stevens

/ UK #1s blog / 18 Comments

How to explain Shakin’ Stevens, to readers from foreign shores, or to readers not old enough to have experienced him in real time…?

This Ole House, by Shakin’ Stevens (his 1st of four #1s)

3 weeks, 22nd March – 12th April 1981

The twanging rockabilly in this take on ‘This Ole House’ sounds completely out of place in early 1981, after two years of sharp, spiky new-wave, and just before the New Romantics came along. Stevens’ delivery too – all energy and cheesy grins – is an outlier in this too-cool-for-school world. But while this is an unlikely hit record, it’s not unwelcome.

I can never say no to some old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. The production may be glossier, the guitars coming through in a warm stereo, but this is a step back to the 1950s. Is it better than Rosemary Clooney’s original, from way back in 1954…? No, probably not. But it is equally manic. That had an out of control honky-tonk piano, Shaky’s take has a distorted guitar solo: this version’s only concession to modern sounds.

He sounds like he’s having a lot of fun singing this – a song stuffed with nonsense lyrics about fixing shingles and mending window-panes – and because of this it is very hard not to have fun while you listen. The hipsters may have rolled their eyes, and turned their Ultravox records up, but the grannies and the kids clearly lapped it up. Just think… The young ones who bought Clooney’s version would have been hitting fifty by now. We have covered a lot of ground here!

I did wonder if this might have been Shakin’ Stevens debut: a smash hit from nowhere, perhaps after winning a TV talent show. But I couldn’t have been more wrong – he had been plugging away for well over a decade, releasing singles in the UK and Europe throughout the ‘70s. Born in Cardiff, he’d been a milkman, before forming his band The Sunsets. They’d supported The Rolling Stones of all people, in 1969. By the mid-seventies he was impersonating Elvis in the West End before finally scoring a minor chart hit with ‘Hot Dog’ in early 1980.

After that the rise was meteoric, and it’s hard to begrudge someone who’s waited that long and worked so hard for success. But. This still doesn’t explain why this Welsh Elvis finally became one of the biggest stars in the land… Maybe the rock ‘n’ roll revival that was gave us Showaddywaddy and Mud a few years back never truly went away? Maybe he was the chart-friendly face of the post-punk rockabilly scene? Or maybe it’s another ‘Shaddap You Face’: some light-relief after weeks of mourning John Lennon? I don’t know.

One thing’s for sure – if this cover of a near thirty-year-old song was a one-hit wonder then it would make perfect sense. A flash in the pan, a moment of frivolity. Except, it’s the first of four chart-toppers for a thirty-something ex-Elvis impersonator, who was on his way to becoming the biggest-selling British singles artist of the decade. More from Shaky, then, very soon…

471. ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’, by John Lennon

/ UK #1s blog / 26 Comments

It’s been well over a decade since we heard this voice at the top of the charts, one of rock’s most famous. It’s great to hear it again… just a shame about the circumstances.

(Just Like) Starting Over, by John Lennon (his 1st of three #1s)

1 week, 14th – 21st December 1980

Three clear notes are struck – three notes that always make me think of a yacht coming into harbour – before an old-style acoustic intro. Our life… Together… Is so precious… Together… John Lennon made no secret for his love of rock ‘n’ roll music, and this is his tribute to the stars he grew up with, those who caused him to pick up a guitar: Elvis is the one who comes across most in the vocals, but there’s Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent in there too.

It’s a love-letter too, to his second wife, Yoko Ono, who appears on the cover and on the ‘B’-side… But when I see you darling, It’s like we both are falling in love again… It’ll be, Just like starting over… As controversial as her role in The Beatles’ final years is (and I think she gets a very bad rap), Lennon loved her dearly.

When the beat kicks in, the production is very early-eighties gloss. Thick, echoey drums, noodley guitar licks and the like. It’s got a karaoke backing-track feel to it – if that isn’t a huge insult to one of the 20th century’s most revered musicians – and doesn’t scream ‘lead-single from John Lennon’s first album in five years’. He chose it as the lead, though, not because he thought it was the best song on the LP, but because the theme of ‘starting over’ fit in with his comeback.

‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ doesn’t scream ‘huge #1 hit’ either, to be honest. It’s fine, it’s catchy, it’s far from Lennon’s greatest moment. I prefer the rock ‘n’ roll covers he had put out a few years earlier: they’re rawer, cooler. This needed a push to return him to the top, and that push came on the evening of December 8th, when a deluded fan, Mark Chapman, shot him in the entrance to his apartment in New York.

This single had peaked at #8 a few weeks earlier, but had dropped to #21 the day before his death. When the news broke, fans rushed out to buy his records as a mark of respect – in those pre-download days you had to make do with what was on the shelves – and this single was waiting for them. It’s the same reason why ‘Way Down’ became Elvis’s ‘funeral number one’. And ‘… Starting Over’ must have seemed nailed-on to become Christmas #1 too… yet fate had other ideas.

Unlike Elvis’s death, this chart-topper kicks off a run of Lennon-mania at the top of the charts. Between December 1980 and the following March, four out of the six UK number ones will be by John Lennon, or a cover of. The two records that disturb this run…? Um, classics, the pair of them… The first of which is up next.

412. ‘Way Down’, by Elvis Presley

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

Do you remember the early 1960s? (Not literally – I mean in terms of this blog.) Back when every third #1 was by Elvis? Those three years in which he dominated the top spot like no one before or since, not even The Beatles? Amazingly, given the heights of his heyday, this is only his second chart-topper in twelve years. ‘The Wonder of You’ came just after his leather-clad comeback, and marked the start of the Vegas years. Since then he’s descended into a jump-suited parody of himself, mumbling his way through residencies with sweat-soaked towels round his ever-widening neck. From Sun Records, to Elvis the Pelvis, to the army, the movies and the rhinestones, there was still time for one more reinvention. Enter: Dead Elvis.

Way Down, by Elvis Presley (his 17th of twenty-one #1s)

5 weeks, from 28th August – 2nd October 1977

I don’t include the picture above to shock or to mock; more to mourn what he had become. What his management and enablers had allowed him to do to himself. I’ve loved Elvis’s music since I was young, and can find something to enjoy from every stage of his career. And I’m glad he bowed out with a rocker. ‘Way Down’ is pure cabaret razzamatazz, with the jazzy drums and the piano flourishes; but there’s rock ‘n’ roll in there. There’s a hint of disco too, believe it or not, in the churning, didgeridoo-like rhythm.

Ooh, And I can feel it, Feel it, Feel it, FEEL IT! You wonder if Elvis was capable of feeling very much at this point, and he does sound pretty bored (or pretty well sedated) during the verses. But he goes for it in the chorus. Way down where it feels so good, Way down where I hoped it would, Way down where I never could… On the one hand they sound like standard, throwaway, mildly risqué rock ‘n’ roll lyrics. But for a man in Elvis’s condition maybe he knew what he was talking about: he was having to dig very deep to feel anything. Meanwhile the line: The medicine within me, A doctor couldn’t prescribe… sounds like a very knowing reference.

I’ve always liked this one, long before I knew it was his swansong. It’s kid-friendly rock – almost a pantomime of the real thing. Would it have been a #1 smash if Elvis hadn’t died? No way. It was languishing at #42 in the week of his death, before rocketing up the charts when the news broke. Nowadays, people download or stream deceased artists’ biggest hits on hearing of their deaths. Back in 1977, those who wanted to mark The King’s passing had one choice: to go ‘Way Down’.

Sadly, Elvis isn’t actually the true star of his final antemortem release. Step forward J.D. Sumner, who ends the record with perhaps the lowest note ever sung on a chart-topping single. Way… On… Doowwwn… I did wonder if he was the same baritone as featured way back on ‘A Fool Such As I’, but sadly he wasn’t.

While this record did perhaps only hit #1 thanks to Elvis’s death, that shouldn’t suggest he had been absent from the charts. Since his last #1in 1970, Presley had scored fifteen Top 10 hits with a mix of new songs and re-releases. ‘Moody Blue’, the single before this, had reached #6. Perhaps ‘Way Down’ would have done something similar, then, if it hadn’t been for that fateful trip to the bathroom.

And this isn’t the end of the road for Elvis and the number one spot. Far from it. At the time, it gave him his seventeenth chart-topper, tying him with The Beatles. They will stay neck and neck for a good twenty-five years, until an Elvis resurgence in the ‘00s (he has twice as many #1s in that decade as he does in the ‘70s…) But still. We should still mark this occasion. One of, if not the, biggest pop star ever has left the building. Go on, order yourself a Fools’ Gold Loaf (flown in on your own private jet, naturally) and play the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s final hit, one last time…

Enjoy every #1 so far, including all 17 of Elvis’s: