60s music

And B-sides… The Beatles

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October 5th marks the 64th anniversary of the release of ‘Love Me Do’, the Beatles’ debut single proper. And while it wasn’t a number one, in the UK at least, I thought it was as good moment as any to do this B-sides post, which I’ve been toying with for a while. Plus, in blog world we’ve just reached the Arctic Monkeys, British rock’s last great hurrah. What better time, then, to take a deep dive into the band that gave us British rock’s greatest hurrah?

I considered choosing my Top 5, or even Top 10, and at one point a Top 6 (?), favourite B-sides to the Beatles’ seventeen UK number ones. (Yes, I know they’ve had eighteen, but they hadn’t in 2005, which is where we are in number1sblog land). But then I realised that I liked too many of them, and so why not rank all of them?

Ranking is a pointless task, lazily clickbaity; but it is undeniably satisfying. It is a very human impulse – a male impulse I might argue – to put things into lists. So here we are.

The Fab Four’s B-sides varied widely from territory to territory, and from release to re-release. But these fifteen tracks are the original British B-sides to their #1 singles. And yes it’s fifteen B-sides from seventeen #1s, thanks to their two chart-topping double A-sides, ‘Day Tripper’ / ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ / ‘Yellow Submarine’.

One, two, three, FAH…

15. ‘The Inner Light’, B-side to ‘Lady Madonna’

‘Lady Madonna’ was the first single The Beatles released after their trip to India to see the Maharishi. And while the Fats Domino inspired A-side was about as far from eastern mysticism as you can get, ‘The Inner Light’ made up for it with bells (and sitars, and drones) on. It’s a George Harrison composition – the first to be released on any Beatles’ single – with lyrics inspired by Taoism, and is highly regarded by scholars who know their meditation. But, I have to be honest, it’s a bit of a racket to my ungodly ears.

14. ‘Yes It Is’, B-side to ‘Ticket to Ride’

‘Ticket to Ride’ is such a statement single, one of The Beatles’ big steps away from a beat combo to an experimental rock group, that I’d have expected the B-side to have been a little more avant-garde. But the slow waltzing ‘Yes It Is’, in which the boys beg their girl not to wear red because it will remind them of their ex, is a slight disappointment. The harmonies are strong, and the accordion and/or harmonica lends an intriguingly woozy edge to it. But it sounds like a retread of ‘This Boy’, which you will be able to find much further down this list…

13. ‘Thank You Girl’, B-side to ‘From Me to You’

Nothing particularly wrong with ‘Thank You Girl’, the B-side to their first number single. But it feels like it’s been patched together using scraps from better songs. There’s the harmonica clarion call from ‘Please Please Me’, there’s the chugging riff from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hold’, and there’s some pretty ropey rhyming couplets. I do like the weirdly affected and echoey way they sing the ‘oh oh oh’s though.

12. ‘She’s a Woman’, B-side to ‘I Feel Fine’

Paul McCartney wrote ‘She’s a Woman’ as an attempt to copy the style of their early tour-mate Little Richard. I don’t think it sounds particularly like Little Richard, more like Georgie Fame, but McCartney sounds half cut and wonderfully hoarse singing this bluesy number. It apparently features the band’s first reference to marijuana in the turns me on line, but that feels like retroactive thinking, unless the ‘woman’ of the title is Mary Jane herself.

11. ‘I’ll Get You’, B-side to ‘She Loves You’

B-side to the Beatles’ best single (no arguing, thanks), ‘I’ll Get You’ is perhaps the perfect distillation of the band’s early sound. It’s a great beat-pop song. It just loses a couple of marks because it relies a little too heavily on the ‘oh yeah’s.

10. ‘I’m Down’, B-side to ‘Help!’

Releasing a record that would appear on paper as ‘Help!’ / ‘I’m Down’ suggests that things were not all tickety boo towards the end of the Beatles’ touring days. But if you expect ‘I’m Down’ to be a mopey record then you’re to be disappointed. Written by McCartney a couple of years earlier, like the A-side it couches its depressive message – I’m down, I’m really down, Down on the ground… – in a rollicking rock and roll beat, with lots of whooping and hollering, a wild organ solo, and a brilliant intro that rips off Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ to fine effect. The Top 10 are all great songs, signature hits for literally any other band, and ‘I’m Down’ gets us off to fine start.

9. ‘Rain’, B-side to ‘Paperback Writer’

Pop music was developing so quickly in the mid-sixties that the Beatles went from releasing ‘I’m Down’ to ‘Rain’ inside ten months. Their first release to use reversed vocals, as well as nods towards eastern musical styles (though no actual sitars feature on the song) and other classic ’60s psychedelic touches, it was recorded around the same time as ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, and the relationship between the two songs is clear. And yet, despite the experimental sounds, John Lennon has described the song as being concerned with that most quintessentially British phenomenon: ‘people complaining about the weather’.

8. ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’, B-side to ‘All You Need Is Love’

A year later, and the same psychedelic sounds were incorporated into a much poppier song for the B-side to hippy anthem ‘All You Need Is Love’. It has a very hooky chorus, but lots of odd touches – it features a clavioline, for example, the same proto-synthesiser used on the Tornados’ ‘Telstar’. The ‘rich man’ in the title might be Brian Epstein, or those involved in the hippie movement.

7. ‘You Can’t Do That’, B-side ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’

The first B-side in this list that, I think, might be better than the A-side. This chugging, bluesy groover, with John Lennon letting his rock star voice loose is a gem. I am a sucker for the use of a cow bell in rock music, mind you, so that might be swaying the vote.

6. ‘Old Brown Shoe’, B-side to ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’

Once the Beatles had gotten through their psychedelic phase, their final year or so was spent recording songs that were either very experimental, or a return to their rocking roots. (Or that were a middle finger to what people expected of them, like the A-side to this one.) ‘Old Brown Shoe’ is a rocker, with a brilliant bass line and a wonderfully echoey effect on George Harrison’s lead vocals. Sources are conflicted as to whether it’s Ringo playing drums on this record, or Paul.

5. ‘This Boy’, B-side to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’

I will argue all day long that early-Beatles shouldn’t get overlooked as much as it does (give me the Red Album over the Blue any day…) So I’ve managed to put two pre-1965 B-sides in the Top 5. The next one is rightfully recognised as one of their best, but ‘This Boy’ is beautiful too. The Everly Brothers harmonies in the first two verses, and the soulful blast that John Lennon gives the middle-eight, make it a highlight of their early hits.

4. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, B-side to ‘Get Back’

The Beatles’ second last chart-topping B-side is one of their more famous ballads. Like at least two other songs on this list, it is enhanced by a full-throated vocal performance from John Lennon. I’ve always loved the off kilter middle eight, and the risqué sounding third verse (Ooh she done me, She done me good…) Like the A-side ‘Get Back’, this also features Billy Preston on the piano, most notably in the outro.

3. ‘Things We Said Today’, B-side to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

For a long time I thought that ‘Things We Said Today’ had come along much later in the Beatles’ careers, maybe around ‘Revolver’, or at least ‘Rubber Soul’. But for this minor-key masterpiece to have been recorded less than two years after ‘Love Me Do’ astounds me. It’s a McCartney composition, allegedly inspired by difficulties in his relationship with Jane Asher, and sees him look ahead to a day in future – I always read it as after they’ve split up – when they remember the nice things they used to say to one another.

2. ‘Revolution’, B-side to ‘Hey Jude’

On another day this could have been my number one. But today I am feeling less revolutionary, more contrary. Though in fact that kind of sums up John Lennon’s ‘Revolution’, which is not so much about wanting a revolution as telling those who want one that they’re doing it wrong. You say you’ll change the constitution, Well you know, We’d all love to change your head… And we can surely all relate to agreeing with a cause but thinking those in charge are sanctimonious pricks? And if we can’t all agree on the politics of the song, I’m sure we can all agree on how nasty those fuzzy guitars sound.

1. ‘I Am the Walrus’, B-side to ‘Hello, Goodbye’

Edging out ‘Revolution’ because, at the end of the day, has there been a more regime changing lyric than oompah oompah stick it up your jumper? Started by Lennon when he was on an acid trip, and with influences from Lewis Carroll, playground chants, extracts from ‘King Lear’, and his own bloody-mindedness after finding out that hip young English teachers were using Beatles songs for their lessons (‘let the fuckers work that one out’, he is alleged to have cackled). ‘I Am the Walrus’ defies explanation, quite intentionally, and is top of this pile. If only they had listed it as the A-side over ‘Hello, Goodbye’, it would have been one of the strangest number ones of all time.

Happy Beatles day, then. I’m off to listen to the Red Album…

Never Had a #1… Part 5

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It’s been a while, so here is the next instalment of our look through the Top 40 biggest-selling global acts never to have had a UK #1 single.

We’re into the Top 20 today, counting down acts twenty through sixteen. Before we get going though, why not recap with Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

20. Carpenters

Biggest hits: ‘Yesterday Once More’ (#2 in 1973) & ‘Please Mr. Postman’ (#2 in 1975)

The Carpenters are possibly the most surprising name on this list. They weren’t a rock act that sold more albums than singles; they were a singles act that produced some of the best pop music of the seventies. It’s amazing that they didn’t manage a chart-topper in Britain, despite scoring three in the USA.

‘Yesterday Once More’ has one of their best melodies, and one of their catchiest hooks. Every shalalala, Every whoa-oh-oh… It was a very ’70s phenomenon, songs about how the old songs were the best, when the ‘old songs’ had barely come of age. And I’m sure I mentioned this in my post on how the Carpenters had never had a number one, but having traveled widely across Asia I can confirm that ‘Yesterday Once More’, and ‘Top of the World’, are two of the best-known English language songs every recorded.

‘Please Mr. Postman’, one of their American chart-toppers, is a decent enough cover. It was once voted as the duo’s best song by ITV viewers, which is just silly.

19. Bob Dylan

Biggest hit: ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ (#4 in 1965)

A man who needs little to no introduction from me, and another about whom I have previously done a ‘Never Had a #1’ post on.

What I will say specifically about Dylan’s biggest hit, is I think it quite fun that following worthy folk anthems like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’, it took a six-minute, sneering bitchfest to bring about his biggest British hit. He then followed it up with the even nastier ‘Positively 4th Street’, one of the great ‘haters gonna hate’ records, proving that he truly was the Taylor Swift of his day.

18. Dire Straits

Biggest hits: ‘Private Investigations’ (#2 in 1982) & ‘Walk of Life’ (#2 in 1986)

Only the third British act in this Top 40, after Genesis (#23) and Def Leppard (#22), and the second highest. (I won’t give the game away, but I’m sure most of you can work out the final British band left to appear…) Anyway, Dire Straits have made number two twice. Once with the languorous Spanish guitars and spoken word combo of ‘Private Investigations’, which really doesn’t sound much like a Top 40, let alone a #2, hit. And then with the far catchier and more immediate ‘Walk of Life’, from their fourteen-times-platinum monster album ‘Brothers in Arms’.

17. The Doors

Biggest hit: ‘Light My Fire’ (#7 in 1967)

Back to the usual ‘bigger in the US’ type of acts that have populated this rundown so far, and it’s The Doors. Despite having two number ones to their name back home, ‘Light My Fire’ was their only Top 10 hit in the British Isles. And while the seven-minute organ solo version is great (the solo now has it’s own ‘chapter’ on this YouTube video), I have included the band’s shorter but much more controversial performance on the Ed Sullivan show, in which Jim Morrison reneged on a promise not to sing the girl we couldn’t get much higher… line. Sullivan refused to shake their hands, and banned them from the show indefinitely.

I have also already done a Doors ‘Never Had a #1…’ post, if you would like to read more.

16. Santana

Biggest hit: ‘Smooth’ ft. Rob Thomas (#3 in 2000)

Carlos Santana had been active since the sixties, both by himself and as leader of his eponymous band, but had never troubled the UK Top 10 until this late nineties classic.

It’s an interesting plot line of the fin de 20th siecle: classic rock acts having a renaissance. Aerosmith had their biggest ever hit in 1998, Blondie made an unexpected chart-topping comeback a few months later, and Santana finally breached the UK Top 10. With a little help from Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas (who weren’t a British chart force either) they brought about this sexy, Latin-rock groover. (That little Mariachi drumbeat key change that leads to the solo is pop perfection in my book). In my mind this was the sound of the summer of ’99, when the record was initially released, but in reality it reached its chart peak in March 2000, and March is never a particularly hot and steamy time of the year…

So we’re almost into the Top 15, where we have remaining two solo females, three solo males, and ten bands, all of whom rock and/or roll, to varying extents. Until Part VI, then….

The Billboard Hot 100 Vs The UK Singles Chart

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

Our next guest post comes from another long-time follower, who joined our journey sometime around the late 1950s. Max (aka Badfinger) blogs on music and pop culture at powerpop.blog, and has kept up with our wanderings through the charts even though we left his preferred ’60s and ’70s eras behind a while back. Today he’s writing about a lost hit from that time, and how it highlights the differences between the charts on either side of the Atlantic…

When I was growing up, my sister had this single. It was cracked, so she taped the B-side with scotch tape, and I would listen to it over and over. Of course, it went like “Crimson and Clov-CLICK-er.” But I didn’t care; it was a great song to me even with the hideous CLICK.

Now to the subject of the post. I’ve always been fascinated by how some bands could be huge in one country and barely make a dent in another. In America, we missed out on a lot of British acts like T. Rex, Status Quo, and Slade. At the same time, the UK never fully embraced some major American artists such as CCR, Bob Seger, and Grand Funk Railroad. They were certainly known there, but they never enjoyed the kind of success they had back home. I always wondered about that in bands and songs.

While I was writing up this song up a few years ago and typing out the chart position of it, I was shocked when I saw a blank in the UK chart position. I thought the source was wrong, so I emailed Stewart; no dice, it didn’t chart. This song is one of those records that proves the charts don’t always make sense. Tommy James and the Shondells were no strangers to success in the UK. ‘Mony Mony‘ had reached No. 1 there. But when it was released in early 1969, it failed to chart at all.

Part of the problem may have been that the song was unlike anything else on the radio at the time. It moved at a slower pace at mid-tempo. The tremolo effects on Tommy James’ voice and guitar gave it a dreamy sound. American audiences loved it. British listeners may have found it a little too different, bubblegum, or old hat. The UK music scene was changing quickly in 1969. Harder rock bands and progressive groups were starting to get more attention.

There is also the possibility that the record simply did not receive the promotion it needed. Maybe ‘Crimson and Clover’ (released January 1969) came too close after ‘Mony Mony’ (March 1968). Tommy James was always a bigger act in the United States and Canada than in Britain. In those days, radio play and television appearances could make a huge difference. If a record was not pushed hard enough, a song could get lost among dozens of new releases arriving every week. Of course, there was always the opposite, such as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, and many others that hit number 1 in the UK and did nothing here.

Just so everyone knows, I’m not knocking the UK for it not charting. It’s just amazing to me, though, how one song can be so big in one country and flop in the other…either way! Whatever the reason, Joan Jett actually charted Crimson and Clover in 1982 at #60 in the UK, and her version peaked at #7 in America and #4 in Canada. At least it made an appearance in the UK Charts!

Thanks again, Max. Everyone else be sure to check out his blogs, through which I’ve discovered so many songs over the years. And don’t forget to vote for the Best and Worst #1s! Results out on Sunday!

Happy Birthday… Cher

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

Tomorrow, May 20th, marks the birthday of a pop music icon. Cher. One four-letter name, seven decades of classic hits. It’s unbelieveable to think that she turns eighty today. (Though if you don’t think she looks a day over fifty, that’s because most of her isn’t…)

Cher has enjoyed four British number one singles – ‘I’ve Got You Babe’, ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’, and ‘Believe’ – and has held records for being the oldest chart-topping female, and for having the longest time-span between her chart-toppers. But what of her other UK chart hits?

To celebrate her big day, here are her five next biggest – five Top 5 hits – covering a whopping thirty-three years…

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) – #3 in 1966

It’s not really the case that Cher made her name with Sonny Bono and then went solo. Her own chart-career ran concurrently with their partnership, and this record made #3 shortly after ‘I Got You Babe’. Amazingly, this would be Cher’s final Top 3 hit until ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ in 1991.

While still a solo track, ‘Bang Bang’ was written by Sonny. It is possibly more famous in Nancy Sinatra’s hands, although her version was never released as a single. Cher’s original is a little livelier, with a sort of gypsy troupe backing, but I do think Nancy’s vocals lend the song a more atmospheric edge. Not that it’s a competition!

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves – #4 in 1971

Through choice or typecasting, Cher traded on her exotic name and heritage (her father was Armenian, her mother was of Cherokee descent) through songs like ‘Half Breed’, ‘Dark Lady’, and most famously ‘Gypsys Tramps and Thieves’.

One of many comebacks for Cher, it was her first hit for five years and gave her a first solo Billboard #1. It tells the story of a girl born in a travelling show, with an appropriately carnivalesque backing band. I was going to call it Cher’s signature song, but a woman with such a long and varied career has several signature hits, one from each decade at least. Let’s call this her signature seventies song.

Dead Ringer for Love (with Meat Loaf) – #5 in 1981

Another comeback single, after a late-seventies slump in her chart fortunes. I am bending the rules a bit, because Cher is not credited by the OCC (meaning she technically went over sixteen years without a British hit), but really. This is Cher’s song every bit as much as it is Meat Loaf’s.

Because ‘Dead Ringer’ wouldn’t be half as good without Cher playing the vampy foil to Meat’s sex-obsessed jock in this Grease-meets-Rocky Horror throwback classic. In truth, she deserves lead-billing alone for delivering the lines I’m lookin’ for anonymous and fleeting satisfaction, I wanna tell my daddy I’ll be missing in action… with such gusto.

I Found Someone – #5 in 1988

Although her 1970s ‘Bob Mackie dress and waist length hair’ look is iconic, Cher really achieved what we now think of as her classic look in the late 1980s. Plus her voice was perfectly suited to an eighties rock-ballad such as this. I think her cannon-straddling turn in ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ is much better remembered than ‘I Found Someone’, but that charted one place lower in 1989. And I can understand why, as this record is a bit power-ballad-by-numbers. Okay, but not a classic.

‘I Found Someone’ was technically yet another comeback for Cher, giving her a first UK Top 10 (if we discount ‘Dead Ringer’) since ‘Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves’.

Strong Enough – #5 in 1999

In 1998, aged a sprightly fifty-two, Cher enjoyed her biggest ever hit with the lead-single from her twenty-second studio album. That was, of course, ‘Believe’, which I’ve named as one of my Very Best #1s. (In fact, the 1990s are by far her most succesful chart decade.)

‘Believe’s follow-up was even more disco-leaning, and even more of a gay anthem. In ‘Strong Enough’ she calls out a cheating ex: I’ve been losing sleep, And you’ve been going cheap… It certainly owes a debt to ‘I Will Survive’, especially in the string break, but it also holds its own as a great tune. Better than ‘Believe’? Probably not, but it certainly feels a lot less tired from over-exposure. And having mentioned Cher’s iconic ’70s and ’80s looks, can we take a minute to acknowledge how fantastically late-90s the video is!

Happy birthday Cher, then. Who knows, maybe she still has it in her to add to her Top 5 singles list? In 2023, her festive banger ‘DJ Play a Christmas Song’ made #18, making her the oldest female artist to have a UK Top 40 hit (with a new song), and the only solo artist – of any gender – to make the Top 40 in seven consecutive decades. Her chart history has been one of quality over quantity, and it seems there’s plenty of life in the old gal yet!

Random Runners-Up… 5th November

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Remember, remember (the singles that were sitting at #2 in the charts on) the 5th of November. Beat groups, new wave, and pop…

Apologies for my non-British readers, who will have no idea what I was reaching for there. Yes, time for another dose of randomly chosen runners-up. Every so often we cast our eyes away from the number one spot, down a place to be precise, and find three classics which fell agonisingly short of featuring in one of my regular blog posts.

‘Stop Stop Stop’, by the Hollies – #2 for 2 weeks between 3rd – 16th November 1966, behind ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’.

The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Kinks… What’s the correct band to put next in this particular logic puzzle? Probably The Hollies, who scored seventeen Top 10 hits between 1963 and 1974, but only one #1 (the buzzing ‘I’m Alive’). They also made a belated return to top spot in 1988, with a Budweiser inspired re-release of ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’. I have already featured the classic ‘The Air That I Breathe’ as a random runner-up, but I doubt anyone will begrudge them another appearance.

Like all the best ’60s beat groups, the Hollies adapted their sound almost single by single, and in late 1966 they brought in a distinctive banjo (with added echo to fool people into thinking it was a balalaika) for this tale of a chap who, overcome by the beauty of a belly dancer, ends up knocking tables over and getting chucked out of a club. It fits in well with the year in which any band worth their salt was exploring the sounds of the east and reaching for the sitar, while keeping a uniquely earthy Hollies-ness to it.

‘Happy Birthday’, by Altered Images – #2 for 3 weeks between 25th October – 14th November 1981, behind ‘It’s My Party’ and ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’

Despite there already being a fairly famous tune called ‘Happy Birthday’, dating from 1893, several pop acts have had a go at updating the birthday songbook. The Beatles and Stevie Wonder made probably the two most famous attempts, but not far behind are Scottish new wave act Altered Images.

It’s a fizzing, peppy tune, which sounds perfect for kids to sing along to after filling up on cake and e-numbers. I’ve tried to look at the lyrics for deeper meaning, but there doesn’t seem to be any. Still the glockenspiel and guitar riff is nice, and you can see why this became such a big hit. It was probably helped by frontwoman Claire Grogan (AKA the Scottish Debbie Harry) and her recent appearance in hit movie ‘Gregory’s Girl’, and it set the band up for two years’ worth of success before they split in 1983.

Before moving on to our final #2, I have to address a question that’s been nagging at me for the past ten minutes… What did people in 1892 sing when it was someone’s birthday?

‘Outside’, by George Michael – #2 for 2 weeks, between 25th October – 7th November 1998, behind ‘Believe’

Another question. You are a world-famous pop star caught ‘engaging in a lewd act’ in a public toilet by an undercover police officer. This cowardly sting operation has forced you into declaring that you are gay, at a time when that could have still been a career-damaging, if not ending, announcement. Do you A) lie low for a while? Or B) release a disco-pop banger all about the joys of al fresco shagging? Way to handle a scandal.

George Michael, of course, chose option B. And the result was ‘Outside’. I think I’m done with the sofa, I think I’m done with the hall, I think I’m done with the kitchen table, Baby… His last UK chart-topper, a couple of years earlier, had been the ode to anonymous sex, ‘Fastlove’. But ‘Outside’ makes that tune seem positively chaste. And it’s one of his very best singles: clever, fun, danceable, and unrepentant. I’d service the community… George declares, halo shining… But I already have, You see…

I will admit to, and stand by, being a bit bored of George Michael’s slower, more serious chart-toppers. He always had a playful side, from ‘Faith’ and ‘I Want Your Sex’ through to this, and the similarly saucy ‘Freeek!’ from 2002, which makes brilliant use of a dial-up modem as a base for the beat. Sadly though, it seems that GM could only ever make #1 in the UK if he was on his best behaviour.

Hope you enjoyed this latest detour of what-might-have-been on top of the charts. Back to the regular countdown in a few days!

Random Runners-Up… August 17th

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Welcome to the latest installment of Random Runners-Up, where we celebrate the records that came close, but no cigar. Three records, all sitting at #2 on this date in history…

‘We’ve Gotta Get out of This Place’, by the Animals – #2 for 1 week in 1965, behind ‘Help!’

Some classic sixties R&B to start us off. This is gritty stuff, with a winding bassline, snarling guitars, and the gutteral yowl of lead singer Eric Burden telling a tale of hardship and poverty. It was written by Brill Building duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, intended for the Righteous Brothers. The Animals changed the lyrics slightly, to reflect their childhoods in Newcastle. Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’, Watch his hair been turning grey… And then out of nowhere springs a very upbeat, pop-leaning chorus. It is a positive song, despite the misery of the verses. The singer will get out of this place: Believe me baby, I know it baby, You know it too…

This was the Animals’ second-biggest hit, after their 1964 chart-topper ‘The House of the Rising Sun’, and was one of seven Top 10s the band enjoyed before fracturing in 1966. ‘We’ve Gotta Get out of This Place’ was released right at the start of the Vietnam War, and became an anthem for US soldiers stationed out there in the late-sixties.

‘You Got What It Takes’, by Showaddywaddy – #2 for 1 week in 1977, behind ‘Angelo’

The seventies were a time of great musical innovation… They were also a time of Showaddywaddy. Not that I’m complaining, because I can’t resist Showaddywaddy and their rock ‘n’ roll revival schtick. They had one number one in the UK, ‘Under the Moon of Love’, but were a constant presence in the charts during the latter half of the decade. ‘You Got What it Takes’ was the third in a run of seven straight Top 10 hits, and one of the band’s four #2s.

Like their chart-topper, this was a cover of an oldie: a 1960 #7 hit by Marv Johnson. Musically it owes a great debt to Lloyd Price’s ‘Personality’, and lyrically it tells the tale of a girl who doesn’t doesn’t live in a beautiful place, doesn’t dress with the best of taste… Nature didn’t give you such a beautiful face… And yet she has what it takes. What exactly that is isn’t specified, leaving our imaginations to run riot. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and the Dave Clark Five also had hits with this tune, which makes it all the more surprising that I had never heard it before today!

‘Macarena’, by Los Del Rio – #2 for 1 week in 1996, behind ‘Wannabe’

For some reason I had visions of ‘Macarena’ being lodged in the Top 10 for months on end, but in truth it spent just one week at number two and didn’t have a chart run out of the ordinary. I guess I thought it must have hung around like a bad smell because it was the bane of my existance for endless school discos. This, and Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’. Both dances looked so simple, and yet… I could never quite get them right. Any dance that involves alternating left and right, or turning, and I short-circuit.

This hit version is a remix of a 1993 original, from Los Del Rio’s 18th studio album. They were (are, in fact, as they’re still going!) a Spanish duo from the sixties, and by the time this made them UK one-hit wonders both men were almost in their sixties. And no, the Macarena is not the name of the dance, but the name of one of the men’s daughters. Britain was one of the few countries where this didn’t go to #1. In the States, it stayed on top for fourteen, presumably very long, weeks…

Remembering Connie Francis

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

Earlier this week the sad news of Connie Francis’ death was announced, aged eighty-seven, closing the door on yet another chapter from the earliest chart years. There can’t be many, if any, older chart-toppers than Francis still around… And there were precious few women, either, who were scoring rock ‘n’ roll hits and competing with the big male stars of the late fifties.

Francis scored two huge, six-weeks-apiece #1s in 1958, the sassy ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ and the whipcracking ‘Stupid Cupid’ (twinned with ‘Carolina Moon’). I also covered her 1960 hits ‘Mama’ and ‘Robot Man’ as a Random Runner-Up. Follow those links to hear those tunes, and to read my original posts. But since writing those posts – and this has been one of the best things about doing this blog, discovering artists’ non-chart topping back catalogues – I’ve fallen in love with many of Connie’s other hits. So let’s share some here, in her memory.

‘Lipstick on Your Collar’ – #3 in 1959

I love the camp melodrama of this bop, about a cheating boy given away by lipstick smudges. How does Connie know the lipstick isn’t hers? Well, eagle-eyed, she notices his is red, while hers is baby pink. Coleen Rooney eat your heart out. Turns out that floozy Mary Jane had been smooching her man right outside the juke joint. But, as with so many of her early records, Connie does not wallow in heartbreak. In fact, she seems almost thrilled to have rumbled him…

‘Plenty Good Lovin” – #18 in 1959

A similarly uptempo, more swinging, hit from the same year. And this one is positively raunchy by 1959 standards. In fact, I’m not sure Connie isn’t simulating orgasm during the break in the middle… She sings the praises of a man who doesn’t have a nice car, can’t play guitar, is neither intelligent nor particularly good-looking, but who’s got somethin’ that’s better by far… I mean, gurrrrlllll… Plenty of things that he don’t know, But this boy shines when the lights are low…

‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’ – #3 in 1960

Her first US #1, and in fact the first Billboard Hot 100 number one by a female singer (the chart having launched well over a year earlier). Which just goes to prove how impressive Francis’s hit making was, stacked against the likes of Elvis, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson and co. I love the honky-tonk feel to this, with the rolling organ and the rickety, country beat, and her voice drenched in echo.

‘Where the Boys Are’ – #5 in 1961

Francis made her acting debut in 1961, in the movie ‘Where the Boys Are’. And the title track gave her another big hit, proving that she could sing something a little more traditional to go along with all the rock ‘n’ roll. In 1978, as she was attempting a career comeback, Connie recorded a disco version. If that doesn’t grab you, how about a Japanese version? Today’s female stars could only dream of such versatility.

‘Vacation’ – #10 in 1962

Despite not having an original bone in its body, and already sounding dated in 1962, I love this throwaway tune. ‘Vacation’ was Francis’s last Top 10 hit in both the US and the UK, as the Merseybeat acts prepared to render so many stars obsolete. But it’s hard not to get carried along with this record’s exuberance. Maybe because I’m an English teacher in my day job, I’m instinctively drawn to songs that spell words out in the lyrics. Similarly, it’s probably why I’m drawn to songs about the summer holidays. So this one works for me on many levels.

‘Pretty Little Baby’

It would be wrong to finish without mentioning her final ‘hit’. ‘Pretty Little Baby’ was a B-side back in 1962, but in recent months you’ll surely have heard it if you’ve spent any amount of time scrolling on Instagram or TikTok. In one of her final interviews, Francis claimed to have forgotten of the song’s existence, but that she was touched by its resurgence, and how even kindergartners now know her music. Back to teaching for a moment, I can attest to this as I have a student who has been singing this to himself for several months now… Musically this is cute, and I love whatever early electronic device the solo was recorded on.

From the mid-sixties onwards the hits dried up, and Connie Francis’s personal life took several dark turns. The Guardian published a good article on her many highs and lows yesterday, and she became an advocate for mental health following various traumatic experiences. Having read that, it feels impressive that she lived such a long life and fulfilled life. She returned to music, and only officially retired a few years ago.

Connie Francis, December 12th 1937 – July 16th 2025

On This Day… 8th March

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For our second On This Day feature, we start with a birthday. New wave, synth pop, goth rock legend Gary Numan celebrates his 66th today. He is probably best known for his solo number one ‘Cars’, but I’m going to link this to his slightly earlier chart-topper with Tubeway Army, the eerie, industrial ‘Are “Friends” Electric’.

Looking back, I think the period between 1979 and 1981 had some of the strangest, most un-commercial sounding #1s, and this has to be one of the strangest, most un-commercial sounding of the lot.

On this day in 2016, the world bid farewell to producer Sir George Martin. He is of course most famous for his work with the Beatles, but he also sat behind the desk on #1s for Billy J Kramer, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Cilla Black, and on the best selling single of all time, ‘Candle in the Wind ’97’. Here though is his first chart-topper, the completely unexpected, yet quite magical, ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by the Temperance Seven.

While in 2003, March 8th saw the death of one of the first modern British pop stars, Adam Faith. He had two number ones, the second of which, ‘Poor Me’, also happened to be at the top on this day in 1960. I remember quite liking the dramatic strings and Buddy Holly-inspired vocals when I wrote my post on it, and it remains a striking number one record. Faith moved into acting, and remained on stage and screen right through to his death. And on the anniversary of his passing, it would be remiss of me not to quote his supposed final words: “Channel 5 is all shit, isn’t it?” Few truer words have ever been uttered.

Remembering Johnnie Ray and Del Shannon

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It’s been a while since I did a ‘Remembering’ post, so here’s two for the price of one. Two big stars of the pre-Beatles age, both of whom died within a couple of weeks in February 1990.

Before starting this blog, I knew Johnnie Ray by name and not much else. He after all is referenced in the opening line of ‘Come On Eileen’ (Poor old Johnnie Ray…) But I will now be forever grateful to him, for making the earliest years of the charts bearable, when it sometimes felt like one po-faced ballad after another, after another. His first #1 was the incredibly steamy (by 1954 standards) ‘Such a Night’, and he had a seven-week run with the whistle-tastic ‘Just Walkin’ in the Rain’ before ending things with the zippy ‘Yes Tonight, Josephine’. All three are well worth a listen if you’ve not heard them before, and proof that pop music could be fun in the prehistoric era. Below I’ll highlight a few of my other favourites of his.

Released in 1951, before Britain even had a singles chart, we can assume that ‘Cry’ would have been a multi-week number one. The missing link between Sinatra and Elvis, Ray’s wonderfully histrionic performance shows why he was known as the ‘Nabob of Sob’ and the ‘Prince of Wails’, surely two of pop music’s best nicknames. His exaggerated, stagey way of singing may have been linked to the fact that he was partially deaf.

‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a standard, recorded by everyone from Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, to Robson & Jerome. And while I’ll admit to not having heard every version, I’d suggest that you’d struggle to find a performance more committed than Johnnie Ray’s. The man was the epitome of the phrase ‘sing it for the back row’.

Fond of a whistle, Ray made #10 with ‘You Don’t Owe Me A Thing’ in early 1958, a perfect example of how rock ‘n’ roll was making its presence felt in records that weren’t actually rock songs.

By the early 1960s, like so many fifties stars, Ray’s career had tailed off. It’s surprising that he managed to have a career in the first place, after he was arrested for soliciting an undercover policeman in a public toilet in 1951. Rumours about Ray’s sexuality continued, but didn’t seem to harm his sales until another arrest in 1959. He was openly bisexual to many in the music industry, and married a woman named Marilyn Morrison in 1952, who claimed she would ‘straighten him out’. They separated after a year.

Ray also had problems with alcohol, which worsened in the sixties. He would sporadically tour small venues and appear on television in the States, while commanding much larger audiences in the UK and Australia (where he remained most popular) right up until his death from liver failure on February 24th 1990. He was sixty-three.

Del Shannon scored his sole chart-topper a few years after Ray’s time at the top. And what a chart-topper it was. ‘Runaway’ is possibly the most inventive, most exciting, most propulsive #1 of that supposedly fallow period between Elvis and The Beatles. It made top spot in the summer of 1961, and features an innovative Musitron solo, making it arguably the first electronic hit. But even if that solo was played on a clapped out old piano it would take nothing from the record’s innate quality. Anyway, I discussed all this in more detail in my post on ‘Runaway’ here.

‘Runaway’ is so good that it tends to completely overshadow anything Del Shannon released afterwards. But ‘Little Town Flirt’ is another great slice of malt shop pop, making #4 in early 1963. He had a good line in heartbreak, and woman shaming, usually singing about runaways and flirts, and in ‘Hats Off to Larry’ he indulges in a bit of schadenfreude as his ex is dumped and left as heartbroken as he had been.

Shannon had a style, and came pretty close to shamelessly ripping himself off on some records (check out how close ‘Two Kinds of Teardrops’ is to ‘Little Town Flirt!) But on ‘So Long Baby’ he managed to recycle the energy of ‘Runaway’ into a deranged oompah beat and create a #10 hit that sounds both frivolous and terrifying.

Like Johnnie Ray, Del Shannon’s career slowed down towards the end of the sixties and into the seventies as he battled alcoholism. He worked with Tom Petty and Dave Edmunds, and by the ’80s he had sobered up and started something of a comeback. He worked with Jeff Lynne, and was touted as a replacement for Roy Orbison in The Travelling Wilburys. Sadly, though, he shot himself on February 8th 1990, apparently after having a negative reaction to the Prozac he was taking for depression. He was just fifty-five.