Five number one singles nobody has any memory of ever hearing
If I were an artist, securing a number one spot atop the charts would represent the very pinnacle. It’s acclaim, worldwide renown, a surefire path to fame and fortune, right? Well, no, not exactly. While it is the path taken by many a musician on their flight of success, there are a more unfortunate runt of the pack for whom the number one proved to be an eternal curse.
While they still all hold their rightful places in history, some of those vies for glory hold a lot less gravitas in the culture of music as a whole, let alone an even tinier place in living memory. There’s not one person who wants to go down as a nobody, but for some, their moment atop the charts tree didn’t make the lasting impression they maybe hoped it would.
Although there are those who crash and burn out of the industry following their single hit, one-hit wonders are their own separate league. They are at least remembered on some small morsel of a way, whether it is for reasons good or bad, and pitifully mourned over careers that could have been. However, rarer are a selection of number one songs that hardly anyone has a memory of hearing, representing a blip in time as if they never happened in the first place.
As such, it’s high time that a choice of forgotten relics are resurrected from the number one graveyard back into someone’s memory, at least for the short term. If you do happen to be familiar with any of these elusive hits, congratulations, you’re part of an elite club of chart brainiacs. For the rest left scratching their heads, this is an excellent opportunity to revise some of the most obscure music history out there.
Five number one hits that no one ever remembers:
‘Lily the Pink’ – The Scaffold
Even if you’re not a famous musician, one thing everybody can surely relate to is a dreaded family gathering. No matter what you’re doing in life or how much you’ve achieved, there’s always some smug relative dead set on one-upping you, and it’s an infuriating battle. Spare a thought, then, for a member of the Liverpool trio The Scaffold, who must have been delighted with his number one ‘Lily the Pink’ – until he remembered his brother had more than you could count.
The name Mike McGear may not ring a bell, but he is indeed the sibling of Paul McCartney. As such, although there may not have been a full-blown musical rivalry between the pair, when McGear’s band The Scaffold scored the Christmas number one of 1968 with their comedy song ‘Lily the Pink’, it might have raised a few eyebrows. Although the tune may have faded from memory, with backing vocals from Graham Nash, Elton John, and Tim Rice, as well as bass guitar from Jack Bruce, it carried more famous personnel than content.
‘If’ – Telly Savalas
He may have been the world’s finest bald James Bond villain, but it’s less likely that people will remember actor Telly Savalas for his singing career, despite the fact that he did indeed score a UK number one in 1975 for a short-lived fortnight stint in March that year.
Six years on from his famous Bond performance in 1969, Savalas took a wander into the musical realm, releasing a mostly spoken word version of the song ‘If’, originally made prominent by the band Bread four years prior, in 1971. Despite shooting to the top spot in the UK, however, Savalas’ cover of ‘If’ was quite a peppered success – it only reached number 88 in Canada, for example, meaning that once it slipped from number one on British shores, it also largely ceased to exist in memory.
‘She Ain’t Worth It’ – Glenn Medeiros
Glenn Medeiros is not going to be a name many will remember, but back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was all set to be a big star, until it all crashed and burned. Indeed, the singer had racked up a string of successful hits, including 1987’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, which became an international stormer, hitting number one in the UK and Canada, as well as breaking the top 20 in the US.
But when it comes to his 1990 American chart topper ‘She Ain’t Worth It’, alongside rapper Bobby Brown, you’re likely to come up stumped. The song enjoyed a four-week stint at the top and was also certified gold, so it really should hold a bigger place of appreciation. Instead, there’s just tumbleweed. These days, Medeiros has left his music career behind and is now a headteacher of an all-boys’ Catholic school in Hawaii. It seems, much like his song title, that his shot at pop stardom wasn’t really worth it.
‘Rock On’ – Michael Damian
When David Essex originally recorded his song ‘Rock On’ in 1973, you can imagine he would be fairly pleased with the respectable positions of number three in the UK and five in the US. But you equally couldn’t blame him if he was angry when, in 1989, soap star Michael Damian came along and blew that record out of the water with his own version.
The Young and the Restless actor Damian recorded a cover of the song to appear in the film Dream a Little Dream. But, rather unexpectedly, the tune shot to number one and then became certified gold, thus vastly outperforming Essex’s own initial rendition. In many ways, it’s only right that the original creator gets lauded with the memory of ‘Rock On’, after Damian served him such a kick in the teeth.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’ – The Temperance Seven
The song ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’ has been covered by a slew of classic musicians from Ben E King to Josephine Baker to Peggy Lee, but bizarrely, the most successful, yet arguably most obscure, came from The Temperance Seven in 1961. The 1920s and ‘60s were facing their first-ever musical clash, and the results were interesting, to say the least.
With a producer like George Martin at their helm, who would obviously later go on to become the king of psychedelia, it’s no surprise that The Temperance Seven were described as retro, before retro even existed. Providing a commentary on music through music is certainly a meta idea, but it was one that the band conquered through their version of ‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’ in all its strange, zany glory.
