What song was number one for the longest in the summer of 1966?
While the Summer of Love was a year away, 1966’s sunshine months were already eyeing up the counterculture’s heady bloom.
Be it swinging London or the US’ far-out West Coast, the youthquake upheaval was beginning to reflect on the charts in earnest. Rock and roll felt like ancient history by June 1966, an affectionate soundtrack to youth before the British Invasion’s Billboard domination and the political, sexual, and chemical liberation it wrought.
Over on the UK Singles Chart, The Kinks and The Troggs won out with big numbers across the summer of 1966, ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and ‘With a Girl Like You’ both enjoying two weeks at the top spot. Over on the States’ Hot 100, The Rolling Stones’ exotic ‘Paint It Black’ sat at number one for two weeks, and The Troggs’ cover of ‘Wild Thing’ nabbed three weeks at Billboard’s premier position largely due to its perfectly Americana garage growl for a quartet from Hampshire.
As ever, the charts are always a reflection of the broader tastes of the public. Most people weren’t hippies, freaks, or the children of flowers; in fact, the majority at best met the era’s psychedelic happenings with nonplussed bemusement, if not downright contempt.
Mum, Dad, and the dreaded straights were snapping up Frank Sinatra’s ‘Strangers in the Night’ with such shelf-flying vim that Ol’ Blue Eyes perched at the UK number one for three weeks in June and nabbed a week at the top spot in the US.
1966’s longest-held for the entire year was Jim Reeves’ ‘Distant Drums’ – if excluding Tom Jones’ ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ which held a whopping seven weeks at the top spot but spilling over into January the next year – and the patriotic ‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’ from Sgt Barry Sadler, applying a conservative plaster to the American consciousness as the Vietnam War was waging with a five-weeker number one.
For 1966’s summer, it appeared that both new and vintage camps met in the middle in their pop picking.
So, what was number one the longest in 1966’s summer?
In the States, even the most committed hippie hater couldn’t help but nod along to The Lovin’ Spoonful’s summer smash. It’s easy to see why.
Spending three weeks on top of the Hot 100 in August, ‘Summer in the City’s careening urban blast joyously bottled just enough of the counterculture’s spirited crackle while proving a toe-tapper for the uninitiated. Replete with sound effects and novel recording tricks, ‘Summer in the City’ would play its part in nudging pop that bit closer to the studio as an instrument principle that would see pop enter its new creative dawn in a few short months.
In Britain, The Beatles were still the country’s premier pop group. Not content with ‘Paperback Writer’s two weeks at number one in June, the ‘Yellow Submarine’ / ‘Eleanor Rigby’ double A-side would round off August with a full four weeks at the top spot, a double whammy of charming submersible nursery tale for the kids and stirring string drama for the pop mavericks. For Fab Four fans, such eclectic dexterity was part of what made Liverpool’s finest the world’s greatest band.
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