What was the first song to top the charts for more than five consecutive weeks?
The history of both the US and UK’s longest-held number one is filled with landmark singles and milestones across the 70+ years of popular music. From soundtracks and ballads long before rock and roll enjoyed heavy rotation in 1950s households to the latest TikTok-propelled superstars ubiquitously scoring the online universe of stories and reels in the social media age, the commercial potential for a smash pop song hasn’t dimmed across the decades and generations of eager music consumers.
Curiously, both sides of the Atlantic boast all-time records across the opposite ends of pop history’s chasm. Despite threats from Bryan Adams‘ drippy Robin Hood theme and Wet Wet Wet’s minging cover of ‘Love Is All Around’, Italian-American singer Frankie Laine’s stirring 1953 rendition of ‘I Believe’ still stands undefeated as the UK’s longest-held number one of all time, spending a whopping 18 weeks at the top spot.
Jump to over 60 years later, and the US Billboard Hot 100 records were broken by country hip-hop star Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road’ in 2019 and tied in 2024 with similarly twangy rapper Shaboozey’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ with an impressive 19 weeks at the top of the American pop charts.
When searching for the singles that first broke over five consecutive weeks, we have to step into a time long before the 1960s counterculture and, in the UK’s case, even before Elvis Presley first translated the Black man’s rock into the bedrooms of teens all over the world. Surprisingly, while rock and roll heralded the holy worship of the 45 RPM single, none of the musical explosions’ leading names from Little Richard to Chuck Berry enjoyed broken records as much as artists from the easy-listening world.
Released in November 1958, R&B singer Tommy Edwards took another stab at his jazzy hit ‘It’s All in the Game’ from seven years earlier, switching the original’s arrangements with a trendier slice of rock and roll balladry. Written by Carl Sigman and sourced from a composition by Charles G Dawes, later Vice President to Calvin Coolidge, its classical foundations forced Sigman to rearrange the number for a sharper pop appeal.
Edwards’ definitive rerecord shot to number one and stayed put for six weeks, making Edwards the first Black artist to top the Hot 100 as well as the only example of a song co-written by a US Vice President to top the American charts.
Going back to November 1952, the first UK single to hold the number one spot for over five weeks is as long as the charts itself.
Needing an edge over his publication competitors, New Musical Express‘ advertising manager Percy Dickins telephoned 20 record stores up and down the country every week and directly asked what records had been sold, launching their top 12 and assigning Al Martino’s ‘Here in My Heart’ ballad their first number one, holding strong for nine weeks. The earliest entry of the now-understood UK Official Charts, Martino’s hit would also sail to the premier position of the Billboard Best Sellers in Stores list.
