What was the last number one of 1971?
One year into the 1970s, and rock began to see the glitter in the distance.
The kids already knew. Bored with the double-denim singer-songwriters still wedded to the Woodstock era, T Rex had already landed on the charts with his new brand of satin-shimmering pop, shaking off the former hippie folk noodling to herald the glam era that grew to define the decade once David Bowie and Roxy Music similarly raided the dressing-up box. Indeed, glam’s sugar rush takeover of Top of the Pops land would whet the appetites for the budding punks waiting to kick classic rock into touch by the decade’s end.
While T Rex had won some UK number ones, the musical year was in flux, still stumbling into a new decade with an uncertainty as to which direction pop was going to take. A symbolic close to the previous decade played out on both sides of the Atlantic’s charts, The Beatles finally reaching their end in 1970 and dropping respective number one singles or albums the following year, and in Ringo Starr’s case, ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ a UK and US Top Ten. The Rolling Stones, however, were in the midst of their golden run, 1971’s Sticky Fingers topping the charts in countless countries around the world.
The musical soundtrack was changing, spotting the new pop hinterland while still tethered to the 1960s’ rock canon. 1971 was the last year of the 1960s, when pop first began to mark a new course away from the counterculture. “…we were creating the 21st century in 1971,” Bowie once said, remarking on the upending change firing away during those essential 12 months of rock history.
So, what was 1971’s last chart topper?
As ever, the pop picking tastes of the public are at odds with the musical consensuses of the day.
Released in October but peaking at the top spot on Christmas Day for three weeks, folk singer Melanie’s ‘Brand New Key’ saw off the decade atop America’s Billboard Hot 100, a lilting and jaunty folk-pop piece that’s better known over in the UK as the basis for The Wurzel’s ‘Scrumpy and Western’ cover ‘The Combine Harvester’, itself taken from Irish comedian Brendan Grace’s novelty reimagine.
The British Isles love a good novelty song. A phenomenon of UK culture that found a surprise fame over in the States, The Benny Hill Show ran for nearly 35 years on British TV, was exported to enormous success around the world and popularised the ‘Yakety Sax’ instrumental.
At the peak of the comedian’s fame, Benny Hill dropped ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)’, an old-fashioned music hall number lyrically detailing the romantic rivalry between a baker named Ted for the affections of Sue, the feud ending with Ernie’s demise by a stale pork pie.
First performed in 1970 on his show, ‘Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)’ would see a single release and top the UK charts for four weeks across December the following year, standing as a document of British culture with likely more essentiality to most households than anything rustled up on Top of the Pops or The Old Grey Whistle Test during 1971’s musical flux.
