Credit: Far Out

What was Liverpool’s first number one pop song?

Wed 25 February 2026 10:00, UK

Liverpool will remain forever etched onto the global musical map down to one little-known Merseybeat group’s punt on the rock game back in 1962.

Even over 60 years later, tourists still flock to Liverpool to immerse themselves in The Beatles’ lore, a demand the city’s tourist board are only too happy to oblige. Be it a drink and a show at the fabled Cavern Club, a stroll through Penny Lane, Eleanor Rigby’s grave, or the hallowed Strawberry Field Salvation Army gates, the many Beatles tax cabs providing a sightseeing day course look set to run for years to come yet.

While dominating the pop charts, totalling as many as 27 singles topping the UK and US charts across their eight-year tenure, The Beatles weren’t the only Mersey band to nab the ultimate number one prize. Before Beatlemania swept across the world, or the UK had even heard of the Fab Four, Michael Holliday had topped the charts twice in 1960, and Gerry and the Pacemakers entered the record books as the first group to score number ones off their first three singles, ‘How Do You Do It?’ initially offered to The Beatles but rejected.

Around the feverish rise of Beatlemania, Frankie Vaughan, The Searchers, Bill J Kramer, The Scaffold, Cilla Black, and comedian Ken Dodd all scored number ones early in the decade.

Yet, a good decade before ‘From Me to You’ saw The Beatles first top the charts, one singer from yesteryear had already made their mark on Liverpool’s music record books.

So, what was Liverpool’s first number one song?

In 1953, popular American singer Patti Page recorded the first version of the novelty hit ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?’, reaching number one on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts before the standardised Hot 100 listings. Yet, the waggy tail tune never quite translated across the Atlantic, the Mercury label mishandling its international distribution.

Hailing from the jazz tradition, such a trite novelty song was infinitely beneath Liverpool singer Lita Roza. Having uncovered the opportunity to record a British version of Page’s puppy pop song, A&R man Dick Rowe had to figuratively drag Roza to the studio, kicking and screaming, to cut her own version of ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?’, assuring the singer of its surefire hit. Roza eventually relented on one condition: she would never sing it again.

Entering the charts in March 1953, Roza’s rendition of ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?’ sure enough rose up the charts, finally scoring number one in April. A reluctant single placed Roza in the musical footnotes, making her the first female vocalist to win a UK number one ever, as well as the first for her Liverpool home city.

Rowe’s pop impresario instincts weren’t wrong, but Roza held up her side of the bargain, expressing a lifelong disdain for ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?’ and never performing it live, no matter how popular her sole number one single was.