OK OK Mark, I'll have another (though probably not as good) crack at it:
4 Jan Iain Gregory Can't You Hear The Beat Of A Broken Heart (39) - What a good opener! One of Joe Meek's more drastic salvage jobs. Mr Gregory was a moody-looking actor of fleeting repute who appeared in the contemporary TV version of "Ivanhoe." He couldn't sing for toffee, so what you actually hear on this record are slivers of his hapless quavering pasted over the guide vocal sung by a proper session singer (Dave Adams). Fantastic, of course.
4 Jan John D. Loudermilk The Language Of Love (13) - The distinguished C&W songwriter had his only UK hit as an artist with this atypical perky romp through the same subject matter as Bobby Darin's subsequent "Multiplication." Ooby dooby dooby doo wee doo wee.
4 Jan Doug Sheldon Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night (29) - Minor Britpop vocalist whose career seems to have peaked when his "My Kingdom For A Girl" came second in the 1962 BBC Song For Europe competition. Big Jim Sullivan on guitar.
4 Jan Leroy Van Dyke Walk On By (5) - A pop-C&W standard; definitely not the Bacharach/David song, but oddly enough a bigger hit in the UK than any of the versions of the latter.
4 Jan Bob Wallis & Storyville Jazz Band Come Along Please (33) - The trad boom's Menswear.
11 Jan Joe Brown & Bruvvers What A Crazy World We're Living In (37) - Deceptively acerbic proto-social commentary from the slapstick film of the same name, also involving Marty Wilde and Cohen's Fish and Chip Shop.
11 Jan Chubby Checker The Twist (Re-Entry) (14) - Back in after "Let's Twist Again" had peaked at #2 in late '61. Not as sublimely dirty as the Hank Ballard original.
11 Jan Cliff Richard The Young Ones (1) - Only the third single to enter the UK chart at #1, and the first artist other than Elvis to achieve the feat, this is a superficially optimistic but fundamentally passionless celebration of youth - a youth which it was still felt should be locked in their bedroom after 5:30 pm. Ealing Studios' idea of youth.
18 Jan Lonnie Donegan The Comancheros (14) - Not one of his classics, a straightforward run through the theme from the John Wayne film which oddly enough I caught on TV over the holidays. Lee Marvin's brief but explosive appearance rips through the knowing naffness of the rest of the film like a chainsaw.
18 Jan Everly Brothers Cryin' In The Rain (6) - Angelic, asexual. Why did they always mourn the same woman together?
18 Jan Adam Faith Lonesome (12) - "Lonely Pup In A Christmas Shop" at 16 rpm, essentially.
18 Jan Eden Kane Forget Me Not (3) - Only forgettable because it's a Xerox of his '61 chart topper "Weeeelll I Ask You."
18 Jan Phil McLean Small Sad Sam (34) - A parody of Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John." Why Lenny Bruce was necessary.
18 Jan Danny Peppermint & Jumping Jacks Peppermint Twist (26) - Brit cover of Joey Dee (see below).
18 Jan Danny Williams Jeannie (14) - Undistinguished MoR ballad. Her hair failed to be light brown.
25 Jan Brook Brothers He's Old Enough To Know Better (37) - Appalling Brit Everly copyists. Their extent of rebellion? See their '61 hit "Ain't Gonna Wash For A Week." Because we want to! Nyah nyah! Underpants!
25 Jan Carol Deene Norman (24) - Embarrassingly perky Brit Connie Francis wannabe. How come she got hits and Glenda Collins didn't?
25 Jan Karl Denver Wimoweh (4) - This song is perhaps fated to turn up in all such surveys. More purist than the Tokens or Tight Fit, but not as much fun as Brian Eno's version.
25 Jan Burl Ives A Little Bitty Tear (9) - Biggest UK hit for the tremulous-voiced lovable Disney uncle and McCarthy informer.
25 Jan Anthony Newley D-Darling (25) - It would be foolish to deny Newley's pivotal importance in the development of Britpop, from Bowie on down, but you'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of it in his 1962 output. I still wonder what Meek would have made of him.
1 Feb Ken Dodd Pianissimo (21) - One of many tremulous-voiced ballads crooned by a man who can actually theorise cogently about Deleuze and Guattari's plateaus.
1 Feb Shane Fenton & Fentones Walk Away (38) - There was an unintentionally poignant moment on the 1981 Morecambe & Wise Xmas Show, where Eric and Ernie ascend to heaven as Alvin Stardust (whom Fenton became) romped energetically through a cover of Pat Boone's "Wonderful Time Up There."
1 Feb Miki & Griff Little Bitty Tear (16) - Ubiquitous husband-and-wife (or were they brother and sister?) MoR duo of the early '60s cover the Ives tune. Rather like Ronan Keating and Lulu after consulting the People's Friend for starch input.
1 Feb Elvis Presley Rock A Hula Baby / Can't Help Falling In Love (1) - "Would it be a sin?" Regressed to infancy after the Army, after Col Parker, he has to persuade, plead at the Other to acknowledge that he can still be an adult. Spacious, seductive and sinister; David Thomas drew deeper blood with his astonishing, almost whispered cover of the song (available on the current "Monster" retrospective).
1 Feb Frankie Vaughan Don't Stop Twist (22) - This ungainly cash-in was the follow-up to one of the great British soul records, Vaughan's astonishing, never-more-masculine, never-more-camp demolition of Bacharach and David's "Tower Of Strength" through which he charges with absolute bullish certainty.
8 Feb Dave Brubeck Quartet It's A Raggy Waltz (36) - Alternative universe: Mingus' "Eat That Chicken" is released as a single and becomes a hit. Or Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln's "Driva Man."
8 Feb Joey Dee & Starliters Peppermint Twist (33) - New York lounge act. James Chance would've done it better.
8 Feb Matt Monro Softly As I Leave You (10) - The ancestor to Level 42's similarly desolate deserter's song "It's Over." Unlike the latter, however, Monro's song gives no reason for his desperate urge to leave unnoticed, unmourned for - whispered as though he were attending an off-duty confessional. Why leave the Other? Why the pain? Why the grief?
Or is he the one who's being left? Is he dying?
A shame that arranger Johnnie Spence didn't let the life peter out of the song quietly as it deserved; the final big screen orchestral chords still strike me as ridiculous.
15 Feb Allisons Lessons In Love (30) - Cover of popular Cliff smoocher from "The Young Ones" by the previous year's Eurovision runners-up.
15 Feb Kenny Ball & Jazzmen March Of The Siamese Children (4) - The trad boom's Oasis had their second biggest hit with this mutation from The King and I.
15 Feb Shirley Bassey Tonight (21) - The West Side Story one of course. Belted out fortissimo throughout; she doesn't understand the need for devotion-as-a-whispered-prayer required at the song's deliberate anti-climax. Richard Beymer can't sing for toffee either, but as an actor he understood the need for silence when necessary.
15 Feb Pat Boone I'll See You In My Dreams (27) - Reliable old wartime weepie revived for no good reason by an idol clearly on the way out.
15 Feb Bernard Cribbins Hole In The Ground (9) - A "wry," "hilarious" song about lazy roadworkers. Why the Bonzo Dog Band were necessary.
15 Feb Dion The Wanderer (10) - Were Dion George Michael, then this would be his "Young Guns" and 1975's "Make The Woman Love Me" would be his "Fastlove."
15 Feb Helen Shapiro Tell Me What He Said (2) - Still only sixteen, she tries to grow up but Columbia aren't having it. Not just yet.
22 Feb Don Charles Walk With Me My Angel (39) - Apostolic art from Joe Meek, who was never more heartbreaking than when he allowed us - and himself - a brief glimpse of paradise. Strings embrace Charles' baritone like the nine angels in whose arms Humphrey Plugg will eventually die.
22 Feb Russ Conway Lesson One (21) - The Jools Holland of his day entertains, er, some people.
22 Feb Karl Denver Never Goodbye (9) - Never remembered either, I'm afraid, apart from watching him yodel it on the Wheeltappers' and Shunters' Social Club circa 1976.
1 Mar Johnny Keating Orchestra Theme From Z Cars (8) - The local Orange Lodge Band do the Twist.
1 Mar Shadows Wonderful Land (1) - Did I say a brief glimpse of paradise? Here's another one...a promise of a bigger, bluer and better world. Those strings forwarding and receding like gentle waves. That optimistic French horn which seven years later will weep for wasted lives in Neil Innes' "Readymades." The youth has long gone; the memories, even when known only by him, unreliable.
1 Mar Johnnie Spence Orchestra Theme From Dr Kildare (15) - As you'd expect, though it segues fairly neatly out of the ending of "Softly As I Leave You." Maybe that explains it.
8 Mar Sam Cooke Twistin' The Night Away (6) - Are they really singing "Sieg Heil" behind the sax break? Sadly, whatever merit this record may once have possessed has long since been buried under the avalanche of Hollandisation, of Purity and Truth, even though it was a cash-in written in about five minutes by, of all people, Herb Alpert.
8 Mar Clinton Ford Fanlight Fanny (22) - Lairy Lancastrian vaudeville leftover has some fun with double entendres (his perspective only). MC Pitman this ain't.
8 Mar Roy Orbison Dream Baby (2) - "How...long...must I dream?" He stretches the words out as though he were being tortured on a rack. He never escaped from his fantasy - his claustrophobic, exquisite, suffocating dreams which allowed no room for any Other. Lynch understood. Once you reach that high C, there's no way back.
8 Mar Gene Pitney Town Without Pity (32) - Brilliant, camp, spite-filled fulmination against conformity. Who are they to say we can't fuck? Just because they don't/can't?
8 Mar Bobby Vee Please Don't Ask About Barbara (29) - Because she's gone, you see. Well you did tell him to take good care of her. Where's your selflessness now, Bob, eh? Eh?
15 Mar Paul Anka Love Me Warm & Tender (19) - "Puppy Love" Xeroxed and grown up a little, but despite "You're Having My Baby," despite being sampled by Jay-Z on "Blueprint 2," it's never been possible to visualise Anka as a sex god. He had that Tony Oxley fella in his band once, you know.
15 Mar Billy Fury Letter Full Of Tears (32) - Substandard ballad, considerably below Fury's very considerable par.
15 Mar John Leyton Lone Rider (40) - Clearly running out of idea, so undistinguished was this track that it didn't even make it on to the "Alchemist Of Pop" compilation.
15 Mar Del Shannon Hey Little Girl (2) - Shannon could never convince me that he was an adult either.
22 Mar Bruce Channel Hey! Baby (2) - An umbilical cord of a record; Delbert McClinton's harmonica, via Tommy Reilly on Ifield's "I Remember You" (see below), ends up firing the starting pistol on "Love Me Do." And the title itself is the punctum behind Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark" 22 years hence. DJ Otzi doesn't, bless him, understand.
22 Mar Nat 'King' Cole Brazilian Love Song (34) - Not one you've heard of, I'd wager; some typically good string touches from Gordon Jenkins, but the song isn't much cop.
22 Mar Sammy Davis Jr What Kind Of Fool Am I?/Gonna Build A Mountain (26) - Sammy sings Newley. The song that Tony Hancock would sing when drunk, listen to and sing over and over again, the ultimate justification of self-pity. As Charles Gray's Blofeld says in "Diamonds Are Forever": "Humility is the worst form of conceit."
22 Mar Craig Douglas When My Little Girl Is Smiling (9) - The Drifters had the US hit with the original; this had to compete with a rival Brit cover version by Jimmy Justice. Craig Douglas for Ben E King. Bizarre times.
22 Mar Sandy Nelson Drums Are My Beat (30) - Rearrange the letters to find a previous hit by this chap, of which this is the exact double.
22 Mar Norrie Paramour Orchestra Theme From Z Cars (33) - The same as Johnny Keating, but without the Twist.
29 Mar James Darren Her Royal Majesty (36) - Something to do with Prince Andrew, if I remember rightly. This song would make anyone want to run off and join the circus.
29 Mar Jimmy Justice When My Little Girl Is Smiling (9) - The aforementioned rival Brit cover version.
29 Mar Joe Loss Orchestra The Maigret Theme (20) - Ron Grainer has his biggest hit as composer. Strange how the themes from Steptoe and Son and The Prisoner missed out.
29 Mar Rick Nelson Young World (19) - Ten years away from attempted career reinvention with "Garden Party." But he needed it now.
5 Apr Chubby Checker Slow Twistin' (23) - Well what do you THINK this sounds like?
5 Apr Lonnie Donegan The Party's Over (9) - Last top tenner for the man; a well-behaved, straight-backed ballad. Dickie Valentine could have sung it a decade previously.
5 Apr Drifters When My Little Girl Is Smiling (31) - You see?
5 Apr Shane Fenton & Fentones It's All Over Now (29) - Surprisingly, not the Bobby Womack song.
5 Apr Brenda Lee Speak To Me Pretty (3) - Not sexy.
5 Apr Frank Sinatra Everybody's Twisting (22) - Put it away Frank!
12 Apr Danny Williams Wonderful World Of The Young (8) - Perry Como-style dewy-eyed visions of naughty but lovable scamps. What Pete Waterman and Simon Cowell want to drag us back to.
19 Apr B. Bumble & Stingers Nut Rocker (1) - Kim Fowley of course, bless him. Covered by Bothwell's leading punk band Raw Deal in 1978 as "I'm Gonna Pogo All Over Yer Head."
19 Apr Ketty Lester Love Letters (4) - "STRAIGHT FROM MY HEART FUCKAHHH!" Sinister even before Blue Velvet. I memorise every line. But in reality, does he even know you?
19 Apr Neil Sedaka King Of Clowns (23) - Not as good as his supremely tasteless 1974 perky popper "Queen Of 1964."
26 Apr John Barry Cutty Sark (35) - Groovy Beat which found brief favour as a breakbeat/sample in the mid-'80s, even appearing in NME's Singles Of The Year list in 1983! What a great year that was!
26 Apr Shirley Bassey Ave Maria (31) - Well it's better than Lesley Garrett.
26 Apr Connie Francis Don't Break The Heart That Loves You (39) - Give me a proper hit again.
26 Apr Leroy Van Dyke Big Man In A Big House (34) - Runs no risk of impaling his skull accidentally upon a crystal chandelier.
3 May Adam Faith As You Like It (5) - This sounds like "What Do You Want"!
3 May Billy Fury Last Night Was Made For Love (4) - "...but where were you?" Perhaps the most epic lament for impotence to darken the charts until Freda Payne's "Band Of Gold."
3 May John Leyton Lonely City (14) - His last hit of consequence, and a vague return to form, though Charles Shadwell's orchestrations are more interesting than the song.
3 May Helen Shapiro Let's Talk About Love (23) - Look at that chart position. The mums and dads don't like you getting funny ideas into your head, girl!
10 May Perry Como Caterina (37) - Oh no bling-a me pasta on me bonce sub-Louis Prima Tintoretto Calabria Pasolini ringa de bell no more a-hit 'til '71-ah!
10 May Brian Hyland Ginny Come Lately (5) - So inoffensive is this tune that I don't think any double entendre was ever intended.
10 May Eden Kane I Don't Know Why (7) - Song Titles as Great Straight Men; come on Herrington, there must be a Wire article in there somewhere!
10 May Patti Lynn Johnny Angel (37) - Karen Carpenter did this song better, her innocence more palpable by being so much more knowing.
10 May Elvis Presley Good Luck Charm (1) - Neutered.
10 May Cliff Richard I'm Looking Out The Window / Do You Wanna Dance (2) - A double A-side which proved that Cliff did wistful far better than, er, horny.
10 May Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard Come Outside (1) - "Howzabout a little slap and tickle then, eh?" "I'll slap and tickle you in a minute." Why Germaine Greer was necessary.
17 May Kenny Ball & Jazzmen The Green Leaves Of Summer (7) - The same one that Michael Stipe sings on last year's Faultline album. But done in the traditional style.
17 May Joe Brown & Bruvvers A Picture Of You (2) - Strange how 1962 pop singers never fell in love with real people - only pictures and letters. What's that you say about the internet?
17 May Dave Brubeck Quartet Unsquare Dance (14) - Ruined for me by its use as the theme tune to Emma Thompson's screamingly unfunny late '80s BBC comedy sketch show, large portions of which were devoted to her and Branagh getting it on in bed.
17 May Johnny Burnette Clown Shoes (35) - No good without the Trio.
17 May Everly Brothers How Can I Meet Her (12) - There's a thread on ILE about that.
17 May Burl Ives Funny Way Of Laughin' (29) - Because you see he's cryin'! Boo hoo hoo I think Carl Foreman wants a word with you!
17 May Norman Vaughan Swinging In The Rain (34) - Recently deceased "comedian," ex-host of Sunday Night at the London Palladium and subsequently The Golden Shot. His catchphrases were "swinging" and "dodgy." No relation whatsoever to Johnny Vaughan, but surely hi his spiritual father. Sorry, but titles like "Swinging In The Rain" just make me think of Ruth Ellis or Derek Bentley.
17 May Vernons Girls Lover Please (16) - "Please come back, don't take that train running down the track" etc. Written by Billy Swan of "I Can Help" fame.
24 May Duane Eddy Deep In The Heart Of Texas (19) - Routine bass rumbling. Way past his peak.
24 May Jet Harris Besame Mucho (22) - Recently ejected Shadows bassist sounding like Duane Eddy, surprise surprise.
24 May Marty Wilde Jezebel (19) - Cover of the old Frankie Laine chest-beater, "Jezebel it was YOU! who lumbered me with those pesky kids!"
31 May Shirley Bassey Far Away (24) - An accurate summation of the distance between this song and any recollection of it.
31 May Shirelles Soldier Boy (23) - No Motown record hit the UK Top 40 until 1964, so this was as near as the charts got. Sexy in a way, but only in a very subdued way.
7 June Richard Chamberlain Theme From Dr Kildare (12) - "Three stars will shine tonight" the actor crooned tremulously.
7 June Karl Denver A Little Love A Little Kiss (19) - I've nothing against Mr Denver. He had big, blue visions. He met every song head-on. I keep thinking of idealised Australian children's programmes from long ago. Coral reefs, huge boats, fresh-faced frontiers...sigh.
7 June Sandy Nelson Drummin' Up A Storm (39) - In the annals of percussive art this brief essay fails to scale the peaks attained by Andrew Cyrille in the latter's 1969 BYG album "What About."
7 June Bobby Vee Sharing You (10) - Is frustrating. But the song is not an ode to troilism. At least I don't think so.
14 June Ray Charles I Can't Stop Loving You (1) - Highly radical at the time, I've no doubt, "New Sounds In Country And Western," but again the Camden Town Good Music Society bar my way to inhaling this music. Purity, Truth and Aspic yet again. Not Ray Charles' fault.
14 June Jimmy Justice Ain't That Funny (8) - Another Drifters cover!
14 June Jimmie Rodgers English Country Garden (5) - Not the tequila-soaked, harrowing '30s Americana rebel at the barbed wire crossroads, but a winsome, wholesome chap. In my day, this tune was a cornerstone of Grade II piano. God how I hate(d) it!
14 June Spotnicks Orange Blossom Special (29) - Huh?
14 June Andy Williams Stranger On The Shore (30) - Yes, Carlin, haven't you missed one out? The single which spent more weeks in the Top 40 in 1962 than any other? Acker Bilk? No I haven't - it entered the charts in November 1961 and peaked at #2 one month later, so technically it belongs to a 1961 rundown, even though spiritually it is pure 1962. It did not require lyrics. The KLF understood, though ("Chill Out").
21 June Crickets Don't Ever Change (5) - Their only post-Holly hit of consequence.
21 June James Darren Conscience (30) - How can one man have so many forgettable hits? Who said Peter Andre?
21 June Eydie Gorme Yes My Darling Daughter (10) - Klezmer-adapted novelty tune which strangely failed to appear in "Mary Poppins."
21 June Brenda Lee Here Comes That Feeling (5) - "Sweet Nothin's" was the only time Brenda Lee was ever sexy. This is like having a licorice allsort instead of a cigarette afterwards.
21 June Elvis Presley Follow That Dream EP (34) - Not 1962's "Lose Yourself."
28 June Walter Brennan Old Rivers (38) - Veteran Hollywood actor, as old as Joyce or Woolf, ends his life with a weepy "Old Shep"-style novelty hit. Except no one gets shot at the end, or indeed at the beginning or in the middle.
28 June Freddy Cannon Palisades Park (20) - Gruff but cheery ersatz-rocker squeezes a final hit out of the toothpaste tube of fame.
28 June Petula Clark Ya Ya Twist (14) - Now you're just being silly. If Gainsbourg had written and produced this it would probably have been the greatest record ever made. But he didn't, so it isn't.
28 June Craig Douglas Our Favourite Melodies (9) - Mr Douglas once went on the record review programme on Radio Clyde and was completely bemused and silenced by Propaganda's "Dr Mabuse." I think he was playing Kilwinning Social Club or similar that particular evening.
28 June Roy Orbison The Crowd (40) - He loses himself in it, of course.
28 June Emilio Pericoli Al Di La (30) - The 1962 Eurovision winner. Sounds exactly as you'd expect.
28 June Jim Reeves Adios Amigo (23) - A low chart peak, but according to Guinness this was on the chart for 21 weeks. Can you sing it unprompted, or even prompted?
5 July Louise Cordet I'm Just A Baby (13) - Bizarre French pop production (as near to dammit a Meek record without being Meek), her cooings do suggest the involvement of Gainsbourg somewhere. Not particularly playable; just odd.
5 July Bernard Cribbins Right Said Fred (10) - Promoted by a "sidesplitting" puppet film which prefaced the 5:40 News more times than I care to remember in my youth. Also performed by Roy North in the '70s "pop" show "Get It Together" with himself and his female dancers cavorting bizarrely in overalls around ladders and drills.
5 July Carol Deene Johnny Get Angry (32) - Carlin get bored.
5 July Frank Ifield I Remember You (1) - A Johnny Mercer ballad originally, hoisted up by Frank's bootstraps for a cheery "Overlanders" trek across brave new lands. There are worse things in this world.
5 July Danny Williams Tears (22) - Not the Ken Dodd song.
12 July Pat Boone Speedy Gonzales (2) - Actually this could have been a Meek production as well. Over the top, camp children's novelty, it was the only way that Boone could get his last substantial hit.
12 July Shane Fenton & Fentones Cindy's Birthday (19) - Anaemic Alvin!
12 July Helen Shapiro Little Miss Lonely (8) - See what happens when you don't let me grow up? I sing cotton wool ballads.
12 July Johnny Tillotson It Keeps Right On A Hurtin' (31) - Probably epididymitis.
19 July Nat 'King' Cole with George Shearing Let There Be Love (11) - Not "Hollandised" but "Parkisonised"; the epitome of what lovable golfing celebrities like Parky and Brucie and Tarby and Anne Diamondy consider to be "class." Not Mr Cole's fault.
19 July Bobby Darin Things (2) - From his brief Guy Mitchell phase. He wsa not suited to it.
19 July Billy Fury Once Upon A Dream (7) - Not transcendent.
19 July Neil Sedaka Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (7) - Arguably more hurtful than the grown-up '70s reworking, because the pain is so artfully hidden here. A jaunty, chirpy singsong about abandonment.
26 July Mr Acker Bilk & Paramount Jazz Band Gotta See Baby Tonight (24) - Not a worthy follow-up to "Stranger On The Shore."
26 July Anthony Newley That Noise (34) - The old Phil Harris song ("Get out of there with that boom-boom-boom" - yes, that one). And he was simultaneously asking us to understand him?
2 Aug Ronnie Carroll Roses Are Red (3) - Cover version which makes Bobby Vinton's original sound like David S Ware. Mr Carroll was the British entrant for Eurovision with, ahem, "Ring-A-Ding Girl." It failed to trouble the scorers.
2 Aug Connie Francis Vacation (10) - Cheerleading song. But now it was autumn.
2 Aug Brian Hyland Sealed With A Kiss (3) - A forlorn, bereft record, up there with "Johnny Remember Me" and "Ghost Town." The harmonica blowing its kaddish through empty streets. He is fully aware he may never see the Other again. "Guess it's gonna be a cold, lonely summer." Fast-forward six years for the underbelly to be revealed in the Velvets' "The Gift."
2 Aug Shadows Guitar Tango (4) - Yes, you can see all the joins, but I rather liked the Shadows; again, perhaps of the grief always at the heart of Hank Marvin's tremelo arm, even on a strict-tempo tune like this.
2 Aug Bobby Vinton Roses Are Red (15) - See above.
9 Aug Chubby Checker Dancin' Party (19) - Covered by Showaddywaddy in 1977. The winter of punk. Remember what actually was being played on the radio when the Clash were around.
9 Aug Clyde Valley Stompers Peter & The Wolf (25) - The trad boom's 18 Wheeler.
9 Aug Eddie Hodges Made To Love (Girls Girls Girls) (37) - You lucky lad! Oh no, he means that girls were made to love, not that he was tied up, frogmarched and made to love girls a la reversed ending of "Last Exit To Brooklyn"!
16 Aug Brook Brothers Welcome Home Baby (33) - Dig my sofa of stout hessian.
16 Aug Lonnie Donegan Pick A Bale Of Cotton (11) - His last hit, and a deliberate return to skiffle. It left the charts the week before "Love Me Do" entered.
16 Aug Jet Harris Main Title Theme From The Man With The Golden Arm (12) - Done in Duane Eddy style.
23 Aug Kenny Ball & Jazzmen So Do I (14) - He sings like a club singer. Later in his career he would cross a picket line at Pebble Mill.
23 Aug Carol Deene Some People (25) - Theme from proto-Brit chick flick with Rita Tushingham and others.
23 Aug Duane Eddy Ballad Of Paladin (10) - Lee Hazlewood has done far, far better things than this.
23 Aug Jimmy Justice Spanish Harlem (20) - Truly, Mr Justice must have been the Men At Work to the Drifters' Police!
23 Aug Vernons Girls Lover Please (Re-Entry) / You Know What I Mean (39) - No; I don't believe you do either. The group were named after Vernons football pools.
30 Aug Shirley Bassey What Now My Love (5) - Did she ever do anything worthwhile outside of James Bond or Yello?
30 Aug Mike Sarne / Billie Davis Will I What (18) - A "Come Outside" rerun. Ms Davis went on to make one of the sexiest British pop records ever in "I Want You To Be My Baby" but that was a long way away.
30 Aug Adam Faith Don't That Beat All (8) - No.
30 Aug Rick Nelson Teenage Idol (39) - Interesting attempt at transition; self-awareness of one's immediate redundancy, but it didn't work.
30 Aug Elvis Presley She's Not You (1) - "Good Luck Charm" again but it was a marmoset's foot rather than a rabbit's, so not actually any good luck at all.
30 Aug Tornados Telstar (1)
For all the lives that ever lived and all the lives that will ever be are yours. For everything you never saw, for all that happened, I tell you now that it did. Even if only for a second, you saw what was possible.
Number one in Britain and America the week of the Cuban missile crisis.
Possibly the last piece of music you may ever have heard.
And it is crackling out of the waves of the universe, reluctantly, it sings its own linguistic hymn, and then vanishes, decelerates into dust. But it is still out there. Somewhere, 30,000 years from now, it is still being created.
Remember who you were. Remember who you will be.
No need to proceed from here. 1962, as we know it, effectively ends here. What happened subsequently can be gleaned from the list below. Before the end of the year, the Beatles will have appeared on the chart, as will Phil Spector, as will bossa nova, as will an embryonic Dusty Springfield. Analysis of this period belongs to a different "year." All the other records listed below - with the pertinent exception of Rolf Harris' "Sun Arise" (the true progenitor of the Chemical Brothers' "Setting Sun") - are routine follow-ups, MoR trifles, which (as, frankly, with a lot of the records described above) do not justify close attention. It is a different and separate era.
6 Sept Jerry Lee Lewis Sweet Little Sixteen 38
6 Sept Little Eva The Loco-Motion 2
6 Sept Cliff Richard It'll Be Me 2
6 Sept Tommy Roe Sheila 3
6 Sept Del Shannon Cry Myself To Sleep 29
6 Sept Spotnicks Rocket Man 38
13 Sept Joe Brown & Bruvvers Your Tender Look 31
13 Sept Ray Charles You Don't Know Me 9
13 Sept Buddy Holly Reminiscing 17
13 Sept Brenda Lee It Started All Over Again 15
13 Sept Kenny Lynch Puff 33
20 Sept Karl Denver Blue Weekend 33
20 Sept Carole King It Might As Well Rain Until September 3
27 Sept Mr Acker Bilk & Paramount Jazz Band Lonely 14
27 Sept Nat 'King' Cole Ramblin' Rose 5
27 Sept Marty Robbins Devil Woman 5
27 Sept Bobby Vee A Forever Kind Of Love 13
4 Oct Bobby Darin If A Man Answers 24
4 Oct Four Seasons Sherry 8
4 Oct Chris Montez Let's Dance 2
4 Oct Johnny Tillotson Send Me The Pillow You Dream On 21
4 Oct Mark Wynter Venus In Blue Jeans 4
11 Oct Beatles Love Me Do 17
11 Oct Little Richard He Got What He Wanted 38
11 Oct Susan Maughan Bobby's Girl 3
11 Oct Del Shannon Swiss Maid 2
18 Oct Kenny Ball & Jazzmen The Pay Off 23
18 Oct Craig Douglas Oh Lonesome Me 15
18 Oct Helen Shapiro Keep Away From Other Girls 40
18 Oct Vernons Girls You Know What I Mean 37
25 Oct Everly Brothers No One Can Make My Sunshine Smile 11
25 Oct Billy Fury Because Of Love 18
25 Oct Rolf Harris Sun Arise 3
25 Oct Frank Ifield Lovesick Blues 1
25 Oct Marty Wilde Ever Since You Said Goodbye 31
1 Nov John Barry James Bond Theme 13
1 Nov Richard Chamberlain Love Me Tender 15
1 Nov Chubby Checker Limbo Rock 32
1 Nov Joe Loss Orchestra Must Be Madison 20
8 Nov Jimmy Dean Little Black Book 33
8 Nov Duane Eddy & Rebelettes Dance With The Guitar Man 4
8 Nov Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd Desafinado 11
8 Nov Brian Hyland Warmed Over Kisses 28
8 Nov Peter Jay & Jaywalkers Can Can 62 31
8 Nov Matt Monro My Love & Devotion 29
15 Nov Pat Boone The Main Attraction 12
15 Nov Joe Brown & Bruvvers It Only Took A Minute 6
15 Nov Ronnie Carroll If Only Tomorrow 33
15 Nov Hank Locklin We're Gonna Go Fishin' 18
22 Nov Crystals He's A Rebel 19
22 Nov Ella Fitzgerald Desafinado 38
22 Nov Neil Sedaka Next Door To An Angel 29
29 Nov Patsy Cline Heartaches 31
29 Nov Russ Conway Always You & Me 33
29 Nov Bobby Darin Baby Face 40
29 Nov Maureen Evans Like I Do 3
29 Nov Brenda Lee Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree 6
29 Nov Elvis Presley Return To Sender 1
30 Nov Dinah Washington September In The Rain 35
6 Dec Kenny Lynch Up On The Roof 10
6 Dec Cliff Richard The Next Time / Bachelor Boy 1
6 Dec Tommy Roe Susie Darlin' 37
13 Dec Ray Charles Your Cheating Heart 13
13 Dec Bernard Cribbins Gossip Calypso 25
13 Dec Adam Faith Baby Take A Bow 22
13 Dec Shadows Dance On 1
13 Dec Frank Sinatra/Sammy Davis Jr Me & My Shadow 20
13 Dec Springfields Island Of Dreams 5
13 Dec Mark Wynter Go Away Little Girl 6
20 Dec Chubby Checker/Bobby Rydell Jingle Bell Rock 40
20 Dec Nat 'King' Cole Dear Lonely Hearts 37
20 Dec Ray Ellington The Madison (Re-Entry) 36
20 Dec Harry Simeone Chorale Onward Christian Soldiers (Re-Entry) 38
27 Dec Routers Let's Go 32
― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 7 January 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)