During their illustrious career (and, in the case of “Now and Then”, after), the Beatles racked up 18 number one singles in the UK. In addition to this, five singles peaked at the runner-up spot, unable to quite clinch the top spot. These are those tracks that stalled at the secondary spot, as well as the song(s) that prevented it from peaking atop the charts.
Please Please Me
- Year: 1963
- Number One: “Wayward Wind” (Frank Ifield), “Summer Holiday” (Cliff Richard)
Despite their quick rise to fame, the Beatles’s debut single, “Love Me Do” failed to have much impact among UK music audiences. Though it would later become a US number one, in Britain, its success was muted, peaking at just 17.
Their follow-up, the energetic “Please Please Me” would become a major hit, aided by a performance on the widely-viewed Thank Your Lucky Stars, their first national UK television exposure.
After recording for the single, producer George Martin told the group “you’ve just recroded your first number one”, though this proved to be incorrect. Despite the song topping the NME and Melody Maker charts, it only came second on the Record Retailer, the precursor to the UK Official Charts. It would remain at the spot for three non-consecutive weeks through February and March.
During its first two weeks at the spot, it was held off the top by the youthful, yodeling heartthrob Frank Ifield, who had scored his third consecutive number one with “The Wayward Wind”. Ironically, “The Fab Four” had previously served as support for Ifield, though failed to garner much attention from this.
After falling, the song climbed again, this time resisted from the pole position by Cliff Richard’s “Summer Holiday”. Effectively Britain’s answer to Elvis Presley, Cliff’s status as Britain’s greatest artist of the ‘50s and ‘60s would soon be undercut by the rise of Beatlemania.
Despite only hitting number two, its success led Martin to encourage band manager Brian Epstein to get the band to record a record as soon as possible.
It would hit number one in the US 15 months later upon reissue in the wake of their Ed Sullivan Show success.
Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane
- Year: 1967
- Number one: “Release Me” (Engelbert Humperdinck)
Ever since their first number one in May 1963 and up until early 1967, every Beatles single had reached number one – a string of 11 straight chart-toppers.
Yet this hot streak was broken with the release of a double A-side comprising two of the band’s more famous singles, “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane”.
Perhaps this release denoted the most significant turning point for the band. The first track released since the end of their time touring, both singles – very different in tone – proved the group’s evolving musical style. Though “Penny Lane” made use of orchestral arrangements and increasingly mature writing, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was seen as the height of “The Fab Four”’s experimentation, reportedly being the climax to a rivalry of creativity between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. As biographer Steve Gaines noted, the Beatles had created something so “wonderous and different-sounding that Brian was crushed.”
While the more commercial “Penny Lane” captured the zeitgeist of colourful 1960s Britain, “Strawberry Fields Forever” was a more dark tune, opening the door to further Beatles musical experimentation. As noted in Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties, “Penny Lane” is a classic McCartney ballad while “Strawberry Field Forever” is a Lennonian tune through and through. One might see this track as representing the start of a conflict that would help end the band as the more traditionally musically-minded McCartney battled the boundary-breaking ideology of Lennon.
Both locations, destinations in their hometown of Liverpool, are now seen as essential go-to locations for any touring Beatles fan.
Nonetheless, the commercial music-buying UK audience were less interested in the mellotron-heavy, LSD-inspired, surrealist track compared to more popular tunes. Holding off the Beatles was Engelbert Humperdinck, whose “Release Me” held the top spot six weeks and became the biggest-selling song of the year, with over a million sales. 1967 became a banner year for Humperdinck, whose hits “The Last Waltz” and “There Goes My Everything” would become hits and some of the best-selling tracks of the decade.
Humperdinck claimed the crown over the Beatles even though Billboard notes that the Beatles nearly outsold Engelbert two to one. As the track was a double A-side, the sale count was cut in half in line with chart protocol of the time.
Magical Mystery Tour (EP)
- Year: 1968
- Number One: “Hello Goodbye” (The Beatles)
In January 1967, the Beatles had a third number two-peaking single with double EP Magical Mystery Tour.
The 19-minute track included two seven-inch singles, each comprising three songs. On the first was “Magical Mystery Tour” and “Your Mother Should Know” with “I Am the Walrus” on the second side. The other consisted of “The Fool on the Hill” and instrumental track “Flying”, with George Harrison’s “Blue Jay Way” on the flipside.
Despite advance sales of 400,000 and quickly reaching 600,000 by mid-January, it did not top the charts, though it did get the coveted top spot on the Melody Maker chart.
That said, the Beatles would surely not shed any tears considering that the only things holding them off the top was themselves. Indeed, for three weeks the band held the top two positions as Magical Mystery Tour was beaten by “Hello, Goodbye”, the second act to achieve this feat after the Beatles had done it themselves four years earlier with “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You”.
“Hello, Goodbye”’s seven-week stretch, which included 1967’s Christmas number one was their longest number one since “She Loves You”.
Beatles author Ian MacDonald argues that Magical Mystery Tour caused the band to lose the older generation, losing their previous universal appeal. He writes that “this is where parents began to part company with their sons and daughters over the group, rightly suspecting a drug-induced pretension setting in.”
Of note, “Hello, Goodbye” was accompanied by the B-side “I Am the Walrus”, which was the most notable track on Magical Mystery Tour.
Let It Be
- Year: 1970
- Number One: “Wand’rin’ Star” (Lee Marvin)
In early 1970, the Beatles released what would be their final single before their break-up was publicly announced: “Let It Be”.
Though the Beatles had been increasingly drifting apart for years behind the scenes, there was no way the public could know it would have been their last major single – and it would not even get to number one.
Instead, it spent one week in the runners-up spot. Like the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” before it, it was held off the top by an unlikely performer: gruff-voiced movie tough guy Lee Marvin.
The tune, “Wand’rin’ Star” came from the previous year’s box office flop Paint Your Wagon, whose earnings never offset its promotional costs. Despite its lack of economic success, Marvin’s musical performance became a number one single for three weeks and remained in the charts for nearly half a year.
This was in spite of critics panning the song. Co-star Jean Seberg described Marvin’s voice as sounding “like rain gurgling down a rusty pipe” while film critic Roger Ebert commented: “Marvin can act, and he brazenly acts his way through songs.”
As a side note, the track’s B-side was “I Talk to Trees”, as sung by co-star Clint Eastwood.
“Let It Be” would quickly be dislodged from the number two spot by Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” in what was an extremely competitive year for all-time classics.
The next month, the Beatles’s break-up was announced before Let It Be, the album, was released the next month. Critics saw the album as a damp squib of an ending to the band’s tremendous story, with the NME describing it as a “cheapskate epitaph, a cardboard tombstone” to mark their departure from the scene. Lennon was slightly less poignant, calling it “badly-recorded shit.”
Compared to Marvin’s effort however, “Let It Be” has had a far longer-lasting legacy. At the top of the list of Beatles songs any member of the public could name, it has also been ranked number 20 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.
It would eventually reach number one but not under the Beatles, but Ferry Aid, a charity act formed to raise funds after the sinking of the HM Herald of Free Enterprise off the Port of Zeebrugge in 1987, killing 193 passengers and crew. A cover, featuring McCartney as well as Boy George, Kate Bush, and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits, amongst others, was a three-week chart-topper.
Free As A Bird
- Year: 1995
- Number One: “Earth Song” (Michael Jackson)
Nearly a quarter of a century after separating, the Beatles crashed back into the spotlight in 1995 on the back of the Anthology album series, unveiling previously unreleased material.
Working alongside producer and ELO frontman Jeff Lynne due to George Martin’s hearing problems, the three surviving Beatles and former engineer Geoff Emerick worked to finish demos made by John Lennon that had not been seen through to completion.
One such piece was the 1977 work “Free As A Bird” to which additional vocals and instrumentation was added. A neat touch was George Harrrison’s ukelele, added as a touching tribute to Lennon’s love of George Formby.
The single’s video serves as a love letter collage to the band, featuring notable references to many songs, locations, and themes across the band’s history such as the Cavern Club, “Eleanor Rigby”, and the Blue Meanie characters from Yellow Submarine. The resultant video won a Grammy Award for the Best Short Form Music Video, whereas it won another for the Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
The tune was prevented from being the band’s 18th number one by the Michael Jackson megahit “Earth Song”. MJ’s hit was a six-week number one.
This chart run meant, oddly, that for a time, the Beatles shared the top 10 with acts like Boyzone, Robson and Jerome, and Coolio.
Interestingly, another Lennon demo at hand was what would become “Now and Then”. Then seen as too poor quality to use, with the use of AI, it was released as a single in 2023 and shot to number one, becoming not only a fitting farewell for the greatest band in modern history but also giving the band their first number one in a record-breaking 54 years.
GRIFFIN KAYE.
