The week of January 5, 1985, saw two repeats atop the Billboard Hot 100: Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin‘ and Duran Duran’s ‘The Wild Boys.’
At #3 was a song decidedly less emblematic of the 1980s: The Honeydrippers’ cover of the 1959 hit ‘Sea of Love.’
The Honeydrippers was the brainchild of Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant, who formed the group in 1981 to play some of his best-loved songs from the 50s. Band members rotated in and out, and included Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.
Throwing back to the week of January 4, 1974, we find Elton John atop the Billboard Hot 100 with a cover of The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.’
John held the top spot for two weeks with the psychedelic classic, which is two more than the original version spent at #1 — it was never released as a single.
When The Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’ showed up as the #1 song the week of December 29, 1964, I assumed I had featured it on the blog already. After all, I posted 80 Beatles songs as part of ‘Beatles Weekends‘ alone back in 2009.
But somehow I never got around to this one, The Beatles’ sixth #1 in 1964 (a record for a single calendar year). The Beatles would nearly repeat that feat the following year, scoring five #1s in 1965. I look forward to encountering those in coming installments of Throwback Weekends.
Today’s Throwback Weekend selection falls on my wife’s birthday, so I had to chuckle when the title turned out to be ‘The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane’ by the Ames Brothers.
This track sat at #3 the week of December 28, 1954, behind repeat Songs of the Day ‘Mister Sandman’ by The Chordettes and ‘Let Me Go Lover’ by Joan Weber.
My apologies to daily commenter Dana, who thought he dodged a bullet when this song’s Throwback Weekend feature was passed up for a special 6,000th Song of the Day post a couple of weeks ago.
But no, Duran Duran’s ‘The Wild Boys’ was still at #2 on the Hot 100 the week of December 22, 1984. It sat behind Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin,’ which has already been covered on the blog.
Meet Me In Montauk 