The week of March 21, 1964, saw The Beatles dominating the top of the Billboard Hot 100. ‘She Loves You‘ and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand‘ occupied the #1 and #2 spots, respectively, and a re-release of ‘Please Please Me‘ — which had bombed in the U.S. a year earlier — made it to #3.
In the #4 slot that week was ‘Dawn (Go Away)’ by The Four Seasons, a song that peaked at #3 during a six-week stint in the top ten. During that span, it was never topped by anything but a Beatles song.
A few weeks ago, I featured The Beatles’ ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ the band’s first #1 hit in the U.S. It was still atop the chart the week of February 29, 1964, but just below it was the band’s soon-to-be second #1 hit, ‘She Loves You.’
This single had been a huge hit in the UK the summer before, but a U.S. release was largely ignored by radio and failed to crack the Hot 100. Imagine that!
When the British Invasion finally arrived in early 1964, ‘She Loves You’ came back with a vengeance, rocketing to the top of the chart.
Throwing back to the week of February 8, 1964, we find a charming young quartet known as The Beatles reaching Billboard’s top spot for the first time with ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand.’
This song launched Beatlemania in the U.S., selling millions of copies and hanging on to #1 on the Hot 100 for seven weeks. It was eventually replaced by the band’s ‘She Loves You,’ which was already a hit in the UK.
Throwing back to the week of January 18, 1964, we find one of history’s greatest rock-n-roll songs tucked away at #2 behind Bobby Vinton’s ‘There! I’ve Said it Again..’
The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’ never made it to #1 but it is one of the best-known rock songs of all time, one of the most covered, and one of the most misunderstood. It’s an unintelligible three-chord masterpiece.
My final song of 2023 is the first song to reach #1 in 1964. Today we throw back to the week of December 27, 1963, when Bobby Vinton’s ‘There! I’ve Said it Again’ sat at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, just behind ‘Dominique‘ by The Singing Nun, a week before it hit the top spot.
This was Vinton’s third #1 on the chart, following ‘Roses Are Red (My Love)‘ in July of 1962 and ‘Blue Velvet‘ in October of 1963. He would top the chart one more time, with 1964’s ‘Mr. Lonely.’
Bobby Vinton was the Drake of the early 60s.
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