(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Thu 21 August 2025 20:41, UK
Across all the seismic changes in music and pop culture over the 70-odd years since the dawn of rock and roll, the coveted single still holds significant commercial power.
Top of the Pops may be long gone, and the charts feel less monolithic in the fragmented social media age, but records continue to be broken. Well into the 21st century, Lil Nas X and Shaboozey both stand as tied Billboard champions with the longest-held number ones ever, 2019’s ‘Old Town Road’ and 2024’s ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ respectively sat at the top spot for a whopping 19 uninterrupted weeks.
When searching for the first singles to stay put at number one for five weeks, we have to step back to a time when popular music as we understand it today had yet to truly burst, and the UK singles chart and Billboard Hot 100 hadn’t even been created. This was an era of ungodly singles sales, however. Still an undefeated record if we’re allowing non-consecutive weeks, Italian-American singer Frankie Laine’s cover of ‘I Believe’ stands as an all-time UK record with 18 weeks at number one, unthreatened for decades til Bryan Adams unleashed the weepy power ballad ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’ for 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Originally recorded by The Brush Cutters and written by Texan disc jockey Slim Willet, ‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes’ country twang tugged American heartstrings with its rustic tale of a lovesick man worried his illicit affair with a spoken-for woman is soon to end.
The Southern standard has inspired many renditions over the years, from Dean Martin to KD Lang, but it’s the pop makeover by Perry Cuomo and his Ramblers backing band that stands as the most definitive. Released in November 1952, Cuomo’s ‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes’ peaked at number one in the UK three months later, remaining for five weeks. His take was a global smash too, selling over a million and a half copies, topping the US charts, and riding high in West Germany and Argentina.
The first song to hold the number one spot for five weeks
Written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for 1950’s war thriller Captain Carey, USA, Cuban Bolero singer Sergio de Karlo’s ‘Mona Lisa’ would act as a musical motif throughout the picture, detailing a WWII veteran returning to Italy where he saw action to ensure justice catches up with a traitor whom leaked clandestine information that resulted in his intelligence team’s deaths. So popular, the film’s theme won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the following year’s Oscar ceremonies.
Released in July 1950, it’s Nat King Cole’s rendition recorded with Les Baxter’s orchestra that wowed American music lovers, enjoying the top spot for five solid weeks. Proving to be an enduring number, Cole would record a stereo version in 1961 with Ralph Carmichael, and years later would be entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992.
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