Without the Beatles
The three strange Lennon-McCartney hits that went to No. 1 without Lennon or McCartney—and what they tell us about the secret to recording a smash.
Fifty-one years ago this summer—in late June 1964—the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop chart was a Lennon-McCartney composition. Only it wasn’t by the Beatles, and John Lennon had nothing to do with it. It was a Paul McCartney–penned song recorded, and taken to the chart summit, by a British duo named Peter and Gordon, one of whom was McCartney’s would-be brother-in-law.
Seventeen years after that, in late June 1981, the Hot 100’s No. 1 song also sported Lennon-McCartney writing credits. Only neither man had anything to do with this song, a disco medley of covers—mostly Beatles tunes, though not entirely—by a Dutch studio collective calling itself Stars on 45. Lennon and McCartney weren’t even singing on the record; their vocals were covered by a bunch of sound-alike Dutchmen.
The fact that these two singles rank among the only non-Beatles, Lennon-McCartney compositions to top the chart—ever—says something about the quirky place the Fab Four’s catalog holds in the American imagination. To be exact, there have been three such No. 1 hits. You may have heard of the guy who recorded the third one, back in the mid-’70s, at a time when he had a penchant for large glasses and feather boas.
By: Chris Molanphy
Source: Slate Magazine
