Shape of You - Every UK Number 1

The Intro

It may have seemed a little bold for ABBA to release a Greatest Hits in March 1976. However, their label Polar decided to due to the many cash-in compilations labels scattered around the globe were releasing in an attempt to cash-in on the fact that they were becoming huge. And with two UK number 1 singles to their name and plenty of hits elsewhere featured, it proved a wise move. It became their first number 1 album on these shores.

Before

As well as a mix of their early hits and lesser-known tracks in the UK, there was a new song, released as a single. Although it wasn’t strictly speaking, ‘new’. Fernando had first featured on band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s debut solo LP Frida ensam in 1975. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus had originally called it Tango but at the last minute they renamed it Fernando after a bartender working at a club in Stockholm, Sweden, allegedly.

This Swedish version had lyrics penned by ABBA’s manager Stig Anderson and Lyngstad is singing to a heartbroken Fernando, attempting to console him after he has lost the love of his life. The chorus translated as:

‘Long live love, our best friend, Fernando.
Raise your glass and propose a toast to it; to love, Fernando.
Play the melody and sing a song of happiness.
Long live love, Fernando’

When it came to ABBA recording the song, Ulvaeus decided to take a different tack. He was lying outside one summer night and gazing at the stars when he hit upon a brainwave. Fernando became about two old freedom fighters who fought in the Texas Revolution of 1836, who reminisced about days of old one night in Mexico.

Review

Fernando is one of ABBA’s best-known and biggest-selling singles, but it’s my least favourite of their number 1s. I find it leaden and overwrought and I’m not really interested in hearing about what two 19th-century soldiers have to say. Give me their relationship drama and we’ve something to work with. It also suffers coming straight after Save Your Kisses For Me, which meant 10 weeks of tedium at number 1 on repeats of Top of the Pops and again, it makes me relieved I wasn’t a pop fan in 1976. Having said all this, I’d be a liar if I didn’t say the chorus was very memorable.

ABBA starred in a memorable, suitably dramatic video for Fernando, sat around a campfire looking very serious and gazing into each other’s eyes, as you can see above. ABBA made lots of videos – I’m not sure if they ever actually promoted on Top of the Pops in person? As well as a month as UK number 1, Fernando topped the charts across the globe. It became the longest-running number 1 in Australian history (14 weeks) for more than 40 years until Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You went one better in 2017.

After

ABBA made a Spanish-language album, Gracias Por La Música, in 1980 and Fernando was a natural choice for an LP aimed at Latin American countries.

The Outro

So, ABBA had scored two number 1s before we even reach the half-way mark of 1976, and the best was yet to come.

The Info

Written by

Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus

Producers

Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus

Weeks at number 1

4 (8 May-4 June)

Trivia

Births

8 May: Steps singer Ian ‘H’ Watkins
14 May: Actress Martine McCutcheon

Deaths

14 May: Yardbirds singer Keith Relf

Meanwhile…

9 May: 20-year-old prostitute Marcella Claxton is badly injured in a hammer attack in Leeds.

10 May: Following months of rumours of his involvement in a plot to murder his ex-lover Norman Scott, Jeremy Thorpe resigns as leader of the Liberal Party.

19 May: Liverpool win the UEFA Cup for the second time by completing a 4-3 aggregate win over Belgian side Club Brugge KV at the Olympiastadion in Brugge.

27 May: Harold Wilson’s Resignation Honours List is published. It becomes known satirically as the ‘Lavender List’ due to the number of wealthy businessmen awarded honours.

1 June: UK and Iceland end the third and final Cod War. The UK abandoned the ‘open seas’ international fisheries policy it had previously promoted.

The Intro

So, we begin. Going back, back, way back in time, before boy and girl bands, before dance, punk, psychedelia, The Beatles and rock’n’roll, to a smog-ridden UK on 14 November 1952.

Before

Winston Churchill’s Conservatives had been back in power a year, following Labour’s huge socialist changes to the country after World War Two under Clement Atlee, and Elizabeth II had ascended to the throne earlier that year (that’s right, she’s been Queen longer than the charts have existed). That March, Maurice Kinn and Percy Dickins bought the Musical Express and Accordion Weekly, transforming it into the New Musical Express (wish it had kept that name). Dickins had been following what Billboard were doing with their chart system in the US, and decided to follow suit, with the charmingly antiquated and inaccurate system of ringing around 20 record stores around the country to find out what vinyl 78s were selling the most. He compiled a top 12 (Why 12? Who knows?) and thus US singer and actor Al Martino made history.

Martino was born Jasper Cini in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 7 October 1927. His parents were Italian immigrants who ran a construction business, and he worked as a bricklayer along with his brothers. But the young Cini aspired to be a singer and would emulate heroes like Perry Como and Al Jolson. Key to his ambitions was family friend Mario Lanza, who had become popular and encouraged Cini to follow in his footsteps.

Cini served with the United States Navy during World War Two, and after the war was over, Lanza suggested he try singing in local nightclubs. He adopted the stage name Al Martino and moved to New York in 1948, recording for the Jubilee label.

In a sense, Martino was the singles chart’s original X Factor-style success story. In 1952, he won first place on the TV show Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, which earned him a recording contract to record this single.

After reaching number 1 in the US, Here in My Heart remained at number 1 for nine consecutive weeks in the fledgling UK top 12, making it the only chart-topper of 1952, and therefore, the first Christmas number 1, too. Only eight other tracks have lasted longer – Bryan Adams’s (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Wet Wet Wet’s cover of Love is All Around, One Dance by Drake, David Whitfield’s Cara Mia, Rihanna’s Umbrella, I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston, Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You and current number 1, Dance Monkey by Tones and I.

Review

https://youtu.be/LfXU-UZZ4p4

It’s hard to see the huge appeal of Here in my Heart now. All the tracks above have their critics (me amongst them), but you can see how they did well. Martino’s track is a maudlin, melancholy piece of pop-opera (popera?) in which he shows off his vocal range to a slushy string-laden backing. The tune is forgotten as soon as the track ends, but to a country still suffering trauma from a terrible war, it may have provided some succour to the UK in the early 50s.

After

Martino signed with Capitol Records soon after, and the Mafia took an interest in him too, buying out his management and ordering him to pay thousands to them as a ‘safeguard’. Martino did what he was told, but wisely decided to move to the UK afterwards.

The chart hits continued here until 1955, but he had little exposure in his home country. Fortunately a family friend intervened and Martino returned to the US in 1958, but it wasn’t easy to resume his career thanks to the impact of rock’n’roll. The Exciting Voice of Al Martino, his 1962 LP, helped turn his fortunes around.

The following year he scored another big single in the US with his version of I Love You Because, and in 1966 he had his final top 10 hit on these shores with Spanish Eyes.

Martino’s run-in with the Mafia took on a whole new meaning when he played Johnny Fontane in The Godfather (1972) and sang the theme tune, Speak Softly Love. He would return to the role in The Godfather Part III in 1990.

The Outro

The first ever UK number 1 singles star continued to record and perform into the 21st century. Al Martino died of a heart attack on 13 October 2009, aged 82.

The Info

Written by

Pat Genaro, Lou Levinson & Bill Borrelli

Producer

Voyle Gilmore

Weeks at number 1

9 (14 November 1952-15 January 1953)

Trivia

Births

3 December 1952: Comedian Mel Smith
10 December: TV presenter Clive Anderson
20 December: Actress Jenny Agutter
4 January 1953: Journalist and politician Jackie Ballard/Director and producer Richard Boden

Meanwhile…

25 November: Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap began its run at the New Ambassador Theatre in London.

4-9 December: The Great Smog of London enveloped the capital, causing approximately 4000 deaths.

12 December: The fondly remembered children’s TV show Flower Pot Men, chronicling the adventures of Bill and Ben, debuted on the BBC Television service.

25 December: Queen Elizabeth II made her first ever Christmas speech to the Commonwealth, sat in the same chair as George V and George VI before her.