The 20th of February 1974
Official U.K. Singles Chart results from Sunday the 17th to Saturday the 23rd of February 1974
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 16th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 17th,
published on Tuesday the 19th,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 24th of February 1974.
Lena Zavaroni
Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me)
At No.13, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Singles Chart”, the week of my 2nd Birthday, is Lena Zavaroni with Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me).
The oldest song…
…to feature in this chart, sung by one of the youngest new artists to grace it. A happy and immensely talented 10-year-old, who was just embarking on an exciting voyage of discovery. This little girl had truly captured the hearts of the British public.
Born in the town of Greenock,..
…in the western Scottish Lowlands, and raised in the eastern coastal town of Rothesay on the Isle of Bute; Lena had been singing and entertaining for anyone who cared to take notice, since the age of 2.
Her family already had music flowing through them. Her father played the guitar and her mother sang, when they weren’t running their family Fish & Chip shop. When Lena was discovered last year in 1973 by a record producer who had been holidaying on the island, she had been singing in a band, accompanied by her father and also an uncle. After a quick couple of phone calls by the producer to his contacts, Lena was soon secured a manager, whisked away from her familiar surroundings, and thrust into the spotlight and TV cameras as the UK’s next bright young thing, appearing on the popular talent show “Opportunity Knocks“, where the British public took her to their hearts, and where she won the vote 5 weeks in a row.
To cash in on this new talent, an LP of material was quickly released, which (up to this date of writing) Lena still holds the record (pun intended) for the youngest artist ever to have a Top 10 in the UK Album Chart.
The song itself…
…dates back to 1921 and has been recorded by many artists of that era onto the old shellac 78’s; the earliest vocal example I can find is from October that very year, sung by Billy Jones.
With the retrospection of being able to hear this over 100 years later,..
…it’s obviously more suited to either a young adult or even an older teen, and could well be deemed highly inappropriate these days for a 10-year-old to perform. If a girl of that type of age today did relay the contents of this song to her “Mama”, it would most probably result in a panicked phone call to the appropriate child services department, who would take swift action to the subject in question before the song itself had a chance to finish. However, such was the innocence of the public back then, that they just saw this as a cute little novelty.
The single,..
…which preceded the aforementioned album of the same name, had first entered the UK Singles Chart at No.30 a couple of weeks before, on the 3rd of February, and last week it rose into the Top 20 to sit at No.16, before rising even further to this week’s position.
From here,..
…the song will go even further upwards and break into the Top 10 at No.10, but that’s as high as it will go.
There will be three more weeks where the single will live back in the Top 20, but then it will fall away decreasingly back through the chart, with Lena eventually exiting stage left with an energetic show of jazz hands, after the 20th of April, having accumulated a grand total of 11 weeks on chart, and at this point, an extraordinary future ahead of her.
The “A” Side
The “B” Side
Lena Zavaroni – Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me) (“Top of the Pops” appearance – 1974)
Lena Zavaroni – Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody (TV performance – 1976)
Lena Zavaroni – Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me) (TV appearance)
Lena Zavaroni – Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me) (“The Tonight Show” TV Performance – 1974)
Lena Zavaroni – Ma! (He’s Making Eyes At Me) (“MDA Telethon” TV Performance – 1974)
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