So, I think the U.K. Chart process needs a little explanation…
…at this suitable point and (hopefully) clear up any misunderstandings, and I’ll start by confusing the hell out of you.
This is the official singles chart which is relevant to the day I was born, but it isn’t the chart which was broadcast on that very Sunday.
I’ll explain why.
Back in the 1950’s, the 1960’s, the 1970’s, and over half of the 1980’s,..
…technology was not sufficient to get the sales cut off from the end of Saturday night counted in time to broadcast it on the radio less than 24 hours later on the Sunday evening. With the working hour laws as they were at the time, I’d be surprised if anyone counted them at all over the weekend.
In fact it would take until Tuesday for all the results to be officially counted, and then the weeks chart would be announced.
That’s announced. Not broadcast on the radio.
The chart show, though not called the chart show, was entitled “Pick of the Pops” and was broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on the following Sunday evening. So, what people listened to on that Sunday was the chart which was announced 5 days before, and had begun to be counted 2 days before that.
In other words, it was the sales from the previous week.
Confused? So was I.
In fact, when I first had the idea for the musical road at the tender age of 50, I didn’t take the delay in counting into consideration and so ended up with the first half of my journey out of sync by being a week late.
For the british public to hear a chart which reflected the singles they had bought that very week, it wouldn’t be until 1987, the 4th of October to be exact, when technology caught up and finally became available to accumulate all the sales from the cut off the night before on Saturday, then count them, sort them, and have them ready for broadcast 17 hours later on Sunday evening.
And here’s that very show, from that date, with presenter Bruno Brookes, explaining the swift new format:
So, (hopefully) now we’ve got that cleared up,..
I can begin my countdown, from the beginning, starting at No.50 of the Top 50, on the day I was born. My Birth Day.
The 20th of February 1972
Official U.K. Singles Chart results from Sunday the 20th to Saturday the 26th of February 1972
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 19th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 20th,
announced on Tuesday the 22nd,
and broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 1 on Sunday the 27th of February 1972.
Les Crane
Desiderata
At No.50, on the the U.K. Top 50 Singles Chart the day I am born, is Les Crane with “Desiderata”.
So, my musical road begins,..
…and this is the first single at the very start of the U.K. Singles Chart, which the officials began to count from sales accumulated up to the night before, and it isn’t by a musical artist. It’s by a talk show host.
Les Crane, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot…
…who turned into a late night american talk show host, scored the surprise hit of a reading of a poem which was originally written by American writer Max Ehrmann back in 1921 (but not officially given its title until 12 years later), in the year of 1933, when Max sent the piece out as part of a Christmas Card, now titled “Desiderata” (which I n Latin, translates as “Things Desired”).
To boost confidence, morale and reassurance during World War II, the psychiatrist Merrill Moore sent the poem out to over 1000 of his patients and soldiers.
After Max passed at the close of the war, his widow Bertha, carried on the publishing his works, keeping the poem alive.
During the end of the 1950’s, a church in Baltimore distributed 200 leaflets of it for their congregation.
And by the 1960’s, and beyond, it would become available as a poster.
When it came to recording it for this single,..
…only one slight change was made, near the end, where the phrase is changed from “Be Cheerful”, to “Be Careful”.
The producers of the single, mistakenly thought that the text was so old, that it would be safe to use without copyright.
It was only after the hype gathered around it, that it was then brought to their attention by legal representation, that it was indeed copyrighted, resulting in a substantial payment in royalties to Max’s estate.
The single had only recently started on its U.K. chart journey itself,..
…having entered the week before at number 49 on the 13th of February, and it looked like it was about to fall out of the Top 50 again. However, it would hang in there and, in the next 5 weeks, would climb steadily until eventually peaking at number 7 during the week of 26th March to 1st April 1972.
It would ultimately stay in the U.K. Singles Chart for 14 weeks in total, finally leaving in the much warmer spring, after the 20th of May.
In it’s native U.S., the single ended up winning a Grammy Award.
Doing the research for this project of mine, it’s taken me 50 years to discover this song exists, and I love it.
An amazingly apt single to begin my life’s journey on my musical road.
The “A” Side
Les Crane – Desiderata
The “B” Side
Les Crane – A Different Drummer
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