WHAT WAS THE #1 SONG A CENTURY AGO?

My posting yesterday ended with the #1 song half a century ago, which was Jive Talking.  I mentioned that the shortest tune reaching #1 on Billboard was the 1960 Stay.  

So before entering my blog of today, I was wondering what was the longest song to hit #1 on Billboard, and consulted Guinness.

• This was difficult to find because Google kept sending me to the #1 song that spent the longest time in that slot.

• 
  The 10-minute version of Taylor Swift's All Too Well went on for 10 minutes and 13 seconds.  But this was the extended version of this ballad that originally in 2012 appeared on the album Red, and was only 5min29sec long, which was re-released as a single at that length.  Here is her 10-minute version.  Did she attend the NFL preseason game yesterday?  No.

• 
  So I guess Don McLean's 1972 American Pie is the longest chart-topper at 8min37sec. But according to that chart above, Swift.

• 
  As an aside, I was watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire last night, and one question had to do with Jack Black and  the shortest song to chart (meaning needs to only be somewhere on the chart) being from a  Minecraft Movie released this year.  This song is Steve's Lava Chicken and is 34 seconds long.  So short that it's worth a watch.

Why I even got into this topic was that on Friday, while taking a bath, asked Alexa to play songs from 1925, which was a century ago.  I heard St. Louis Blues with Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, then I'll See You in My Dreams by Marion Harris, Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, and another St. Louis Blues, by Bessie Smith.  I thought, hey, I know them, and this subject would make a fine topic for my blog.

So what song was #1 on 10August1925?

• Google AI Overview said that it was difficult to find that song because Billboard did not publish the Hot 100 until 1958.
• However, with the available information, one of these three could have been it.

• 
  Yes Sir, That's My Baby by Gene Austin, spent 7 weeks at #1 in 1925 and 17 weeks on the chart.  So there was some kind of "chart."

• 
  Sweet Georgia Brown by Ben Bernie and His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra, which was #1 for five weeks and charted for 13 weeks.
• Manhattan by The Knickerbockers (Ben Selvin Orchestra), 4 weeks at #1 and 10 weeks on the chart.

• 
  Other possibilities were:
• The Prisoner Song, Vernon Dalhart.
• I'll See You in My Dreams, Isham Jones.
• Tea for Two, Marion Harris (right).
• While no Billboard, recorded were sheet music sales, performance popularity in vaudeville and other venues, trade publications, radio airplay, and most played in jukeboxes and radio disc jockeys.  Apparently, though, there was no noted authority combining all those into a national survey.

What was noteworthy was that I am familiar with all those songs of a century ago.  I almost know the lyrics for many of them.  

Here is a remarkable source from Dave's Music Database.  The top ten in any decade from 1800.  Amazingly enough, I am familiar with most of them from 1989 going back to 1800.

• 
  1800-1809:  #1 Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (1806) written by Jane Taylor, #2 Billy Boy (1800), #10 Old Mother Hubbard (1805).
• 1810-1819:  #1 The Star Spangled Banner (1814), #3 Silent Night (1818), #4 Au Clair de Lune (1811).
• 1850-1859:  #1 Jingle Bells (1857), Camptown Races (1850), #10 Row, Row, Row Your Boat (1852).
• 1890-1899:  #1 After the Ball (1893), George Gaskin, #3 The Stars and Stripes Forever (1897) by John Philip Sousa, #5 Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-De-Ay (1892), Len Spencer.
• I know all the songs from 1900-1909:

1. Haydn Quartet “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (1908) 
2. Billy Murray “You’re a Grand Old Flag (aka “The Grand Old Rag”)” (1906) 
3. Haydn Quartet “Sweet Adeline (You’re the Flower of My Heart)” (1904) 
4. Billy Murray “Yankee Doodle Boy” (1905) 
5. Arthur Collins “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home” (1902) 
6. Billy Murray “Give My Regards to Broadway” (1905) 
7. Harry MacDonough with Miss Walton “Shine on Harvest Moon” (1909) 
8. Haydn Quartet “In the Good Old Summertime” (1903) 
9. Billy Murray “Meet Me in St. Louis Louis” (1904) 
10. Bryon G. Harlan “School Days (When We Were a Couple of Kids)” (1907)

• So, incredibly enough, I am familiar with just about all the songs from 1800 to 1989, and am not sure about three from the recent 90s:

1. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” (1992) 
2. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (1991) 
3. Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” (1991) 
4. Sinéad O’Connor “Nothing Compares 2 U” (1990) 
5. Celine Dion “My Heart Will Go On” (1997) 
6. Elton John “Candle in the Wind 1997 (Goodbye England’s Rose)” (1997) 
7. R.E.M. “Losing My Religion” (1991) 
8. Oasis “Wonderwall” (1995) 
9. Los Del Rio “Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)” (1995) 
10. U2 “One” (1991)

• 2000s?  Only two I know.  But 6 from the 2010s and none from the 2020s.

1. Harry Styles “As It Was” (2022) 
2. Miley Cyrus “Flowers” (2023) 
3. The Kid Laroi with Justin Bieber “Stay” (2021) 
4. Dua Lipa with DaBaby “Levitating” (2020) 
5. Glass Animals “Heat Waves” (2020) 
6. Olivia Rodrigo “Drivers License” (2021) 
7. The Weeknd with Ariana Grande “Save Your Tears” (2020) 
8. Adele “Easy on Me” (2021) 
9. Olivia Rodrigo “Good 4 U” (2021) 
Leave the Door Open” (2021)

The #1 song today is Die with a Smile, by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.  Has now been at the top for 10 weeks.  Went to You Tube, and just heard this song for the first time.  Up Town Funk by him is one of my all-time favorites.  Watch this video of old movie stars dancing to this tune.

There are two ocean storms of noteworthiness.  Hurricane Henriette is just north of Hawaii, with a track heading to the northwest, and just far enough away that the Honolulu weather is fine.  Will further strengthen into a Category 2 tomorrow.

In the west Pacific, Tropical Storm Podul will become a typhoon in two days and make landfall over Taiwan, with the eye passing just south of Taipei.

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