When? 20th January 1953 - 26th January 1953
Number of Weeks? 1
What else was going on? Dwight Eisenhower becomes the President of the United States, "The Crucible" opens on Broadway
Download Comes A-Long A-Love
from amazon.com
from amazon.com
Kay's ascension to the number 1 spot tilts the battle of the chart-topping sexes 2-1 in favour of women. Crucially, however, it's the first foray into non-ballad territory that we've encountered thus far. In fact, Comes A-Long A-Love is a fun, jaunty track where Starr's voice sparkles with mischief and joie-de-vivre (quick, someone call Private Eye's "Pseuds' Corner"). Jaunty, in fact is the best word to describe this track, as it bounces along quite pleasantly for it's entire 2:24 duration. This in itself is one of the biggest culture shocks I've encountered so far. None of the three songs reviewed so far have topped more than 3:10, which is a bit of a departure from the modern day chart-topper.
Back to the song at hand, however, and it's another great vocal performance. Starr's vocal is confident and conveys an utterly infectious glee, which is very easy to miss when it's placed alongside the fun, but gimmicky backing composition. It's perhaps not surprising to see why the song only held the top spot for a single week, however. While Comes A-Long A-Love is fun, and a welcome break from the two, slower love songs which precede it, it sounds very of its time; it hasn't aged brilliantly. It's a happy, upbeat, but ultimately fairly throwaway song. But a bloody catchy one.
What happened next? It's taken 11 weeks of the fledgling charts, but finally we've encountered an artist who we aren't immediately waving goodbye to. Yet it will be another three years and another 41 chart-toppers before we'll come across Kay again. In the interim, however, Kay had another two top ten hits. Kay is also the first chart-topper who his still with us. At the time of writing Kay is 87 years old and resides in California.
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