Monday, July 14, 2008

Macca's Back to Back

One more Casey-centric bit of trivia: On that same show, from July 17, 1976, Wings' "Silly Love Songs" was at Number Nine, and the Beatles' "Got to Get You Into My Life" was at Number Eight. Casey noted that this was the first time the same singer had had two consecutive hits on the chart with two different groups. I guess Tony Burrows never achieved such a distinction.

(Incidentally, does anyone know the circumstances around the release of the single of "Got to Get You Into My Life" in 1976? What a brilliant and unlikely decision that was.)

I don't know if this feat has been accomplished in the years since 1976, although depending on how you define it, I would guess that there have been guest stars and featured artists on rap singles that ended up back-to-back on the charts. It's just a matter of deference to the judges as to whether someone like Ashanti was recording with two different groups.

I wonder what would have happened if the Number Twenty song on that week's chart, "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," had landed adjacent to one of those other McCartney-sung singles, since it was performed by Eric Carmen, the Paul McCartney of Cleveland.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

if I remember correctly, “Got To Get You Into My Life” was the single from “Rock & Roll Music,” a double-LP Beatles anthology that was huge in the summer of ‘76, emphasizing their uptempo side, with a very “Happy Days”/“American Graffiti”-style ‘50s cover. That was the same summer Time magazine did their awesome “McCartney Comes Back!” cover. Good time to be a young Wingsmaniac.

Tom Nawrocki said...

Further research shows that you are correct. "It made us look cheap and we never were cheap," Ringo said of that neon-diner cover. "All that Coca-Cola and cars with big fins was the Fifties!" And of course, "Got To Get You Into My Life" hadn't dated at all, even though it was eleven years old at the time.

Pike said...

For "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again," Carmen (or whoever wrote it) took its melody directly and unashamedly from Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

Gavin said...

Maybe there was an adjacency during the chart run of either Band Aid or USA for Africa?

Anonymous said...

In "Beatles Forever," the late Nicholas Schaffner contends Capitol was originally going to release "Helter Skalter" as the single from "Rock and Roll Music" because of the extra attention it received during the Charles Mansion trial. He goes on to say someone eventually realized that this might not have been in good taste.

Really? You think?

Anyway, "Helter Skelter" was relegated to the b-side when someone chose "Got To Get You Into My Life" as a reissue single.