Chris Farlowe, Out of Time (1966)
I knew the Stones before they were the Stones. They had come when I was playing London clubs with the Thunderbirds. A few years later we rekindled our friendship and I signed [Stones manager] Andrew Loog Oldham’s label, Immediate. One day Mick Jagger said, “I’d like to write some songs for you, Chris.” He sat in his house, played me a few numbers on the guitar and one of them was Out of Time. A month later we were in the studio with an orchestra. Jimmy Page played on it – he was a session guitarist before he started Led Zeppelin. One night I watched England win the World Cup on network TV in the pub, then played a gig in Wales with an unknown Tom Jones. The next morning my mother woke me up saying “There are all these photographers at the front door”. I went down in my pajamas and was told I was No. 1. Now I’m 82 and still playing. I played the Palladium last year. If I didn’t play out of time they would throw bottles at me. Chris Farlow
Lieutenant Pigeon, Moldy Old Dough (1972)
We were a serious experimental group called Stavely Makepeace but we started making innovative instruments for a laugh. We recorded Moldy Old Dough in Rob Woodward’s mum Hilda’s front room in Coventry. He was playing the piano, and Rob told me, “When we get to the chorus, he growled ‘musty old dough.’ At first it died completely. Then a Belgian TV show used it and we went to #3 in Belgium. After that it snowballed. We sold two million copies worldwide and spent four weeks at No 1 in the UK. On our first Top of the Pops I watched Marmalade laugh their way through their set because off camera the roadie was showing them his ass. So when we did our Christmas show we had a drink, dressed up like a pantomime and put a decoy pigeon on the piano. You can hear our laughter on the show. The song has given us several years and will be released next year. It didn’t sink in how big it was until I looked out of the night train and the master from Decca said, “Each of those lights represents someone who was watching you last night.” Nigel Fletcher
Joe Dolce, Shaddap You Face (1981)
I had sold my house and moved with my wife and kids from Ohio to Australia to try to fix it. It was tough. We broke up after a year, but within six months I met the love of my life and got #1. I’m Italian-American and I wrote Shaddap You Face from memories of growing up in the kitchen where everyone spoke broken English. When I first introduced it, drunken crowds shouted “Hey!” after each line, that’s how I put it in the song. I recorded it in a studio owned by Mike Brady, who had hits, said “This song’s gonna be a monster” and released it first. In England, Terry Wogan said “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard”, so the song got a lot of attention. CBS flew me to do three TV shows and by the time I left, it was already No. 3. It went to No. 1 in 11 countries. In the UK it kept Ultravox’s Vienna off the top for three weeks, which drove Midge Ure crazy, but [keyboard player] Billy Currie said, “This is a good song. I wish we had written it.” Joe Dolce
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (1975 and 1991)
Bohemian Rhapsody was clearly a very important song for Freddie [Mercury], for the transformation. It wasn’t unusual for him to come in with different sections of something he was working on and strum on the piano. When we got it all together, the record company said “We can’t get a six-minute single on the radio.” We refused to process it. We had a sort of launch before it got mixed up. Kenny Everett stole a thick track and played it on the radio and it turned out to be radio friendly because it got everyone’s attention. We didn’t like doing Top of The Pops because they made you mime on the podium, so in three hours we made the video which became a huge talking point. We just got to No. 2 with Killer Queen, so we took the opportunity that if Bohemian got to No. 1 they should show it. The single spent nine weeks at No 1 and there was such a festive feeling that our manager made us lovely gold plaques. After Freddie’s death, it was the Christmas No.1 for the second time, raising £1 million for the Terence Higgins Trust. Young people think it was always there, like Beethoven or [Elgar’s] The grandeur and the occasion. Freddy would love that. Brian May Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every season, every week Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Sugababes, About You Now (2007)
I recently found one of my diaries from when I was 12 and one of my goals was to have a No. 1. I was such a dreamer that I wasn’t that surprised when it actually happened. About You Now was our sixth and final. We usually write together, but this song came to us from Dr Luke and Cathy Dennis. It was quite American, whereas we always sounded British. Dr Luke was quite stiff with the sound and I struggled for my ad-libs, but it’s a very catchy song. After it was #1, I suddenly read that I was out of the team. No one had told me. I’ve had a long time to sort it out, but I’ve dealt with any feelings of betrayal and don’t associate the song with any sadness. It’s a thoughtful, romantic song that takes on a more nostalgic meaning now that we’re back together [as the original trio]. On stage I have noticed that we were singing it to each other. I was able to stop to accept it, because you can’t relive those moments. Keisha Buchanan
Gabrielle Aplin, The Power of Love (2012)
I made YouTube videos in my bedroom and then signed to Parlophone. It was all very exciting. I was asked to do the next John Lewis Christmas ad, which was huge at the time. Everyone loved them. I went into the studio on Saturday and submitted the song for the Monday deadline. They had chosen the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song with a very specific brief: “no lyrics on this bit” and so on. I wanted it to sound wintry, but not negative. When we did the commercial, the snowman animation wasn’t finished, so I was singing in this little red circle, but I loved it. I was buzzing when the song went to 36. Then it started to climb the charts, the label showed us a chart that showed we were following Bruno Mars. My manager said, “Well, your chart is wrong.” Waking up to find out I was #1 was crazy. I was 20, but it gave me a platform for my own songs. I have a new album coming out in January and I will always be grateful for that opportunity. Gabriel Aplin
Captain Tom Moore, Michael Ball and the NHS Voices of Care Choir, You’ll Never Walk Alone (2020)
I had no problem with Covid and saw Captain Tom on TV walking his garden to raise money for the NHS. Then I got him on my radio show and he was amazing. BBC Breakfast asked me to sing a song to celebrate its 100th lap, so I sang You’ll Never Walk Alone over Zoom. I could see him singing along, so jokingly he said, “Tom, we should do a duet.” Then I thought, “Could we do this for his 100th birthday in three days?” I had a backing track from a previous recording. Tom read the lyrics like a poem, but kept breaking into song. I sang in my bedroom. We had around 200 socially distanced NHS choristers. Everything was done remotely: we finished it at 3.30am. and went live on Zoe Ball’s show within hours. When we were in the charts with the Weeknd, he tweeted his millions of followers asking them to get Tom to No 1. The song grossed £33 million and Tom loved every minute of it. I had only managed #2, 34 years before, but it wasn’t about me. It was a spontaneous, precious moment, a man nearing the end of his life who was able to do something extraordinary. Michael Ball
