What was the number one song in the UK on 7th November 1953?
“Answer Me” by David Whitfield was Number One on 7th November 1953 and it remained at number one for 1 weeks. This guy had a lot of “firsts”
He was the first UK male vocalist to earn a gold disc and the third overall. He was the first to reach the Top Ten of the Billboard Top 100, and the first artist from Britain to sell over a million copies of a record in the US.
I really hope he got his answer and it was the one that he was hoping for.
Wikipedia
“Answer Me” is a popular song, originally written 1952 (with German lyrics) under the title “Mütterlein” by Gerhard Winkler and Fred Rauch. The English lyrics were written by Carl Sigman in 1952.
After the song was recorded by David Whitfield and Frankie Laine in 1953, the “religious” version was banned by the BBC after complaints. Nevertheless, it still reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, after another version was written by Sigman in which, instead of directing the question to God about why the singer has lost his love, the lyric is addressed directly to the lost lover. In the new lyric, “Answer me, Lord above…” is changed to “Answer me, oh my love…” with other appropriate changes. The new song, entitled “Answer Me, My Love,” was again recorded by Laine and Whitfield, but became a bigger U.S. hit for Nat King Cole in 1954.
Whitfield’s version reached the top spot in the UK Singles Chart first, followed swiftly by Laine’s. On 13 November 1953, for the first but not only time in chart history, one version of a song was knocked off the top by another version of the same song. Four weeks later, for the only time in British chart history, the two versions of the same song were at number one together.
In Germany the song also was retitled and became a chart hit as “Glaube mir” recorded by Wolfgang Sauer.
Lyrics
“Answer me, Lord above:
Just what sin have I been guilty of?
Tell me how I came to lose my love
Please answer me, oh, Lord
She was mine yesterday
An’ I believed that love was here to stay
Won’t you tell me where I’ve gone astray:
Please answer me, oh, Lord
If she’s happier without me
Don’t tell her I care
But if she still thinks about me
Please let her hear my prayer
Let her know I’ve been true
Send her back so we can start anew
In my sorrow, may I turn to you?
Please answer me, oh, Lord
If she’s happier without me
Don’t tell her I care
But if she still thinks about me
Please let her hear my prayer
Let her know I’ve been true
Send her back so we can start anew
In my sorrow, may I turn to you?
Please answer me, oh, Lord“
The Playlist
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