5 October 1962
Here’s the very first official Irish number one single, sitting on an Irish top ten—no Top 30 Hits on the fledgling RTÉ in its first year of service—compiled by future sports commentator and factoid maven Jimmy Magee. And our first Irish number one act is none other than Elvis, who at that time was the world’s biggest singing star and evidently no longer needed his surname on record sleeves (above).
For all his raw talent and charisma in the ’50s, by 1962 Elvis Presley was a sort of American Daniel O’Donnell crooning schmaltzy heartbreak ballads like ‘She’s Not You’. Okay, it’s not his fault that we’re only first meeting him after his glory days and his stint in the US army. Still, I’ve checked my notes and the guy simpering his way through this lethargic, velveteen doo-wop is indeed The King Of Rock And Roll. Not helping his case: backing vocal group The Jordanaires throw in some retro-even-for-1962 “bom-a-bom-a-bom-a-bom” – perhaps for grannies, who at that point in time had been alive in the reign of Queen Victoria.
Sources differ on whether the exact date of the first official Irish singles chart is October the first, third or fifth. I’ve gone with 5 October as I’m sticking to the Wikipedia-listed dates for consistency. By coincidence, 5 October 1962 was also the date of the release of debut single ‘Love Me Do’ by The Beatles and the world premiere of the first James Bond film, Dr No. At the end of that momentous day Elvis’s relevancy was in ruins; in ’60s pop-culture terms The Beatles and Bond would prove to be, in the famous words of our first Irish singles chart compiler, different class.
