24 July 1964
‘I Won’t Forget You’ went to number one in Ireland in July 1964, was deposed for four weeks by our next chart-topper, and then regained the number one spot at the end of August for a further six weeks. Why the second, longer run at number one? Well, it’s probably because on 31 July 1964 Jim Reeves was killed when the small plane he was piloting crashed in a storm just outside Nashville. Today we’re familiar with this dynamic, but back in 1964 that second spell at the top made ‘I Won’t Forget You’ the first posthumous Irish number one single.
As well as the fortuitously elegiac title in situ, Reeves here also sings of loving you “’til the breath in my body is gone”. Those morbid coincidences are all that’s of interest in this creaking, shuffling country ballad. Still, it had already been a chart-topper while Reeves was still with us, so people clearly liked it for what it is.
Jim Reeves will have five more top ten hits in Ireland during the two years after this. However, his real legacy is as the forefather of our country & Irish scene in general and Daniel O’Donnell’s schtick in particular. That makes him one of the most influential figures in the history of Irish pop culture. How would I explain this? Maybe his records and his persona just happened to crystallise what has become country & Irish’s peculiar mix of rural folksiness, Nashville exoticism, and old-fashioned values: a reactionary bulwark against the real-world cultural and social upheavals of the ’60s, ’70s and today. We should be thankful the country & Irish scene hasn’t found politics – yet.
Irish Number Ones 