24th April, 1953 (9 weeks)
3rd July, 1953 (6 weeks)
23rd August, 1953 (3 weeks)
Frankie Laine scored a phenomenal hit with 'I Believe'. Despite not being consecutive, it reigned at the top for 18 weeks. As a comparison, the current record holder, Bryan Adams, is 16 weeks. Without being broken - for a week's length each time - the song would have scored 20 weeks at number 1. It goes without saying then, that this record was the biggest selling single of 1953
In the time that this song was Number 1, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Mount Everest was climbed and, for the first time in 19 years, England won the Ashes.
The song has, of course, since become a well known standard and has been covered by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and errr.... Robson and Jerome. Though considering the massive success of the song on this, its original UK Charts outing, I guess you can't really blame Simon Cowell for sticking his oar in as well.
In many ways it's a shame that this song didn't reach the full 20 weeks at number 1. That would have been a very impressive standard to set for all future records to follow. It would be easy to say at this point "Oh, it'll never happen again", which would be something I would totally disagree with. I mean, that's a bit insulting to today's youth - it was in 2008 that 'Umbrella' was at Number 1 for 10 weeks, becoming only the 5th song to break 10 weeks consecutively. It just takes the right song.
Clearly this was the right song at the right time, as it will be again.
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