Yesterday I set the following challenge. Can you name five songs that reached #1 in the UK that do not contain the title anywhere in the lyrics of the song? (Instrumentals don’t count.)

I linked to this page on the Trivia Menu in case you got stuck. It mentions two of the songs in a question towards the end of the post (question 4), and six more in the answer to that question.

The eight songs contained on that page are:

“Unchained Melody”, a #1 for four different artists: Jimmy Young (1955), The Righteous Brothers (1990), Robson and Jerome (1995) and Gareth Gates (2002).

“Bohemian Rhapsody”, #1 twice for Queen (in 1975 and 1991).

“Space Oddity”, David Bowie (when re-issued in 1975).

“The Ballad of John and Yoko”, The Beatles (1969).

“The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde”, Georgie Fame (1968)

“Maggie May”, Rod Stewart (1971)

“Do ya think I’m sexy?”, Rod Stewart (1978)

“Everything I Own”, Ken Boothe (1974) (he sings “Anything I own” throughout the song).

As well as these there are at least another 32 songs that do not contain the title anywhere in the lyrics. I have merged them with the original eight answers (40 answers in all) into the lists below, first in date order (the date when the song first reached #1) and then alphabetically by artist.

NOTE: Some of the titles here are very close to the words sung during the song, but they are not identical. For example, the title of the first Arctic Monkeys #1 is “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor”, but the chorus includes an extra word: “I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor”. Similarly, the first Manic Street Preachers #1 was titled “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” and the chorus also includes an extra word: “If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next”.

This list will be updated to incorporate titles after the publication date (September 2017).

Date order

Alphabetically by song