I return to the subject of pronouns, something I wrote about in this post back in 2016. In case you need a reminder of what pronouns are, there are explanations in that earlier piece.

You might receive emails these days from people who specify their preferred use of pronouns, typically he/him, she/her or they/their. I have not yet received any emails that suggest “it/its” but things are changing all the time. You might have started to specify your preferred pronouns too.

There are people who get rather animated about this subject, people who declare that we are being patrolled by something called “The Woke Police”, and that they feel there should be a “War on Woke”. I am not one of those people, and I am not going any further down that route. Instead, I offer some facts about UK #1 singles that contain pronouns, going right back to the very first chart-topper, “Here in My [first person singular possessive pronoun} Heart” by Al Martino.

Including foreign language titles, such as “O Mein Papa” and “Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus” there have been over 450 instances of the UK #1 containing at least one pronoun, totalling over 1150 weeks of chart history. Discounting songs that had multiple runs at the top, either in their original version, or covered by other artists, there have been just over 420 different songs containing pronouns that made it to #1. There are four shared song titles in that list (“Same title different song”): “Let’s Dance”, “My Love”, “Hold My Hand” and “I Don’t Care”. Yes, I am including “Let’s Dance” (a contraction of “Let Us Dance”) as containing a pronoun. I also include the word “U” as a pronoun when used in that sense, as in “Nothing Compares 2U” and in the most recent chart-topper to contain a pronoun, “Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo.

1957 was the only calendar year when none of the songs that made it to #1s contained any kind of pronoun in their title.

I have been prompted to reflect on these things by my recent habit of checking, every day, what was #1 on this date going back to 1953 (the first full year of chart history). I have noticed, in particular, songs that contain multiple pronouns. It was a big thing around this time of the year in the early-to-mid 1960s, as shown by these examples: “Tell Laura I Love Her” (1960), “Well I Ask You” (1961), “She’s Not You” (1962), “She Loves You” (1963), “You Really Got Me” (1964), “I Got You Babe” (1965). All of these songs were #1 in August or September (or both) in their respective years.

In 1962, “She’s Not You” replaced “I Remember You”, which had itself replaced “I Can’t Stop Loving You” at the top of the charts.

In 1963, “She Loves You” was replaced by “Do You Love Me”, which was followed by “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (just the one pronoun there), then “She Loves You” returned to the top until “I Want to Hold Your Hand” started its 5-week run in December. From “How Do You Do It?” In April 1963 through to January 1964, when “Glad All Over” ended the run, every UK chart-topper contained at least one pronoun in its title, although two of them had the relevant word in brackets, as shown here:

Every UK chart-topper that contains at least two pronouns

To finish, here’s a list of every UK chart-topper that contains at least two pronouns (107 titles, totalling 300 weeks at #1). From me to you, as it were.