Here’s a list of the songs that I performed in public for the first time during November 2025. Each month I aim to play at least one new song from each of the following repertoires:

• Songs that reached #1 in the UK.
• Songs that reached #1 somewhere else.
• Songs that have not reached #1 anywhere.

Songs that reached #1 in the UK

Date	Song (Artist, Year it reached #1)	Notes
Sun 2-Nov-2025	The Long and Winding Road (Will Young, 2002)	Also #1 in America in 1970. I used to play this on the piano back in the 1970s, following along with the first songbook I ever owned: 50 Great Songs by Lennon & McCartney. I recall a time when I played it through, in the room that my brother and I shared throughout my childhood. He stopped what he was doing and listened. And said complimentary things at the end. That didn’t happen very often
Sun 16-Nov-2025	First Cut is the Deepest (Rod Stewart, 1977)	A double A side with “I don’t want to talk about it”, which I have played many times
Sun 23-Nov-2025	Pink Pony Club (Chappell Roan, 2025)	Earlier this month we did “White Rabbit”. Here’s a different colour and a different animal, and I now have a 2025 #1 for my repertoire
Sun 23-Nov-2025	Telegram Sam (T Rex, 1972)	Like most of Marc Bolan’s big hits, fairly straightforward to play, but despite singing along to it for over 50 years I didn’t know all the lyrics: “Purple Pie Pete / Purple Pie Pete / Your lips are lightning / Girls melt in the heat”. I never knew that. Played 5 semitones lower than the original: E5 and A5 mostly. Chorus: C G Dm Em

Songs that reached #1 somewhere else

Date	Song (Artist, Year it reached #1)	Notes
Sun 9-Nov-2025	Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Elton John, 1975)	#1 in America. Mostly: A A7 F#m7 F / Bb C9 F6 Bb C9 G Dm / G C D
Sun 9-Nov-2025	White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane, 1967)	#1 in Canada. A bit of an “Alice in Wonderland” theme going on here, as Lennon & McCartney are both quoted as saying that “Lucy in the Sky…” took its imagery from there. I read recently that the late Linda Lewis was in a band called White Rabbit in the late 1960s, so this seemed like a good choice. F# / G / Ch: A C D A / Bridge: E A
Sun 9-Nov-2025	Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding, 1967)	In 2024 someone requested this when I was sat at a keyboard in a pub in Brentford. I didn’t know it then, but now I do
Sun 16-Nov-2025	Angie (Rolling Stones, 1973)	#1 in America. I’ve heard this covered a few times in the last few years, happy to add it to my repertoire

Songs that have not reached #1 anywhere

Date	Song (Artist, Year it reached #1)	Notes
Sun 2-Nov-2025	Lay Lady Lay (Bob Dylan, n/a)	A Bob Dylan song I had never attempted to play. I recalled Simon Le Bon saying, back in the 1990s, that everyone learnt this song when the first learnt to play guitar. Not me. Duran Duran covered it on their 1995 covers album , “Thank You”
Sun 9-Nov-2025	Beautiful Boy (John Lennon, n/a)	Prepped very quickly on my son’s 21st birthday, and played later that day. “I can hardly wait / To see you come of age / But I guess we’ll both just have to be patient”
Sun 16-Nov-2025	Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Neil Young, n/a)	Neil Young turned 80 this month, so here’s a belated addition to my repertoire
Sun 23-Nov-2025	Three Little Birds (Bob Marley, n/a)	Chosen by my son. He performed it at an end-of-term show at primary school and he used the same set of lyrics (printed on light blue paper) that he used back then
Sun 23-Nov-2025	Into My Arms (Nick Cave, n/a)	Chosen by Mark Steel when he was on “Desert Island Discs” late last year. I didn’t know the song before that. Written in rehab, shortly after Cave’s brief relationship with PJ Harvey. Released in 1997, and sung at Michael Hutchence’s funeral. The views expressed in the lyrics are not necessarily my own

Running Total of all songs played at least once, without referring to chord charts or lyric sheets:

UK #1s: 217 / Non-UK #1s: 104 / Not #1 anywhere: 110 / Grand Total: 431