Just for fun, I decided to create a list of songs that entered the UK charts on every October that I have lived through. I did the same for June, July, August, and September on other posts. I limited it to one song per year. It wasn’t until about 1971 that I was familiar with them at the time, but I did get to know the 1960s songs in later years.
When I say I remember or like a song, I’m not endorsing the lyrics or the artist. I don’t really take much notice of the lyrics. But some songs transport me back in time because I’d have heard them on the radio at the time. And in some ways, the ones that are most successful at doing that are ones that I hardly listened to in the intervening years.
It’s a bit of a struggle to find 21st Century songs that I like, but I hope that some of them will transport me back to the early decades of the 21st Century if I live another 20 or 30 years 😀.
- 1962: Love Me Do – Beatles
- 1963: Be My Baby – The Ronettes
- 1964: Walk Tall – Val Doonican (I remember singing this Irish song as a toddler)
- 1965: Get Off Of My Cloud – Rolling Stones
- 1966: Semi-Detached Suburban Mr James – Manfred Mann
- 1967: I Can See for Miles – The Who
- 1968: Harper Valley PTA – Jeannie C Riley
- 1969: Love’s Been Good To Me – Frank Sinatra
- 1970: Snowbird – Anne Murray
- 1971: Banks Of The Ohio – Olivia Newton John – all the kids in our area liked this one – murder songs were always popular. Other murder songs included Delilah, I Did What I Did for Maria and The Green Green Grass of Home
- 1972: Clair – Gilbert O’Sullivan
- 1973: Ghetto Child – Detroit Spinners
- 1974: Killer Queen – Queen
- 1975: Just A Smile – Pilot
- 1976: If You Leave Me Now – Chicago
- 1977: Name Of The Game – Abba
- 1978: Down In The Tube Station At Midnight – The Jam
- 1979: Crazy Little Thing Called Love – Queen
- 1980: Suddenly – Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard
- 1981: A Good Year For The Roses – Elvis Costello
- 1982: The Day Before You Came -Abba
- 1983: Unconditional Love – Donna Summer
- 1984: No More Lonely Nights – Paul McCartney
- 1985: Road To Nowhere – Talking Heads
- 1986: Think For A Minute – The Housemartins
- 1987: China In Your Hand – T’Pau
- 1988: Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi – Kylie Minogue
- 1989: All Around The World – Lisa Stansfield
- 1990: I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight – Robert Palmer and UB40
- 1991: Black Or White – Michael Jackson
- 1992: Be My Baby – Vanessa Paradis
- 1993: Both Sides Of The Story – Phil Collins
- 1994: Circle Of Life – Elton John
- 1995: Heaven For Everyone – Queen
- 1996: Say You’ll Be There – Spice Girls
- 1997: Spice Up Your Life – Spice Girls
- 1998: Sweetest Thing – U2
- 1999: I Saved The World Today- Eurythmics
- 2000: Trouble – Coldplay
- 2001: Candy – Ash
- 2002: There By The Grace Of God – Manic Street Preachers
- 2003: Mixed Up World – Sophie Ellis Bexter
- 2004: The Love Of Richard Nixon – Manic Street Preachers
- 2005: I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys
- 2006: Welcome To The Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
- 2007: Rule The World – Take That
- 2008: The Promise – Girls Aloud
- 2009: Haven’t Met You Yet – Michael Bublé
- 2010: Firework – Katy Perry
- 2011: Paradise – Coldplay
- 2012: Girl on Fire – Alicia Keys
- 2013: Somewhere Only We Know – Lily Allen
- 2014: Steal My Girl – One Direction
- 2015: Writing’s On the Wall – Sam Smith
- 2016: Rockabye – Clean Bandit
- 2017: Gorgeous – Taylor Swift
- 2018: Kiss and Make Up- Dua Lupa & Blackpink
- 2019: Memories- Maroon 5
- 2020: Wonder – Shawn Mendes
- 2021: My Universe – Coldplay
- 2022: Anti-Hero – Taylor Swift
- 2023: Stick Season – Noah Kahan
- 2024: APT – Rose and Bruno Mars
- 2025: Opalite – Taylor Swift
- 2026: Nicole Kidman – Adela
So, I’ll end by embedding YouTube videos of six of the songs on my list – I quickly chose an October favourite from each decade – just off the top of my head. These don’t all necessarly reflect my normal tastes in music, but they strongly remind me of each decade (I won’t bother with this decade 😀) :
When I commited my life to Christ back in 1980, I almost idolized pop music. Maybe I prayed that pop music would become so bad that I’d lose interest in it. If I did, my prayer has been answered! 😀 It has become worse, and contemporary Christian music has improved. But I do need to make an effort to like anything new. For both spiritual and secular songs, I like the old stuff best. But who knows? Maybe it’ll get better again at some stage.
I’m always curious about songs that touch on spiritual issues. Do any in my list do that? Well, I can see “Heaven for Everyone”, “Paradise”, “There By The Grace of God”, “Unconditional Love”, “I Saved the World Today”, “Road to Nowhere”. None of these are Christian songs, but maybe they might provoke some to look for answers. Romance looms large in pop music, and sometimes spiritual analogies come into romance songs. When you get older, you realize that romance is generally a temporary thing – nature’s way of ushering you into getting married. Family life is fun, but you don’t see many romance movies about husbands and wives 😀. I’m still glad to have experienced romance, but I long for deeper and greater joys. And the joys of this life are just a vague fortaste of what God has in store for His people.
So, here are a couple of hymns about true joy – a new one and an old one:
