Retro top 10
THIS WEEK IN 1976
1 Save Your Kisses For Me Brotherhood of Man
2 Fernando Abba
3 Jungle Rock Hank Mizell
4 Love Me Like I Love You Bay City Rollers
5 S-S-S Single Bed Fox
6 Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To) Diana Ross
7 Girls Girls Girls Sailor
8 I’m Mandy Fly Me 10CC
9 Get Up And Boogie Silver Convention
10 Disco Connection Isaac Hayes ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’ was in the middle of a six-week run at the top of the UK charts at the time of this top ten in late April, 1976.
The song had claimed victory for Brotherhood of Man and the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest final in The Hague on April 3. A worldwide hit, reaching number one in many countries (including Ireland), ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’ would go on to become the UK’s biggest selling single of the year with over a million sales.
Globally, the song has sold in excess of six million and is the biggest-selling Eurovision winner of all time. But it nearly didn’t make it past the drawing board and on to the Eurovision stage. Brotherhood of Man shelved it on first hearing in 1974. And it was only put forward for Eurovision after a change in qualifying rules from nominated performers to singers performing their own songs.
Brotherhood of Man’s chart heyday was the seventies when they enjoyed two more No. 1 hits, ‘Figaro’ and ‘Angelo’, but they are still going strong today and in much demand on the nostalgia circuit.
‘Fernando’, which followed ‘Save Your Kisses...’ into the number one spot, is recognised as Abba’s biggest selling single, with over ten million copies sold. The Swedish foursome, who had themselves won the Eurovision just two years earlier, also scored two other number ones in 1976, with ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Dancing Queen’.
The 1976 Eurovision Song Contest took place in the Netherlands as a result of Teach-In’s victory with ‘Ding-a-dong’ the year before. After a four-decade drought, Duncan Lawrence reclaimed the Eurovision crown for the Netherlands last year, but this year’s contest scheduled for Rotterdam on May 16 has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.