THIS WEEK IN 1964
1 You’re My World Cilla Black 2 It’s Over Roy Orbison 3 No Particular Place To Go Chuck Berry 4 Someone, Someone Brian Poole and the Tremeloes 5 Juliet Four Pennies 6 Constantly Cliff Richard 7 Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt The Shadows 8 Here I Go Again The Hollies 9 My Guy Mary Wells 10 Shout Lulu and the Luvvers
A top ten UK singles chart from 56 years ago this week packed with classic songs of the sixties era, including ‘It’s Over’, ‘No Particular Place To Go’, ‘My Guy’, ‘Shout’ and ‘You’re My World’.
Cilla Black had a string of top ten hits in the UK throughout the 1960s but ‘You’re My World’ was her final number one. It was only her third release and followed on from the success of ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’, also a No. 1 hit for the Liverpool singer in 1964.
‘You’re My World’ started life in 1963 as the little known ‘Il mio mondo’ (‘My World’), co-written by Italian singer-songwriters Umberto Bindi and Gino Paoli.
Cilla Black had some friends in high places in the early stages of her career, being championed by The Beatles and their producer George Martin. It was Martin who unearthed ‘Il mio mondo’ and saw the potential for Black. American songwriter Carl Sigman was asked to write some English lyrics and the single was cut at Abbey Road Studios.
‘You’re My World’ spent four weeks at number one in the UK. It also topped the chart in Australia, and was a No. 2 hit in New Zealand.
While ‘Anyone Who Had A Heart’ had given Cilla a number one in Ireland, ‘You’re My World’ peaked at No. 2 here, denied the top spot by a curious ‘joint’ number one (Eileen Reid’s ‘Fallen Star’ and Dickie Rock’s ‘I’m Yours’), and subsequently by Millie’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’ and Orbison’s ‘It’s Over’.
Our top three artists this week are no longer with us. Cilla died in 2015 at the age of 72 after a fall in her Spanish villa; Roy Orbison died in 1988 from a heart attack at the age of 52; and Chuck Berry died, aged 90, in 2017.