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RPM Top Singles number-one singles

  • Something (Beatles song)George Harrison began writing Something in September 1968 during a session for the Beatles' self-titled double album. He worked on the melody at a piano…
  • Get Ready (The Temptations song)Smokey Robinson produced the original 1966 version of Get Ready for The Temptations. This single marked a turning point in Motown history because it…
  • Help! (song)John Lennon wrote the lyrics to express his stress after the Beatles' quick rise to success. He told Playboy magazine in 1980 that he was subconsciously…
  • Let It Be (song)Paul McCartney dreamed of his mother Mary Patricia McCartney in 1956 after she had died of cancer. He was fourteen years old at the time.
  • Ticket to Ride (song)John Lennon claimed the song was three-quarters his own, yet Paul McCartney insisted they wrote it together during a full three-hour session.
  • Bohemian RhapsodyFreddie Mercury began developing the song in the late 1960s while playing parts of it on a piano. One early piece known as The Cowboy Song contained lyrics…
  • Eleanor RigbyPaul McCartney sat at a piano in 1966 and began experimenting with melodies that would eventually become Eleanor Rigby. He initially named the character Ola…
  • Paperback WriterPaul McCartney sat in his car driving from London to Surrey on a day in 1965. He thought about the words of his Aunt Lil who had asked him years ago why he…
  • The Long and Winding RoadPaul McCartney sat at a piano inside High Park Farm, his property near Campbeltown in Scotland. The year was 1968 when he began writing the melody that would…
  • I Want to Hold Your HandJohn Lennon and Paul McCartney sat in the basement music room of 57 Wimpole Street during late 1963. Margaret Asher taught oboe there, but the small space…
  • Hey JudeIn May 1968, John Lennon and his wife Cynthia Lennon separated due to his affair with artist Yoko Ono. The following month, Paul McCartney drove out to visit…
  • Rapper's DelightIn late 1978, Sylvia Robinson stood in a pizza parlour and heard Henry Jackson speak. He went by the name Big Bank Hank at that moment.
  • Penny LanePenny Lane is a road in the south Liverpool suburb of Mossley Hill. The name also applies to the area surrounding its junction with Smithdown Road and…
  • Lucy in the Sky with DiamondsIn 1963, three-year-old Julian Lennon showed his father a drawing he had made at nursery school. The paper depicted a classmate named Lucy Vodden with the…