Tom Petty never had a song hit number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Not as a Heartbreaker or as a Wilbury. Not as a crutch of mud. Not all by his lonesome. He got close to singing “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” with Stevie Nicks in 1981, but even that number fell just short of the top. It’s hard to get to number one.
And yet Rick Astley has done it. Twice.
I’ve been writing recently about all the terrible songs that have climbed the Billboard mountain in the rock & roll era, so today I thought I flip the script. Today we’re going to talk about ten great rock songs that didn’t quite make it. These songs climbed all the way to number two, but ran out of steam - or ran into a juggernaut – before crossing the finish line.
10 classics that never reached number one of the Billboard Hot 100
And please note – I’m talking rock & roll songs today. So if you’re looking for Eminem’s “Without Me” or Fetty Wap’s “Trap Queen,” that’s for a different list. “Drunk in Love” couldn’t match “Crazy in Love.” It stalled out at number 2, but I’m not talking about Beyonce or Jay Z today.
I’m not even going to mention Green Day’s highest-charting single, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” because it came out in 2004, and I am arbitrarily drawing the line on these classic rock songs at 2000. Sorry Green Day.
Don’t worry, we still get ten excellent rock songs that were worthy of being number one but didn’t quite get there. Let’s see why.
“Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles (1966)
Look at that, right off the bat you get a two-fer. The Beatles had so many spectacularly successful songs that they could afford to put out double-sided singles. These two songs were released together, and a weirder pairing could hardly be imagined. The exquisite chamber music portrait of loneliness, “Eleanor Rigby,” had nothing but harmonizing voices and strings. Meanwhile, the carefree nursery rhyme “Yellow Submarine” had sound effects galore. Geroge Harrison’s new wife Pattie Boyd was credited with “laughter.” It has a classic Ringo vocal.
Ringo songs weren’t supposed to be the hits. They were change-of-pace amusements. According to Far Out Magazine, “Eleanor Rigby” did indeed drive sales in the UK. But in the USA, concerns over John Lennon’s incendiary reference to the Beatles being “bigger than Jesus” caused the record label to push the harmless “Yellow Submarine” over the story of Eleanor and Father McKenzie.
Though it hit number one in the UK, it was not able to overtake the Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love” in the USA. Never fear – the lads had already scored a dozen number-ones and would rebound with eight more after this.