Are these really Scotland's best ever No1 hits?

The list of Scottish number ones - issued by the Official Charts last year - is an arbitrary mixture of guest appearances (Lulu turning up in the middle of Take That’s Relight My Fire), Reality TV talent show stars (Michelle McManus, David Sneddon, Darius), one-hit “wonders” (the wonder is they got to number one when it comes to Billy Connolly’s D.I.V.O.R.C.E. or Aneka’s Japanese Boy) or, in that peculiar habit the public have for rewarding the wrong thing, the worst songs by great acts. (Yes Simple Minds, I’m looking at you. I mean, Belfast Child, come on. See also The Shamen’s Ebeneezer Goode.)

We live in an unfair world where Billy Mackenzie never got to number one but Lena Martell did.

All of which being said, which of these Scottish number ones are the best? Which can Scotland be proud to say, “We made that.” Or at least, “That’s not terrible.”

What follows is my own choice. Fair warning, not all of these are great songs. Indeed, there are a couple, at least, that are frankly dreadful. But they are all at least interesting for what they tell us about pop over the last 70 years.

Lena Martell, in a less than naturalistic pose, shopping in Glasgow in 1962 (Image: The Herald)

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, Middle of the Road, 1971

You couldn’t say this, the second ever Scottish number one was actually any good. But its insistent handclapping and terrace-friendly chanting quality means you can understand why it would earworm its way to the top of the charts.

Of the versions I’ve heard - both Mac and Katie Kissoon and 1990s indie kids Lush have covered it (the latter a really strange, sugary attempt at the song) - Sally Carr’s vocal on the original is by far the most interesting. The problem with it is that the song doesn’t go anywhere. It just repeats and repeats the same motifs. It’s almost designed for DJs to fade it out early.

At least the follow-up, Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Dum, while still nothing great, brought a bit of variety to the mix. But it only got to number two. So …

Calvin Harris was huge on the dancefloors (Image: free) Dance Wiv Me, Dizzee Rascal featuring Calvin Harris, 2008

I tried to interview Dizzee once. It didn’t go well. But he is a proper pop star and he is the real motor behind this tune. Harris gets to offer a lyrical counterpoint and the tune is functional enough, but Dizzee’s rapping is what keeps it bouncing along. It’s no Bonkers, obviously, but it gave Harris his first number one. The first of many.

Afraid to Feel, LF System, 2022

LF System are Conor Larkman and Sean Finnigan, a West Lothian production duo who had previously worked as a roofer and in retail respectively. In the summer of 2022 they hit the top with Afraid to Feel, which samples the 1979 Philly Sound of I Can’t Stop (Turning You On) by American funk group Silk. (The duo had put the track together in 2019 but it wasn’t licensed by Warner Music UK until three years later.)

What makes it stand out is not just the way they couch their sample in an arrangement that is pure House, but the way they repeatedly speed the song up and then slow it down throughout. Add in Louise Clare Mitchell’s original soulful vocals and you have one of those lightning in a bottle moments.

Slik fans show their appreciation of Midge Ure's early effort (Image: free) Forever and Ever, Slik, 1976

This seems a much better attempt at boy band pop than anything the Rollers ever managed. From the church organ and church bell opening, the band’s Gothy Hildegard of Bingen-style chanting to Midge Ure’s doomy (if a little callow-sounding) recitation of the lyrics, this builds and builds and then … Unfortunately, the chorus kicks in. It is, I’m afraid, depressingly mundane. Ah well.

This still seems more fun than Midge’s solo number one If I Was (1985) by which point his dabbling with the New Romantic sound and synthpop had calcified into a kind of careerist pop that is hard to love.

Come to think of it, can’t Midge claim another number one with Band Aid’s Feed the World? He did co-write it, after all. That said, it’s more of a brilliant humanistic gesture than a good record.

Block Buster!, The Sweet, 1975

For some reason The Official Charts list of Scottish Number Ones doesn’t include The Sweet despite the fact that the band were fronted by Hamilton’s finest, Brian Connelly. But I’m making the executive decision to do so because this is quite simply the best single on this spread. From the siren going off at the start this thumping bootboy anthem is Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn’s greatest gift to Glam Rock (although the same band’s Teenage Rampage comes close).

Admittedly, I can’t really be objective because Glam Rock equals childhood to me, but this still sounds utterly thrilling, and proof that even the “Brickies in Eyeliner” end of Glam was pretty wonderful. How rich and strange the 1970s can sound 50 years on.

Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart in The Eurythmics (Image: free) There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart), The Eurythmics, 1985

Hold on a minute Mr Official Chart History. Annie Lennox did have a number one! With the Eurythmics. Alas, There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) is an ironcast example of my favourite pop theory: Worst song, biggest hit. Angel features one of Lennox’s most mannered vocal performances and a pretty but pointless Stevie Wonder harmonica solo.

That said, the Eurythmics were in their imperial phase in 1985 and they knew how to make a glossy pop hit. And this was huge. But Dave and Annie had made better records before. They would make better records afterwards too (together and individually). Angel is proof that you just can’t trust the British public’s taste.

Young At Heart, The Bluebells, 1993

Talking about the “Worst Song, Biggest Hit” theory … Actually, I don’t really mean that. Young at Heart is a bit too jaunty for my tastes (in counterpart to the sentiment of the lyrics), and I’m not overly keen on Bobby Valentino’s violin line (which also makes unflattering comparisons with Too-Rye-Ay-era Dexys inevitable), but it’s a good enough tune from 1984 that found an even bigger audience via a Volkswagen advert a decade later. It’s just that I reckon The Bluebells had better songs in Cath and I’m Falling.The “Pope of Mope” Lewis Capaldi (Image: free) Feels Like I’m in Love, Kelly Marie, 1980

Objectively terrible, obviously. And yet there is something in its amateurishness, the cack-handed, picture-postcard-seaside-ice cream-and-deckchairs Britishness of it, that is almost endearing.

Bizarrely originally intended for Elvis Presley, it was given to the Opportunity Knocks winner Kelly Marie (Jacqueline McKinnon on her birth certificate) and hit the top of the charts after initially finding its audience in Scotland. One could argue that Feels Like I’m in Love is an example of how even a transgressive musical genre like disco, one that emerged in the gay and black clubs of the United States, would eventually be tamed and find its home on a Pontin’s dance floor. But isn’t that the story of pop music itself?

We Found Love, Rihanna feat Calvin Harris, 2011

There is no more remarkable story in Scottish pop, surely, than that of Harris, who went from being a geeky DJ from Dumfries (Dumfries!) to reinventing himself as a pop giant (and Armani underwear model) and started working with Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Florence Welsh and, on We Found Love, Rihanna.

We Found Love is the best example of his ear for 21st-century pop plinkiness, combined with screamingly obvious yet screamingly effective musical build-and-drops. Get a proper full-on mega star to front the whole thing and you have a proper banger.

Someone You Loved, Lewis Capaldi, 2018

We’ll end with the “Pope of Mope,” as the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis once called him. Lewis Capaldi is the current face of Scottish pop, a funny, wounded man who has struggled with Tourette’s and panic attacks and who is anything but the hard man stereotype that was the default position of the Scottish male in the 20th century. I love him for that.

The music is fine, if a bit samey. But Someone You Loved was a decent calling card, a declaration of male insecurity wrapped in a powerful voice. Maybe Scotland is getting better at this number one lark.