20 May 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	11	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
2	2	8	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
3	6	5	Total Eclipse of the Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
4	5	6	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
5	4	11	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
6	3	9	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
7	15	4	Let’s Dance	–	David Bowie
8	12	3	Der Kommisar	–	After the Fire
9	11	5	Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
10	8	9	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
11	7	15	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
12	19	3	Mr. Roboto	–	Styx
13	9	16	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
14	14	10	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
15	New	1	Sweet Dreams (are Made of This)	–	Eurythmics
16	16	5	Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life	–	Margino
17	17	9	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
18	13	14	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
19	20	2	I Loved ’em Everyone	–	Billy Forrest
20	10	19	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross

Bubbling under:

Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life	–	Indeep
She Blinded Me With Science	–	Thomas Dolby
Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)	–	Journey
Old Flames	–	Foster & Allen
Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)	–	A Flock Of Seagulls
Another Shore	–	Karl Kikillus
Get The Balance Right	–	Depeche Mode

‘Up Where We Belong’ by Joe Coker and Jennifer Warnes enjoyed a 5^th week at the top of the charts keeping Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ at bay for a 3^rd week as the latter had been at 2 for that period. Other pressure came in the form of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ which climbed 3 from 6 to 3. Joe Cocker’s part in the number 1 hit brought the weeks at 1 total for UK acts to 300. The Brits were 53 behind the US acts for this stat.

Climber of the week went to David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ which moved up 8 from 15 to 7. It was his 3^rd time with the award. Bowie had seen a 9 place climb with ‘Sorrow’ which was his best climb in a week so far.

After The Fire’s ‘Der Kommissar’ and Styx’s ‘Mr Roboto’ were the other star raters this week with the former climbing 4 from 12 to 8 and the latter moving up 7 from 19 to 12.

Lloyd Ross’ ‘Vyfster’ took the faller of the week award with a 10 place drop from 10 to 20. It was sitting on 19 weeks and had been the oldest on the charts for 4 weeks.

There was only 1 song leaving the charts this week and that was Manuel & Dee’s ‘Save Your Love’. It had only lasted 2 weeks in the top 20 and both of them were spent at number 18. It would be the only SA chart hit for both Manuel (Escorcio) and Dee (Miller). Its departure left us with 4 local hits in the charts (‘Last Night A Deejay Saved My Life’, ‘Feel So Strong’, ‘I Loved ‘Em Everyone’ and ‘Vyfster’).

The new entry was ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’, a chart debut for UK band The Eurythmics. Comprising Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (no relation to Dave Stewart who had a hit with ‘It’s My Party’ in duet with Barbara Gaskin back in 1981), the duo had been in a band called The Catch which became The Tourists. The Tourists had 5 UK chart hits with 1979’s ‘I Only Want To Be With You’ being their best performer, getting to number 4 there. ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’ would top the charts in Canada, France and the US as well as getting to 2 on the UK ones. It would top all 3 of the local radio charts (Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702). In 1996 American rock outfit Marilyn Manson recorded a cover of the song which got to 28 in Australia and 50 in New Zealand.

The gap between the number of hits we had seen by American acts and those we had seen by UK acts was now 46 with the former on 661 and the latter on 615. This was the lowest it had been for 159 weeks as it was last this low back on 2 May 1980.

Bonnie Tyler became the 80^th act to reach 50 weeks in the charts. She was the 13^th woman to manage this. She also became the 68^th act to reach 600 points (11^th woman) while Michael Jackson became the 39^th act to reach 800 points.

While Margino’s ‘Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life’ was sitting at 16 this week, the original by Indeep was knocking on the top 20 door as it was the official bubble this week. However, this would be the last ever top 20 broadcast and before you start panicking and saying that I have kept on going on about the charts ending in 1989, they did as next week we would see the charts expanded to a top 30.

Youtube playlist:

13 May 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
2	2	7	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
3	3	8	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
4	4	10	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
5	7	5	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
6	10	4	Total Eclipse of the Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
7	5	14	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
8	6	8	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
9	8	15	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
10	9	18	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
11	13	4	Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
12	15	2	Der Kommisar	–	After the Fire
13	11	13	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
14	12	9	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
15	17	3	Let’s Dance	–	David Bowie
16	16	4	Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life	–	Margino
17	14	8	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
18	18	2	Save Your Love	–	Manuel & Dee
19	19	2	Mr. Roboto	–	Styx
20	New	1	I Loved ’em Everyone	–	Billy Forrest

Bubbling under:

Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

–

Eurythmics

It was now 4 weeks in a row at 1 for Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes’ ‘Up Where We Belong’ as it held off the challenge from Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ which spent a second week at 2. David Christie’s ‘Saddle Up’ and Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ were also unmoved at 3 and 4 respectively.

Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ was the climber of the week for a third week running as it moved up a further 4 places from 10 to 6. This was the 5^th song to take the award in 3 consecutive weeks. It was the only star rater this week.

Kajagoogoo’s ‘Too Shy’ took the faller of the week award for a second week running. It dropped 3 from 14 to 17.

Lloyd Ross’ ‘Vyfster’ moved on to 18 weeks in the charts and it was a 3^rd week for it as the oldest in the top 20. The 18 weeks meant that it equalled the record to date weeks in the charts for an Afrikaans song. It was Groep Twee’s ‘Daar’s Niks Soos Waare Liefde’ that had held that record, although some may not regard an instrumental track with an Afrikaans title as and Afrikaans song.

There was only 1 song leaving the charts this week and that was The Human League’s ‘Mirror Man’. It had managed just 3 weeks in the top 20 and peaked at 19. There had been 14 songs so far with a weeks count of 3 and a peak of 19. Only 1 song, Michael Jackson’s ‘Off The Wall’ had spent 3 weeks at number 20. The Human League would return to the charts at a later date.

Last week’s official bubble was the new entry and that was Billy Forrest’s ‘I Loved ‘em Everyone’. It was his 14^th hit overall and his 4^th as a solo act going under the name Billy Forrest. He had seen 4 hits as Quentin E Klopjaeger, 2 as William E, 1 as Dennis and 3 as part of a duet. Billy Forrest’s real name was William Broadman and ‘I Loved Them Everyone’ was originally recorded by a guy who had a similar real name, but recorded under the name T.G. Sheppard. His real name was William Browder. Sheppard’s version would give him his 7^th chart topper on the US Country Singles chart. Forrest was the 8^th act to clock up 14 or more hits and he sat tied with Neil Diamond and Elvis Presley for number of hits. He was now 3 ahead of the second highest local act, Barbara Ray, who was on 11. We now had 5 local songs on the charts and this would be the last time we would see 5 in the top 20 but we would see 6.

Phil Collins saw his weeks count reach 20 with 11 of those coming from ‘In The Air Tonight’ and now 9 from ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. These were his weeks as a solo act, he had also picked up 15 weeks as a member of Genesis.

The official bubble was The Eurythmics’ ‘Sweet Dreams’. They had not seen any SA chart action as yet.

Youtube playlist:

6 May 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	9	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
2	7	6	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
3	5	7	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
4	2	9	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
5	4	13	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
6	3	7	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
7	12	4	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
8	6	14	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
9	8	17	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
10	15	3	Total Eclipse of the Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
11	10	12	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
12	9	8	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
13	13	3	Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
14	11	7	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
15	New	1	Der Kommisar	–	After the Fire
16	17	3	Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life	–	Margino
17	18	2	Let’s Dance	–	David Bowie
18	New	1	Save Your Love	–	Manuel & Dee
19	New	1	Mr. Roboto	–	Styx
20	19	3	Mirror Man	–	Human League

Bubbling under:

I Loved Them Everyone	–	Billy Forrest
Fallen Angel	–	Karl Kikillus
Old Flames	–	Foster & Allen

‘Up Where We Belong’ by Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes spent a 3^rd week at 1, but it had a new challenge to compete with as Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ fell from 2 to 4, making way for Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ to climb 5 from 7 to 2. The jump of 5 places made it a tied biggest climber for the week with David Essex’s ‘A Winter’s Tale’ and Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ also climbing 5. They landed at 7 and 10 respectively. It was a second week running as climber of the week for Tyler’s hit. There were no other star raters this week.

There were also 3 songs sharing the faller of the week award with Kajagoogoo’s ‘Too Shy’ falling 3 from 11 to 14. Phil Collins’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ dropped from 9 to 12 and Blancmange’s ‘Living On The Ceiling’ fell to 6 from 3.

Lloyd Ross’ ‘Vyfster’ spent a second week as the oldest in the top 20. It moved on to 17 weeks in total on the charts.

Our time with 2 Afrikaans songs in the chart (again presuming you classify ‘Vyfster’ as an Afrikaans song) came to an end as Kupido’s ‘Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter’ was the first of 3 songs to depart the chart this week. It had seen a run of just 4 weeks and a peak of 16. This would be Kupido’s only SA chart hit.

Also going was Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band’s ‘Shame On The Moon’. It spent 6 weeks in the charts and peaked at 15. This brought to an end Seger’s SA chart career. He had seen 2 songs chart which managed a total of 15 weeks in the top 20 and his other hit, ‘We’ve Got Tonite’ had the higher peak as that made it to 11.

Last of the leavers was Hall & Oates’ ‘Maneater’ which got to number 2 during a 13 week run in the charts. As with Bob Seger, this would be the end of their SA chart career and also like Seger, they had seen 2 hits and also managed 15 weeks, however, the peak of 2 for ‘Maneater’ outstripped Seger’s best peak. Hall & Oates’ other hit had been ‘Private Eyes’ which got to 14.

The first new entry was a cover of a 1981 German language hit for Falco. He had wanted ‘Der Kommissar’ to be the b-side of his single ‘Helden von Heute’ but his record company thought ‘Der Kommissar’ was the stronger hit so they compromised and released a double A-sided single. The success of ‘Der Kommissar’ eventually led to it being released as an A-side in a number of other countries and it would top the charts in his native Austria and also go to number 1 in France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. However, it was an English language cover by British band After The Fire, that made our charts. Their version would get to number 5 in the US as well as going to 12 in Canada and 47 in the UK. It would also have a 1-2-3 peak record on the local radio charts, topping the 702 ones, going to 2 on Radio 5 and 3 on Capital 604. After The Fire had been around in various guises since 1971, but had only seen 2 minor UK hits previously, both in 1979 and they were ‘One Rule For You’ which got to 40 and ‘Lazer Love’ which made it to 62. In 1983 Laura Branigan recorded a song called ‘Deep In The Dark’ which uses the tune of ‘Der Kommissar’ but has completely different English lyrics.

The second new entry was also a cover version. The original of ‘Save Your Love’ was recorded by Renée and Renato and it spent 4 weeks at the top of the UK charts at the end of 1982, a run which included the Christmas week. The version that made our charts was by the local duo Manuel & Dee. Manual was Mozambican born Manuel Escorcio and Dee was someone called Dee Miller. Their version of ‘Save Your Love’ replaced the departing Kupido hit to keep the local hit count at 4. The Renée & Renato version would be voted the 5^th worst Christmas Number 1 single in the UK by the Daily Telegraph in 2014.

The final new entry returned Styx to our charts after an absence of around 2 years and 8 months. Their new one, and their 4^th SA chart hit, was ‘Mr. Roboto’ which was last week’s official bubble, and which was taken from the album ‘Kilroy Was Here’. It was the 3^rd of their 4 to be written by Dennis DeYoung (only ‘Boat On the River’ was not written by DeYoung, that one was by Tommy Shaw). The song would get to number 3 in the US, 4 in Switzerland, 8 in Germany, 11 in Zimbabwe, 16 in Austria and 90 in the UK. Locally it made 3 on the Radio 5 charts, 4 on the Capital 604 ones and 6 on the 702 ones.

After 5 weeks accounting for 10 or more of the top 20 hits, the solo males drop to just 8 out of 20 with groups and a duet each picking up 1 new one (net) to give us 7 hits by groups, 2 by solo females and 3 by duets.

Steve Kekana became the 66^th local act to reach 20 weeks in the charts while Styx celebrated reaching the 40 weeks milestone.

On the points front David Bowie became the 94^th act to reach 500 or more. He eased past The Marmalade who were on 500 exactly while Bowie had 502.

Billy Forrest, who had seen 13 hits so far, was looking to add to his tally as his ‘I Loved ‘em Everyone’ was the official bubble.

Youtube playlist:

29 April 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	8	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
2	2	8	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
3	4	6	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
4	5	12	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
5	7	6	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
6	3	13	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
7	10	5	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
8	6	16	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
9	9	7	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
10	8	11	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
11	12	6	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
12	13	3	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
13	14	2	Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
14	11	13	Maneater	–	Hall & Oates
15	19	2	Total Eclipse of the Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
16	15	6	Shame on the Moon	–	Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
17	18	2	Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life	–	Margino
18	New	1	Let’s Dance	–	David Bowie
19	20	2	Mirror Man	–	Human League
20	16	4	Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter	–	Kupido

Bubbling under:

Mr Roboto

–

Styx

The duet between Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, ‘Up Where We Belong’, held on to the top spot to make it 2 weeks in a row there. This clocked up the 350^th week for an American act at number 1. Last week’s number 2 hit, Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’, also spent a second week unmoved.

Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ took the climber of the week award with a 4 place jump from 19 to 15. This was only her 2^nd time with the award. She had clocked up 47 weeks in the charts in total and this was the 4^th highest total for an act seeing their second biggest climber. John Edmond took 48 weeks, Cliff Richard took 50 weeks and the leader for this stat was The Archies who took 60 weeks. This would be the only star rater climb this week.

Falling honours went to Kupido’s ‘Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter’ which dropped 4 from 16 to 20. This was the 18^th time an Afrikaans song had taken the award. Only 3 Afrikaans songs had seen 2 biggest faller awards and they were Al Debbo’s ‘Sonbrilletjies’, Ian & Dix’s ‘Sonder Jou’ and Anneli van Rooyen’s ‘Sewe Sakke Sout’.

After a massive 25 weeks in the charts (the tied 8^th highest by a song to date), F.R. David’s ‘Words’ finally left the top 20. It had spent 7 of the 25 weeks at the top of the charts and would be the only hit for F.R. David. ‘Words’ sat at 5^th place overall for points by a song and would have dropped to 8^th overall by the time the charts ended in 1989 (this is based purely on a top 20 and ignores positions 21 to 30 when the charts were extended).

‘Words’ had been the oldest on last week’s charts and that honour now fell to Lloyd Ross’ ‘Vyfster’ which was on 16 weeks. If you regard ‘Vyfster’ as an Afrikaans song (it was an instrumental with an Afrikaans title), then it was the 4^th Afrikaans song to be the oldest on the charts with Des Lindberg’s ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’, Glenys Lynne’s ‘Ramaja’ and David Kramer’s ‘Hak Hom Blokkies’ being the others to manage it. It was the 8^th instrumental to achieve oldest in the chart status.

David Bowie returned to the charts with his 4^th hit to date, ‘Let’s Dance’. Penned by Bowie, the song was produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers and it was his 5^th producer credit on an SA chart hit having produced the 2 Chic hits (‘Good Times’ and ‘Le Freak’), Sheila B. Devotion’s ‘Spacer’ and Diana Ross’ ‘Upside Down’. ‘Let’s Dance’ would top the charts in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Israel, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. That’s at least 14 countries. It spent 3 weeks at 1 in the UK and 1 week at the top of the US charts and would be his only hit to top both those charts. Bowie had now featured in our charts for 3 years running.

UK acts now accounted for 10 of the top 20 hits. It had been 68 weeks since last we saw a nation accounting for at least half the chart and it was also the UK acts who had 10 those 68 weeks back.

Michael Jackson became the 44^th act to see their weeks total reach 70 while David Bowie was celebrating 40 weeks in the charts and was the 117^th act to do so.

Unfortunately I don’t have the information for all the songs that were on the ‘Bubbling Under’ show, but I do have the official bubble and that was Styx’s ‘Mr Roboto’.

Youtube playlist:

22 April 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	2	7	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
2	4	7	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
3	1	12	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
4	8	5	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
5	3	11	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
6	5	15	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
7	9	5	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
8	6	10	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
9	10	6	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
10	11	4	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
11	7	12	Maneater	–	Hall & Oates
12	14	5	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
13	15	2	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
14	New	1	Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
15	16	5	Shame on the Moon	–	Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
16	17	3	Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter	–	Kupido
17	13	25	Words	–	F.R. David
18	New	1	Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life	–	Margino
19	New	1	Total Eclipse of the Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
20	New	1	Mirror Man	–	Human League

Bubbling under:

Old Flames	–	Foster & Allen
Save Your Love	–	Manuel & Dee
You And I	–	Eddie Rabbitt & Crystal Gayle
Mr Roboto	–	Styx
We’ve Got Tonight	–	Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton
She Blinded Me With Science	–	Thomas Dolby
The Other Side Of Love	–	Yazoo

After 4 weeks with Talk Talk’s ‘Talk Talk’ at 1, we saw a change in the top song as Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes’ ‘Up Where We Belong’ took over the number 1 spot from ‘Talk Talk’. This was the 6^th chart topper by a duet if you include Dawn & Tony Orlando (who had a number 1 with ‘Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree’) as a duet. It was the first duet to feature acts from 2 different nations as Warnes was an American and Cocker British. Adding 1 chart topper each to both nations, this would be the 100^th number 1 to feature an American act and the 95^th for a British act.

Blancmange’s ‘Living On The Ceiling’ picked up its 2^nd biggest climber award as it moved up 4 from 8 to 4. This would be the only star rater this week and it ended a run of 2 weeks with no song climbing 4 or more. This was the 7^th time we had seen 2 weeks running with no star raters.

Hall & Oates’ ‘Maneater’ and F.R. David’s ‘Words’ were the fallers of the week with both songs dropping 4 to land at 11 and 17 respectively. David was the 31^st act to be on 25 weeks or more when seeing their first biggest faller award while ‘Words’ was the 5^th song to spend 12 weeks or more as the oldest in the charts. Only 2 songs previously had gone on to manage 13 or more weeks as the oldest with Don Gibson’s ‘Woman (Beautiful Woman)’ managing 13 and The Staccatos’ ‘Cry To Me’ managing a record to date 19. ‘Words’ also eased into 5^th place overall for points by a song. It had now managed 392 and moved ahead of Jessica Jones’ ‘Sunday, Monday, Tuesday’.

We saw 4 songs leave the charts this week, the first being Billy Squier’s ‘Everybody Wants You’ which managed a run of 9 weeks and peaked at 13. This would be his only SA chart hit.

Also going was Kool & The Gang’s ‘Ooh La, La, La (Let’s Go Dancin’)’ which lasted 16 weeks in the charts and peaked at 3. This meant that their first 3 hits had peaks of 1, 2 and 3, although it was their second hit, ‘Get Down On It’ that topped the charts and their first hit, ‘Celebration’ which peaked at 2. We still had more to come from them.

Culture Club’s ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?’ became the 61^st song to have an equal weeks and peak figure as it left us after an 11 week run and a peak of 11. It was only the 3^rd song of the 61 so far where the weeks and peak figures were 11. There was more to come from them.

Last of the leavers was Eddy Grant’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Dance’ which had managed a run of 19 weeks and spent 8 of those at number 1. At this point it sat 22^nd overall for points by a song. There would be more to come from him too.

It was, however, not all bad news for Eddy Grant as he became the 23^rd act to replace themselves in the charts as his ‘Electric Avenue’ was the first of the new entries this week. Of the 23 acts who had managed this, only 1 (Cliff Richard) had done so twice. ‘Electric Avenue’ would peak at 2 in both the UK and the US as well as in Australia. It was only in Canada where it managed to top the charts, spending 1 week at 1 there. It also topped the Capital 604 charts and peaked at 4 on the Radio 5 ones and 11 on the 702 ones. ‘Electric Avenue’ referred to a street in Brixton in London which was the first market street to get electric lighting.

The next new entry was a cover of a song that had hit number 13 in the UK in the February of 1983 and that was Indeep’s ‘Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life’. The cover version that made out charts was by a local lass going under the name Margino. Margino was actually a pseudonym for Kim Kallie. Kallie had charted way back in 1969 with a duet with her mother Judy Page, ‘Montreal’. That time she went under the name Kimbo. The gap of 716 between hits was the 2^nd biggest we had seen so far, beaten only by the 752 weeks Marianne Faithfull had between 2 of her hits. This would be the all-time biggest gap between hits we would see for a local act. Margino’s version of ‘Last Night A D.J. Saved My Life’ would get to 7 on the Radio 5 charts. This brought the local hit count up to 4 and it had been 20 weeks since this total was this high.

Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ was the next new entry. It had been 258 weeks since Tyler was last seen on the charts (with ‘Loving You Is A Dirty Job’) and this was the tied 51^st biggest gap between hits to date. Three other acts (Peter Lotis, The Bee Gees and Peter Vee) had seen a gap this big. ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ was written and produced by Jim Steinman who had seen 1 previous SA Chart success in ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreams Come Through’ where he wrote, produced and was the credited act on the song. Tyler’s hit arrived at 19 on the charts and this spoilt her sequence to date as her first 3 hits had debuted at 17, 16 and 15 respectively. ‘Total Eclipse Of the Heart’ was her 4^th hit. It would go to number 1 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, the UK and the US, shifting over a million units in both the UK and US. It would also manage a clean sweep of number 1’s on the local radio charts (Radio 5, Capital 604 and Radio 702). The song featured Rick Derringer on guitar. Derringer had been seen previously on our charts back in 1965 as a member of The McCoys who had a hit with ‘Hang On Sloopy’.

The final new entry was a second hit for the Human League. ‘Mirror Man’ was a number 2 hit for them in the UK, kept off the top spot by Eddy Grant’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Dance’ for 1 week, then by The Jam’s ‘Beat Surrender’ for 2 weeks. It would top the charts in Ireland, get to 4 in Australia, 7 in Canada, but would only get to 30 in the US. Locally it would make it to 3 on the Capital 604 charts and 19 on the 702 ones but would fail to make the Radio 5 charts.

With Margino and Bonnie Tyler in the chart this week, it limited the weeks without a solo female in the charts to just 1 week.

Eddy Grant’s new one moved Guyana on to 4 hits (3 had been by Eddy and 1 by his brother Rudy Grant) and this moved Guyana into 16^th place overall for number of hits, moving ahead of New Zealand and Switzerland which were both on 3.

Bonnie Tyler was exactly the same age this week that John Denver was when his ‘I’m Sorry’ charted back in November 1975. This was the 34^th time an act had been exactly the same age as a previous act on the day they charted.

Jennifer Warnes saw her weeks total reach 20 while the average weeks the songs in the top 20 songs had been with us dropped from 8.65 last week to 6.9 this week. It was the 14 weeks since this figure had been below 7 and the drop of 1.75 in the average was the tied 8^th biggest we had seen in a single week.

Last week’s official bubble, Tomas Ledin & Agnetha Fältskog’s ‘Never Again’ not only didn’t make the charts but no longer featured on the Bubbling Under show. The new song most likely to make the top 20 was Foster & Allen’s ‘Old Flames’.

Youtube playlist:

15 April 1983

1	1	11	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
2	4	6	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
3	2	10	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
4	7	6	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
5	3	14	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
6	6	9	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
7	5	11	Maneater	–	Hall & Oates
8	8	4	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
9	10	4	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
10	13	5	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
11	14	3	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
12	9	19	I Don’t Wanna Dance	–	Eddy Grant
13	11	24	Words	–	F.R. David
14	15	4	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
15	New	1	A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
16	16	4	Shame on the Moon	–	Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
17	18	2	Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter	–	Kupido
18	12	11	Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?	–	Culture Club
19	17	16	Ooh La, La, La (Let’s Go Dancin’)	–	Kool & The Gang
20	19	9	Everybody Wants You	–	Billy Squier

Bubbling under:

Never Again	–	Tomas Ledin & Agnetha Fältskog
Let’s Dance	–	David Bowie
Total Eclipse Of The Heart	–	Bonnie Tyler
Electric Avenue	–	Eddy Grant
You And I	–	Eddie Rabbitt & Crystal Gayle
The Other Side Of Love	–	Yazoo
We’ve Got Tonight	–	Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton

‘Talk Talk’ by Talk Talk moved on to 4 weeks at 1 as it held on to the top spot, but it had a new threat to worry about. Tears For Fears’ ‘Mad World’ dropped from 2 to 3 to make way for Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes’ theme music from ‘An Officer And A Gentleman’, ‘Up Where We Belong’ which moved up from 4 into second place.

For a second week running we had no star raters as the biggest climb was 3 places and there were 3 songs that managed this. The first of these was Don Henley’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ which moved up from 7 to 4. Sharing the biggest climber award with this was Phil Collins’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ (up from 13 to 10) and Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ (up from 14 to 11).

On the falling front it was Culture Club’s ‘Do You Really Want To Hurt Me’ which took the honours with a 6 place drop from 12 to 18.

F.R. David’s ‘Words’ became the 13^th song to spend at least 24 weeks in the charts and it enjoyed its 11^th week as the oldest on the charts. It was the 8^th song to manage 11 weeks as the oldest.

There was only 1 song leaving us this week and it was Dionne Warwick’s ‘Heartbreaker’. The Bee Gees penned track managed a run of 17 weeks and a peak of 4. This was Dionne’s second best peak of her 3 hits to date, beaten only by ‘(Theme From) Valley of The Dolls’ which got to 3, however it was by far her longest run in the charts with ‘(Theme From) Valley of The Dolls’ only managing 10 weeks and her second hit, ‘I’ll Never Love This Way Again’ spending 11 weeks in the top 20. There was still more to come from Dionne.

The people compiling the ‘Bubbling Under’ show from the previous week got it spot on as the official bubble from then, David Essex’s ‘A Winter’s Tale’, was the new entry this week and it was his second hit to make our charts. It had been 373 weeks since Essex was last seen in the top 20 and this was the 19^th largest gap between hits to date for any act. Apart from getting to number 2 in the UK (denied number 1 status by Phil Collins’ ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’) ‘A Winter’s Tale’ did not manage to chart anywhere else that I can find. It didn’t even make any of the local radio station charts. The song was written by Tim Rice and Mike Batt, both of whom had already featured in the song writer slot on SA chart hits before. Rice had seen 2 previous hits, both which he had co-written with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, and they were Richard Loring’s ‘One More Angel In Heaven’ and Julie Covington’s ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ while Batt had given us Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’, Barbara Dickson’s ‘Caravan Song’ and his own ‘Run Like The Wind’

The departure of Dionne Warwick from the charts meant that we had no hits by solo female artists in the top 20. There weren’t any hits by groups with a female lead vocalist to be seen but we did have Jennifer Warnes and P.J. Powers representing the women, but both of those were as part of a collaboration. This ended a record run of 323 weeks where we had at least 1 song by a solo female act in the top 20.

On the bubbling under show we saw Thomas Ledin teaming up with Abba’s Agnetha Faltksgog to bring us a hit called ‘Never Again’. The song had recently made it to 3 on the Radio 5 charts.

Youtube playlist:

8 April 1983

TW	LW	Weeks	Song		Artist
1	1	10	Talk Talk	–	Talk Talk
2	2	9	Mad World	–	Tears for Fears
3	3	13	Vyfster	–	Lloyd Ross
4	5	5	Up Where We Belong	–	Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
5	4	10	Maneater	–	Hall & Oates
6	6	8	Feel so Strong	–	Steve Kekana and PJ Powers with Hotline
7	8	5	Dirty Laundry	–	Don Henley
8	10	3	Living on the Ceiling	–	Blancmange
9	7	18	I Don’t Wanna Dance	–	Eddy Grant
10	11	3	Saddle Up	–	David Christie
11	9	23	Words	–	F.R. David
12	12	10	Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?	–	Culture Club
13	14	4	You Can’t Hurry Love	–	Phil Collins
14	15	2	Billie Jean	–	Michael Jackson
15	16	3	Too Shy	–	Kajagoogoo
16	17	3	Shame on the Moon	–	Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
17	13	15	Ooh La, La, La (Let’s Go Dancin’)	–	Kool & The Gang
18	New	1	Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter	–	Kupido
19	18	8	Everybody Wants You	–	Billy Squier
20	19	17	Heartbreaker	–	Dionne Warwick

Bubbling under:

A Winter’s Tale	–	David Essex
Save Your Love	–	Manuel & Dee
You And I	–	Eddie Rabbitt & Crystal Gayle
Mr Roboto	–	Styx
We’ve Got Tonight	–	Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton
She Blinded Me With Science	–	Thomas Dolby
The Other Side Of Love	–	Yazoo

Talk Talk weren’t just all talk as their ‘Talk Talk’ spoke to us like no other song this week back in 1983. It spent a 3^rd straight week at 1 with Tears For Fears’ ‘Mad World’ lurking at 2 for a second week. Lloyd Ross’ ‘Vyfster’ was unmoved at 3.

Blancmange’s ‘Living On the Ceiling’ took the climber of the week award as it moved up just 2 places from 10 to 8. Obviously there were no star raters this week. On the other hand you had to work twice as hard to get the faller of the week award as it took a 4 place drop to scoop up the honours and this week it was Kool & The Gang’s ‘Ooh La, La La (Let’s Go Dancing)’ that was the faller of the week. It fell from 13 to 17 and gave them their 5^th time with the award.

F.R. David’s ‘Words’ was still in the top 20. It enjoyed its 23^rd week with us and its 10^th as the oldest in the chart. It was the 11^th song overall and the 3^rd by an act from the non-big 3 nations to see this many weeks as the oldest. The previous 2 by non-big 3 acts were Peter Maffay’s ‘You’ and Boney M’s ‘Rivers Of Babylon’. Overall 21 songs had managed 23 weeks or more in the charts.

John Cougar’s ‘Jack And Diane’ was the only song to leave the charts this week. It had managed 6 weeks and a peak of 12, not nearly as good a showing as his only other hit to date, ‘Hurt So Good’ which lasted 15 weeks and peaked at 5. It would not be the last we would see of Cougar, but by the time his next hit came along he would have become John Cougar Mellencamp.

The new entry brought the local content of the charts to 3 as Kupido’s ‘Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter’ joined ‘Vyfster’ and ‘Feel So Strong’ in the top 20. If one counts ‘Vyfster’ as an Afrikaans song, then it was 119 weeks since we last had 2 Afrikaans hits in the chart in the same week and that was back on 1 October 1976 when we had Glenys Lynne’s ‘Ramaja’ and Ian & Dix’s ‘Sonder Jou’ in the charts. Kupido (real name Johan Wessels), was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and moved to South African when we was 25 or 26. He was ‘discovered’ by Cora Marie after he sent her a demo tape. He wrote his hit ‘Was Ek Maar ‘n Digter’. The song had been last week’s official bubble. Sadly Kupido died in 2016.

Hotline saw their weeks total move on to 20 with 12 coming from ‘You’re So Good To Me’ and 8 so far from ‘Feel So Strong’. Also celebrating a milestone for weeks was Kool & The Gang who hit the 50 mark. They were the 79^th act to accumulate this many.

The official bubble was David Essex’s ‘A Winter’s Tale’.

Youtube playlist: