| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 5 | Venus | – | Shocking Blue |
| 2 | 2 | 6 | Holly Holy | – | Neil Diamond |
| 3 | 6 | 4 | Hitchin’ a Ride | – | Vanity Fare |
| 4 | 7 | 4 | Love is a Beautiful Song | – | Dave Mills |
| 5 | 3 | 5 | Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) | – | Edison Lighthouse |
| 6 | 5 | 6 | Reflections of My Life | – | Marmalade |
| 7 | 4 | 15 | Pretty Belinda | – | Chris Andrews |
| 8 | 14 | 2 | Travellin’ Band | – | Creedence Clearwater Revival |
| 9 | 10 | 3 | Arizona | – | Mark Lindsay |
| 10 | 15 | 2 | Bridge Over Troubled Water | – | Simon & Garfunkel |
| 11 | 9 | 9 | All I Have to do is Dream | – | Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell |
| 12 | 17 | 2 | Ma Belle Amie | – | Tee Set |
| 13 | 11 | 8 | Someday We’ll be Together | – | Diana Ross & The Supremes |
| 14 | 8 | 11 | Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head | – | B.J. Thomas |
| 15 | 13 | 13 | Without Love | – | Tom Jones |
| 16 | 12 | 7 | Whole Lotta Love | – | Led Zeppelin |
| 17 | 19 | 2 | Dankie | – | Lance James |
| 18 | New | 1 | Hey There Lonely Girl | – | Eddie Holman |
| 19 | New | 1 | Good Morning | – | Leapy Lee |
| 20 | New | 1 | Wanderin’ Star | – | Lee Marvin |
Shocking Blue clocked up a 4th week at the top of the charts with ‘Venus’, while Neil Diamond sat close by at 2 for a second week hoping to score his first number 1 with ‘Holly Holy’.
Creedence Clearwater Revival picked up their 3rd biggest climber award as ‘Travellin’ Band’ moved up 6 places from 14 to 8. This was the 5th time that a song of theirs had climbed 6 or more places, but 2 of the previous times they had missed out on biggest climber status, once with a 6 place climb and once with a 7 place climb.
Apart from ‘Travellin’ Band’ mentioned above, there were 2 other songs that made star rater status. These were Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ which moved up 5 from 15 to 10 and Tee Set’s ‘Ma Belle Amie’ which climbed 5 to 12. It was a 7th star rater for Simon & Garfunkel (the 26th act to reach this many) and a first for Tee Set. The latter’s hit was also the first song by an act from the Netherlands to be a star rater.
Raindrops were not only falling on B.J. Thomas’ head, but it was also falling on the charts as ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head’ fell 6 places from 8 to 14 to take the biggest faller award this week. It was the second time the song had taken the honours.
The Bats’ ‘Rebecca Stein’ was the first of 3 songs to leave the charts this week. It managed a run of 3 weeks and a peak of 17, their lowest on both fronts for the 6 hits that they managed. This marked the end of the road for them in terms of chart hits, however, they continued to perform and record for many years after this. The Bats spent a total of 45 weeks on the charts with the number 3 peak of their first chart hit, ‘Shabby Little Hut’ being their finest hour. They sat 3rd on the local weeks count list and 31st on the overall weeks count list.
The Staccato’s ‘Cry To Me’ finally finished its run in the charts. It had spent a massive 38 weeks in total and 26 consecutive weeks in the chart in this run. Both figures were records for total and consecutive weeks in the chart to date with the 38 weeks ending up being the all-time record and that includes the weeks songs spent in positions 21 to 30 when the charts were expanded. We would have to wait 2 years to see another song equal the 26 consecutive weeks and 3 years before we saw another song reach 30 weeks in the charts. Sadly for The Staccatos, this would be the last we would see of them in the charts. We had enjoyed 6 hits from them on the top 20 which had clocked up a total of 83 weeks and the 3 weeks at 1 that ‘Cry To Me’ had seen would be their best peak. They sat at the top of the local weeks count list, 15 weeks ahead of second placed Four Jacks & A Jill, and were 8th on the overall weeks count list.
The new oldest song on the chart was Chris Andrews’ ‘Pretty Belinda’ which was sitting on 15 weeks. Andrews had had 1 previous week with the oldest on the charts when ‘Yesterday Man’ took the honours.
Last of the leavers was Elvis Presley’s ‘Don’t Cry Daddy’. The song spent 10 weeks in the charts and peaked at 3, meaning Presley had still only seen 2 of his 7 hits to date not make double figures for weeks and kept his non-top 10 hit count to 1. There was more to come from The King.
The first new entry was Eddie Holman’s ‘Hey There Lonely Girl’. The song started out in 1963 as ‘Hey There Lonely Boy’ when Ruby & The Romantics took it to number 27 in the US. After its sex change, the song charted for Holman, going to number 4 in the UK and 2 in the US. In 1980 Robert John scored a number 31 hit in the US with his version and then 10 years later in 1990, Big Fun took a cover version to 62 in the UK.
Leapy Lee was back in the charts this week as his hit ‘Good Morning’ arrived in the top 20. Alongside ‘Little Arrows’, it was his only other UK chart hit, getting to number 29 there. In the US, while it did not make the main Hot 100 chart, it did manage a 55 peak on the Country Singles charts there. Elsewhere it would scrape a number 96 peak in Australia and reach number 18 in what was then Rhodesia.
The last of the newcomers was a man who was better known as an actor than a singer, and listening to this hit, the word ‘singer’ must be taken in its widest sense. ‘Wanderin’ Star’ was taken from the film version of the musical ‘Paint Your Wagon’ and Lee Marvin, whose film credits include ‘The Dirty Dozen’ and the film adaptation of Wilbur Smith’s ‘Shout At The Devil’, was cast as Ben Rumson. He insisted on doing all the singing himself and ended up with an unlikely UK and Ireland number 1 hit despite the film itself not faring very well. In the UK ‘Wanderin’ Star’ would spend 3 weeks at number 1 and in that time it would deny both The Jackson Five’s ‘I Want You Back’ and then The Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ a chance to be number 1 hits with both these songs sitting at number 2 while Marvin reigned supreme. Marvin sadly died on 29 August 1987 aged 63.
We were now halfway to equalling the longest period with no solo female artist in the charts as this was our 11th week of this phenomenon and the record to date was 22 weeks.
Chris Andrews celebrated his 40th week on the charts and sat 34th on the overall weeks count list. On the local weeks count list, Dave Mills made 9th position his own, moving 1 week ahead of Dickie Loader who fell to 10th place, and Mills was now 3 weeks behind 8th placed Billy Forrest.
The average number of weeks the songs on this week’s chart had been in the top 20 was dropping rapidly. 2 weeks previously it sat at 7.05, last week it dropped 6.9 and with the departure of The Staccatos’ ‘Cry to Me’ it fell further to 5.35, the lowest in 19 weeks.
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