| Pos | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 9 | Looky Looky | – | Giorgio |
| 2 | 4 | 6 | Zanzibar | – | Wanda Arletti |
| 3 | 2 | 11 | Cracklin’ Rosie | – | Neil Diamond |
| 4 | 11 | 4 | Look Out Here Comes Tomorrow | – | Dealians |
| 5 | 3 | 8 | Indiana Wants Me | – | R. Dean Taylor |
| 6 | 7 | 5 | You Can Get it if You Really Want | – | Desmond Dekker |
| 7 | 12 | 4 | I Think I Love You | – | Partridge Family |
| 8 | 6 | 8 | Woodstock | – | Matthews Southern Comfort |
| 9 | 13 | 3 | I Hear You Knockin’ | – | Dave Edmunds |
| 10 | 5 | 8 | Paranoid | – | Black Sabbath |
| 11 | 8 | 6 | Yo Yo | – | Chris Andrews |
| 12 | 10 | 14 | Cha-La-La, I Need You | – | Shuffles |
| 13 | 9 | 14 | Burning Bridges | – | Mike Curb Congregation |
| 14 | 16 | 10 | Black Night | – | Deep Purple |
| 15 | 17 | 2 | San Bernadino | – | Christie |
| 16 | 15 | 5 | Ruby Tuesday | – | Melanie |
| 17 | 18 | 2 | See Me, Feel Me | – | Who |
| 18 | 14 | 12 | All the Tears in the World | – | Dave Mills |
| 19 | New | 1 | Mango Mango | – | Tidal Wave |
| 20 | New | 1 | The Witch | – | Rattles |
Giorgio’s ‘Looky Looky’ became the 3rd song to not be affected by the New Year hangover and keep hold of the number 1 spot as it clocked up its 3rd week at 1. The other 2 songs to straddle a year end at number 1 were The Bee Gees’ ‘Massachusetts’ (67/68) and The Casuals’ ‘Jesamine’ (68/69). Wanda Arletti’s ‘Zanzibar’ climbed 2 to 2 to be the biggest threat to Giorgio’s dominance.
The Dealians picked up their first biggest climber award with ‘Look Out Here Comes Tomorrow’ moving up 7 places from 11 to 4. This was the 22nd time a local song had climbed 7 or more places in a week and position 4 was the second highest landing place for a local song doing so to date. There had been 2 local songs land at 3 (the highest position to date) after a 7 or more place climb. No other local song had ended up at 4 after such a climb.
There were a total of 3 star raters this week and they were the same 3 that made such a climb last week. Apart from The Dealians’ hit discussed above, last week’s biggest climber, Dave Edmunds’ ‘I Hear You Knockin’ climbed 4 to 9 and The Partridge Family’s ‘I Think I Love You’ moved up 5 to 7.
Black Sabbath were probably getting a bit ‘Paranoid’ that we no longer liked their song as it was the plummeter of the week (okay I know there’s no such word as plummeter, I just got tired of writing ‘faller’), dropping 5 places from 5 to 10.
The oldest on the charts remained unchanged with The Mike Curb Congregation’s ‘Burning Bridges’ and The Shuffles’ ‘Cha-La-La, I Need You’ both still in the top 20 and enjoying their 14th week with us.
Freda Payne’s ‘Band Of Gold’ was the first of 2 songs to leave the charts this week. It had lasted 7 weeks with us and peaked at 11. There would only be a total of 7 songs by women from the US which would spend 7 weeks in the charts (2 of which would be as part of a duet). Of these, only 1 would have a higher peak than 11. To date only 1 other song by a US woman had spent 7 weeks on the charts and that was Jeannie C Riley’s ‘Harper Valley PTA’ which also peaked at 11. ‘Band Of Gold’ would be Freda’s only SA chart hit. In the US she would see 6 songs make the Hot 100, while in the UK she has had 3 chart hits so far.
The other song to depart the chart was The Eric Smith Movement’s ‘Sacha’. It had spent a mere 2 weeks with us, both of which were at position 19. This meant that the last 4 songs to leave the chart having spent their last 2 weeks in the same position were local songs, the previous 3 being Steve Lonsdale’s ‘Both Sides Now’, John Edmond’s ‘Round And Around’ and Dave Mills’ ‘Love Is A Beautiful Song’. There had only been 6 local songs that had a lower points tally than ‘Sacha’s 4 and 1 other local song equalled this. It was also the lowest points total to date for an instrumental track.
Tidal Wave’s ‘Mango Mango’ was the first of the 2 new entries and it was the 10th song to have a title which was just a single word repeated. This includes Cher’s ‘’Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)’ which one can argue about whether to include the bit in brackets or not, and Ohio Express’ ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’ which was the only one so far to have the same word repeated twice. All others just have the word repeated once. Tidal Wave were the only act so far to manage 2 such songs as they had also had a hit with ‘Spider Spider’. ‘Mango Mango’ was Tidal Wave’s 3rd hit to date and all 3 of their hits had been writen by Terry Dempsey. Dempsey now had 10 SA Chart hits where his name appeared in the song writing credits. He sat tied 7th overall for number of hits by a song writer and joined Tony Macaulay as well as The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on this total.
Our other new entry was ‘The Witch’ by The Rattles. This was the 5th song by a German act to grace our charts and, according to Wikipedia was the first German record to make the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, however, this seems to forget Horst Jankowski’s 1965 hit ‘A Walk In The Black Forest’ which made number 12 there. ‘The Witch’ made number 79 in the US. They found more popularity in England where the song went to number 8. By the time this international fame arrived, the band had already been together for about 10 years. In 1962 they won the title ‘Best Beat Band’ at a competition in Hamburg’s Star Club which was famous for being where The Beatles played before they were famous. They also ended up playing at the other famous Beatles venue, the Cavern Club in Liverpool.
The arrival of The Rattles on the charts saw a new level of diversity to the top 20 as we had acts from 8 different nations represented. Apart from the usual acts from America, The UK and South Africa we also had Canadian, German, Italian, Jamaican and Dutch acts which beat the old record of 7 nations we had seen before.
The Who celebrated reaching the 20 weeks in the chart milestone this week. They were the 3rd act who had reached this level of weeks that needed 4 hits to get them there. The previous 2 were Four Jacks & A Jill and Jody Wayne, both local acts. Only The Kinks to date had needed more songs to reach their first 20 weeks in the charts and it was with their 5th hit that they managed it.
Chris Andrews moved into tied 13th place on the weeks count list, sharing the spot with Elvis Presley and Engelbert Humperdinck as all 3 acts were on 76 weeks.
Tidal Wave moved into tied 18th place on the local weeks count list, joining The Dream Merchants there on 17 weeks.
Youtube playlist:
SA Singles Charts 