| TW | LW | Weeks | Song | Artist | |
| 1 | 1 | 8 | Hak Hom Blokkies | – | David Kramer |
| 2 | 2 | 8 | One Day in Your Life | – | Michael Jackson |
| 3 | 5 | 5 | You Drive Me Crazy | – | Shakin’ Stevens |
| 4 | 3 | 7 | Chariots of Fire (Titles) | – | Vangelis |
| 5 | 4 | 9 | Chequered Love | – | Kim Wilde |
| 6 | 9 | 4 | Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around | – | Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers |
| 7 | 14 | 5 | Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain | – | Maria Tyl |
| 8 | 6 | 3 | Amour | – | Baron Longfellow |
| 9 | 11 | 10 | Tequila Sheila | – | Mac Davis |
| 10 | RE | 2 | How ’bout Us | – | Champaign |
| 11 | 8 | 6 | It’s Hard to be Humble | – | Mac Davis |
| 12 | 17 | 2 | Queen of Hearts | – | Juice Newton |
| 13 | 7 | 8 | Being with You | – | Smokey Robinson |
| 14 | 10 | 15 | Bette Davis Eyes | – | Kim Carnes |
| 15 | 13 | 16 | More and More | – | Joe Dolan |
| 16 | 18 | 2 | If You Go, I’ll Follow You | – | Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner |
| 17 | 20 | 2 | A Woman Needs Love (Just Like You Do) | – | Ray Parker Jr. |
| 18 | 12 | 4 | Winning | – | Santana |
| 19 | 15 | 15 | Kids in America | – | Kim Wilde |
| 20 | New | 1 | Urgent | – | Foreigner |
Bubbling under (thanks to Kevin Farquhason for the info):
| Elaine Page | Memory (official bubble) |
| The Specials | Ghost Town |
| ELO | Hold On Tight |
| Phil Seymour | I Really Love You |
| Bernie Paul | Oh No No |
| Kenny Rogers | I Don’t Need You |
| Jim Steinman | Rock ‘n Roll Dreams Come Through |
‘Hak Hom Blokkies’ enjoyed a 3rd week at 1 and now equalled the 2 previous Afrikaans chart toppers, Des Lindberg’s ‘Die Gezoem Van Die Bye’ and Glenys Lynne’s ‘Ramaja’ for weeks at 1. ‘Hak Hom Blokkies’ accounted for the 130th week with a local song at the top of the charts. Michael Jackson’s ‘One Day In Your Life’ continued to apply pressure as it spent a second week at 2 and previous chart topper Shakin’ Stevens was once again vying for the top spot, looking for a second number 1 with ‘You Drive Me Crazy’ which moved up from 5 to 3.
Maria Tyl took the climber of the week award as her hit, ‘Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain’ moved up 7 from 14 to 7. This would be the 2,000th star rater climb we would see on the charts. It was also the 15th time and would be the last time that a local woman would climb 7 or more in a week.
The only other star rater this week was Juice Newton’s ‘Queen Of Hearts’ which moved up 5 from 17 to 12.
Falling honours were shared between Santana’s ‘Winning’ (obviously he wasn’t) and Smokey Robinson’s ‘Being With You’ which both fell 6, landing at 18 and 13 respectively.
Joe Dolan’s ‘More And More’ enjoyed a 5th week as the oldest on the charts as it clocked up its 16th week with us.
This week saw the end of a 15 week run with at least 1 song by a Dutch act on the charts as ‘Hey You’ by Hey You dropped off the top 20. We had seen 9 runs of at least 15 consecutive weeks with a Dutch act in the charts with the best run being the 31 weeks which started on 13 December 1974 and ran till 11 July 1975 and featured After All’s ‘Help Me My Love’, Teach In’s ‘In The Summernight’, Heintje’s ‘Jou Hart Is Weer Myne’ and George Baker Selection’s ‘Sing A Song Of Love’. The current run of 15 weeks included the hits ‘Hold On To Love’ by Patty Brard, ‘Stars on 45’ by Star Sound, and Maywood’s ‘Distant Love’. ‘Hey You’ lasted 10 weeks in the charts and peaked at 15. This was the lowest peak for a song spending 10 weeks in the charts so far and beat the previous lowest by 2.
We also saw the end of a run having a French act in the charts, but this run was entirely due to Ottawan’s ‘Hands Up (Give Me your Heart)’ which lasted 11 weeks in the charts and peaked at 5. This ended their SA chart career. They had manged 2 hits (the other being ‘D.I.S.C.O.’) and spent 23 weeks in total in the charts. Both their songs peaked at 5.
Champaign’s ‘How ‘Bout Us’ equalled the record highest position for a song returning to the charts as it bounced back into the top 20 at number 10. Tony Christie’s ‘(Is This The Way To ) Amarillo’ and Springwater’s ‘I Will Return’ were the 2 previous hits to re-enter the charts at number 10. This was the 54th time we saw a song re-enter the charts with 5 of the 54 being a song re-entering the charts for a second time.
Foreigner retuned to our charts after an absence of 133 weeks, their previous hit (and only other one to date) ‘Double Vision’ having left the charts on 9 March 1978. Their new one, ‘Urgent’, was off their album ‘4’ which was produced by our very own Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange and the band’s ‘Mick Jones (not the same guy as the Mick Jones in The Clash). ‘Urgent’ featured a relatively unknown at that time Thomas Dolby on synthesizers and Junior Walker provided the saxophone sounds. The song would go to number 4 on the main Hot 100 charts in the US and top the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts. It would top the charts in Canada, go to 12 in Germany, 20 in Sweden and 24 in Australia. On local radio it would top both the Radio 5 and Capital 604 charts. In the UK it would initially only get to number 54, but was re-released a year later (with a different b-side) and would get to 45.
With both new entries being by American acts and neither of the leavers being so, we saw the American’s account for 12 of the top 20 hits and it had been 66 weeks since they last had this many in the charts. The Americans had now given us 615 hits compared to the Brits who had managed 559 and this took us back up to the all-time record gap between the top 2 nations of 56.
We also now had 7 songs in the charts that were at 1, had been at 1 or would be at 1 and it had been 76 weeks since we had this many past, present or future chart toppers in the top 20. We had already seen the all-time record of 9.
On the weeks count list we saw Joe Dolan move into tied 14th place as his 105 equalled Percy Sledge’s total. Dolan was the 3rd highest act from a non-big 3 nation on the list and was just 3 behind Boney M who were on 108 and could be regarded as Jamaican or German. Abba was not only the top non-big 3 act but also the top act overall, sitting on 224 weeks.
Kim Wilde was enjoying her 9th week with 2 in the charts and she was the 17th act, but only the second woman to see this many weeks with 2. The previous woman to manage this was Olivia Newton-John, but she had done so with different pairings while Kim’s effort had been with the same pair of songs (‘Kids In America’ and ‘Chequered Love’).
Youtube playlist:
SA Singles Charts 