Top of the Pops

Week Ending March 5, 1966 📻U.S. Singles Charts

What a week it was for the Top 40 charts! If there had ever been a lag in Beatlemania since the opening salvos of 1964, this was it. Rubberl Soul had come out before Christmas 1965, Revolver was in the works and under wraps. The only Beatle news for this week would be on March 4, when a British tabloid reprinted a John Lennon interview in which he observed that his band had become more popular than Jesus Christ.

A global public relations disaster was new territory for the Beatles, and the 1966 fun for them was just beginning. Before the month was out they would be posing for their next album cover, bedecked in butcher aprons amidst a blood-splattered set accented with chunks of raw meat and severed doll heads.

Smoke from Beatle bonfires and negative headlines opened opportunities for other artists.  Motown held down two of the spots with the Supremes fading after 8 weeks on the charts with “My World is Empty Without You,” and 15-year-old Stevie Wonder on the rise with “Uptight.” 

The Four Seasons had begun working themselves back to Jersey after 9 weeks, where they had peaked at #6. Further west, The Mamas and the Papas had managed to sync the time of year with a perfect song in “California Dreamin’.”  If there was such a thing as Broadway sounding folk rock, Colorado’s Bob Lind had nailed it with his “Elusive Butterfly.” Naughty Lou Christie craved more sex in his “Lightnin’ Strikes.”

Nature's takin' over my one-track mind (ma-me-aah, ooh)
Believe it or not, you're in my heart all the time (ma-me-aah, ooh)
All the girls are sayin' that you'll end up a fool (ma-me-aah, ooh)
For the time being, baby, live by my rules (ma-me-aah, ooh)

Nancy Sinatra dropped to second although her song “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” continued to kick chart ass, thanks to her delivery and her backup band, LA’s famed Wrecking Crew. Songwriter and producer Lee Hazlewood had told her to sing it like a 14-year-old girl in love with a 40-year-old man. He and arranger Billy Strange had debuted it for her in her old man’s living room. After they departed, Frank Sinatra, muttered, “The song about the boots is the best.”

Yet a most unexpected song sat in the top position, where it would remain at the end of the year when it was time to name the top selling single of ‘66. In a year of protests and peace signs, Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler had stood at attention with the biggest pro-Vietnam War song of the era, “The Ballad of the Green Berets.” The single went on to sell nine million copies, the album over two million,

First week of March, 1966. Boots on the ground, boots walkin’, lightnin’ striking, people listening. The California dreams of an elusive butterfly, my love, are uptight. Workin’ my way back to you where my world is empty. Without you. It is almost the spring of the summer before the Summer of Love.

This week TITLE –•– Artist (Label)-Weeks on Chart (Peak To Date)

1️⃣THE BALLAD OF THE GREEN BERETS –•– S/Sgt. Barry Sadler (U.S. Army Special Forces) (RCA Victor)-5 (1 week at #1) (1)

2️⃣THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN’ –•– Nancy Sinatra (Reprise)-7 (1)

3️⃣LIGHTNIN’ STRIKES –•– Lou Christie (MGM)-11 (1)

4️⃣LISTEN PEOPLE –•– Herman’s Hermits (MGM)-3 (4)

5️⃣CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ –•– The Mamas and the Papas (Dunhill)-9 (5)

6️⃣ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY –•– Bob Lind (World Pacific)-7 (6)

7️⃣MY LOVE –•– Petula Clark (Warner Brothers)-11 (1)

8️⃣UPTIGHT (Everything’s Alright) –•– Stevie Wonder (Tamla)-12 (3)

9️⃣WORKING MY WAY BACK TO YOU –•– The Four Seasons (Philips)-6 (9)

🔟MY WORLD IS EMPTY WITHOUT YOU –•– The Supremes (Motown)-8 (5)