
When I thought about what to do for the year’s “bonus” day, my first thought was to list a bunch bunch of songs about “leaping” and “jumping.” Then I thought that was just too easy. So I decided to take another musical look at February 29th.
I present to you a look at songs that have the honor of being number one on Leap Day. So let’s leap back to 1940 …
2/29/40 – Glenn Miller and his Orchestra had the number one song with their best known song. In the Mood.
2/29/44 it was Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra with My Heart Tells Me
2/29/48 – Art Mooney was feeling lucky with I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover
2/29/52 – Johnny Ray was shedding tears with his number one – Cry.
2/29/56 – The Nelson Riddle Orchestra took us to Lisbon Antigua
2/29/60 – It was Percy Faith and his orchestra with The Theme From a Summer Place.
2/29/64 – Of course, in 64 it had to be a Beatles song – I Want to Hold Your Hand was on top of the charts.
2/29/68 Yet another instrumental was number one. This time, Love is Blue from Paul Mauriat
2/29/72 – Harry Nilsson lamented about living Without You
2/29/76 – A TV Tune was number one. The Theme from S.W.A.T. from Rhythm Heritage
2/29/80 – Classic Queen! Freddy Mercury and the boys sat at number one with Crazy Little Thing Called Love.
2/29/84 – A song about leaping/jumping …. Jump from Van Halen
2/29/88 – George Michael took the top spot with Father Figure
2/29/92 – The is some confusion as to this particular year, however, the chart is dated 2/29/92 and it says the number one was held by Mr. Big – To Be With You (some people say Right Said Fred – I’m Too Sexy)
2/29/96 – It was the amazing pairing of Boys II Men and Mariah Carey on One Sweet Day
2/29/2000 the group Savage Garden hit number one with a forgotten favorite – I Knew I Loved You
2/29/04 Usher said “Yeah!” about having the number one tune. Any time I think of Lil Jon, I think of that sketch on the Dave Chappelle Show … LOL
2/29/08 – Flo-Rida hit number one with a song that still makes people dance – Low
2/29/12 Kelly Clarkston held the number one spot with Stronger
2/29/16 Justin Beiber was sitting at number one with Love Yourself
2/29/20 it was a song that I find to be a total piece of garbage. The lyrics disgust me and the fact that it was a number one song really makes me sick. I’ll just mention it, but I certainly will not be posting it here. The Box by Roddy Ricch.
As for today, it seems that Beyonce is at number one with something called Texas Hold ‘Em. I read the lyrics. Never heard it. I don’t care to.
Final thoughts? There were a lot of instrumentals on Leap Day! There were certainly some good tunes, some long forgotten, and some crap. Music is subjective. Any stick out for you?
Happy Leap Day!
THATS a lot of leap year songs! I love hope the Theme of Swat shows up….I love it!
Great post Keith
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Glad you enjoyed, pal!!
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I never thought about leap day with the charts…it’s pretty cool. Wide selection.
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Fun to see the progression of music over that time for sure
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Good list, I think Percy Faith, Beatles and Mr Big were only ones in 20th Century actually on a chart released Feb. 29. Never thought of it but ‘Jump’ did fit the day I guess.
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There are a couple songs with “Leap” in the title, but most that came up had “Jump” in them.
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btw, you’re not missing much not hearing that Beyonce song. My sweetie loves it and apparently it’s all over You tube in their ‘shorts’ areas …it is semi-country which is a surprise from her, but it gets very cloying to me after I heard it three or four times.
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I’m not planning on listening to it unless I can’t prevent it …
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I used to play love is blue over and over
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That one used to come up a lot on our Countdown shows on WHND. Great song!
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Interesting list Keith! Sorry I can’t help myself, “Poor old Johnnie Ray
sounded sad upon the radio” (Dexy’s Midnight Runners, “Come On Eileen”)
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I always laughed at Stan Freberg’s satirical take on Ray. His over-exaggerated vocals on “Try” were hilarious to me!
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That’s great!
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