Favorite BIG #1 HITS Through the Years: 1960 Pop

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It's time to get started with a new countdown, this one featuring 25 songs that you may actually have heard! This is a countdown of my favorite #1 songs through the years, beginning in the year I was born. I'm doing both country and pop charts, and here's the first song from the top of the pop charts. 1960 (Pop): El Paso - Marty Robbins Yes, POP. This was the first #1 pop song of 1960. And, for the record, if anyone ever tries to tell you that the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" was the first #1 song over four minutes in length, call them on it. That distinction goes to this song. And this song is ALL story. There's no instrumental break anywhere. That's the mark of a great song. Another mark is that this, although clearly a western-themed song, was so impressive that it caught the Elvis fans' attention, allowing it to top the pop charts. Marty Robbins is one of those names that people unfamiliar with country music have at least heard. This song is one of the reasons why. He won a Grammy for this terrific movie of a song, dealing with a man who kills another in a gunfight over a woman. He flees, but he gets lonely ("my love is stronger than my fear of death"), so he returns to find the girl who caused all the problems. The posse is waiting, and that's the end of that. Not the end of the story, though: Robbins had two sequels to this song: "Feleena (From El Paso)," which is over eight minutes long, and "El Paso City." Yeah, that's milking it for all it's worth. Why not, though. This is a true classic, not just in country music or western music, but American music. El Paso Written by Marty Robbins Recorded by Marty Robbins From Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, 1959 #1 for two weeks, 1959-1960 Shouting and shooting: