ANSWER ME
by FRANKIE LAINE

American singer and actor Frankie Laine became one of the first record-breakers on the UK Official Singles Chart when he spent over six months at Number 1 across 1953 (with a record-breaking non-consecutive 18 weeks with I Believe) and was the first act to have three chart-toppers in one year.

Answer Me was written by German songwriter Gerhard Winkler and Austrian songwriter Fred Rauch and was originally known as Mütterlein, before having English lyrics written for it by US songwriter Carl Sigman. In a chart first, Frankie’s version had originally knocked off another version of Answer Me from the top spot by Hull-born singer David Whitfield, which at one point was actually joint Number 1 with Frankie a week before the Christmas chart, however Frankie’s version triumphed a week later to claim the UK Official Singles Chart Christmas Number 1. As if that wasn’t enough record-breaking, at one point in November Frankie had three songs in the Top Five with Answer Me, I Believe and Hey Joe. Not bad going!