The Daily Dose/March 12, 2025
By Gaylon Kent – America’s Funniest Guy™
Leading Off
Notes from around the human experience.
Editor’s Note: while working on today’s Leading Off segment, we thought the subject matter seemed awfully familiar, and some research showed we had written about the same thing on April 29, 2024. We offer this item again:
THE PLANET’S GOING TO HELL, BUT LET’S TALK SONG RANKINGS: Today’s Leading Off segment is inspired by yesterday’s trivia question, which concerned Billboard’s biggest song for 1962. The answer is Stranger on the Shore, by an English act named Mr Acker Bilk.
Dry, Technical Matter: That Billboard ranked it as their #1 song of the year is almost interesting because the song only spent one week at the top, a rather short amount of time for year-end chart-topper, especially when you consider three songs that year spent five weeks at #1.
Need To Know: Billboard’s specific formula for their year-end rankings is kept secret – sort of like the Colonel’s combination of eleven herbs and spices. But it is generally known to involve an inverse points system – a point for a week at #100, a hundred points for a week at #1 and so on – plus some other factors.
Oh, Jesus H: It should be noted, too, that over the years this system has resulted in a non-#1 song ending the year at #1.
WTF: We have never understood this methodology for ranking songs at all; for our money the most weeks at #1 takes precedence, with ties broken by the most weeks in the Top 10 and if that doesn’t break the tie, then most weeks in the Top 40 and then most weeks in the Hot 100.
Running The Numbers: Using this methodology, the #1 song of 1962 is I Can’t Stop Loving You by Ray Charles, which spent five weeks at #1 and eleven weeks in the Top 10, giving it the nod over two Four Seasons songs – Big Girls Don’t Cry and Sherry – which also spent five weeks at #1, but spent ten and seven weeks respectively in the Top 10.
The Bottom Line: This is boringly subjective, of course, and any chart issued by Billboard demands respect, but we disagree with them: peak position, followed by the assorted tiebreakers is, for our money, the only logical way of ranking songs. And using The Daily Dose methodology, Stranger on the Shore – with one week at #1 and eleven weeks in the Top 10 – would’ve been the 18th-biggest song of the year, not the biggest.
Today At The Site
Writing worth reading. Usually.
The Diary of a Nobody – Sparrow deals with a Jekyll-and-Hyde guest. Today’s Diary.
The gal was tedious, tho…She called for an update on her request while we were still looking for her goddamned humidifier and she sounded priviliged, just like Ma Sparrow did when she was in the mood to irritate everyone…To her credit, tho, she was genuinely grateful when we delivered exactly what she was looking for…
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On This Date
Extra, extra, read all about it.
In 2009 – American financier Bernie Madoff pleads guilty to charges stemming from a $36 billion Ponzi scheme he ran. Madoff pled guilty without a plea bargain – perhaps to avoid testifying against employees and said the scheme began in the early 1990s, though an ex-employee admitted to falsifying records in the 1970s and the government was never able to determine exactly when the fraud began. Madoff died in prison in 2021 at age 81.
In 1966 – Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks establishes a new NHL record for most goals in a season in a 4-2 win over the New York Rangers. Hull’s third-period goal was his 51st of the season, breaking the record of 50 established by Maurice Richard in 1944-45 and later tied by Bernie Geoffrion in 1960-61 and by Hull the following season. Hull finished the season with 54 goals and broke the record again with 58 goals in 1968-69. The record is now 92 by Wayne Gretzky of Edmonton in 1981-82.
In 2021 – Oliva Rodrigo is at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the eighth and final consecutive week with Drivers License. It was the second chart single for Rodrigo and her first of 24 Top 40 hits, nine Top 10s, and three #1s songs. The song went to #1 in 24 other countries, including Israel, Norway, and Great Britain, was Billboard’s 8th-biggest song of the year, and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance.
Some Philosophy Crap
The wisdom of the ages. Whatever.
Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.
Queen Victoria
Answer To The Last Trivia Questions
Knowledge is power.
The Confederate constitution specified one 6-year term for the president of the Confederacy.
Today’s Stumper
Match wits with Gaylon. It’s not that hard.
When did the NHL go to an 82-game schedule? – Answer next time!
