(Credits: Far Out)
Sun 21 September 2025 16:00, UK
The well-documented rivalry between the United States and the United Kingdom is honestly just a pretty tired trope that gets trotted out whenever a musical comparison of any kind needs to be made. We have The Beatles, they have The Beach Boys. It happened long enough ago now to call it even.Â
But in terms of number ones at the height of that same fateful decade, the 1960s, there is conclusively only one winner – and it’s not actually the one that you most likely think. The British invasion may have swept over both sides of the Atlantic throughout the decade, but the States still most definitely had its bright spots in terms of honing its own stars and being able to hold its own. There was no greater testament to that than the song that held its number one spot for the longest time in 1965.Â
In reality, as much as we may like to feign supremacy in this regard, we have to give into the American charts on this occasion as ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ by the Four Tops became their longest running song to top the charts over the course of 1965, clocking up a tenure of no less than nine weeks at the top spot. By comparison, the British contender for the same accolade was Ken Dodd with ‘Tears’, which spent five weeks at number one in the country. We all know what the better song is here.
This is meant as no disrespect to the memory of Dodd – the man was an entertainment powerhouse who made an indelible impression on the landscape of the UK – but he’s no real competition to a group of Motown masters. The Four Tops, and subsequently the US, have won that game fair and square, which is exactly the reason they’re remembered as stalwarts of not just 1965, but also the entire era as a whole.
What was the key to The Four Tops’ success in 1965?
The fact that The Four Tops managed to cultivate such massive success with the song would have had the bosses of Motown laughing all the way to the bank, in more ways than one. Of course, it was yet another sign that the genre was at the peak of American culture, but it was also the moment in which this rapture started to spread overseas, with the tune becoming The Four Tops’ first foray into the UK charts as well.Â
But there was also bound to have been a certain smugness within this for the Motown songwriting dynasty of Holland-Dozier-Holland, as they secretly knew that the storming success of ‘I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)’ was no real surprise. Indeed, the title itself was a crafty nod to their pretty sly move on the song – it shares an almost identical melody and chord progression to The Supremes’ ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, so they were saying they couldn’t help but replicate it.
These days, of course, that would have landed Holland-Dozier-Holland with an almighty lawsuit, even with the seeming defence that they had written both songs. It’s quite a dirty tactic, to say the least. But regardless, their sneakiness also undoubtedly paid off, as they won the chart battle of 1965 once and for all. The UK had no room to even get their own back.
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