(Credits: Far Out / NASA / Uwe Conrad)
Tue 24 February 2026 0:00, UK
The wrath of a charts battle is both a fickle and cruel beast when you really come to think about it.
Every artist, no matter what they may claim to the contrary, has always dreamed of that coveted number one position. Actually consider it: it’s the confirmation in solid statistics that your song, created by your own fair hand or voice, is better than anything else out there right now. Nothing else can beat it, quite literally.
Of course, it’s wrong to chalk anything less than this up as a complete failure, because it’s simply not the case. But even still, you’ve got to feel for the person who falls in second place. So close yet so far, it’s the musical embodiment of an ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ situation and all the pain that comes with it.
With all due respect, however, that sucker punch of disappointment can be dealt with when it comes in small doses. If you last at number two for a week or so, then you can say fair is fair and cut your losses, knowing that you have still garnered your fair share of acclaim. But imagine the agony of being stuck there for not one week, not two weeks, but ten.
Well, spare a thought for poor Foreigner in that regard, who hold the record for the longest time a classic rock song has spent being pipped to the post in the charts, without ever getting to reign at number one. The year was 1981, and the song was ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’, which spent ten weeks in the silver medal position, being staved off all that time by a combination of Olivia Newton-John and Hall and Oates.
What kept Foreigner at number two in the charts?
You’d have thought everyone in the 1980s loved a power ballad, which they undoubtedly did, but clearly not to the extent that they could have allowed Foreigner their one shot at golden glory. But as fate would have it, this dream came collapsing down in ruins through the sheer strength of ‘Physical’ and ‘I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)’, while ‘Waiting for a Girl Like You’ stayed stubbornly in its same spot.
In a pretty painful twist of the knife, though, eagle-eyed fans might have spotted the ironic symbolism which had perhaps sealed Foreigner’s fate without them even realising it. The artwork for the single depicted the countdown for an old-school movie introduction, but what number did they decide to capture? You guessed it: two.
Despite this, it was probably better that they chose this number rather than any other, especially given that the album it came from was called 4. Nevertheless, whether it was in that serendipitous command or just the sheer emotion of the song, it was often all too much for Mick Jones, who described it as leaving such a “deep impression” that “It’s the kind of song that the pen does the writing.”
If that was the case, then the pen could have also done the band a favour and rewritten history to make them number one, but some things are just too tall an order. Instead, Foreigner were left to languish in their woes of being the act to stay at number two for the longest time in chart history. Those green eyes of jealousy cut deep.