How Connie Francis’ ‘My Coronary heart Has a Thoughts of Its Personal’ Hit No. 1

Forever No. 1 is a Billboard collection that pays particular tribute to the just lately deceased artists who achieved the very best honor our charts have to supply — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an prolonged look again on the chart-topping songs that made them a part of this unique membership. Right here, we honor Connie Francis, whose 1960 lament “My Coronary heart Has a Thoughts of Its Personal” turned her second straight No. 1 in late 1960.

Some artists’ largest chart hits are no-doubters, apparent signature songs who anybody with essentially the most passing familiarity of their catalogs might guess as their best-performing Billboard entries. With another artists, like Connie Francis, it’s much less clear: Ask a median fan of ’50s and ’60s pop to call her three Billboard Sizzling 100 No. 1s they usually would possibly guess enduring songs like “Who’s Sorry Now,” “Silly Cupid” or “The place the Boys Are” — none of which even made the highest three on the Sizzling 100 or the pre-Sizzling 100 Billboard pop charts. (Ask a modern-day pop fan they usually would possibly guess her 2025 mega-viral TikTok favourite “Fairly Little Child,” which was by no means even launched as an A-side.)

“My Coronary heart Has a Thoughts of Its Personal,” which adopted “Everyone’s Someone’s Idiot” (the primary Sizzling 100 No. 1 from a solo feminine artist) to the chart’s apex in late 1960, won’t even be a type of pop followers’ first 10 guesses. Although the tune has a spot in chart immortality as one in all her three Sizzling 100-toppers, it’s seemingly not one in all her best-remembered pop smashes, nor one in all her presently most-played — when it comes to whole on-demand U.S. audio streams, it ranks simply seventeenth in her catalog. Even Billboard scribe Fred Bronson, in his canonical Billboard E book of Number one Hits, appeared to have little curiosity in “Coronary heart,” largely utilizing its e-book entry to speak about Francis’ different lower-peaking hits, whereas together with only one maybe telling “Coronary heart” factoid — that, based on Francis, she deemed the tune a smash earlier than even getting to listen to its demo (“Doesn’t matter, it’s an ideal title!”)

In reality, the muted enduring affection for “Coronary heart” amongst pop followers might must do with the truth that the tune arguably higher belongs to a different style: nation. A number of generations after her business peak, few would affiliate Francis with something Nashville-related: The Italian-American singer, born in Newark, N.J., was one of many preeminent pop icons of the pre-Beatles rock period. However she labored in all kinds of various genres over her profession, and nation was actually one she frequently returned to — even recording a number of primarily nation albums, similar to 1959’s Nation & Western — Golden Hits and 1964’s Connie Francis and Hank Williams Jr. Sing Nice Nation Favorites, recorded alongside the titular second-gen nation nice when he was simply an adolescent. In actual fact, she even scored a trio of crossover hits on the Sizzling Nation Songs chart, together with “Idiot,” which peaked at No. 24 in July 1960.

“Coronary heart” was not embraced by nation radio as “Idiot” was — which is shocking looking back, as the previous has a fair clearer nation sound and enchantment to it. It begins with wailing strings and twanging guitar over a mournful shuffle, and when Francis enters, she does so in piercing, double-tracked vocal concord designed for optimum devastation. And the lyrics are brutal from the bounce — “I instructed this coronary heart of mine our love would by no means be/ However then I hear your voice and one thing stirs inside me” — earlier than getting much more wrenching on the tune’s extra informal, low-key verse: “You’re not in love with me, so why can’t I neglect?/ I’m simply your used-to-be/ It’s unsuitable, and but….” Even the title phrase, which Francis instantly fell for, falls fairly squarely in step with traditional nation wordplay and lyrical imagery. It’s all a lot nearer to Pasty Cline than it’s to Paul Anka.

All of it works, too. The association, courtesy of Hollywood musical arranger Gus Levene (The King and I, Carousel), is a pure tearjerker, superbly evoking dusty bars and desolate dancefloors. And Francis understands actually hit ’em the place it hurts along with her vocal, punching the opening consonant on each first phrase of the brand new measure (“Regardless of wwwwhat I do,” “However then my hhhhhhheart says no”) till you possibly can virtually hear the lump in her throat. By the point slide guitar stretches up the fretboard to sign the two:32-long tune’s closing, you’re instinctively reaching for an additional quarter for the jukebox and ordering one other beer on the bar to repeat the expertise throughout.

And maybe the success of “Coronary heart” is telling of how small the hole between nation and pop was in 1960 — a 12 months during which such nation stars like Marty Robbins (“El Paso”) and Jim Reeves (“He’ll Need to Go”) each scored large Sizzling 100 crossover hits, and even pop-rock stars together with Brenda Lee (“I’m Sorry”) and Elvis Presley (“Are You Lonesome Tonight?”) had main smashes that had been at the least country-inflected. Regardless, “Coronary heart” shortly adopted in its predecessor’s chart footsteps, debuting at No. 56 on the chart dated Aug. 15, 1960 (whereas “Idiot” was nonetheless within the prime 20), and changing Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” at No. 1 six weeks later. It lasted two weeks on prime, earlier than being changed by Larry Verne’s novelty hit “Mr. Custer.”

Francis would return to No. 1 in 1962 — as, surprisingly, would “The Twist” — and she or he had three extra prime 10 Sizzling 100 hits in between then, as Francis was properly on her method to changing into one of many best pop hitmakers of her period. She would solely return to Sizzling Nation Songs sporadically, with minor hits in 1969 and 1983 — however within the meantime, different nation artists would have a lot larger hits with their spins on Francis hits like “My Coronary heart Has a Thoughts of Its Personal,” together with Susan Raye and Debby Boone, each of whom made the chart’s prime 20 within the ’70s with their “Coronary heart” takes. And in her early days, no much less a rustic legend than Reba McEntire took her flip with the tune, with a rendition in the end launched on the 1994 compilation Oklahoma Lady, alongside songs made well-known by Roger Miller and certainly, Patsy Cline.