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Number Ones - Jan 1940
| Other Decades: | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | ||||
| This Decade: | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | |
| Other Months: | Jan 1940 | Feb 1940 | Mar 1940 | Apr 1940 | May 1940 | Jun 1940 | Jul 1940 | Aug 1940 | Sep 1940 | Oct 1940 | Nov 1940 | Dec 1940 |
There are a number of reasons why there can be debate about which record should be considered to have been "Number One" in a particular country on a certain date. These are discussed further down this page. However there is clearly a sizable group that don't want to know about these details and just want to know what record was top of the charts on a given date (such as their birthday). This table shows which records were number one for various countries over the month of January 1940.
| Dec 1939 | January 1940 | Feb 1940 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1 M |
2 T |
3 W |
4 T |
5 F |
6 S |
7 S |
8 M |
9 T |
1 W |
1 T |
1 F |
1 S |
1 S |
1 M |
1 T |
1 W |
1 T |
1 F |
2 S |
2 S |
2 M |
2 T |
2 W |
2 T |
2 F |
2 S |
2 S |
2 M |
3 T |
3 W |
||||
 |
Vera Lynn - "I'm Sending A Letter To Santa Claus" |
Bert Ambrose & his Orchestra - "There'll Come Another Day" |
Bert Ambrose & his Orchestra - "Scatterbrain" |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Joe Loss Orchestra - "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)" |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country | M |
T |
W |
T |
F |
S |
S |
M |
T |
1 W |
1 T |
1 F |
1 S |
1 S |
1 M |
1 T |
1 W |
1 T |
1 F |
2 S |
2 S |
2 M |
2 T |
2 W |
2 T |
2 F |
2 S |
2 S |
2 M |
3 T |
3 W |
Country | ||
As was mentioned above, there are all sorts of reasons why the entries here rather over simplify the real situation. We have made a large number of sweeping assumptions in order to present a simple picture to the vast number of users that just want a song title. This means that there are a number of entries in these tables that should be handled with caution. In addition where these entries differ from the original sources (listed later) it should be assumed that the sources are correct, where these entries conflict with the main data assume that the other data is correct, if you find either of these cases please tell us and we'll correct the data here.
If, like us, you are the type of person that wants to know if a song was top of the Jukebox or Jockeys chart, or where a double-A side was released, or when chart entries did not specify an artist, or when the charts switched from one magazine to another we suggest that you have a look at the original sources:
| Flag | Country | Data Source | Notes |
 |
United States | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_hits_%28United_States%29 | Before 1958 Billboard published a number of different charts, the number one record has been selected as the top song in these combined. |
|
United Kingdom | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2010s_UK _Singles_Chart_number_ones | The Charts as listed in the "Guiness Book of Hit Singles". |
|
United Kingdom | //www.onlineweb.com/theones/1950_sheet.h tm | Before the NME started publishing weekly song charts in late 1952 there were listings of "sheet music" sales. This list of number one songs originally didn't have a particular artist attached. The data at //www.britburn.co.uk/ has the complete sheetmusic charts starting in 1939. |
|
Australia | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_singles_in_Australia_during_the_1940 s | Based on the retrospective calculations of the Kent Music report, some songs during the 1940s were not assigned to an artist, in these cases a suitable artist has been picked. |
 |
Canada | //www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020 -101.01-e.php?PHPSESSID=ccntousk30frf6h 4jsn237nm12 | The RPM magazine was the definitive national chart in Canada from the 1960s until 2000. Archives Canada have published a list of scanned images of the charts, but no one has yet converted this into a usable form. This list of the number one records was originally based on one from Wikipedia but has used the original source to fix the most obvious issues. |
|
Canada CHUM | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CHUM_num ber-one_singles_of_1959 | Before RPM magazine published regular charts the Toronto radio station CHUM 1050 AM aired a weekly chart. These are the number ones of that chart from before the RPM chart started in 1964. |
|
Canada | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian _number-one_singles_of_2001 | After the RPM magazine finished publication there is some debate about which chart should be considered definitive in Canada. This listing is based on the Billboard chart as described in the Wikipedia pages. |
 |
New Zealand | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_o f_number-one_songs_in_New_Zealand | This list claims to be mainly based on the RIANZ charts. For weeks where no chart was produced it has been assumed that the previous week's number one record just retained the top slot (and in most cases the same record was at number one the following week, so that seems reasonable). |
 |
Germany | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_hits_%28Germany%29 | This list of number one songs combines various sources (some retrospective) to list the number one songs of West Germany and Germany since the early 1950s. |
 |
Ireland | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_th at_reached_number_one_on_the_Irish_Sing les_Chart | This list of number one irish songs from Wikipedia comes from various sources. We've filled out the gaps and attempted to interpret the various "Issue Date" and "Week Ending" notes. |
 |
Italy | //it-charts.150m.com/numeriuno-1960.htm | The available list only covers a period from the 1960s to the 1990s. |
 |
Finland | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_o f_number-one_songs_in_Finland | List of number ones in Finland. |
 |
Japan | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Oricon_num ber-one_singles_of_2005 | List of number ones in the Oricon chart in Japan. |
 |
Europe | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European _number-one_hits_of_1959 | In the text this claims to be hits in Europe from Eurparade, but since that chart didn't start till 1976 this is clearly wrong. However this small set of entries is early enough to be worth reporting. |
|
Europe | //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-o ne_Euro_Digital_Songs | Billboard's estimate of the number one songs in Europe. |
 |
Mexico | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_ number-one_songs_in_Mexico | Billboard's estimate of the number one songs in Mexico |
The comments here are from the the MusicID impact site site. This version is not able to accept comments yet
30 Aug 2020
Bert Ambrose & his Orchestra -"There'll Come Another Day" is shown as thesecond number one of 1940. However I cannot find a copy of this anywhere whereas the Vera lynn version (which doesn't seem to be mentioned on this site) is quite easy to obtain in a few collections and is on Youtube a few times. They don't seem to be the same record. Are your charts mainly based on sheet music?
As the text on this page says the 1940 chart is based on sheet music charts (because there is nothing else available). These came from the Britburn data
12 Jul 2015
No.1 song
Looking for the number one song on the 27th May 1945 I'm the Republic ofIreland