Tuesday, March 08, 2005

When the song topped the charts

By August 1996, Light Up the Fire, by now also known as Colours of Day, reached number two in the charts.

The chart in question was a list of songs sung in British school assemblies.

The chart was printed by The Times on August 29th 1996 and was assembled from details of royalty payments for as many as 120,000 songs performed in schools. Not bad to be number 2!

Top of the charts was One More Step by Sidney Carter and number three, Who Put the Colours in the Rainbow. Carter's Lord of the Dance was number five.

Two thoughts:
First: Do the teachers who put Light Up the Fire on the assembly list have much idea what it is about?

Second: River's third album Shadow and Flame opens with a Sue Mack song that should again become a school standard. It is We Pray for the World and contains the mixture of lyricism, melody and compassion that is expected in a school assembly song.

The Times report apparently identified that the schools pay about £63,000 a year in royalties. It is good to think that Light Up the Fire's creators continued to be rewarded and encouraged at a time when Parchment was virtually forgotten.

1 comment:

pf said...

Here's that full chart:
1 One more step Sydney Carter
2 Light up the fire S McCellan, K Rycroft, J Paculabo
3 Who put the colours in the rainbow? Paul Booth
4 Think of a world without any flowers Doreen Newport
5 Lord of the dance Sydney Carter
6 When I needed a neighbour Sydney Carter
7 Thank you, Lord, for this fine day D D Andrew, C O'Connell
8 Water of life C Strower
9 Peace perfect peace K Mayhew
10 Shine Jesus shine G Kendrick
(List is copyright of Christian Copyright Licensing Ltd, 1996)