Damn - I thought I was going to get in first with Christmas hits in Latin.
Gaudete by Steeleye span reached number 14 in the UK. According to Wikipedia “This single is one of only three top 50 British hits to be sung fully in Latin (the others were both recordings of “Pie Jesu” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem; firstly by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston in 1986, secondly as a minor hit by the 12-year-old Charlotte Church in 1998).”
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Ledernacken’s “Amok”. Not sure if it charted in the US but our alternative station played it constantly. It’s German, and rather naughty German at that.
How about BOC’s Godzilla? It has the short passage in Japanese:
臨時ニュースを申し上げます
臨時ニュースを申し上げます
ゴジラが銀座方面に向かっています
大至急避難してください
大至急避難してください
I’ve got the album, Parallel Lines, which I’ve listened to quite a few times over the past nearly four decades. The version of “Sunday Girl” on the album is entirely in English. (I’ve never heard it over the radio, and didn’t know it had been a single.) The lyrics are on the inner sleeve, and they’re all in English.
Maybe they did a version with a verse in French for some greatest-hits compilation.
According to Wikipedia they recorded an all-French version that appeared on a 12" single in the UK and on the b-side of 7" singles in France and the Netherlands. Later a special mix was created for the 1981 Best of Blondie compilation that blended the English and French versions.
Yep, the version I’m familiar with is from Best of Blondie. I didn’t know it was a remix - I wrongly assumed it was the same version as on Parallel Lines.
Did Umm Kulthum chart in English-speaking countries? I can’t find a master list.
On a similar note, I’m sure that Call me’s last verse is also in French but now I’m starting to think it may also be regional version…
EDIT:
I was wrong, only one verse is in French. Another’s in Italian and the others are in English
*Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, he speaks the languages of love
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, amore, chiamami, chiamami
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, appelle-moi mon cherie, appelle-moi
Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any way
Anytime, anyplace,… *
Wow, 130 posts to get to the Beatles?
“Michelle” ("…ma belle, sont les mots qui vont tres bien ensemble"), according to wikipedia was evidently never released as a single in the US or Britain, but was the top single from the Album, and cover versions charted in both places.
“Suite Judy Blue Eyes” hit Billboard #21. The intentionally hard-to-understand lyrics at the end are indeed (Cuban) Spanish.
I think Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” might have a couple non-English words, if that counts.
See post #9.
Freddy Fender singing Before the Next Teardrop Falls.
"In 1974, record producer Huey P. Meaux approached Fender about overdubbing vocals for an instrumental track. Fender agreed, performing the song bilingual style — singing the first half of the song in English, then repeating that portion in Spanish.“The recording only took a few minutes,” Fender once told an interviewer. “I was glad to get it over with and I thought that would be the last of it.”[2]
However, “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” immediately took off in popularity when released to country radio in January 1975. The song ascended to #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in March, spending two weeks atop the chart.[3] Thereafter, the song caught on just as strongly at Top 40 radio stations and it was not long before Fender had a #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit as well. Billboard ranked it as the No. 4 song for 1975." Before the Next Teardrop Falls (song) - Wikipedia
Bobby Vinton’s, “My Melody of Love,” has a few lines of (I think) Polish in there.