FEATURE:
Call Me By My Name
Chesney Hawkes’s The One and Only at Thirty-Five
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THERE is no doubt that…
PHOTO CREDIT: Celtic Manor
this is one of my absolute favourite songs from the 1990s. One of the best of the decade. If some simply see it as a great one-hit wonder, I think we should give much more respect to Chesney Hawkes and the phenomenal The One and Only. I think this is a song that still sound so affecting today. The passion in his voice and that incredible chorus! The single was released on 4th February, 1991, so I want to mark thirty-five years of this celebrated classic. There is a lot to discuss regarding the song. I love its video and how Hawkes is almost this matinee idol. Or more a cooler 1990s version of a legendary actor like James Dean. So cool and seductive, I was seven when it came out. I think I did hear it when it first came out. If some critics were a little snobby or dismissive of The One and Only, there is no arguing with its chart performance. Number one in the U.K., in years since, this song has been taken to heart by so many generations. Perhaps the production sound is very much rooted in the 1990s. However, I still get this rush when I hear the song played. It warrants much more than being seen as this novelty. It is an incredible strong song with so much to highlight. The One and Only featured in the comedy-drama film, Buddy's Song (1991), in which Chesney Hawkes starred as the eponymous Buddy, with Roger Daltrey playing his father. Spending five weeks at number one in March and April 1991, I remember when this track was dominating and everywhere. It was a time in U.K. music when perhaps Rave and Dance was more popular. Pop would perhaps reach a peak around 1993, 1994 or 1995. There was something about this song that connected with the record-buying public. The lyrics by Nik Kershaw do not only relate to the song. They definitely resonated with listeners. They are clever and timeless: “I've been a player in the crowd scene/A flicker on the big screen/My soul embraces one more in a million faces/High hopes and aspirations, and years above my station/Maybe but all this time I've tried to walk with dignity and pride”.
That sense that we have all had. That idea of being a minor player or being seen as minor but, in spite of doubts or being trying to put you down, walking with pride and dignity. I will come to a 2024 interview where Chesney Hawkes talked about the aftermath of The One and Only. How fame, in a sense, chewed him up. Maybe it was quite a feat to live up to. Being associated with this one song and living in the spotlight. The pressures and downsides of popularity. There is some debate as to its exact release date, though I am pretty sure that it was 4th February, 1991. It hit number one on 24th March, 1991. I am not sure how much this song will be written about around its anniversary. It is a song that I really like, so I wanted to focus on it. In 2017, for The Guardian, Chesney Hawkes and songwriter Nik Kershaw discussed the background to the song and what it was like putting out this chart-topping into the world:
“Chesney Hawkes, singer
My dad was in the Tremeloes. As a kid, I watched him – Len “Chip” Hawkes – in his leather trousers with his shirt open and girls screaming. “That’s what I want to do,” I thought. But without the leather trousers. By the time I was 17, I was in a band, writing songs and playing solo piano at weekends, in pubs or at weddings. It wasn’t quite the big time.
Then I had my wisdom teeth out. As I was waking up in the hospital bed, I saw the Who’s Roger Daltrey on GMTV. He was looking for someone who could sing and play guitar to portray his character’s son in a new film, Buddy’s Song. I opened my mouth and gurgled. My dad took me to the auditions.
Out of hundreds of boys, I got the part. There were already songs for the film and I wrote some, too, but the record company wanted a hit. Then a publisher friend of my dad’s played him some new Nik Kershaw songs that Nik was hoping to get recorded by other people. When dad heard The One and Only, he said: “That’s a smash.”
Dad played the demo through the speakers at Abbey Road, where we were recording. I was a huge Nik Kershaw fan and was desperate to meet him, but everyone else hated the song. Then a few days later a bloke from the record company rang to say: “I’ve listened to it a few times. Maybe it has got something.”
My 15-year-old brother Jody played drums on the record. Nik co-produced and played guitar, doing crazy things like playing it with a pencil. We totally hit it off, but the film only did OK and the song barely dented the Top 75. Then I was on The Little & Large TV show, which had a huge Saturday-night audience. The song started steamrollering. Before I knew it, we were No 1 all over Europe and in the US Top 10.
We were living the dream, girls camped outside the house and everything. People either loved the song or hated it. At the Brits, Phillip Schofield pushed a pretend me into hell using a pitchfork. That was a bit much, but the song still gets me gigs and I’m loving every minute of it.
Nik Kershaw, songwriter
I’d just finished a four-album deal with MCA Records and they didn’t want any more, so I was at a crossroads. By then I was tired and starting a family, so I wanted to be around for them. I decided to see if I could get another career going as a songwriter and producer.
The One and Only was pretty much the first song out of the bag. My string of hits in the 80s had rather dried up. I’d had a few knocks and was feeling a bit “nobody loves me”, so I wrote the song about self-respect. It came together quickly, but I didn’t think much more about it. Then, 18 months later, I got a call saying they were using it in the film.
Ches was a new, fresh face, like I had been seven or eight years previously. We had great fun in the studio, doing things like recording feedback and playing it backwards in a sampler. When the record company started spending money on the single, I knew it had a chance, but I never thought it was a potential No 1. Ches did all the promo. I sat in an armchair sipping merlot while it flew up the charts.
I don’t think many people realise I wrote it. The song has bought me a couple of houses, and Ches and I are still best mates. I sometimes wonder how it would have worked out for him if he hadn’t had to follow a No 1. He was nurturing his own career nicely until I turned up to spoil it with a hit that overshadowed everything. He’s hugely talented, but he never got a chance to prove it, because of that song”.
I will wrap up soon. However, I do want to come to an interview from The Telegraph that was published in 2024. Even if some have dismissed the song or see it as middling, I feel it is a true gem. One of those unique songs that had this incredible success and legacy. The fact that we are still talking about The One and Only and it gets radio play. Thirty-five years after its release, I feel greater respect needs to be given to this anthem. One you cannot hear without singing along, so infectious and memorable is it! If you have never heard the song then go and listen now:
“People think I must have made millions off The One and Only but I really didn’t. I always say I should write a book: Fame, No Fortune! Yes, I had a lot back then – you get advances, people throw money at you. But what you don’t realise is it goes really quick, and the label spend a fortune, so you have to pay that back before you see any royalties. It’s an age-old story: my dad got totally ripped off by his management and label back in the 1960s.
So as big as that record was, I didn’t break even for 10 years. I still couldn’t live on the royalties from it. It’s not like I’m making thousands every year. Nik got a much bigger cut as the writer – he got a couple of houses out of it.
Back then, I thought my career was over. I was chewed up and spat out. It was like being in the club in a booth in the VIP arena sipping champagne, being looked after, and then suddenly the bouncers come grab you and kick you out the back – the door slams and you’re in the rain. I was only 21 when that happened and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I’ve since done a lot of reflection, some therapy, and I look back and think “Actually that was a bit s---. It was a tough thing to go through, so it’s OK to feel emotional about it – let it out and cry a bit.”
It was strange because I really did everything the wrong way around. I had the fame, and then I started paying my dues afterwards. I went from travelling the world, being mobbed by screaming fans, to playing with bands in sh---y little clubs in Camden with five people watching us, and no one knew who I was. That was very humbling. Now and again there’d be some drunk at the back shouting “Do The One and Only!”. I experienced the biggest highs and then the real lows. I remember our amp blowing up because we couldn’t afford the right equipment.
It was also a weird feeling going from having all those girls outside the house to people not looking at me twice in the street – that took some getting used to, figuring out who I was without the attention. The press made it worse too: they built me up as the next big thing, everything was “Chesney this” and “Chesney that”, then the next minute they just loved knocking me down. It’s part of the British psyche. I went from being the It boy to dirt on the shoe – yesterday’s chip paper.
It was really heartbreaking, and there were definitely times where I didn’t know who I was and what would happen next. I wondered if my career was already over.
It’s terrible now with these reality shows – there’s been some awful treatment of kids who go through that process. I feel for them because I went through something similar and didn’t have any support after. Back then, it was “Therapy, what’s that?”. They get all this incredible hype, front pages, five minutes of fame, and if you don’t have the right support around you, you can buy into that crazy s---. But none of it’s real. I know that now – but you don’t understand it at that age. If you believe it, the good stuff and the bad, it really affects you. Now with all the social media comments too, it’s like arrows flying towards you on a battlefield. You can’t avoid it.
I’ve had that chat with my kids – they’re 19, 21 and nearly 23. But will they listen? I think you have to experience things to learn those lessons, and as a parent you’ve got to let them trip up here and there. I’ll be there to put an arm round them when they need it.
The funny thing for me is that I’m still defined by a three-month period in my life when I was a teenager. That’s strange for a 52-year-old man. People who meet me in the street, if they do recognise me, it’s all about The One and Only. I sometimes feel like saying “What were you doing when you were 18? Can you imagine being defined by that forever?”
But I’m very aware that that period of my life is what got my career started, and now I love that music. There was a time when I wouldn’t play The One and Only because I was an angry kid rebelling against what had happened to me.
Nowadays I do these retro festivals as well as my own headline stuff, and it’s so amazing to see people reliving their youth. That’s what music does, doesn’t it? It connects you to another time. I’m so honoured to be part of so many people’s lives. I’ve had messages over the years saying they played the song at their wedding or their brother’s funeral. So I can’t have any regrets or bitterness about that making me a “one-hit wonder”, because it’s so beautiful”.
4th February is when we mark thirty-five of Chesney Hawkes’s The One and Only. Even if he never achieved anything as monumental and successful as his debut single, he is this incredible artist who has had a respectful and long career. He released his latest album, Living Arrows, last February. He spoke to The Guardian about his career and his life now. Some artists who had hits back in the 1990s try to distance themselves from it or see it as another time. However, Hawkes definitely has some fond recollections and memories from the time – even if the impact of fame was not all great. This single was a rightful chart smash and made a lot of people happy. And that is something that we…
CAN’T take that away from him.