Liverpool acts make up one in five of 50 best-selling singles ever

Eleven of the top 50 songs in a chart-of-charts released by the Official Charts Company are by acts hailing from Liverpool.

Beatles and Beatles-related songs make up the majority of the Liverpool tracks in the top 50, with two Frankie Goes To Hollywood hits, the footy song that Lightning Seeds did with Baddiel and Skinner and Tears by Ken Dodd rounding off the Mersey theme.

Mull of Kintyre is the highest of the Lennon / McCartney tunes at number four and two million records sold. Imagine is at 19, selling a mere 1.6m.

She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Can’t Buy Me Love, I Feel Fine, We Can Work It Out/Day Tripper are all placed in the top 50 - each selling 1.39m or more. Hey Jude is also in the Top 100.

The Frankie tunes - Relax and Two Tribes - are, incredibly, placed at seven and 21 respectively in the list of the 123 singles that have sold over a million since records began in 1952.

Three Lions is the most recent 1m+ tune in the list - the single sold 1.53m in 1996 and was written by Ian Broudie with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel.

Finally, dear old Doddie makes it into the list, selling over 1.5m copies of his maudlin ditty Tears in 1965. That bears some repeating - one and a half million physical vinyl records.

Liverpool gets one more mention in the list, courtesy of Little Jimmy Osmond.

So, well done Liverpool. We think it’s pretty cool that one of the city’s most popular songs features a man shouting “COME!”.

Still, before we get too pleased with ourselves it’s worth noting that the majority of the list is pretty weak stuff. Eiffel 65? Robson and Jerome? The Black-Eyed Sodding Peas? And just where, for instance, is everyone’s favourite scouse pop due Jemini?

For more of this sort of thing head over to the National Museums Liverpool’s online Beat Goes On exhibition