Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Peter and Gordon, “A World Without Love”

51 years ago today, Peter Asher and Gordon Waller landed atop the UK Singles chart with a song that’s officially credited to Lennon-McCartney but which was unquestionably composed completely by McCartney. (If you’ve never heard it, stay tuned, because once you give it a spin, you won’t question it, either.)

The origins of Peter and Gordon are pretty simple: Asher and Waller met while the two of them were attending Westminster School, they began playing together as a duo, and as a result of Asher’s sister, Jane, being in a romantic relationship with the future Sir Paul, they were fortunate enough to find themselves in a position to enter the studio with previously-unrecorded compositions by the Beatles’ predominant songwriters.

Of their Lennon-McCartney recordings, “A World Without Love” was by far the most successful, but they earned strong chart showings whenever they had that particular pairing of names on the credits: “Nobody I Know” hit #10 in the UK and #12 in the US, while “I Don’t Want to See You Again” hit #16 in the States. In addition, they hit paydirt with “Woman,” written by McCartney under the pseudonym “Bernard Webb,” which hit #14 in the US and #28 in the UK.

Funnily enough, even with Asher’s sister in their corner, he and Waller weren’t actually the first picks to receive “A World without Love” – McCartney reportedly approached Billy J. Kramer about recording it first – but it’s a good thing Kramer turned it down: we really can’t imagine anyone but Peter and Gordon crooning the tune.