It’s been a long time since we’ve had a double sided hit where both songs went to number one. The last time was eleven years ago in 1958, when Elvis Presley’s hit “Don’t” hit number one and the flip side was also credited as a number one song. That was “I Beg of You.”

The fact that both rank at number one is mostly a result of the way Billboard started tabulating the songs on the Hot Hundred. When two sides of the same record were on the charts, Billboard usually treated them as separate songs and allowed them to ascend the chart independently. But in mid-1969, they changed the policy and started grouping the two songs together on the chart. Thus the Beatles got the credit for a two-sided hit. It was their first, by the way.

“Come Together” was written by John Lennon (but credited to Lennon-McCartney.) The song was written for the campaign of Timothy Leary who was running for Governor in California against Ronald Reagan. That campaign came to a screeching halt when Leary was arrested for possession of marijuana and sent to prison. Pretty hard to run the state from prison. We all know that Reagan won that race. It is rumored that Paul did not sing on this single at all, just played bass guitar. Apparently John was so fond of the song that he didn’t want anyone else singing on it. The single appears as the first track of their album Abbey Road.

“Something” was written by George Harrison. He wrote it while they were recording the White Album. One day, he retired to a room which contained just a piano and sat down at the keys and wrote “Something” in just a few hours. The song could have gone on the White Album, but the album was already full, so they held it back and it was placed as the number two song on Abbey Road. John felt that “Something” was the best song on the album and Paul mentioned that he felt it was the best song George ever wrote. It is the first George Harrison written song to be released as a single and the first to hit number one. It is the second most covered song of all the Beatles songs (“Yesterday” is first.) “Something” has been recorded by over 150 different performers over the years.

“Come Together”/”Something” debuted on the Hot Hundred at numbers 20 and 23 respectively. They climbed the chart separately until on November 15, they were at positions two and three. Then Billboard did their magic and combined the two songs and the week of November 23, 1969 they were both at number one where they stayed for one week.

You get a special treat today. Two videos: