Popularity
The song was the #1 hit in the U.S. for the five weeks encompassing March 1966, the #1 hit on the Hot 100's end of the year chart for 1966, and the No. 21 song of 1960s, despite the later unpopularity of the Vietnam War and the competing "California Dreaming", sharply dividing the popular music market. It has sold over nine million singles and albums and was the top single of a year in which the British Invasion, led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, continued to dominate the U.S. charts. The Beatles' top hit was We Can Work It Out (#16), while the Stones' top hit was Paint It, Black (#21). See Billboard charts.
It is currently used as one of the four primary marching tunes of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.
Read more about this topic: Ballad Of The Green Berets
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)