These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40.

Jackie DeShannon had three Top 40 hits. Two of them made it all the way into the vaunted Top 10 and have basically became standards. Her first, “What the World Needs Now,” was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and first recorded by DeShannon for the 1965 album This is Jackie DeShannon. The next hit, released about four years later, was the title cut from the album Put a Little Love in Your Heart. In this instance, DeShannon shared a songwriting credit. It was the exact same team — DeShannon joined by Jimmy Holiday and Randy Myers, the latter of whom is her brother — that penned the next single together, “Love Will Find a Way.” Lushly produced, sweetly sung, and stung by gentle horns, it is a quintessential piece of late-sixties pop. It peaked at #40, representing DeShannon’s last appearance in that portion of the Billboard chart, at least as a performer. The year after Put a Little Love in Your Heart, DeShannon jumped from Imperial Records to Atlantic records and started creating music that was more ambitious and personal. It also was widely ignored. One of the tracks from that era (co-written with Donna Weiss), “Bette Davis Eyes,” from the 1975 album New Arrangement, had quite an afterlife. Picked up six years later by Kim Carnes and recorded with a slightly spooky new wave twist for her album Mistaken Identity, the cover spent nine weeks on top of the Billboard chart and was, by any measure, the biggest hit of 1981. These days, DeShannon primarily offers regular coverage of happenings with the surviving members of the Fab Four on the long-running radio program Breakfast with the Beatles.

Previously…

—“Just Like Heaven” by The Cure.
—“I’m in Love” by Evelyn King
—“Buy Me a Rose” by Kenny Rogers
—“Who’s Your Baby” by The Archies
—“Me and Bobby McGee” by Jerry Lee Lewis
—“Angel in Blue” by J. Geils Band
—“Crazy Downtown” by Allan Sherman
—“I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Rhythm of Love” by Yes
—“Naturally Stoned” by the Avant-Garde
—“Come See” by Major Lance
—“Your Old Standby” by Mary Wells
—“See the Lights” by Simple Minds
—“Watch Out For Lucy” by Eric Clapton
—“The Alvin Twist” by Alvin and the Chipmunks
—“Love Me Tender” by Percy Sledge
—“Jennifer Eccles” by the Hollies
—“Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Olympics
—“The Bounce” by the Olympics
—“Your One and Only Love” by Jackie Wilson
—“Tell Her She’s Lovely” by El Chicano
—“The Last Time I Made Love” by Joyce Kennedy and Jeffrey Osborne
—“Limbo Rock” by The Champs
—“Crazy Eyes For You” by Bobby Hamilton
—“Who Do You Think You’re Foolin'” by Donna Summer
—“Violet Hill” and “Lost+” by Coldplay
—“Freight Train” by the Chas. McDevitt Skiffle Group
—“Sweet William” by Little Millie Small
—“Live My Life” by Boy George
—“Lessons Learned” by Tracy Lawrence
—“So Close” by Diana Ross
—“Six Feet Deep” by the Geto Boys
—“You Thrill Me” by Exile
—“What Now” by Gene Chandler
—“Put It in a Magazine” by Sonny Charles
—“Got a Love for You” by Jomanda
—“Stone Cold” by Rainbow
—“People in Love” by 10cc
—“Just Seven Numbers (Can Straighten Out My Life)” by the Four Tops
—“Thinkin’ Problem” by David Ball
—“You Got Yours and I’ll Get Mine” and “Trying to Make a Fool of Me” by the Delfonics
—“The Riddle (You and I)” by Five for Fighting
—“I Can’t Wait” by Sleepy Brown
—“Nature Boy” by Bobby Darin
—“Give It to Me Baby” and “Cold Blooded” by Rick James
—“Who’s Sorry Now?” by Marie Osmond
—“A Love So Fine” by the Chiffons
—“Funky Y-2-C” by the Puppies
—“Brand New Girlfriend” by Steve Holy
—“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by Bonnie Pointer
—“Mr. Loverman” by Shabba Ranks
—“I’ve Never Found a Girl” by Eddie Floyd
—“Plastic Man” and “Happy People” by the Temptations
—“Okay” by Nivea
—“Go On” by George Strait
—“Back When My Hair Was Short” by Gunhill Road
—“Birthday Party” by the Pixies Three
—“Livin’ in the Life” by the Isley Brothers
—“Kissing You” by Keith Washington
—“The End of Our Road” by Marvin Gaye
—“Ticks” and “Letter to Me” by Brad Paisley
—“Nobody But You Babe” by Clarence Reid
—“Like a Sunday in Salem” by Gene Cotton
—“I’m Going to Let My Heart Do the Walking” by the Supremes
—“Call Me Lightning” by the Who
—“Ain’t It True” by Andy Williams
—“Lazy Elsie Molly” and “Let’s Do the Freddie” by Chubby Checker
—“Second Fiddle” by Kay Starr
—“1999” by Prince
—“I’ll Try Anything” by Dusty Springfield
—“Oh Happy Day” by Glen Campbell
—“I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After
—“Friends” and “Married Men” by Bette Midler
—“Spice of Life” by the Manhattan Transfer
—“You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd” by Roger Miller
—“Don’t Pity Me” by Dion and the Belmonts
—“Ask Me No Questions” by B.B. King
—“Can’t Leave ‘Em Alone” by Ciara
—“All I Really Want to Do” by the Byrds
—“Let It Be Me” by Willie Nelson
—“Clones (We’re All)” by Alice Cooper
—“The Last Word in Lonesome is Me” by Eddy Arnold
—“Two Hearts” by Stephanie Mills and Teddy Pendergrass
—“Good Timin” by Beach Boys
—“I’m Movin’ On” and “Sticks and Stones” by Ray Charles
—“Me (Without You)” by Andy Gibb
—“In the Mood” by Ray Stevens
—“Angel” by Rod Stewart