Longest-held vocal note in a UK hit single

The longest same-pitch vocal note in a song that made the UK’s Official Singles Chart was set at 20.2 seconds (eight measures), as performed by A-ha frontman Morten Harket (Norway) on “Summer Moved On”, the band’s No.33 hit from 2000. Harket’s lung-busting effort starts at 3 minutes 12 seconds on the word “ask”. “Summer Moved On” was taken from A-ha’s 2000 album Minor Earth, Major Sky.

Contenders for this title include a 19-second note by Jeff Buckley (1966-97) on his 1994 recording of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, from his 1994 album Grace, which became a posthumous UK hit (No.2) for the revered singer-songwriter in 2007. The note in question starts on the “lu” of “hallelujah” at 6 minutes 11 seconds. Clocking in at 18 seconds are notes by US singer-songwriter Bill Withers on “Lovely Day” (a UK hit in 1978, 1987, 1988 and 2020) and by Swedish vocalist Molly Sandén (aka My Marianne) in “Húsavík (My Hometown)”, from the Netflix film Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (USA, 2020), which peaked at No.59 in July 2020. As of 25 October 2020, Sandén held the UK record for a hit by a female vocalist. Donna Summer’s “Dim All the Lights” (No.29 in 1979) and Air Supply’s “All out of Love” (No.11 in 1980) both contain notes that last 16 seconds.

The longest same-pitch vocal note on any studio recording (hit or otherwise) is Tee Green’s (UK) 39-second belter on the Benard Ighner standard “Everything Must Change”, recorded in March 2011. Melba Moore’s 36-second lung-buster at the end of “The Other Side of the Rainbow”, the title track of her 1982 studio album, is the longest studio-recorded note by a female singer and the longest-held single note on an album track.