How we made Chesney Hawkes' The One and Only

Chesney Hawkes, singer

My dad was in the Tremeloes. As a kid, I watched him – Len “Chip” Hawkes – in his leather trousers with his shirt open and girls screaming. “That’s what I want to do,” I thought. But without the leather trousers. By the time I was 17, I was in a band, writing songs and playing solo piano at weekends, in pubs or at weddings. It wasn’t quite the big time.

Then I had my wisdom teeth out. As I was waking up in the hospital bed, I saw the Who’s Roger Daltrey on GMTV. He was looking for someone who could sing and play guitar to portray his character’s son in a new film, Buddy’s Song. I opened my mouth and gurgled. My dad took me to the auditions.

Out of hundreds of boys, I got the part. There were already songs for the film and I wrote some, too, but the record company wanted a hit. Then a publisher friend of my dad’s played him some new Nik Kershaw songs that Nik was hoping to get recorded by other people. When dad heard The One and Only, he said: “That’s a smash.”

Dad played the demo through the speakers at Abbey Road, where we were recording. I was a huge Nik Kershaw fan and was desperate to meet him, but everyone else hated the song. Then a few days later a bloke from the record company rang to say: “I’ve listened to it a few times. Maybe it has got something.”

My 15-year-old brother Jody played drums on the record. Nik co-produced and played guitar, doing crazy things like playing it with a pencil. We totally hit it off, but the film only did OK and the song barely dented the Top 75. Then I was on The Little & Large TV show, which had a huge Saturday-night audience. The song started steamrollering. Before I knew it, we were No 1 all over Europe and in the US Top 10.

We were living the dream, girls camped outside the house and everything. People either loved the song or hated it. At the Brits, Phillip Schofield pushed a pretend me into hell using a pitchfork. That was a bit much, but the song still gets me gigs and I’m loving every minute of it.

View image in fullscreen

Nik Kershaw, songwriter

I’d just finished a four-album deal with MCA Records and they didn’t want any more, so I was at a crossroads. By then I was tired and starting a family, so I wanted to be around for them. I decided to see if I could get another career going as a songwriter and producer.

The One and Only was pretty much the first song out of the bag. My string of hits in the 80s had rather dried up. I’d had a few knocks and was feeling a bit “nobody loves me”, so I wrote the song about self-respect. It came together quickly, but I didn’t think much more about it. Then, 18 months later, I got a call saying they were using it in the film.

Ches was a new, fresh face, like I had been seven or eight years previously. We had great fun in the studio, doing things like recording feedback and playing it backwards in a sampler. When the record company started spending money on the single, I knew it had a chance, but I never thought it was a potential No 1. Ches did all the promo. I sat in an armchair sipping merlot while it flew up the charts.

I don’t think many people realise I wrote it. The song has bought me a couple of houses, and Ches and I are still best mates. I sometimes wonder how it would have worked out for him if he hadn’t had to follow a No 1. He was nurturing his own career nicely until I turned up to spoil it with a hit that overshadowed everything. He’s hugely talented, but he never got a chance to prove it, because of that song.