Sam Fender and Olivia Dean have set the longest-running UK No 1 single in history with Rein Me In, beating a record that had stood since 1953. The duet has spent 19 weeks at the summit, overtaking Frankie Laine’s I Believe, which previously held the mark.
Back in 1953, the UK singles chart had existed for less than a year and contained just 12 songs when I Believe, a bombastic ballad by US crooner Frankie Laine, reached No 1 and spent a total of 18 weeks on the chart.
Several songs have come close since. Bryan Adams’s (Everything I Do) I Do It For You spent 16 weeks at the top in 1991, while Wet Wet Wet’s Love is All Around stayed there for 15 weeks in 1994. Both were gooey power ballads launched off major movie placements, and both prompted exasperation as well as celebration as their runs continued. More recently, Drake’s One Dance spent 15 weeks at No 1 in 2016, and Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You spent 14 weeks there in 2017.
Fender and Dean have now gone one week further, despite chart rules introduced in recent years to stop runs of this length from happening again.
On hearing the news, Fender said he was
“completely lost for words. Thank you so much to and the fans for making this song the juggernaut that it is.”
Fender wrote Rein Me In for his album , which was released in February 2025. Before Rein Me In, he released five other singles from the album, including the title track, which had looked set to be the biggest hit. That song reached No 4 and remained in the Top 100 for 43 weeks.
The title track is a clear anthem: high tempo, strident guitars, euphoric synths and a Springsteen-esque sense of grandeur. Rein Me In is gentler and less obviously commercial, rooted in Fender’s love of British folk and set to a slower, rollicking rhythm. Its beautiful music sits alongside a bleak, heart-rending story of someone who spirals into alcohol and drugs,
“working myself up to a nice warm bliss”,after self-destructively ending a relationship.
Fender has said:
“I’m talking about substance abuse and drinking too much to get the reason back, the reason for going through your day,”He added:
“It’s loosely based on my own life, this song, but also, I always kind of take parts of my own life and put it into characters and embellish it, ‘cause all good stories deserve embellishment. The ‘rein me in’ part kind of [means] your friends are gonna rein you in from drinking too much and going off the rails because you’re heartbroken and you’re dealing with it in a bad way.”
The song moved from album track to hit single after being re-recorded with a new verse by Dean, who has also had huge solo success alongside Rein Me In thanks to her hit second album, . Her verse gives voice to the woman Fender’s protagonist walked away from, singing to him:
“You’re so afraid of that heart inside your chest.”
Released in June 2025, the new version of Rein Me In took 36 weeks to reach No 1 and has been on and off the top spot since February. Its path was interrupted by short spells from Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, before it took back No 1 each time. This week, it held off competition from Shakira and Burna Boy, who remain at No 2 with their official World Cup song, Dai Dai.
The song has also bucked a rule introduced in 2017 called “accelerated decline”, designed to help more songs move through the charts and sweep away older tracks that had been lingering. Once a song has been on the charts for 10 weeks, if its streaming numbers fall for three weeks in a row, the value of its streams is halved, usually causing a sharp drop down the charts even if the song remains popular in real terms.
Rein Me In’s slow-burn, up-and-down route to the top has helped it avoid that fate, along with the strength of the songwriting and its emotional impact, which has given it appeal across the tastes of British pop fans.
Jo Twist, chief executive of the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), said:
“In an evolving world where we all consume music globally, it’s a truly remarkable feat for Rein Me In to resonate with fans in such a profound way. The British public have taken the song to their hearts, and we should all be proud and celebrate this special moment in our music heritage.”
The duet version of Rein Me In also won song of the year at the 2026 Brit awards.
Adams’s (Everything I Do) I Do It For You still holds the record for the longest consecutive run at No 1. Its 16 weeks were unbroken before U2’s The Fly ended the streak.
Another British chart record was broken this week on the albums chart, where Charli xcx became the first British female artist to have two No 1 albums in the same year. Her new album reached the top just five months after her previous one, her to Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of .
’s rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis on Rein Me In
When and Olivia Dean launched their re-recorded version of Rein Me In last summer – with Dean appearing on stage to perform the song during Fender’s run of British stadium shows – it seems highly unlikely either of them thought they were sitting on a record-breaking single that would still be lodged at No 1 a year later.
Rein Me In does not have the obvious blockbuster qualities of earlier long-running chart-toppers such as Everything I Do (I Do It for You), Bohemian Rhapsody, or Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That). It has a singalong chorus, but even by the standards of Fender’s more anthemic Springsteen-inspired work such as Seventeen Going Under or Hypersonic Missiles, it is understated: a sweet tune with a vaguely country-ish lilt. The guitar part sounds like a banjo and the piano has a metallic
“tack”sound, familiar from saloon-bar players in old westerns.
Even so, it is the kind of track that works well in a streaming-dominated climate. It is pretty, mellifluous and well-written, and it sounds amiable in a way that sits oddly with its subject matter. It sits somewhere between genres – a bit folky, a bit rocky, a bit country, plus a hint of soul thanks to Dean’s vocal – and it rewards repeated listening because it is not so striking that listeners are likely to tire of it quickly.
Its shelf life may also have been extended by the fact that the balance between the two artists has gradually shifted over the last year. In summer 2025, Fender was giving a mid-ranking British singer stadium-level exposure, but with the release of The Art of Loving – a major global hit supported by a string of hugely successful singles, including the billion-streaming Man I Need – Dean’s career surged. A song that began life very much as Sam Fender featuring Olivia Dean has, over the course of its success, gradually become something else: a collaboration between two huge stars.
