Original photo by Everett Collection/ Shutterstock
Not many Americans know the name Charles G. Dawes today, but they should. As one of only three U.S. vice presidents to receive the Nobel Peace Prize during their lifetimes (for his work to preserve peace in Europe), he has reserved a place in the history books alongside Theodore Roosevelt and Al Gore. But perhaps even more notably, he’s also the only veep with a No. 1 hit pop song. Dawes was a self-trained pianist and flautist as well as a banker, and in 1911, 14 years before he would become Calvin Coolidge’s vice president, he wrote a short instrumental piece titled “Melody in A Major.” The song received some attention during Dawes’ lifetime, but it wasn't until 1951 — the year he died — that American songwriter Carl Sigman put lyrics to Dawes’ creation and called it “It’s All in the Game.” Seven years later, Tommy Edwards became the first Black artist to reach No. 1 in the U.S. with his doo-wop-influenced rendition of Sigman’s song.
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It's a fibNot true, but just barely. Surprisingly, folk legend Bob Dylan has only one No. 1 hit under his own name, and it arrived in 2020 with the 17-minute-long song “Murder Most Foul,” which debuted atop Billboard’s Rock Digital Song Sales chart (his first time topping any Billboard chart).
But that wasn’t the end of Dawes’ posthumous music stardom. The song soon transformed into a pop standard, and was covered by a variety of artists across several genres. There’s Nat King Cole’s big band affair (1957), Elton John's upbeat cover (1970), Van Morrison’s sorrowful take (1979), Issac Hayes’ soulful remix (1980), and Merle Haggard’s country creation (1984), just to name a few. To this day (and for likely many days to come), Dawes remains the only chief executive — president or vice president — to score a hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
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The song “______” now honors the vice president, though it was once an unofficial national anthem.
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The song “Hail, Columbia” now honors the vice president, though it was once an unofficial national anthem.
President Calvin Coolidge had a lot of pets, including a pygmy hippopotamus.
While Charles Dawes had a No. 1 pop single, his boss also had a few quirks. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th U.S. president, had arguably the most exotic collection of pets of any American chief executive (though Theodore Roosevelt gave him a run for his money). During his presidency, Coolidge had six dogs, a bobcat, two raccoons, a goose, a donkey, a cat, a bear, two lion cubs, an antelope, a wallaby, and more. But the strangest of Coolidge’s pets was probably Billy, a pygmy hippopotamus, who was given to Coolidge as a gift from businessman Harvey Firestone (as in Firestone tires). Perhaps because of his size (even a pygmy hippo can weigh up to 600 pounds), or because he was one of only a few pygmy hippos in the U.S., Billy was donated to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, where he became the proud father of many hippo calves. In fact, most of the pygmy hippos in the U.S. today can be traced back to his lineage.
Darren Orf lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes about all things science and climate. You can find his previous work at Popular Mechanics, Inverse, Gizmodo, and Paste, among others.
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