“The Only One I Know” by The Charlatans

"The Only One I Know" was the Charlatans' second single, a 1990 track that also sits on their debut album, Some Friendly, and it's Madchester at its most swaggering. Rob Collins's keyboards swirl all over it, Jon Brookes and Martin Blunt lock into a baggy, loose-limbed shuffle, John Baker's guitar chimes along, and Tim Burgess sings in a dreamy, half-sulking drawl that sounds like it's floating a few feet off the dance floor. All five members share the writing credit.

Chris Nagle produced and mixed it, with Pete Coleman engineering, and he kept the groove loose and the keyboards right up front.

It became the band's first top-10 hit at home, reaching number 9 in the UK and outdoing everything else from Some Friendly there, and in September 1990 it made it to number 5 on the American Modern Rock chart. "Then" came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.