In October 1979, the week after the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”, the British number one was a gospel country ballad sung by a woman from Glasgow. Lena Martell’s version of “One Day at a Time” stayed at the top of the UK chart for three weeks and made her the first Scottish woman to have a solo number one single. She died peacefully at a care home on Monday, October 5, 2026, after a short illness. She was 86.
A Glasgow voice on television
Martell was born Helen Thomson in Glasgow and was performing as a singer from a young age. By the 1970s she was a household name in Britain through a succession of prime-time light entertainment shows on BBC television, where her powerful voice suited the big ballads and standards that filled Saturday-night schedules. Reports of her career also say she worked in theatre in the United States, including on Broadway.
One Day at a Time
“One Day at a Time” was written by Marijohn Wilkin and Kris Kristofferson as a prayer for strength to get through each day. Wilkin wrote it in the early 1970s while going through a period of depression, and Kristofferson helped her finish it. It had already been a country hit in America for Marilyn Sellars in 1974, and it was sung in churches on both sides of the Atlantic before Martell recorded her version in 1979. A year after her number one, Cristy Lane’s version became a huge seller in the United States. It climbed to number one in the middle of the punk and new wave years, when a ballad about faith was the last thing most people expected at the top of the chart, and it became her signature song. After her death, a motion lodged in the Scottish Parliament recognised her as the first female artist from Scotland to score a solo number one.
Later years
Martell had been treated for cancer and underwent open-heart surgery, a triple heart bypass, in 2008. The cause of her death has not been disclosed, and her death was reported publicly about a week after it happened.
Several Scottish women have topped the chart since, but Martell got there first, with a song that asks for nothing more than the strength to get through each day.