Hot 100 Pi: The Eleven Songs That Ruled Billboard on Charts Dated March 14

(March 14, 2026) – Every March 14, math lovers celebrate Pi (π) Day, honoring the famous mathematical constant 3.1415926… that begins with the numbers corresponding to today’s date.

For chart watchers, though, March 14 carries its own numerical curiosity. In nearly seven decades of Billboard Hot 100 history, only 11 songs have been lucky enough to sit at No. 1 on charts carrying that exact date.  The list stretches from Percy Faith’s orchestral evergreen in 1960 to Bruno Mars’ current chart-topper “I Just Might” in 2026, and along the way it reveals a few interesting intersections between music and math.

Mars now becomes the only artist with two Pi Day No. 1s, joining his earlier appearance on the chart dated March 14, 2015, with “Uptown Funk,” the smash collaboration with Mark Ronson.  That earlier hit carries a mathematical twist Pi itself might appreciate. Because it ruled on March 14, 2015, the calendar lined up perfectly with the first five digits of π: 3.1415.

Such an alignment is extraordinarily rare. The next time March 14 will occur in a year ending in 15 is 2115, and that’s a Thursday.  This means, unless Billboard changes its chart date rules, the Ronson/Mars smash will stand as the only Hot 100 No. 1 in any of our lifetimes to match π five digits deep.

Before Mars’ double appearance, the most distinctive Pi Day claim belonged to Dolly Parton.  Her workplace anthem “9 to 5” topped the chart dated March 14, 1981, making Parton the only woman ever to rule the Hot 100 on Pi Day.  The hit also supplies perhaps the most numerically fitting entry on the list: a No. 1 song whose title itself is made entirely of numbers.  On 3.14, the Hot 100 briefly (and oddly) belonged to 9 to 5.  (Anyone else out there noting that the square root of 9 is 3 and the sum of 9 and 5 is 14?)

Further back in chart history, the Beatles provide another memorable Pi Day moment. Their breakthrough smash, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sat at No. 1 on the chart dated March 14, 1964—the final date of its seven-week reign atop the Hot 100.  In other words, the Fab Four’s first American chart-topper took its final bow on Pi Day… long before anyone thought to celebrate the date as a mathematical holiday.

And the Pi Day pattern itself follows a rhythm that feels oddly appropriate for a holiday honoring π.  Because of the way calendars align with Billboard’s chart dates, the March 14 chart tends to recur on a cycle of six, five, six and eleven years.  That quirky sequence has given us everything from “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon & Garfunkel to “The Box” by Roddy Ricch exactly half a century later in 2020.  Simon & Garfunkel fans will note the uncanny fact that “Bridge” itself was the follow-up to their prior single called “The Boxer.”

Perhaps the most fitting Pi Day coincidence is that the Hot 100 often behaves a bit like π itself—irrational and impossible to predict. Just as the number stretches endlessly without repeating, chart history produces its own unpredictable sequence of hits: orchestral instrumentals, folk epics, hair-metal ballads, country crossovers, hip-hop juggernauts and funk throwbacks.  The eleven songs that have ruled the chart on March 14 form their own eclectic numerical series—proof that while mathematicians may celebrate π, music fans can celebrate the equally mysterious formula that turns songs into No. 1 hits, while noting that it will be another eleven years — in 2037 — before we see the 12th Pi Day No. 1.

Here’s the complete list of Pi (π) Day Number One Songs:

Note: During the chart’s early years, Billboard dated its issues on Mondays. That quirk explains the 1960 entry; otherwise the previous Pi Day chart-topper would have occurred in 1959 with “Venus” by Frankie Avalon.

Happy Pi Day!

DJRob

DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff!  You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.

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