It was number one in the first edition of the French National Hit Parade launched by the Centre d'Information et de Documentation du Disque.

In the early 1960s, Raskin and his wife Francesca played folk music in venues around Greenwich Village in New York, including the White Horse Tavern.

[9] The Raskins were international performers and had played at London's "Blue Angel" club every year, always closing their show with the song.

Paul McCartney frequented the club and, being quite taken with the song, attempted unsuccessfully to get several singers and groups, including the early Moody Blues, to record it.

The Russian origin of the melody was accentuated by instrumentation that was unusual for a top-ten pop record, including balalaika, clarinet, hammered dulcimer or cimbalom, tenor banjo and a children's choir, giving a klezmer feel to the song.

"[16] McCartney also recorded Hopkin singing "Those Were the Days" in other languages for release in Spain (Qué tiempo tan feliz); in West Germany (An jenem Tag); in Italy (Quelli erano giorni); and in France (Le temps des fleurs).

It was the second single to be released on the Apple label; the first, "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, had retained the catalogue numbers used by Parlophone in the UK and Capitol in the US.

At the peak of the song's success, a New York company used the melody in a commercial for Rokeach gefilte fish, arguing that the tune was an old Russian folk-tune and therefore in the public domain.

On Christmas 1969, the President of Equatorial Guinea, Francisco Macías Nguema, had 150 alleged coup plotters executed in the national stadium while the amplifier system played the Mary Hopkin recording of "Those Were the Days".

[18] In 2011, Hopkin's version of the song was used by Nando's South Africa in a satirical advertisement featuring Robert Mugabe as the "Last Dictator Standing".