The Intro

One of the most enduring pop images of the early 80s is the skirt-ripping routine of 1981 Eurovision Song Contest winners Bucks Fizz. This is the story of how their entry, Making Your Mind Up, brought about their creation and became their first of three number 1 singles.

Before

Allegedly, songwriter Andy Hill wrote Making Your Mind Up in 1980 with a view to entering it in the UK’s Eurovision qualifying contest, A Song for Europe. Hill’s girlfriend, singer Nichola Martin, suggested Hill team up with a musician called John Danter, who she could sign up to her publishing company, which would enable her to own half the rights to the song, as Hill was signed elsewhere. Hill had been a member of Rags, a group who failed to win the 1977 A Song for Europe.

That October, Hill and Martin recorded a demo with the singer Mike Nolan, who had worked with the latter before. Nolan had been in the boyband Brooks, who were put together by Freya Miller, who became Shakin’ Stevens‘ manager. Another original member of Brooks was Chris Hamill, later known as Limahl.

Two months after the demo was recorded, Making Your Mind Up was selected out of 591 submitted entries to be one of the eight finalists. Martin had decided to name the performer as ‘Buck’s Fizz’, in honour of her favourite drink, so when she discovered the song had been picked, she needed to act fast and create a group featuring Nolan.

In January 1981, Martin contacted Cheryl Baker, who she remembered from the 1978 Eurovision group Co-Co. Baker had previously been in the band Bressingham Spire, which also featured the soon-to-be Radio 1 DJ Mike Read. Worried that Baker, disillusioned after Co-Co’s loss, may say no, Martin also auditioned for another female vocalist, plus a second male singer. The winners were Jay Aston and Stephen Fischer. When Baker agreed to take part, Martin decided to keep Aston anyway, as her vocal complemented Baker’s well. Aston had trained to be a dancer and actress, as well as a singer, and had taken part in the 1978 Miss England contest, where the act during the interval had been Co-Co.

Fischer threw a spanner in the works when it turned out he was contracted to appear in the musical Godspell, so he was out. A year later Fischer was the male member of the duo Bardo, who came seventh in Eurovision with the song One Step Further (a number two hit).

Martin found a replacement in Bobby G, a singer/guitarist/actor who had impressed in previous editions. On 11 January 1981, Bucks Fizz (what happened to the apostrophe?) met for the first time and Jill Shirley, who had been in Rags with Martin, agreed to be their manager. This meant Martin and Hill could now concentrate on their own entry for A Song for Europe, Have You Ever Been in Love?.

During rehearsals for Making Your Mind Up, the attention-grabbing skirt ripping routine during the lyric ‘see some more’ was hit upon. But by who, remains a mystery. It could have been routine choreographer Chrissie Wickham, formerly of Hot Gossip, who spent two days with the group. Martin, Baker and Aston have all laid claim to the concept too. I’d personally go with Martin, as the Top of the Pops performance that Rags made in 1977 when promoting Promises Promises has something rather similar as they remove their, er, rags.

Martin and Shirley scored a recording deal for Bucks Fizz with RCA Records, and Hill went with the group to record Making Your Mind Up at Mayfair Studios in London. The record, featuring Alan Carvell on backing vocals, was done and dusted in a week.

Review

I have a lot of time for Making Your Mind Up and I feel no shame. It’s pure cheese of course, but it’s so bloody charming and fun. The lyrics are mostly nonsensical – aren’t most Eurovision entries? But, there is some meaning in there – it seems to be about someone playing the field that might have found someone to stick with, but they need to stop being indecisive.

Not that the words really matter when you have a tune like this on your hands. Making Your Mind Up is so sugary sweet, it was always going to go down well at home, and abroad – and the latter is helped by what sounds like an accordion in the latter half.

This is one of those songs that defies analysis, really. It’s pure pop and if you can’t enjoy it, you may be dead inside. It’s leagues ahead of the other UK winners before this point, and I prefer it to Waterloo, too. And Bucks Fizz were the perfect vehicle to promote this song. You’ve got the Ken dolls, Nolan and G, for the girls, Baker has mumsy appeal for the mums and grans, and Aston was very popular with the dads – as was the skirt-ripping when they sing ‘If you wanna see some more’ the last time.

That routine of course featured in the official video for Making Your Mind Up, which starts with the group cheekily waving their arses for an adoring crowd before breaking into song and dance. There’s no bells or whistles here – it’s for all intents and purposes a Top of the Pops or Eurovision performance, really.

After

On 11 March, Bucks Fizz won A Song for Europe, beating even Liquid Gold, a popular act at the time. A Top of the Pops performance followed, which helped the single enter the charts at 24, before soaring to five a week later.

Eurovision was held at the RDS Simmonscourt in Dublin on 4 April 1981. Bucks Fizz performed 14th that evening, and despite a rather off-key performance (which may or may not have been down to nerves or a mic mix-up), they became the fourth winners from the UK, after Sandie Shaw, Lulu and Brotherhood of Man. Two weeks later, Making Your Mind Up became the third UK winner to then become number 1. The record eventually sold four million worldwide, and Bucks Fizz were one of the hottest groups of 1981.

The Outro

In 2013, BBC Radio 2 listeners voted Bucks Fizz’s debut the best Eurovision entry of all time. The skirt-rip routine was spoofed endlessly, has appeared in numerous Eurovision entries since 1981, and was even copied by Mick Jagger and Tina Turner at Live Aid in 1985.

The Info

Written by

Andy Hill & John Danter

Producer

Andy Hill

Weeks at number 1

3 (18 April-8 May)

Trivia

Births

23 April: Actress Gemma Whelan
25 April: Paralympian sprinter John McFall
3 May: Charlie Brooks
5 May: Singer Craig David

Deaths

19 April: Labour Party MP Colin Jackson
21 April: Antiques caretaker Dorothy Eady/Pianist Ivor Newton/Electrical engineer Lesley Souter
22 April: Liberal Party politician Philip Rea, 2nd Baron Rea
23 April: Olympic rower Sir James Angus Gillan
24 April: Mathematician JCP Miller
25 April: Indologist Isaline Blew Horner
26 April: Robert Garioch
28 April: T Rex bassist Steve Currie/Educationalist Marjorie Rackstraw/Businessman Bernard Mason
1 May: Actor Barry Jones
2 May: Unionist politician Joseph Foster
4 May: Zoologist Alan William Greenwood
5 May: IRA member Bobby Sands (see ‘Meanwhile…‘)
6 May: Film director Gordon Parry

Meanwhile…

20 April: Steve Davis, 23, wins the World Snooker Championship for the first time.
Also on this day, skirmishes break out in Finsbury Park, Forest Green and Ealing in London. 100 people are arrested and 15 police officers are injured.

23 April: Unemployment passes the 2,500,000 mark.

29 April: Peter Sutcfliffe admits to the manslaughter of 13 women, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

5 May: 27-year-old republican and Provisional IRA member Bobby Sands died following his hunger strike in Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison, one month after becoming MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.
Also on this day, Peter Sutcliffe’s trial begins at the Old Bailey in London.

7 May: Labour’s Ken Livingstone becomes leader of the Greater London Council.