1979

448. Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (1979)

/ robbarker1979 / 2 Comments

The Intro

One of the biggest bands of the 70s, prog rock legends Pink Floyd hadn’t released a single since 1968. Their dystopian disco classic Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) gave them their sole number 1 and was the final chart-topper of the decade, striking a sombre tone for the advent of the Thatcher era. The optimism of the decade’s first number 1 by Edison Lighthouse seemed a hundred years ago.

Before

Before the landmark albums, and before the psychedelia, there was Roger Waters and Nick Mason. The two met in 1963 while studying architecture at London Polytechnic. Sharing a mutual love of the upcoming beat music, they joined a band with some friends, and were joined by Richard Wright. Waters played lead guitar, Mason was behind the drumkit, and without a keyboard, Wright played rhythm guitar. Sigma 6 performed at private functions nearby, covering material by groups including The Searchers.

Sixma 6 went through several names, including The Meggadeaths, The Abdabs and Leonard’s Lodgers – Waters and Mason shared a flat owned by Mike Leonard. Guitarist Bob Klose moved into the flat when Mason left, and also joined the group, now called The Tea Set, in 1964, which prompted Waters to switch to bass. Wright began to use a Farfisa organ owned by Leonard. Later that year another lodger joined them and the line-up – Waters’ childhood friend Roger ‘Syd’ Barrett.

In December 1964 The Tea Set made their debut in a studio, thanks to a friend of Wright’s. The future keyboardist wasn’t there however, having taken a break in his studies. At this point Royal Air Force technician Chris Dennis was the frontman, but when the RAF posted him to Bahrain in early 1965, the good-looking, charismatic Barrett took over as frontman.

The Tea Set became the house band at London’s Countdown Club. Playing three sets, each 90-minutes long, they were struggling to avoid repetition in their material, but realised they could fill time with lengthy solos. Klose left The Tea Set in mid-65, so Barrett also became their guitarist.

Before one gig, their new frontman found out that there was another band with the same name set to perform at one of their gigs. He came up with The Pink Floyd Sound instead, inspired by two blues artists in his record collection – Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.

In 1966, as musicians began exploring the outer limits of pop, The Pink Floyd Sound were mostly performing old R’n’B songs. That December they were noticed by their future managers Peter Jenner and Andrew King, and Jenner suggested they became The Pink Floyd. This coincided with them being booked at venues popular with the underground music scene, including The Marquee Club.

At the same time they were developing basic but very effective light shows via projections of coloured slides. Jenner and King’s connections got them coverage in the Financial Times and they performed at the launch of new underground magazine International Times. By that December the covers were slowly dropping from their sets and Barrett originals were becoming more frequent. They became regulars at the ultra-hip UFO Club, where the far-out lights, improvised sets and Barrett’s charisma earned them an ever-growing fanbase among freaks and hippies.

As 1967 began The Pink Floyd were signed to EMI Records and released their debut single. Arnold Layne, a psych-pop classic about a thieving cross-dresser, was banned by many radio stations but nonetheless made it to 20 in the charts. They followed it up with an even better single, just in time for the Summer of Love. See Emily Play was a smash hit, peaking at six and earning them appearances on Top of the Pops. It was their last charting single until 1979.

However, Pink Floyd, as they were now known, were in trouble. Barrett, despite his good looks, was an unlikely pop star and too fragile to cope with the pressures of fame. He was already a regular user of LSD by the time they recorded their classic debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967. It features some of the best psychedelic rock ever, including Interstellar Overdrive, plus lysergic-dipped whimsy like Bike, whose ending was perhaps a sadly fair approximation of Barrett’s mind at the time. He became increasingly distanced from the others, and while standing at the front of the stage in silence with a guitar slung over his neck might have seemed nicely trippy for their audiences, it didn’t bode well for the future as far as the others were concerned.

While touring with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Barrett’s behaviour came stranger and stranger. Stories circulated of performances where the singer crushed Mandrax tranquillisers and Brylcreem into his hair, which under the heat of the stage lights, gave the impression to drugged-up audiences that he was melting on stage. His behaviour became so unreliable the others drafted in Dave Gilmour, who had studied alongside Barrett in the early-60s, as an extra guitarist. Apples and Oranges, the final single written by Barrett, failed to chart. Under pressure to come up with the goods, he told the band he’d written their next single, called Have You Got It Yet?. Every time they rehearsed it, he played a different tune, making it impossible to work on.

In January 1968, Pink Floyd were en route to a performance in Southampton when they decided it would be best if they didn’t pick up Barrett. Jenner and King, perhaps understandably, thought Pink Floyd were finished without their frontman, so they went with Barrett. The burden of leadership fell to Waters and while they continued to experiment live, their recorded output began to consist of failed attempts to sound like Barrett, such as Wright’s It Would Be So Nice. A Saucerful of Secrets, released in June, closed with, for me, one of the most blackly comic songs ever. Jugband Blues was Barrett’s farewell, with him singing ‘I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here’ and ending with a sad strum following a final trip to the cosmos, and the closing line ‘And what exactly is a joke?’ You could argue Barrett never left the group in a way, as his descent into madness would provide the band with inspiration for years to come.

Point Me at the Sky, sung by Gilmour and Waters, was their last UK single until Another Brick in the Wall (Part II). From then on Pink Floyd’s albums saw them searching for a new direction through soundtrack LPs More (1969) and Obscured by Clouds (1972) and albums of experimentation, that fitted in with the growing trend for progressive rock. Ummagumma, released in 1969, was a double album featuring a side by each band member, plus a live concert recording. Atom Heart Mother (1970) was better, featuring an interesting 20-minute-plus title track and some pastoral rock. They built upon this with Meddle (1971), which included the driving space rock of One of These Days and Echoes, another long track that pointed the way towards the band’s future.

Then came The Dark Side of the Moon. Released in 1973, this lush, wonderful album about universal themes including time, greed, conflict and madness (the latter inspired by Barrett) was the peak of Waters and Gilmour’s partnership. The latter’s languid, melodic guitar lines and soft vocals were the perfect counterpoint to Waters anger and satire. It remains one of the bestselling albums of all time, and deservedly so.

Following a lengthy tour, Pink Floyd reconvened and were under pressure to follow up with something just as successful. Struggling for inspiration, Waters began writing explicitly about the loss of Barrett as well as the perils of the music industry, for the album that became Wish You Were Here (1975).

Incredibly, while recording the two-part song Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a paunchy man with no eyebrows appeared in the studio, brushing his teeth. Initially unrecognisable, it became apparently the tragic figure was Barrett. He had released two solo albums after Pink Floyd – The Madcap Laughs (1970) and Barrett (1970), co-produced in different sessions by Gilmour, Waters and Wright. They’re a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a schizophrenic, at times painful to listen to.

Waters couldn’t believe Barrett was there, listening to a song explicitly about Pink Floyd’s former leader. He asked Barrett what he thought of it and he replied ‘It sounds a bit old’. Waters was distraught afterwards. Other than an accidental meeting with him in Harrods a few years later, in which Barrett ran away, it was the last time any of Pink Floyd saw him.

Pink Floyd’s bassist became ever more dominant within the group and came up with the concept of the next album. Animals, released in 1977. was loosely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and in the year of the Silver Jubilee and punk, its cynical comments on the class system proved timely. But Wright in particular found himself increasingly sidelined.

The subsequent ‘In the Flesh’ tour saw the prog-rock behemoths touring stadiums for the first time, but friction grew and Wright flew back home at one point threatening to quit, and most famously, a group of noisy fans at the Montreal Olympic Stadium prompted Waters to spit at one of them. He began to wish there was a wall between the band and the audience.

In 1978 the band, struggling financially through ill-advised investments, needed new material, despite Gilmour feeling they had done all they could achieve. Waters presented them with two ideas. The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, which became his first solo album in 1984, and a 90-minute collection of demos entitled Bricks in the Wall. Available online, the demos are the bare bones of what became an ambitious double album soundtracking the story of rock star Pink.

Producer Bob Ezrin, who had been behind School’s Out in 1972, wrote a script for the album, telling of Pink’s childhood trauma over losing his father in the Second World War (which had happened to Waters), his alienation through the education system, his mental problems during stardom (Barrett, once more) and subsequent breakdown. All his issues represented bricks in a wall he built up around his audience and his loved ones until he becomes a maniacal fascist. At the end, Pink recovers and tears down the wall and the story comes full circle, ending as it began.

Pink Floyd’s rock opera The Wall featured many repeated musical motifs, just like a film soundtrack. The double LP’s backbone was Another Brick in the Wall, which traced Pink’s downfall at three points in his life. Part I occurs after his father dies, Part II spotlights trauma suffered at boarding school, and Part III comes as Pink completes his wall, deciding everyone he knows has contributed to his suffering.

Recording began in December 1978. Previous tensions within the band continued and Wright contributed so little to the sessions, Waters, Gilmour and Mason issued an ultimatum. Wright was to leave the group once recording was over. He did however perform on this number 1, playing Hammond organ and Prophet-5 synthesiser.

While recording the album, Ezrin suggested to the band that they go out to a club and listen to some disco. The idea appalled Gilmour, and even more so when he did what Ezrin asked. He thought it was awful. However, Gilmour developed the catchy Bee Gees-style guitar riff that underpinned Another Brick in the Wall (Part II). To his relief, it sounded good. With an added disco beat behind it, Ezrin thought they had a hit on their hands if more work was done. Pink Floyd stuck to their guns and insisted they didn’t release singles. Eventually they relented to a degree, with Waters telling him, ‘Go ahead and waste your time doing silly stuff’.

So he did. While Pink Floyd were absent, Ezrin extended the song and decided on another key ingredient. Perhaps with School’s Out in mind, he asked engineer Nick Griffiths to record a few children at the nearby Islington Green School singing Waters’ lyrics – a delicious irony considering the theme of the song. Griffiths, inspired by a Todd Rundgren song, decided to ask for a choir instead. The school agreed, but insisted it take no longer than 40 minutes.

Head of Music Alun Renshaw loved the idea. He’d been longing to make his pupils more interested in class by making music more relevant. Fearing headteacher Margaret Maden might feel different when she knew what the song was about, he kept such information from her. Renshaw and the children practiced for a week before going to Britannia Row studio. In return for the performance, the school received £1000 and the students were given tickets for a Pink Floyd concert, plus copies of the single and album.

When Ezrin played the results to Waters he recalled ‘there was a total softening of his face, and you just knew that he knew it was going to be an important record’. After more than a decade, Pink Floyd decided to release a single edit. Ezrin added a four-bar disco instrumental intro by looping a section of the backing track and Gilmour’s guitar solo was faded out. Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) was released on 23 November 1979, a week before the album.

Review

I’m a huge Pink Floyd fan and find their story fascinating – at least, until the point Waters left. Most Pink Floyd fans have a preferred era, but I genuinely don’t know whether it’s the Barrett or Waters era for me. I can totally see why Waters’ increasing takeover of the group has its critics, and that many find The Wall bloated and self-obsessed, but I love it. I could sing the entire album to you right now, with all the film-style snippets between songs. And Ezrin’s work on Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) is excellent – there’s no way The Wall would have sold as well as it did without the success of this downbeat disco anthem behind it, and that’s all down to him by the sounds of it. Hats off to Renshaw for the performance of the choir. They sound genuinely pissed off and rather scary, fitting the nightmarish mood perfectly.

I love that this was the least festive Christmas number 1 in years and marked the end of the 70s. How strange that these progressive rockers, famous for their dreamy soundscapes, should somehow capture the mood of so many disaffected youths. It sounds obvious these days, to stick a children’s choir on a song released at Christmas, it means you’re on to a winner. But not a choir singing about needing no education! Who says punk killed prog? You’ve got both here in just over three minutes.

There’s two ways to hear Another Brick in the Wall (Part II). You either need to start with the preceding track on the LP, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, in which Waters sets the scene, or, if you want that disco intro, plus Gilmour’s solo from the album, you want the version from the 1981 compilation A Collection of Great Dance Songs.

A memorable promo film was made for the single. It begins with footage of St Paul’s Cathedral as a backdrop of London, and everything looks grey and grim. Panning around, the camera eventually swoops down into a playground. The footage is then interspersed with clips of puppets and animation by Gerald Scarfe, the satirical cartoonist responsible for the album artwork and subsequent tour. The nightmarish Schoolmaster Scarfe created puts pupils into the top of the school, which minces them up, and the headmaster’s head becomes that of one of the marching hammers stomping around. After a wall encircles a child, we see a group of children miming the ‘We don’t need no education’ chant as disco lights flash, and then as Gilmour’s solo begins, foreboding footage of children leaving flats suggests trouble, and we fade out on the marching hammers. Merry Christmas!

After

Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) was a worldwide smash, going to number 1 in many countries including the US. Thatcher and The Inner London Education Authority were not fans of the cynical lyrics. Waters would have been thrilled at upsetting the former. He could claim his number 1 was his reflection on his boarding school experiences, but he was a staunch critic of the Conservative Prime Minister, and would rail against her explicitly on the next Pink Floyd album, which would be his last.

1980 began with Pink Floyd’s elaborate stage show for The Wall, with inter-band relations at an all-time low. Wright returned but only as a salaried musician rather than band member. Plans were made to combine tour footage with animation and make a film. Alan Parker became director and decided to take a different approach. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof, who originally dismissed the idea as ‘bollocks’, was hired to play Pink.

Following the Falklands War, Waters suggested Pink Floyd follow-up with a sequel-of-sorts, delving deeper into the loss of his father in the Second World War and linking it to Thatcher’s jingoistic response to the conflict with Argentina that made her into a hero to many. Gilmour wasn’t keen, and in effect, the appropriately named The Final Cut was more like Waters’ first solo album than a Pink Floyd LP. There’s some interesting parts but it pales into comparison with The Wall, which, despite Waters’ dominance, proved that Pink Floyd were at their best when he and Gilmour worked together, for example, on tracks like this and the epic Comfortably Numb.

A year later Waters released The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and went public in saying he believed Pink Floyd were done. Whatever the others had in mind, he went to the High Court in an effort to dissolve the band and prevent the others from using its name. Nevertheless, Gilmour and Mason pressed ahead with the 13th Floyd album. A Momentary Lapse of Reason had Wright back on board and was a return to the sound of The Dark Side of the Moon with added 80s bombastic production. But it lacked soul and with contributions from the others at a minimum, it was in effect a solo Gilmour album but it sold very well and a world tour followed.

The rancour between Waters and the others got silly. He would contact promoters in the US and threaten to sue them if they advertised Pink Floyd gigs. He issued a writ over the use of the inflatable pig based on the idea he came up with for the cover of Animals – they responded by adding male genitals to their pig to differentiate it. What a load of bollocks.

In January 1993 when Gilmour, Wright and Mason began work on the next album, The Division Bell, the legal war was over. Released the following year, it was better than their previous, but still way past the band’s prime. Another world tour came afterwards, which would be their last.

Although the legal issues had long since been settled, Gilmour and Waters still had a strained relationship. So it came as a huge, exciting surprise to Pink Floyd fans – myself included – when it was announced that the duo would reunite with Wright and Mason to perform at Live 8 on 2 July 2005 at Hyde Park. Geldof had managed the impossible, although Gilmour had originally refused and it took a call from Waters to persuade him. Pink Floyd’s dramatic return was a spellbinding treat, especially when Waters spoke to the crowd before Wish You Were Here and mentioned Syd. He even managed to coax Gilmour over for a hug at the end of the show.

Waters was enthused and spoke of more possible shows for charity, but Gilmour said he was done, insisting it wasn’t due to any tension between them. On 1 July 2006 I saw Waters at Hyde Park performing The Dark Side of the Moon and other classics, with assistance from Mason. As always he paid tribute to Barrett, but seemed quite emotional when doing so. Unbeknownst to me and everyone in attendance, Barrett had pancreatic cancer, and died six days later, aged 60. In May 2007 Gilmour, Wright and Mason performed together at a Barrett tribute concert, while Waters featured alone.

Wright died of cancer on 15 September 2008, aged 65. Perhaps age was mellowing them, or the deaths of their former colleagues had got them thinking, but relations thawed again for a brief time, with Waters and Gilmour performing together for an audience of 200 at a charity event in July 2010. The following year Waters was performing The Wall at London’s 02 Arena when Gilmour joined in on Comfortably Numb. Mason also joined in for album closer Outside the Wall.

In 2014 Pink Floyd released the album The Endless River. Gilmour and Mason had revisited sessions for The Division Bell and put it together as a tribute to Wright. Gilmour said it would be the final Pink Floyd album. In 2018 Mason said Gilmour and Waters remained at loggerheads and so he formed Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, which would perform early Floyd material. In 2019 Waters joined them on stage.

The Outro

So it really did look like Pink Floyd were finally done. But then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Gilmour, who has Ukrainian family, contacted Mason. They decided to team up with their bassist Guy Pratt (Waters was left out of the project) and musician Nitin Sawhney, and they created Pink Floyd’s first new song in 28 years. Hey, Hey, Rise Up! samples a performance by Andriy Khlyvnyuk, frontman of Ukrainian rock band BoomBox, who was recorded performing an a cappella version of a 1914 Ukranian protest song.

It’s highly likely that this will be a one-off but you never know. It could perhaps lead to live shows, at the least, Who’d have thought they would perform at Live 8, after all. But even with Mason as a go-between, it’s likely Waters won’t play with them again.

If they never do never reunite, at least they put their egos to one side for a good cause. If Pink Floyd’s career was made into a film – and it should be, because what a story – it would make a great, emotional ending, with Hey, Hey, Rise Up! an interesting epilogue.

And speaking of emotional endings, that’s the 70s done. What a decade of musical ups and downs, to say the least. To try and sum up this period would take a blog in itself. Sadly, just as things were getting interesting and exciting once more, it’s time for a break. Watch this space, though.

The Info

Written by

Roger Waters

Producers

David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, Roger Waters & James Guthrie

Weeks at number 1

5 (15 December 1979-18 January 1980)

Trivia

Births

17 December 1979: Cricketer Charlotte Edwards
24 December: Field-hockey player Lucilla Wright
25 December: Racing driver Robert Huff
1 January 1980: Judas Priest guitarist Richie Faulkner
8 January: Actor Sam Riley
18 January: Singer Estelle

Deaths

6 January 1980: Racing car driver Raymond Mays
11 January: Novelist Barbara Pym
18 January: Photographer Sir Cecil Beaton

Meanwhile…

20 December 1979: The government publishes the Housing Bill, which will give council house tenants the right to buy their homes from 1981 onwards. This policy was a big vote winner among those who finally had a chance to own their ow homes.

2 January 1980: A new decade may have begun but strike action remained popular. Workers at British Steel Corporation began nationwide action for the first time since 1926. 

447. The Police – Walking on the Moon (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Hot on the heels of their first number 1, Message In a Bottle, new-wave/reggae three-piece The Police were ruling the charts once again with this follow-up. And in a year of really hip number 1s, Walking on the Moon is one of the coolest.

Before

Their second album, Regatta de Blanc (which loosely translates into French as ‘White Reggae’) had been recorded between February and August. Although their label, A&M Records, had wanted to capitalise on their band’s growing wave of support with a bigger budget and more famous producer, The Police insisted on returning to Surrey Sound in Leatherhead with co-producer Nigel Gray.

Unlike their first album, Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers struggled to find enough new material to record and considered remaking debut single Fall Out. Digging out old material from before they were a band, they added new elements to flesh out the songs. Walking on the Moon, however, was brand new.

Sting came up with it while drunk one night in a Munich hotel following a gig. Slumped on the bed, the room spinning around him, he got up and started singing ‘Walking round the room, ya, ya, walking round the room’. In the morning he remembered the riff and wrote what he had down, but realised it was a rather dull premise for a song, so he changed the lyrics. He later admitted the song became the recollection of his first girlfriend, Deborah Anderson, and likened leaving her house in a loved-up state was akin to walking without gravity. Sting was a keen jazz buff, and one of his favourite tunes was John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, so the title also found its way in naturally to the opening line.

Originally conceived and demoed as a rocker, The Police and Gray decided a song about space should sound spaced out. Rather than delve into reggae as they often did, Walking on the Moon became a very successful experiment in dub. This genre, originally an offshoot of reggae, had been developed by pioneering producers including King Tubby, Augustus Pablo and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry in the late-60s. They would reshape songs, often removing vocals and laying emphasis on the rhythm section, adding echo and reverb. It sounds brilliant when stoned.

A key instrument used in dub was the Roland RE-201 Space Echo unit, and The Police bought one with the money from their first hit, Roxanne. Drummer Copeland added the Space Echo to Walking on the Moon, using it to repeat not the preceding note, but the one before that. Doing so on the rhythm track created the wobbly, stuttering effect that makes it so atmospheric. The combination of Sting’s memorable three-note bass line with the drums was more than good enough on its own, but the icing on the cake was Summers’ idea to add the clanging guitar echo after the bass notes throughout.

Review

Were it not for Every Breath You Take, Walking on the Moon would easily rank as my favourite Police number 1. I love dub, in small doses, and it makes for great headphone music. Sting gets a mostly free pass for his often irritating vocal here, so great is the bass. If you think too much about it, the way he sings the title could still annoy – it is a cod-Jamaican accent, there’s no escaping it. It’s there again on the ‘Keep it up’ refrain at the end too. However, his least annoying performance comes in the least successful element of the song – the ‘Some may say/I’m wishing’ my days away’. The lyrics to this section don’t really fit the rest and just seem like rhymes for the sake of it.

I love the idea of likening new love to being as amazing as stepping out on to the Moon. The music is in complete contrast to that idea though, sounding edgy and mysterious. I guess there is a good comparison to be had with the great unknowns of what happens next in a love affair and moonwalking. Anyway, I’m rambling. I just wish there was a 12-inch version, which could have explored the outer reaches even more, really emphasising the echo.

Taking a literal approach for the video, Sting, Copeland and Summers were recorded at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 23 October 1979. They’re mostly pretending to play live, although Sting has an electric guitar rather than a bass, and Copeland is whacking his drumsticks against a Saturn V rocket. As with their last video, Derek Burbridge directs and Sting looks rather menacing, until all three crack up while dicking about inside.

After

Walking on the Moon very nearly made it to Christmas number 1, which would have made for a distinctly un-festive chart-topper and final number 1 of the 70s. What replaced it was even less cheery.

The Info

Written by

Sting

Producers

The Police & Nigel Gray

Weeks at number 1

1 (8-14 December)

Trivia

Births

14 December: Footballer Michael Owen

Deaths

9 December: Boxing promoter Jack Solomons

Meanwhile…

10 December: Stunt performer Eddie Kidd performs an 80ft motorcycle jump.

14 December: Doubts are raised over the convictions of the four men in the Carl Bridgewater case. Hubert Vincent Spencer is charged with murdering 70-year-old farmer Hubert Wilkes. The farmhouse where Wilkes was murdered was less than half a mile away from the one where Bridgewater had been killed.

446. Dr. Hook – When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

From the cover of Rolling Stone to UK number 1, New Jersey country rock band Dr Hook enjoyed three weeks at the top with this disco-flecked look at the perils of punching above your weight.

Before

Dr Hook and the Medicine Show: Tonic for the Soul formed in 1968. Guitarist George Cummings had left the band Chocolate Papers and moved to Union City, New Jersey to start a new group. He brought with him their vocalist Ray Sawyer and keyboardist Billy Francis. Sawyer had lost his right eye in a motorcycle accident in 1967 and he’d worn an eyepatch ever since. Cummings came up with the new name as a reference to Sawyer resembling a pirate, despite Captain Hook not wearing a patch. They hired Dennis Locorriere as their bassist, and soon after former Chocolate Papers drummer Popeye Phillips also joined their ranks.

Phillips didn’t hang around long, and neither did his replacement, Joseph Olivier, but session drummer John ‘Jay’ David did. After two years of performing locally, fortune smiled on the five-piece. Their demo tapes were heard by Ron Haffkine, the musical director on the film Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?. He liked their sound and hired them to perform two songs, both sung by Locorriere. Though the film was only a modest success upon its release in 1971, it did get Dr Hook and the Medicine Show a recording contract with CBS Records. Haffkine became their producer and manager.

Their first album, Doctor Hook, spawned Sylvia’s Mother, a cheeky dig at teen-heartbreak ballads. This became a huge hit, reaching two in the UK and five in the US, but number 1 in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Follow-up album Sloppy Seconds featured The Cover of Rolling Stone, which poked fun at the idea of having made it if they were to appear on the front of the music magazine. When Jann Wenner, one of Rolling Stone‘s founders, heard about the song, he sent Cameron Crowe, then 16, to interview the band. They made it to the cover – but in cartoon form, and the song peaked at six in the US.

Meanwhile, the song couldn’t even get played on most UK radio stations. The BBC considered it wasn’t on to in effect advertise a publication on the air. A few of their DJs got together and edited the song to sing ‘Radio Times‘ instead, but it still failed to chart.

As the occasionally tortured voice of Locorriere began to feature more and more over Sawyer’s vocals, they hired Jance Garfat to play bass and Rick Elswit became second guitarist, both in 1972. But things began to go downhill for Dr Hook and the Medicine Show over the next few years. They earned a reputation for partying hard and quirky live performances, where they’d sometimes impersonate their support acts. But they overindulged, the 1973 album Belly Up! was a flop and David then left, to be replaced by John Wolters. In 1974 they filed for bankruptcy and their LP Fried Face didn’t even get a release.

Realising they needed to get their act together, they shortened their name to Dr Hook, signed with Capitol Records and penned their own material for a new album. The aptly named Bankrupt saw them return to the US singles chart, at six with a cover of Sam Cooke’s Only Sixteen. Elswit was briefly out of action due to cancer, so Bob ‘Willard’ Henk was brought in to help in 1976. He remained even once Elswit had recuperated and returned.

Also in 1976, Haffkine had bought the song A Little Bit More by Bobby Gosh for 35 cents at a flea market. He loved it and thought his band could make it a hit, and this romantic, but slightly rapey ballad was a smash, particularly in the UK, where it stormed to number two. The album it came from, with the same name, also featured If Not You, which peaked at five and More Like the Movies, number 14 in 1978.

In 1978 came their eighth album, Pleasure and Pain, which featured When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman. Songwriter Even Stevens (great name) pitched the song to Haffkine in the studio bathroom of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.

Review

Dr Hook’s brand of novelty country rock in general does little for me, and this isn’t up there with some of 1979’s many classic, innovative chart-toppers. However, whether this disco shuffle was a cynical attempt to get on the disco bandwagon or not, I’ve a soft spot for it. The rhythm really is irresistible, and brings to mind one of my favourite examples of the genre – George McCrae’s Rock Your Baby. The lyrics haven’t aged well – they’re a bit on the condescending side, assuming that because this woman is beautiful, she’s not to be trusted. Take the tune out of the equation and the lyrics sound like the man in the relationship is paranoid to the point of psychosis. He’s ‘been fooled before/By fair-weathered friends and faint-hearted lovers’ and it’s clearly left its mark. Big round of applause for the innuendo of the first line though, especially when the backing singers join in.

The video is more in keeping with the music, with Dr Hook having a lot of fun, beaming away in the studio. Locorriere pokes fun at the lyrics, going all starey and wild-eyed at ‘You watch your friends’, glancing edgily at Sawyer, then grinning at the camera so we know he’s just kidding. But then – oh no! Sawyer drives off at the end with not one but two beautiful women! Locorriere cannot believe it! What larks.

After

When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman was so successful, Dr Hook also included it on their next LP, Sometimes You Win. Their final Capitol album also featured Better Love Next Time, which peaked at eight, and Sexy Eyes, another decent disco/soft rock hybrid and number four smash in 1980. Henke left that year and was replaced by Rod Smarr. Going further down the disco route, they signed with Casablanca Records, but their time in the charts was up.

Sawyer reportedly was unhappy with Dr Hook’s songs, and perhaps felt sidelined now Locorriere was considered their frontman. He was by now the equivalent of Bez in Happy Mondays, or Davy Jones in The Monkees, mostly just shaking maracas. He decided to leave in 1983 and two years later, Dr Hook split up.

The Outro

Locorriere retained ownership of the band’s name but from 1988 to 2015 Sawyer toured as ‘Dr Hook featuring Ray Sawyer’. In 2018 Sawyer died, aged 81. Few classic era Dr Hook band members remain – Wolters died in 1997, Graft in 2006, Francis in 2010 and Smarr in 2012. Locorriere still tours under the band’s name.

The Info

Written by

Even Stevens

Producer

Ron Haffkine

Weeks at number 1

3 (17 November-7 December)

Trivia

Births

22 November: 5ive singer Scott Robinson
29 November: Comedian Simon Anstell
1 December: Field hockey player Lisa Wooding
3 December: Singer-songwriter Daniel Bedingfield

Deaths

23 November: Actress Merle Oberon
30 November: Comedian Joyce Grenfell

Meanwhile…

23 November: IRA member Thomas McMahon is sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of Lord Mountbatten.

4 December: When three boys are killed in the Hastie Fire in Hull, the hunt begins for Bruce George Peter Lee, one of the UK’s most prolific killers.

7 December: Lord Soames was appointed as the transitional governor of Rhodesia in order to oversee its move to independence.

445. Lena Martell – One Day at a Time (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

As we reach the end of 1979’s number 1s, we’ve been really spoiled by some true classics – the most in any one year since the 60s. New wave had made a real impact and pop was changing once more. This dreary country track sticks out like a sore thumb and takes us back to the MOR of mid-70s.

Before

Lena Martell, born Helen Thomson on 15 May 1940 in Possilpark, Glasgow, was a cabaret singer and BBC TV star. She was singing with her big brother’s band aged only 11. She then became a vocalist for the Jimmie McGregor Band at the Barrowland Ballroom. When her bandleader died, Martell decided to go it alone. Her debut single, Love Can Be was released in 1961. The rest of the decade passed with plenty of singles and one album, but nothing charted.

By 1971 Martell had her own series on BBC One. Presenting Lena Martell was your standard 70s Saturday night TV variety show, in which she would sing and introduce light entertainment, comedy and musical guests. Viewing figures topped 12 million, and her TV fame resulted in a contract with Pye Records the year after. Martell’s debut LP for them was named after her show.

One Day at a Time was a country gospel tune written by Marijohn Wilkin, with help from her protégé Kris Kristofferson, who was at that time a huge star. It was first recorded by Marilyn Sellars in 1974, and was a US top 40 hit. Three years later the Irish singer Gloria had a top 5 hit in her home country, before it was re-released a year later. It became number 1 in her home country, and still holds the record for the longest chart run of any song in Ireland. Martell’s cover was originally released in 1977. It didn’t chart.

Review

So, the burning question is, how did Martell, who had never had a single in the hit parade beforehand, find herself at number 1 with the re-release two years later, when the charts were full of exciting and idiosyncratic talent like Gary Numan, Ian Dury and Blondie?

I’m totally at a loss. In the years leading up to 1979, I could see why the likes of Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree were popular. Tacky, middle of the road and old-fashioned, yes, but at least they had memorable choruses. One Day at a Time is earnest and boring. I can only imagine Martell had covered it on her show, impersonating an American singer rather than singing in Scottish, and it had gone down well, so Pye re-released it to cash in. The older generation of churchgoers went out in their droves and it hung about in the upper reaches of the chart. As The Buggles, with their number 1 that looked to the future slipped, Martell took over. But for three weeks? Baffling.

After

This was the peak of Martell’s career in both TV and music. In 1980 her final TV show, Lena’s Music, was transmitted. She released a cover of a former number 1, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina, which got nowhere. Like many others of her ilk, Martell moved into theatre, and became a big star in West End musicals. She has sporadically released music ever since, with her last album to date, The Rose, released in 2007.

The Info

Written by

Marijohn Wilkin & Kris Kristofferson

Producer

George Elrick

Weeks at number 1

3 (27 October-16 November)

Trivia

Births

8 November: Footballer Aaron Hughes

Deaths

10 November: Engineer Sir Barnes Wallis

Meanwhile…

27 October: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines gains independence.

28 October: Chairman Hua Guofeng becomes the first Chinese leader to visit Great Britain.

30 October: Martin Webster of the National Front is found guilty of inciting racial hatred.

1 November: The government announces £3.5 billion in public spending cuts and increases of prescription charges.

5 November Thomas McMahon and Francis McGirl, the two men accused of murdering Lord Mountbatten and three others, go on trial in Dublin.

9 November: Four men are found guilty over the killing of the paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot dead at a Staffordshire farmhouse 14 months previously. James Robinson and Vincent Hickey receive life sentences with a recommended minimum of 25 years for murder, 18-year-old Michael Hickey (also guilty of murder) receives an indefinite custodial sentence, and Patrick Molloy is guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 12 years.

11 November: The last episode of the first series of the BBC One sitcom To the Manor Born, starring Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles, was watched by 23.95 million viewers, the all-time highest figure for a recorded programme in the UK at that point.

13 November: The Times newspaper was published for the first time in nearly a year after a long dispute between management and unions.
But tensions between the miners and the government rise again when the former reject a 20% pay increase. They threaten to strike until they get a pay rise of 65%.

15 November: Art historian Anthony Blunt’s role as the ‘fourth man’ of the ‘Cambridge Five’ double agents for the Soviet Union during the Second World War is revealed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons.

444. The Buggles – Video Killed the Radio Star (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

No song sums up the dawning of a new decade and changing times like Video Killed the Radio Star. It heralded the video age, with MTV choosing it to kick the channel off. And it introduced the world to one of the best producers of the 80s.

Before

Trevor Charles Horn was born 15 July 1949 in Hetton Le Hole, Houghton le Spring, County Durham. The second of four children, Horn’s father was a semi-professional musician, who taught him how to play the basics of double bass when he was only eight. He also learnt the recorder at school, but by the mid-60s he loved The Beatles, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. By then, Horn had already been in a group, The Outer Limits, as a guitarist, but after leaving school he worked at a rubber factory and spent two evenings a week as a Dylan-style singer. He even had his songs played on BBC Radio Leicester.

Horn moved to London at 21 and became a session musician, producing jingles and recording with rock groups. He also featured in Ray McVay’s big band, appearing on the BBC’s Come Dancing. Three years later, Horn was becoming increasingly interested in production. He became involved in the completion of a recording studio in Leicester and subsequently produced there, among others, Leicester City FC.

By 1976, Horn was back in London and joined the touring band for the disco singer Tina Charles as her bassist. Her keyboardist was Geoffrey Downes.

Downes, born 25 August 1952 in Stockport, Cheshire, had musical parents, who played piano. He followed in their footsteps, taking up keyboards in several local bands. He studied at Leeds College of Music and then moved to London for session work on jingles. Downes then featured in the group She’s French, before meeting Charles and Horn.

Horn briefly became Charles’s boyfriend, and he studied the techniques of her producer, Biddu, who made her number 1 single, I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance). Also in the touring band was guitarist Bob Woolley, and Horn, Downes and Woolley found they shared a mutual interest in Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine album. The trio talked about the future of pop, and imagined a time when there would be a record label without any human artists, just a computer in a basement with one man creating groups and songs on his computer. One such group would be called The Buggles, perhaps, in a reference to The Beatles.

The trio began recording demos above a stonemason’s. One song, Video Killed the Radio Star, was written in an hour one afternoon in 1978. Largely by Horn and Woolley, the latter was the man behind the infectious chorus. A demo was recorded, with Charles on vocals. Perhaps in part due to her star power and the fact Downes’ girlfriend worked for Island Records, the label decided to sign them. Of course, it could have just been that they recognised a bloody good song when they heard it.

As The Buggles, the trio began recording the album The Age of Plastic six months after their debut single had been written. But Woolley, who had also co-written Clean, Clean and On TV, decided to form a different new wave group. The Camera Club also featured Thomas Dolby, and their version of Video Killed the Radio Star was released before the more famous version. Without Horn and Downes’s production, The Camera Club version was rougher around the edges and not a patch on The Buggles version, but it’s a decent enough curio.

Meanwhile, The Buggles more complex version needed time to get right, and took more than three months work in the studio. Downes contributed a new intro and middle eight and the verses were extended. The instrumental track was recorded at Virgin Records’ Town House in West London in 12 hours. Mixing and the vocals were put together at Sarm East Studio.

In addition to Horn on bass and lead vocal, Downes provided synthesisers and percussion. Paul Robinson was on drums, Dave Birch played lead guitar and Debi Doss and Linda Jarmin provided the backing vocals. The song was mixed by Gary Langan, who later recalled it took forever, in part due to Horn’s obsession with the sound of the bass drum and the vocals. To achieve the old radio effect of Horn’s vocal, featuring a clipped accent akin to the type of singers heard back in the first days of the singles chart in 1952, his voice was compressed and played through a Vox amplifier.

Review

I’ve always enjoyed and been fascinated by Video Killed the Radio Star, dating back to seeing the video as a child. Due to Horn’s ‘mad scientist’ appearance, the female backing singers and the production used on Horn’s vocal, you can be fooled into thinking it’s nothing more than a catchy but possibly annoying novelty song. But of course there’s more to it than that. The Buggles are at once looking to the future of music and mourning its replacing of the past. Woolley, Horn and Downes certainly predicted well – video did become incredibly important in the early 80s, and it was inevitable that the fledgling MTV picked it to mark its debut on 1 August 1981. Videos have become more common in this blog of late, and once I reach the 80s, most number 1 singles will have one.

For this song, the video is almost as important was the song itself. Written, directed and edited by Australian Russell Mulcahy, it was filmed in South London in a day. A young girl, who wears a rather creepy, deadpan expression, fiddles with a 50s-style radio, before a black-and-white Horn appears holding the type of mic held by the likes of trad-pop singers in the formative years of the charts. The radio explodes and suddenly we’re transported to the future. The Buggles perform in an all-white studio while a woman in a futuristic outfit and wig cavorts in a clear plastic tube. The all-white studio is a regular feature of late-70s, early-80s videos – was it a deliberate style choice or was it done to save money? The weird camera angles and generally odd demeanour of everyone definitely freaked me out as a young boy, but there was no denying the quality of the song. Oh, and famous film composer Hans Zimmer makes a brief appearance too.

Horn’s vocal is of course comical, but it adds colour to the song and recalls the days of yore when singers and radio announcers really did talk like that. The new wave vocals of Doss and Jarmin are a great counterpoint, with the production making them swirl and stand out when listening on headphones. Although the production and video certainly embrace the future, the lyrics to Video Killed the Radio Star suggest otherwise, and profess a wish to hold back time and see ‘VTR’ as the enemy (not VCR, as I thought until googling the lyrics). I love the pause and ghostly echo before ‘You are the radio star’, and you get more of the melancholy behind the song with the coda that comes at the end of the album version. Although The Buggles may not have had the star power to be remembered for more than one song, it’s clear from Video Killed the Radio Star that Horn was going to be a brilliant producer in the years ahead.

After

Video Killed the Radio Star went to number 1 in many European countries and Australia, but only scraped into the US chart at 40. The debut Buggles LP, The Age of Plastic, was released in January 1980 and peaked at 27 in the UK. Their second single, Living in Plastic, climbed to 16, then Clean Clean reached 38. It was the last chart action the duo had.

As The Buggles set to work on their next album, the prog rock band Yes were in the next-door studio. Their vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman had left during the sessions and they had yet to find replacements. Horn in particular was a big Yes fan, so Horn replaced Anderson, Downes was the new keyboardist, and The Buggles worked on the new Yes LP, Drama. Although the album performed well, many hardcore Yes fans weren’t keen on the new line-up, and Yes were booed during the accompanying tour. They split up that December.

The Buggles reconvened in January 1981 to begin second album Adventures in Modern Recording. However, Downes had decided to join the new supergroup, Asia. On the first day of recording with Horn, he quit The Buggles.

Horn soldiered on alone and Adventures in Modern Recording was released that November. It was a flop, but many of the studio techniques he adopted over the next few years were introduced here, including the use of sampling thanks to the Fairlight CMI. Without a band to help out, he enlisted Sheffield New Romantics ABC (by then he was working on their classic album Lexicon of Love). Their performance on Dutch TV to promote the single Lenny marked the end of The Buggles.

Over the years Downes became the longest-serving member of Asia. He also released solo albums, sometimes as The New Dance Orchestra. since 2011 he’s worked with Yes and Asia. Along the way, he made it into the Guinness Book of Records by performing with a record 28 keyboards on stage during one performance.

And Horn? Well, he produced some of the hottest acts of the 80s and worked on some of the greatest singles of all time, many of which went to number 1, so we’ll see his name a lot in years to come. Grace Jones, Dollar, Malcom McLaren, Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Pet Shop Boys all benefitted from his magic touch. Relax, one of the greatest chart-toppers of the decade, was, bar Holly Johnson’s brilliant vocal, all Horn’s work. He also co-formed avant-garde synth pop group Art of Noise, in 1983. Such was his influence, he became known as ‘The Man Who Invented the Eighties’.

In the 90s Horn worked with Seal, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones, to name but three. In 2002 he produced the number 1 All the Things She Said for Russian duo t.A.T.u. It’s worth noting that in 2009 he produced the Robbie Williams album Reality Killed the Video Star, which showcased their mutual disdain for shows like The X Factor.

In 2006 he formed supergroup The Producers, featuring, among others, Lol Creme of 10cc. They’re now known as The Trevor Horne Band. He’s also worked with current stars including John Legend and performs with Dire Straits Legacy.

The Outro

Horn and Downes have reformed The Buggles briefly several times since 1998. It wasn’t until 2010 that the first ever actual concert, billed as ‘The Lost Gig’, finally happened. This fundraiser for the Royal Hospital for Nero-disability saw them perform The Age of Plastic in its entirety, with help from a cavalcade of stars including Creme, Alison Moyet, Gary Barlow and Richard O’Brien.

In 2017 Horn announced that he, Downes and Woolley were working on a musical called The Robot Sings. Based on The Tempest, it would feature The Buggles’ number 1, plus new compositions by Downes.

The Info

Written by

Bruce Woolley, Trevor Horn & Geoff Downes

Producers

The Buggles

Weeks at number 1

1 (20-26 October)

Meanwhile…

23 October: All remaining foreign exchange controls were abolished.

24 October: Welcome home to ITV! After 10 weeks of industrial action, the ITV strike came to an end.

443. The Police – Message in a Bottle (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Formed in the ashes of punk, The Police were one of the most successful new wave bands, combining rock, punk, reggae and jazz influences. They had five UK number 1s between 1979 and 1983 and sold over 75 million records, making them one of the bestselling bands of all time. And singer-songwriter Sting went on to become very famous indeed as a solo star.

Before

Two thirds of The Police first teamed up in late November 1976, when Stewart Copeland met Gordon Sumner. Copeland was born in Alexandra, Virginia, but moved to the UK briefly in the 60s and again in 1974 to become the road manager for prog rock group Curved Air. He then became their drummer, but the band had split by the time of his first encounter with Sumner.

Sumner, from Northumberland, was a teacher who performed bass with the Newcastle Big Band and Phoenix Jazzmen on his time off. While with the latter he earned his nickname due to a black and yellow striped jumper he was fond of wearing. He co-founded the jazz fusion group Last Exit in 1974 but they split the same year as Curved Air.

Copeland was inspired by punk and suggested to Sting they form a new group and join the scene in London. Sting moved there in January. He was less keen on punk, but ambitious to succeed and saw how it could create opportunities. Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani became the third member.

The Police performed their debut gig in Newport, Wales on 1 March 1977, which apparently only lasted 10 minutes. Two months later came their first single, Fall Out, on Illegal Records, founded by Copeland, his brother Miles Copeland III and Paul Mulligan, their manager.

That May, Sting was invited by former Gong member Mike Howlett to perform in his new project Strontium 90. When the planned drummer became unavailable, Sting took Copeland along. Also in Strontium 90 was Andy Summers. The Lancashire-born guitarist had previously played with Eric Burdon and The Animals and with Kevin Ayers. Strontium 90 recorded some demo tracks and among them was Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, a future number 1 for The Police.

Sting was becoming frustrated with Padovani’s ability and asked Summers to join The Police. Summers would only do so if he replaced Padovani but Sting and Copeland couldn’t go through with telling him, but only two gigs later, Summers issued them with another ultimatum and Padovani was out. He joined Wayne County & The Electric Chairs.

Sting became more excited about the avenues The Police could explore in their new line-up, and the songs came thick and fast. But they were struggling for money, and it was the opportunity to star in an advert for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum, directed by Tony Scott, which resulted in the trio dying their hair blonde. The advert never aired, but there peroxide cuts made them stand out, as did their looks in general, particularly Sting.

Copeland III leant The Police money to finance their debut LP, Outlandos d’Amour. Released in November 1978, it had been preceded by Roxanne in April. This reggae-influenced tale of a prostitute was claimed by their label to have been banned by the BBC, which wasn’t true. But they did ban the follow-up Can’t Stand Losing You due to the sleeve pic of Copeland hanging himself. Neither single, nor their next, So Lonely, charted.

However, in February 1979 Roxanne was released in the US and it did pretty well, peaking at 32. It was re-released in the UK and following a performance on Top of the Pops it scored them their first hit, climbing to 12. Suddenly they had momentum. A US tour was followed by a re-release of Can’t Stand Losing You, which was a number two smash.

In the same month the re-release of Roxanne catapulted The Police to stardom, they recorded Message in a Bottle at Surrey Sound Studios. In September it became the first single from their second album Regatta de Blanc. This was, incidentally, the same month the film Quadrophenia, based on The Who album from 1973, was released. Sting played Ace Face.

The central guitar riff to Message in a Bottle had been thought up by Sting and was intended for a different song originally. The arpeggiated guitar part before the third verse was Summer’s idea. Copeland’s drumming, later considered by Summers to be his finest drum track, was overdubbed from around six different parts.

https://youtu.be/MbXWrmQW-OE

Review

Me and The Police have a strange relationship. With their unique mix of different genres including dub, reggae and jazz, I should in theory have a lot of time for them. And at least two of their number 1s are brilliant. But I’m often put off by Sting’s voice. I’m really not a fan of his attempt to sound black and I’m surprised in today’s #cancelled culture that it isn’t more widely criticised. Thankfully he reins it in during their later years but it’s here in full effect. The ‘o’ at the end of many of the lines is irritating and rather patronising.

I can’t deny the band themselves sound great, though. Without the polish of the later years, there’s a real muscularity to their sound, and all three put in a great effort. And Sting’s lyrics, in which a castaway puts a message in a bottle to try and find love, only to discover a year later ‘a hundred billion bottles on the shore’, from likeminded souls, are rather poignant. Love the music behind Sting every time he sings the title moodily, too. It’s quite a lengthy track but at the same time flashes by all too quickly. I’d love to hear a longer version.

The official video, as seen above, mostly features the band miming to the track in a dressing room, intercut with shots of a city and the band performing live. Sting mostly looks rather menacing, while Copeland manically drums on parts of his drumkit.

After

Despite The Police’s varied influences, Message In a Bottle is a great pop song, and a deserved chart-topper. It also went to number 1 in Ireland, and five in Australia, but somehow failed to catch on in the US. All three band members still regard it highly and Summers thinks it’s their best ever track. Number 1 for three weeks in the autumn of the year, The Police would soon follow it up with an even better single.

The Info

Written by

Sting

Producers

The Police & Nigel Gray

Weeks at number 1

3 (29 September-19 October)

Trivia

Deaths

10 October: Psychologist Dr Christopher Evans

442. Gary Numan – Cars (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Four days after Tubeway Army went to number 1 with the influential new wave sound of Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, singer-songwriter and producer Gary Numan had dropped the band name and recorded a John Peel session as a solo artist. His next single, Cars, was a stone cold electro-pop classic and a deserved second chart-topper.

Before

Numan was already working on his debut solo LP, The Pleasure Principle, when Tubeway Army promoted Are ‘Friends’ Electric? on Top of the Pops. Paul Gardiner remained on bass, but Cedric Sharpley was the drummer and their ranks were bolstered by Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie (his band were on hiatus) on violin and Chris Payne on keyboards. This line-up were now, in effect, just Numan’s backing band.

The Pleasure Principle was recorded in London’s Marcus Music Studio and saw Numan drop guitars altogether in favour of an almost entirely electronic array of instruments, with most sounds emanating from a Minimoog and Polymoog, played by either himself or Payne. As with Tubeway Army’s Replicas album, most of his lyrics were sci-fi based, focusing on subject matters including the last machine left on Earth.

A more contemporary and down-to-earth lyrical concept was Cars, which Numan later claimed was written before Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and his first attempt at a straightforward pop song. The lyrics were inspired by a road rage incident, in which the singer claimed he was in a traffic jam in London when people in the car in front got out and tried to pull him from his car and attack him. Numan locked the doors and managed to get away by driving on the pavement.

In addition to vocals and synths, Numan provided synthetic percussion alongside Sharpley’s drums and percussion. Gardiner and Payne were also involved but Currie wasn’t. The Minimoog was mostly used to augment that classic bass riff, while the Polymoog provided the icy synthetic string accompaniment.

Review

Numan later described Cars as ‘pretty average’ but it’s one of the best number 1s of 1979. Musically, like Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, it’s incredibly simple, but that’s part of the charm and why the public took to it so well and it’s still so fondly remembered. That riff is of course the main weapon to hook listeners in, but I love the proto-New Romantic Polymoog sound that heralds the early-80s pop production sound.

It’s fascinating to hear Numan come at cars from a different angle to Kraftwerk, who of course were a huge influence on Numan. Whereas the German electronic pioneers had written Autobahn as a lengthy love song to driving on the motorway, Cars is short and to the point. Numan sees his vehicle as sanctuary from the outside world, locking himself away from human contact.

‘Here in my car,
I feel safest of all,
I can lock all my doors,
It’s the only way to live,
In cars’

As someone with Asperger’s, it’s fair to say Numan is probably writing about himself here. However, as the song progresses (and there’s actually few lyrics here at all – the second half of the song is instrumental), Numan realises he actually does need companionship: ‘Will you visit me please/If I open my door’. The door is literally left open as the song plays out.

Looking at the song another way, it’s perhaps a take on a near-future. Numan plays up his android persona with that Bowie-like vocal technique, giving the impression of a human stripped of emotion, driving round a dystopian landscape in which people no longer interact.

Of course, most people lost likely just liked it because it was really memorable and a song about cars is somewhat of a novelty, and guaranteed to be used on a million TV shows whenever a song about cars is needed, because why not, it’s the song Cars?

In the video, Numan and co play up the Kraftwerk similarities even more. Starting with Numan standing alone on a pyramid stage (in a nod to the artwork for The Pleasure Principle, in which Numan stares at a small pyramid on a desk), he’s then joined by the rest of his band, who all stand emotionless, joining Numan in acting like robots. Ruining this somewhat is Sharpley, who is in classic rock drummer mode, seemingly playing a totally different song to everyone else. Then, there’s five Numans holding imaginary steering wheels as on the single’s sleeve, stood on a giant Polymoog. It’s a fun, cool study in new wave electronic cool.

After

Released on 21 August, a month later Cars was in pole position in the UK. It did very well elsewhere too, earning him his first (and, alas, only) US hit, peaking at nine. The Pleasure Principle went to number 1 in the UK album chart, and the next single, Complex, reached six.

The following year came the album Telekon, featuring a larger array of synths but returning guitars to the mix. It spawned two top 10 singles – We Are Glass (five) and I Die: You Die (six). Never much of a fan of touring back then, he announced his retirement from performing live and said goodbye with live shows at Wembley Arena. Soon after came a new album, Dance in which Numan began to move away from the electro-pop sound, just as it exploded across the charts courtesy of the New Romantic movement. It featured Queen drummer Roger Taylor. It’s one single, She’s Got Claws, went to six.

As up-and-comers such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, The Human League and Duran Duran started notching up hits, Numan’s commercial fortunes declined. Although the 1982 album I, Assassin included the excellent funk sound of Music for Chameleons (as mimed to by Steve Coogan in I’m Alan Partridge) and We Take Mystery (To Bed), the latter was his last top 10 single to date, peaking at nine.

1983 album Warriors saw Numan explore jazz-funk further and he announced his return to touring. It was his last LP for Beggar’s Banquet and he released several on his own label, Numa. Berserker (1984) featured samplers for the first time but was his least successful release at that point. The Fury didn’t do much better a year later but Strange Charm in 1986 did at least feature two top 30 singles – This Is Love (28) and I Can’t Stop (27). However, it was the last release on Numa.

In 1987 Beggar’s Banquet released a remix of Cars to promote a greatest hits compilation. The E Reg Model remix is pretty good – I don’t know who’s behind the production but there’s some nice touches added and it avoids the trap of many mid-80s remixes of veering off into bombastic production. It deservedly reached 16.

Numan signed with IRS but they angered him by changing the 1988 album Metal Rhythm to New Anger and remixing it against his wishes. After 1991’s Outland he reactivated Numa but Machine + Soul marked a low ebb, released mainly to try and pay off debts. With moral support from his future wife Gemma, Numan decided to give up on trying to rekindle his pop career and instead begin writing more personally. The result, Sacrifice, proved timely. Released in 1994, he played all the instruments himself and created a dark, industrial sound, just as bands he had influenced, like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, began to gain popularity.

Numan shut down his label permanently as his critical stock began to rise once more. A third remix of Cars (this one was known as ‘The Premier Mix’; there had been an unnamed one in 1993) charted in 1996 after its use on an advert for Carling Premier. Similar in sound to the ‘E Reg’ version, it earned Numan his first top 20 song in nine years, motoring to 17. The albums Exile (1997) and Pure (2000) were lavished with critical praise and Rip, from the latter, reached 29 in 2002.

With Scottish industrial singer Rico, he scored a number 13 hit in 2003. Quite a remarkable comeback. He also provided vocals for dance music duo Plump DJs that year. With money coming in once more, Numan launched Mortal Records and released Jagged in 2006, accompanied by a successful tour. Two years later, to commemorate his 30th year in music, he toured the Tubeway Army LP Replicas (1979) in its entirety.

In 2011 Numan released Dead Son Rising and collaborated with US experimental rock outfit Battles. Two years later came the eagerly awaited Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind), which became his bestselling album in 30 years, only to be overtaken by the sequel, a concept album about a post-apocalyptic world caused by global warming. Savage (Songs from a Broken World) was his most popular release since Telekon.

Numan’s 21st and latest album, Intruder, was released in 2021. Over the decades he’s gone from being reviled by some, and/or a figure of fun (he’s said in recent years how announcing his support for Margaret Thatcher did lasting damage) to a respected figure in music. And rightly so, because his two number 1s are brilliant.

The Outro

Now 63, he won’t ever be admired to the level of David Bowie and Kraftwerk, who he was often accused of ripping off, but he’s stuck it out and influenced many through the years. And all along, his hardcore devotees, the Numanoids, have stuck with him through thick and thin.

The Info

Written & produced by

Gary Numan

Weeks at number 1

1 (22-28 September)

Trivia

Births

22 September: Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey
28 September: Gymnast Annika Reeder

Deaths

27 September: Comedian Gracie Fields/Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch

Meanwhile…

25 September: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opens the new Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. The then-largest indoor shopping centre in Britain had taken six years to build.

441. Cliff Richard – We Don’t Talk Anymore (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Remember this guy? Once a mainstay of this blog, the ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ hadn’t topped the charts since Congratulations won Eurovision in 1968. 11 years later, Cliff Richard’s comeback, which began with Devil Woman, was complete with this 10th number 1.

Before

The Shadows, who often acted as Richard’s backing band, with who he shared many hits and number 1s, decided to split at the end of 1968. Their last single together was Don’t Forget to Catch Me, which reached 21. Despite being unfashionable, he still had a large enough following to notch up plenty of hits, ending the 60s with two top 10 hits in 1969 – Big Ship (eight) and Throw Down a Line (with Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin), climbing to seven.

The 70s began with Richard fronting his own BBC series, It’s Cliff Richard, which ran from 1970 to 1976 and featured the singer with musical friends including Marvin and Olivia Newton-John. His 50th single, the intriguingly named Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha, went all the way to six in 1970. Many of Richard’s singles for the first half of the 70s were in line with his Christian beliefs – I’m not going to listen to them all to find out, but I’d put money on Jesus (1972) being a prime example.

Having been considered almost as much an actor as a singer in his peak years of the 60s, Richard gave up his film career after starring in the film Take Me High in 1973. He also had another bash at the Eurovision Song Contest that year. Power to All Our Friends finished third that year. Apparently he was so nervous during the competition he took valium and his manager struggled to wake him. It was at least a big hit, climbing to four and earning him his best chart performance for the next six years.

The next couple of years were lean for the not-very-mean machine. His only single in 1974, (You Keep Me) Hangin’ On did OK (13), but he messed up in 1975 when he chose to cover Conway Twitty’s Honky Tonk Angel. Richard recorded a video, 1,000 singles were pressed up and EMI expected it to perform well, but when Richard discovered ‘honky tonk angel’ was Southern American slang for a prostitute, the whiter-than-white pop star was horrified and insisted it was withdrawn. What on earth would God have made of it? This meant that, for the first time in his career, Richard had gone a calendar year without a chart entry.

However, it was decided that, rather than continue down the purely righteous path Richard seemed hell-bent on, he should be repackaged as a rock singer. At the time this must have seemed laughable, and to be honest I’m struggling to imagine it while typing this. But, good Lord, it worked!

Teaming up with Bruce Welch (another guitarist from the Shadows) on production duties, the nicely titled LP I’m Nearly Famous was an unexpected smash. And not only commercially – guitarists Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton were just two of the rock stars spotted wearing ‘I’m Nearly Famous’ badges in honour of the comeback kid. Although Miss You Nights (15) was a ballad, the follow-up, Devil Woman, is a classic slab of pop-rock, with a hell of a chorus. And listen, that’s Cliff Richard singing a song with ‘devil’ in it! With punk rock rearing its ugly head, a more edgy Cliff Richard was very timely.

The comeback didn’t last long though. The next album, Every Picture Tells a Story, spawned only one hit – My Kinda Life (number 15 in 1977). Perhaps feeling he must atone for his sins, Richard then released an album of Christian gospel called Small Corners in 1978. Neither that or his next pop LP, Green Light, performed well. 1978 was also the year Richard reunited with The Shadows for concerts at the London Palladium, as captured on Thank You Very Much.

Despite appearing on stage with Welch once more, the Shadows guitarist didn’t produce his next album, Rock’n’Roll Juvenile. That honour went to Terry Britten, who had worked with Richard many times in the past. Recording sessions began back in July 1978 but vocals weren’t begun until January 1979.

We Don’t Talk Anymore was recorded in one day, five months later. For some reason, Welch received production credit for Richard’s 10th number 1. It was written and arranged by Alan Tarney, a new collaborator, who also played guitar, keyboards, synthesiser and bass on the track, as well as performing backing vocals. On drums was his former bandmate in Quartet, Trevor Spencer.

Review

It’s no Devil Woman, but We Don’t Talk Anymore is a decent pop song and Richard’s best number 1 since Summer Holiday in 1963. I have to confess that I used to think this came much later in his career, and was a Stock Aitken Waterman production from the late-80s or early-90s. It’s something about that catchy, melancholic yet soaring chorus combined with a very light production sound. In its own way, it’s as contemporary as Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with its keyboard-heavy arrangement. Though not nearly as good.

Has to be said though, I’ve never heard Richard sound so passionate. I mean, it’s not exactly a raw, emotional performance – this is Cliff Richard we’re talking about after all. But he gives it a rare bit of oomph! The verses are pretty bog-standard ‘my woman has left me’ and not much to write home about – it’s all about the earworm of the chorus really, and the emotion at the end. Weird lyrical phrasing too – ‘It’s so funny/How we don’t talk anymore’. None too shabby. With The Beatles long gone and Elvis Presley six feet under, Richard could still sell records, when he tried.

The video for We Don’t Talk Anymore is as 70s as it gets, featuring Richard and band performing amid a smoky stage, Richard occasionally merging into himself through a dated but charming kaleidoscopic effect.

After

Cliff Richard fared better in the 80s than the 70s, regularly appearing in the upper reaches of the charts. But it would be seven years before his 11th number 1, for which he shared billing with a series named after one of his most famous chart-toppers…

The Info

Written by

Alan Tarney

Producer

Bruce Welch

Weeks at number 1

4 (25 August-21 September)

Trivia

Births

14 September: Rugby league player Stuart Fielden

Deaths

27 August: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (see ‘Meanwhile…’)
28 August: Doreen Knatchbull, Baroness Brabourne
29 August: Painter Ivon Hitchens

Meanwhile…

27 August: Lord Mountbatten of Burma, cousin to the Queen and uncle of the Duke of Edinburgh, was assassinated by a Provisional IRA bomb while on board a boat when holidaying in the Republic of Ireland. His 15-year-old nephew Nicholas Knatchbull and boatboy Paul Maxwell were also killed, and Dowager Lady Brabourne died from injuries sustained a day later.
Also that day, 18 British soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland at the Warrenpoint ambush.

30 August: Two men were arrested in Dublin and charged with the murder of Lord Mountbatten and the three other victims of the bombing.

2 September: Police found the body of 20-year-old student Barbara Leach in an alleyway near Bradford city centre. She was to be named as the 12th victim of the Yorkshire Ripper.

5 September: The Queen lead mourning at the funeral of Lord Mountbatten.
Also on this day, Manchester City paid a British club record fee of £1,450,000 for Wolverhampton Wanderers midfielder Steve Daley.

8 September: Wolverhampton Wanderers broke the record by paying just under £1,500,000 for Aston Villa and Scotland striker Andy Gray. 

10 September: British Leyland announced production of MG cars would cease in the autumn of 1980. 

14 September: The government announced plans to regenerate the London Docklands through housing and commercial developments.

21 September: A Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashed into a house in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, killing two men and a boy. 

440. The Boomtown Rats – I Don’t Like Mondays (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

The Boomtown Rats had been the first new wave act to score a number 1, in 1978 with Rat Trap. Far better known is the Dublin outfit’s second, this piano-led ballad about a real-life school shooting spree.

Before

16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer lived in poverty across the road from Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California with her alcoholic father. They slept together on a single mattress on the floor. At some point Spencer suffered a head injury and it’s suspected it had affected her mental health.

In 1978 Spencer, who had been skipping school, told her parents she was suicidal. Later that year she was arrested for burglary and shooting from the window of the school. Following a psychiatric evaluation in December, her probation officer recommended she be admitted to a mental hospital for depression. Her father refused and instead bought her a rifle for Christmas. As you do. Later, Spencer stated ‘I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun.’ When asked why he would do that, she replied ‘I feel like he wanted me to kill myself’.

On 29 January 1979, Spencer opened fire at staff and pupils in the playground of the school as they waited for Principal Burton Wragg to let them in. Spencer killed Wragg as he tried to help, plus a custodian who was trying to pull a student to safety. She also injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer escaped and barricaded herself in her home. While there she was interviewed over the phone by a reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune. When asked for a motive, Spencer’s chilling response was ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day’. Eventually she surrendered after she was promised a Burger King. She remains in prison.

Boomtown Rats singer-songwriter Bob Geldof and keyboardist Johnnie Fingers were being interviewed at Georgia State University when they saw news of the shootings come through on a telex machine (hence the mention in the lyrics). The opening lines ‘The silicon chip inside her head/Gets switched to overload’ were inspired by Steve Jobs, as the Apple co-founder had contacted Geldof in the hope of The Boomtown Rats playing a gig for Apple.

Geldof had been told by a US rep of the band that if the band were to repeat their UK success in the States, they needed to write songs more relevant to American life. Which begs the question – was I Don’t Like Mondays an honest insight into Geldof’s horror at the senseless shootings, or a cynical attempt to cash in? It’s likely it was a bit of both. In later years Geldof has insisted it wasn’t written to exploit Spencer, and even that he regrets writing it as it has made the shooter infamous. However, it hasn’t stopped him or the band performing it over the years.

Deciding that this was a song that would work better shorn of the usual Boomtown Rats new wave sound, Geldof and Fingers (Geldof was solely credited upon this single’s release, but in 2019 he and Fingers reached a settlement and he is now also credited) wrote a piece that sounded more like Elton John. It’s likely Fingers came up with the piano and other than that, all you have are the vocals and strings in the background. Oh, and the handclaps. It’s at once sparse and bombastic.

Initially Geldof considered I Don’t Like Mondays would be best as a B-side but changed his tune when he saw how well-received it was on their US tour. It would be the first material released from the band’s third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing.

Review

I can find myself agreeing with critics of I Don’t Like Mondays. It is preachy and shows that self-important side of Geldof that some would find unlikeable during the Band Aid/Live Aid era. I don’t think it’s aged so well – in fact I used to prefer this to Rat Trap, but while writing my blog I’ve found myself thinking the opposite. However, cynical or not, it is an interesting subject matter for a song and personally I think Geldof’s lyrics are pretty good at asking how and why such terrible events can happen. And Fingers’ epic piano work is enjoyable. Part the problem may well be that, sadly, school shootings in the US are much more commonplace these days.

Wisely, The Boomtown Rats chose to not directly reference the Cleveland Elementary School shootings in their surreal video, directed by David Mallet. It begins with Geldof, bassist Pete Briquette, guitarists Garry Roberts and Gerry Cott and drummer Simon Crowe as a choir performing in a school in front of a creepy, monged class of kids, with Fingers on a piano. One girl leaves and enters her family home. Geldof sits there playing with his hair before somehow becoming the girl and Briquette, Roberts, Cott and Crowe demand Geldof ‘Tell me why’. Next, we’re in a stark, white background with only Geldof and Fingers present. The singer doesn’t help his defence of the song here, wearing shades and seemingly more concerned with looking cool than getting his message across. Then, it’s back to the school hall, before zooming out to the Rats, other cast and crew looking on at the school. Odd, but memorable.

After

Despite the initial promising response to I Don’t Like Mondays in the US, it was one of the few countries where the song failed to make its mark on the charts. The next two Boomtown Rats singles did well, Diamond Smiles reaching 13 and Someone’s Looking at You peaking at four. Next album Mondo Bongo spawned their final top 10 hit – Banana Republic, which reached three in 1980. Cott left the group in 1981, having distanced himself from the others in recent years. He had a short-lived solo career.

The Boomtown Rats struggled over the next few years but were given a new lease of life thanks to Band Aid. Everyone of course knows Geldof and Ultravox’s Midge Ure wrote Do They Know It’s Christmas?, but the other Rats (bar Roberts) were among the superstar line-up on the single, all providing vocals on the chorus. And the band were obvious choices to be part of Live Aid in 1985, with Geldof’s minute-long silence after singing ‘And the lesson today is how to die’ becoming one of many iconic moments. However, it kind of misses the point as the lesson that day was how not to die, surely? Also, apparently Geldof always did the long pause at live performances, but whatever I guess.

The Rats split in 1986 at another benefit concert – Self Aid, which aimed to raise awareness of unemployment in Ireland. Geldof went solo, while continuing to work with Briquette. Roberts co-wrote songs for Kirsty MacColl before quitting the music business. Fingers and Crowe formed the band Gung Ho and when they split, Fingers became a producer in Japan while Crowe joined a folk group and ran a clock-making business.

I Don’t Like Mondays was rereleased in 1994 and did respectably well, reaching 38 in the UK.

The Outro

Over the years the Rats occasionally performed together again in various incarnations. Roberts and Crowe even formed a group called The Rats in 2008, with Cott and Fingers occasionally joining them. Then in 2013 The Boomtown Rats were together once more, though Fingers opted out. After touring together they returned to the studio and released a new album, Citizens of Boomtown, in 2020.

The Info

Written by

Bob Geldof

Producer

Phil Wainman

Weeks at number 1

4 (28 July-24 August)

Trivia

Births

30 July: Golfer Graeme McDowell
5 August: Footballer David Healey
20 August: Singer Jamie Cullum
23 August: 5ive singer Ritchie Neville

Deaths

8 August: Novelist Nicholas Monsarrat – 8 August
9 August: Humanitarian Cecil Jackson-Cole
11 August: Novelist JG Farrell
5 August: Comedian ‘Mr Pastry’ Richard Hearne – 23 August

Meanwhile…

9 August: A naturist beach is established in open-minded Brighton.

10 August: The entire ITV network is shut down by a technicians’ strike, bar Channel Television. It remained off-for for over two months, meaning massive audiences for the BBC.

14 August: The Fastnet yacht race ends in tragedy, with 15 deaths after a storm hits the Irish Sea.
Also on this day, disgraced former Labour MP John Stonehouse is released from jail after serving four years of a seven-year sentence for faking his own death.

439. Tubeway Army – Are ‘Friends’ Electric? (1979)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Derided by detractors as a David Bowie and Kraftwerk wannabe, Gary Numan in fact had two startlingly good number 1s in 1979 and helped point the direction of pop into the 80s.

Before

Gary Anthony James Webb was born 8 March 1958 in Hammersmith, London. A shy, only child, Webb’s parents adopted his father’s nephew John when he was seven. Later, John would serve in Numan’s backing band.

Webb attended schools in Stanwell and Ashford in Surrey, then Slough, Berkshire, followed by Brooklands Technical College in Weybridge, Surrey. As a teenager he joined the Air Training Corps and then tried his hand as a forklift truck driver, an air conditioning ventilator fitter and accounts clerk.

More important to him than these jobs was his hobby – music. When he was 15, Webb’s father had bought him a Gibson Les Paul guitar. He would play in various bands and would often scour the ads in Melody Maker for opportunities. Among the bands he auditioned for were a group of unknowns calling themselves The Jam.

As a teen, Webb had seen a child psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with Asperger’s and put him on medication. This added to his detached, robotic persona when he became famous, and explained his awkwardness in interviews.

As punk broke out in 1976, Webb wanted in on the action. Many groups of disaffected youths were sprouting up singing songs of alienation, which appealed to the awkward young Londoner. He joined Mean Street, then The Lasers as their guitarist, which is where he met bassist Paul Gardiner. Soon, the duo and drummer Bob Simmonds became Tubeway Army. Simmonds didn’t last long and was replaced by Webb’s uncle Jess Lidyard. The trio took on a pseudonym each – Webb became Valerian, Gardiner became Scarlett and Lidyard was Rael.

Tubeway Army became a fixture on the London punk scene, with Webb taking charge of songwriting and vocals. In March 1978 they recorded an album’s worth of demos (released in 1984 as The Plan), which earned them a recording contract with Beggars Banquet Records. On the day debut single That’s Too Bad was released, Webb quit his job in a warehouse.

He may have thought he’d done so too soon when neither this spiky single or its follow-up, the more rock-based Bombers (featuring Sean Burke on guitar and Barry Benn on drums), dented the charts. In July, between the release of these two singles, Tubeway Army quit live shows after violence flared at a shared gig with The Skids. Numan decided they should be a studio-only project.

With Lidyard back in the fold they recorded their eponymous debut. Punk influences remained but there was also a progression towards their future new wave sound. Importantly, the pseudonyms were dropped, and Webb was now Gary Numan, after being inspired by a Yellow Pages advert for a plumber called Arthur Neumann. Numan had come across a Minimoog synthesiser during recording sessions, and this, together with lyrics influenced by sci-fi writers JG Ballard and Philip K Dick, showed where Tubeway Army were headed next.

Numan had grown tired of punk and wanted to release this first album under his own name, but his label refused. No singles came from it and Numan quickly moved on to the next album. Recorded December 1978-February 1979 Replicas was musically influenced by Ultravox, Low-era Bowie and Kraftwerk. It was a loose concept album inspired by Dick’s classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. The Machmen were androids with cloned human skin, taking orders from the Grey Men and keeping humans in check. The first single from Replicas, Down in the Park, wasn’t a hit, but has proved to be a fan favourite and influenced many rock, Goth and techno acts to come.

Around this time, Numan had his first taste of the mainstream recording Don’t Be a Dummy for a freaky advert for Lee Cooper jeans. I’m glad I was only a few months old when this was shown on TV, as it would have scared the shit out of me.

Replicas was released 4 April 1979, and Are ‘Friends’ Electric? on 4 May. It was originally two separate songs – most likely the verses, written on an old out-of-tune piano, and the spoken word sections. As usual, Gardiner and Lidyard featured as a traditional rhythm section, but Numan was at the forefront with a selection of synths. There was a Minimoog, a Polymoog, an ARP Odyssey and an RMI Electrapiano. Together, they created an unusual, magnificent sound. It was at once the sound of a gigantic, lumbering machine, destroying anything in its path, and a clumsy, knackered old robot that was breaking down. Numan also added heavily flanged guitar parts. A demo version is available, sounding pretty much the same as the single, but with a more awkward vocal from Numan, in a lower key.

Review

By not being as musically gifted as Bowie, nor as refined as Kraftwerk, Numan created something influenced by them, yet totally new. It’s such an odd number 1, even for the time it was released. As the decade came to an end and Thatcherism began its iron grip, there was clearly an air of nihilism and fear for the future in the air, with Are ‘Friends’ Electric? and Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) topping the charts. Yes, new wave was more chart-friendly than punk, but it maintained its predecessor’s edge. There’s an argument here for this perhaps being the first New Romantic number 1.

Tubeway Army looked ahead to what may be in store for civilisation. The lyrics to Are ‘Friends’ Electric?, as with most of those on Replicas, came from short stories Numan had written about how he predicted London would be in 30 years time. The ‘friends’ in question here are robots that resemble humans (Numan?) that come to your door offering various services. Among them are prostitutes.

Numan’s lyrics here are often forgotten compared to the futuristic sound, but they are great. They’re dark, desperate and mysterious. I love the scene the first verse sets, and you can easily imagine it at the start of a novel:

‘It’s cold outside,
And the paint’s peeling off of my walls,
There’s a man outside
In a long coat, grey hat, smoking a cigarette’

His vocal performance mirrors that of the synths, awkward, primitive, and the Cockney tones make the resemblance to Bowie very clear. The spoken word sections are probably the weakest link in that sense, somewhat buried in the mix, which is frustrating as they suggest a more emotional Numan, describing a romance that ended badly. The first section ends with ‘I don’t think it meant anything to you’ and the second, ‘You see it meant everything to me’.

Or is he describing the encounter with the ‘friend’. It’s unusual for a number 1 to only mention the song’s title once, and it appears in the final chorus. Did the singer not realise ‘friends’ are not human? It only seems to have become apparent when it broke down. At what point did it malfunction? Hope it wasn’t in the middle of the act…

Despite being over five minutes long, Are ‘Friends’ Electric? doesn’t outstay its welcome. I could listen to a version twice the length. I want to know what happens next to Numan, and that piano riff is so good I’ll never tire of it. The fact it lasted at number 1 for a month suggests this wasn’t an oddity that ended up at the top by accident, and again, I’d put that down to the riff. Strip away all the futurism and it’s still just very catchy.

After

Also helping Are ‘Friends’ Electric? was Beggars Banquet’s decision to release a picture disc featuring Numan’s scary android visage peering out at the listener. Picture discs were still unusual in 1979, but became more popular from here on in. Tubeway Army’s performances on The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops vindicated their frontman’s belief he was the star, with an emotionless Numan front and centre. This was the last release by Tubeway Army.

The Outro

22 years later, producer Richard X had begun releasing mash-ups under the name Girls on Top. One of the first was We Don’t Give a Damn About Our Friends, which combined the music from Are ‘Friends’ Electric? with US R’n’B singer Adina Howard’s 1995 hit Freak Like Me. Island Records loved it and wanted their girl trio Sugababes to record it. Richard X produced the new version in his flat in Tooting giving it more of a pop sheen but retaining the rawness. Released in 2002, the excellent Freak Like Me became Sugababes’ first number 1. Numan preferred it to Are ‘Friends’ Electric?.

Trivia

Writer & producer

Gary Numan

Weeks at number 1

4 (30 June-27 July)

Trivia

Births

25 July: Snooker player Allister Carter

Deaths

16 July: Countertenor Alfred Deller

Meanwhile…

5 July: The Queen attended the millennium celebrations of the Isle of Man’s Parliament, Tynwald.

12 July: Kiribai became independent of the UK.

17 July: Middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe broke his first world record, for running a mile in Oslo.

23 July: The Conservative government announced £4 billion worth of public spending cuts.

26 July: The new Education Act repealed the 1976 Act and allowed local education authorities to retain selective secondary schools.