1981

475. Joe Dolce Music Theatre – Shaddap You Face (1981)

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The Intro

The UK singles chart of early 1981 was in a strange state of flux. John Lennon’s murder had understandably turned much of the top 10 into a shrine, with three posthumous chart-toppers. At the same time, Lennon’s fans suffered the indignation of seeing his records be overtaken in the hit parade not once (There’s No One Quite Like Grandma), but twice, by novelty songs. And the type of novelty songs that are retrograde, screaming ’70s or earlier’, rather than displaying any sign of the new, youthful pop of the 80s that was (thankfully) right around the corner. This time around, it was one-hit wonder Joe Dolce Music Theatre’s Shaddap You Face. Yep. That one.

Before

Joseph Dolce was born 13 October 1947 in Painesville, Ohio. He was the eldest of three children to Italian-American parents. In his senior year at Thomas W Harvey High School, Dolce got the acting bug, playing the lead role of Mascarille in Molière’s Les Précieuses Ridicules, and he also created a song based on material in the script. One of his co-stars, the Canadian Carol Dunlop, introduced Dolce to folk music and poetry.

From 1965 to 1967, Dolce majored in architecture at Ohio University. While there he formed several bands, including country rock act Headstone Circus, who released the album Please Tell a Friend in 1968. One member, Jonathan Edwards, had a US hit with Sunshine in 1971.

By 1974, Dolce was performing a mix of poetry and rock along the US east coast. Four years later he relocated to Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. His first single, in 1979, was Boat People, a protest song about the poor treatment of the growing community of Vietnamese refugees in the city.

That same year saw the formation of Joe Dolce Music Theatre. This revue toured cabarets and pubs with various line-ups, including Dolce playing a character he called Guiseppe. Among the songs he performed was Shaddap You Face, based on his memories of childhood (‘Just about the eighth grade’), where parents and grandparents would often speak in broken English. Audiences loved the story of Guiseppe and his dreams of stardom, answering his bossy mum back with the song’s title. So much so in fact, that drunken crowds began cheering ‘Heh” inbetween each chorus line.

Shaddap You Face was recorded and released in late 1980 by Australian musician Mike Brady’s label Full Moon Records, who correctly predicted a monster hit.

Review

My opinion on Shaddap You Face is divided. Clearly, we’re not talking about high art here. Dolce’s one-hit wonder is catchy to the point of extreme irritation. The over-the-top Italian-American accent is annoying and highly cliched, annoyingly shifting between spoken word and singing, and the tune is simplistic in the extreme, never shifting a gear. In a pop climate that was about to erupt with Adam and the Ants and the New Romantics, Shaddap You Face belongs in the 70s along with other novelty number 1s like Kung Fu Fighting (which is highly superior). It’s also a good example of the UK’s obsession with distilling an entire country and its culture into a silly song. So no wonder it was huge here.

However, Dolce is rather charming, so it’s also simultaneously hard to dislike, too. The accordion adds a nice touch of authenticity, and the story the song tells is rather sweet. Grown-ups doubt loved the breezy, infectious tune, while children relished the chance of shouting ‘Ah, shaddap you face’ to their parents. As novelty number 1s go, there’s much worse out there – and how many feature an accordion solo?

The official video is filmed in a smoky club full of nonplussed people, until the end, when Dolce successfully urges the audience to shout ‘Heh’, until a weird guy in sunglasses brings proceedings to a sudden halt by throwing a pizza at the singer.

After

Shaddap You Face was massive, becoming number 1 in the UK and 11 other countries – though, perhaps surprisingly, not in the US. Whether deliberate or not, beloved DJ Terry Wogan played a part in the UK success by spinning the record on his show, proclaiming it to be the worst thing he’d ever heard. Bit rich, when you consider The Floral Dance. It kept Ultravox’s Vienna from number 1 in the UK, and became Australia’s best-selling single ever, ironically usurping Up There Cazaly by Brady.

Dolce turned his back on comedy songs, forming several performance groups with Lin Van Hek, including Skin the Wig and Difficult Women. In 1984 the duo wrote Intimacy, which became the final track on the original soundtrack to The Terminator. Dolce also became an actor, starring in the Australian comedy Blowing Hot and Cold (1988). Since 2009 he has been a successful, award-winning poet.

The Outro

I’m very happy to report that writing this blog helped me become reacquainted with a bastardised version of Shaddap You Face, used in a 1990 advert for McCain Pizza Slices.

The Info

Written by

Joe Dolce

Producers

Joe Dolce & Ian McKenzie

Weeks at number 1

3 (21 February-13 March)

Trivia

Deaths

22 February: Olympic athlete Guy Butler
25 February: Labour politician Mary Sykes
26 February: Conservationist Robert Aickman/Actor Gerald Cross/Actor Robert Tonge
28 February: Carry On screenwriter Talbot Rothwell
1 March: Welsh Congregationalist Minister Martin Lloyd-Jones
4 March: Chess player Nancy Elder/TV producer Ian Engelmann/Actor Torin Thatcher
5 March: Artist Winifred Nicholson/Actress Totti Truman Taylor
6 March: Cricketer George Geary/Actor Garry Marsh/Motorcycle racer Roland Stobbart
8 March: Conservative MP Nigel Birch, Baron Rhyl/Biologist Joseph Henry Woodger
10 March: Composer Bill Hopkins
11 March: Intelligence chief Sir Maurice Oldfield
12 March: Newspaper proprietor William Denholm Barnetson
13 March: Writer Wrey Gardiner/Industrialist Sir Patrick Hennessy/Author Robin Maugham, 2nd Viscount Maugham

Meanwhile…

21 February: 30,000 people in Glasgow march in an unemployment protest.

24 February: The engagement of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer is announced. 

26 February: The England cricket team withdraws from the Second Test when the Guyanese government serves a deportation order on Robin Jackman.

27 February: Two-time former Labour Prime Minister Sir Harold Wilson announces he is to retire from Parliament at the next general election.
Also on this day, The Archbishop of Canterbury to view homosexuality as a handicap, not a sin. Jesus.

3 March: The first Homebase DIY and garden centre superstore opens in Croydon, Surrey.

5 March: The ZX81 (my first ever computer) is launched by Sinclair Research.

9 March: Lorry driver John Lambe is sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of 12 women.
Also on the day, thousands of civil servants hold a one-day strike over pay.

474. John Lennon – Woman (1981)

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The Intro

John Lennon’s tender ballad Woman was the first single released after his murder, and his third and final solo number 1. This touching tribute to his wife Yoko Ono served as a sequel of sorts to Girl, from The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. Ironically, it was the first time an artist had replaced themselves at number 1 since I Want to Hold Your Hand replaced She Loves You in 1963.

Before

Only three days before he was shot dead, Lennon told Rolling Stone that he was inspired to write Woman ‘one sunny afternoon in Bermuda’. It suddenly hit him how much women are taken for granted, and Lennon – whose relationships with women were certainly complex, right back to his feelings for his mother – decided to pay tribute to Ono. Ironically, considering the blame Ono wrongly got for breaking up his old band, he considered Woman the most Beatles-sounding track on his final album, Double Fantasy. This track is also the only example of a song title used by both Lennon and Paul McCartney for their own separate songs. McCartney’s Woman, written in 1966 under the pseudonym Bernard Webb, was recorded by folk duo Peter and Gordon.

Lennon’s Woman was recorded at sessions on 5 and 27 August, and 8 and 22 September 1980. In addition to lead vocal, he also played an acoustic guitar. Joining him were Earl Slick and Hugh McCracken on guitar, Tony Levin on bass, George Small on piano and synthesiser, Andy Newmark on drums, Arthur Jenkins on percussion, and Michelle Simpson, Ritchie Family members Cassandra Wooten and Cheryl Mason Jacks, and Eric Troyer on backing vocals.

Review

Woman was the highlight of Double Fantasy. The LP is often guilty of being too slick, but the glossy production works in favour of this track, rather than against it. Although Lennon considered it a sequel to Girl, it’s lyrically similar to Jealous Guy. He’s directly apologising to Ono again for past behaviour (perhaps the ‘Lost Weekend’?), but also paying tribute to all women. It would be nice to think, after the stories of his sometimes violent history with women, that this was Lennon at his most honest and contrite.

Opening with a barely audible ‘For the other half of the sky’, there’s sterling synth work from Small, and warm Beatles-like guitar from Slick and McCracken. Somehow, despite the sheen, the swooning backing vocals, and the lack of decent lyrics in the chorus, it’s lovely and really charming. And inevitably, this single gained huge added poignancy following Lennon’s death. A fitting Valentine’s Day number 1, indeed.

But what was going on with that chorus? ‘Ooooh, well well, do-do-do-do-do’ was surely a placeholder that Lennon and Ono decided to leave in? And they say McCartney missed Lennon’s quality control…

Speaking of quality control, I have to mention the official video to Woman. I’m in genuine shock. Ono edited the video in January, and understandably, she will have been in pieces. However, the video veers from touching, with footage of the couple in Central Park two months previous, to poor taste, including the pic of Lennon and his killer, lifted from a newspaper. But what’s really shocking is the image of Lennon’s side profile from the back of the Imagine album, made to morph into the last ever photo of Lennon – in the morgue. Unbelievably, this remains in the official video on YouTube.

After

Woman was the last solo number 1 for John Lennon. However, the outpouring of emotion after his death resulted in Roxy Music’s cover of Jealous Guy knocking Joe Dolce Music Theatre from the top spot. Inevitably, people moved on from their grief, and the next single, Watching the Wheels, only peaked at 30.

Three years later, Ono was finally able to work on Milk and Honey, which was the couple’s next projected LP. Lennon’s work was inevitably a little rough and ready as it had been tragically left unfinished, but Nobody Told Me – originally meant for Ringo Starr – was a number six hit. The follow-up, Borrowed Time, was his last original charting single, making it to 32.

Reissues of Jealous Guy and Imagine failed to reach the top 40 in the 80s, but in the 90s the legend of The Beatles grew in stature once more, thanks in part to Britpop and a newfound appreciation of 60s guitar groups. This coincided with the Anthology project, where Lennon’s 1977 demo of Free as a Bird, and 1979 home recording of Real Love, were transformed into ‘new’ Beatles recordings, courtesy of the surviving members and producer Jeff Lynne. Amazingly, neither went to number 1.

In 2010 a new ‘Stripped Down’ version of Double Fantasy was released. The aim was to remove some of the studio gloss of the original album, and sometimes this worked well. Not with Woman. Part of this song’s appeal was in the production. The 2010 version, shorn of sheen, simply sounded like a demo, not a remix. However, it’s noteworthy that you can hear Lennon drawing his breath in at the close, seemingly a deliberate nod to Girl.

Thanks to AI sound-limiting technology used in Peter Jackson’s excellent Get Back project, McCartney finally felt he could finish Now and Then, the Lennon demo from around 1977 that had been started for Anthology 3 before Harrison refused to continue. Hearing Lennon’s voice, shorn of rough-and-ready ghostly tape echo a la those Anthology 1 and 2 songs, was a beautiful, spine-chilling moment. In 2023, 54 years after The Ballad of John and Yoko, The Beatles were back at number 1.

The Outro

For many years, Lennon’s many flaws (and to be fair, he was very vocal about his failings in his lifetime) were forgotten and because his life was cut tragically short, he became a bona fide icon. A Godlike figure, who age did not dull. The cool, edgy Beatle – which understandably irked McCartney to a degree.

But Lennon’s stature has fallen somewhat in today’s cancel culture. McCartney is often now considered the cool one, his family focused lifestyle now attracting plaudits where he was once laughed at. Lennon may very well have been a nightmare in the age of social media, and his musical comeback may have soon resulted in bland MOR pop (the signs were certainly there in some of Double Fantasy).

However, the truth is more complex than that. Lennon was a troubled man and also one of the greatest singer-songwriters there has ever been – anyone arguing he is the greatest would have a very good argument. The extent to which he was mourned when he passed, and his influence on the era’s number 1s, is more than justified.

The Info

Written by

John Lennon

Producers

John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Jack Douglas

Weeks at number 1

2 (7-20 February)

Trivia

Births

8 February: Actor Ralf Little
9 February: Actor Tom Hiddleston
10 February: TV presenter Holly Willoughby
17 February: Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson

Deaths

10 February: Civil engineer Sir Hubert Shirley-Smith
12 February: Tennis player Murray Deloford
13 February: Writer Eric Whelpton
17 February: David Garnett
18 February: Comic impressionist Peter Cavanagh
19 February: Actress Olive Gilbert/Conservative MP Leonard Plugge
20 February: Cricketer Brian Sellers

Meanwhile…

9 February: Shirley Williams resigns from Labour’s national executive committee. 

12 February: The purchase of The Times and Sunday Times newspapers by Rupert Murdoch from The Thomson Corporation is confirmed.
Also on this day, Ian Paisley is suspended from the House of Commons for four days after he calls the Northern Ireland Secretary a liar.

13 February: The National Coal Board announces widespread pit closures.

15 February: For the first time, Football League matches take place on a Sunday.

16 February: Two are jailed in connection with the death of industrialist Thomas Niedermayer who had been kidnapped by the Provisional IRA in 1973.

18 February: The Conservative government withdraws plans to close 23 mines following negotiations with the National Union of Mineworkers.
Also on this day, Harold Evans is appointed editor of The Times.

20 February: Peter Sutcliffe is charged with the murder of 13 women.

473. John Lennon – Imagine (1981)

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The Intro

It may have been a new year, but the world was still reeling from the death of John Lennon. Though he was knocked from the top spot by the sickly There’s No One Quite Like Grandma, once the holiday season was over, the public saw sense. One of Lennon’s finest songs, and his biggest seller, the stately Imagine made for a fitting epitaph.

Before

After undergoing primal therapy, the stark, cathartic album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band saw the singer deal with the demise of The Beatles and the childhood trauma of losing his mother when he was a child. It doesn’t get much bleaker than the one-two punch of God and My Mummy’s Dead at the end of that LP, released in 1970.

Lennon started 1971 with a strong political statement. Power to the People saw him reference his non-confrontational approach in Revolution and turn it on its head, urging the public to rise up. Such grand statements didn’t help him appeal to the already paranoid US president, Richard Nixon. But it was a hit, reaching seven in the UK charts.

Work began on Lennon’s second solo album in May. After jamming with George Harrison in New York, the guitarist agreed to be on board for the sessions, and invited Klaus Voorman along too, to resume bass playing duties after his work on the previous LP.

The sessions properly started on 11 May at Lennon’s Ascot Sound Studios at his Tittenhurst Park residence (several tracks had however already been recorded back in February). Phil Spector was back on board as producer after barely being involved in his last album, despite his credit. Lennon wanted a less brittle sound than before, adding strings to the mix and hoping for greater commercial appeal. This might have been partly down to the ensuing war with his former songwriting partner. Lennon perceived Too Many People on Paul McCartney’s album Ram to be a personal attack on him, and so wrote the nasty How Do You Sleep? in response. So, this new album wasn’t exactly smothered in commercial appeal – but it was certainly warmer in general than John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, thanks in part to Torrie Zito’s strings. And of course, because of the title track.

Imagine was inspired in part by Yoko Ono’s 1964 book Grapefruit, particularly the poem Cloud Piece, which featured the words ‘Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in’ – that made it to the back of Imagine‘s sleeve. Another inspiration was – ironically, considering the line ‘And no religion, too’ a Christian prayer book, given to Lennon and Ono by the comedian Dick Gregory. Lennon also once compared Imagine to The Communist Manifesto.

Perhaps with the musical motif John’s Piano Piece (created during the sessions for Let It Be in 1969) in mind, Lennon finished creating the most of Imagine – both musically and lyrically – in early 1971 at a piano in one of his Tittenhurst bedrooms, while Ono watched on.

The recording of Imagine began late in the morning on 27 May and finished that evening at Ascot Sound Studios. Initially, Spector had tried to record Lennon on his famous white baby grand in his and Ono’s all-white room, but wasn’t happy with the acoustics. He also had session pianist extraordinaire Nicky Hopkins playing along with Lennon but in different octaves. With Voorman on bass and Alan White on drums, Imagine only took three takes in the end. Zito’s strings, performed by The Flux Fiddlers, were overdubbed on 4 July at The Record Plant in New York City.

Review

Where do you start with one of the most famous songs of all time? The reputation of Imagine is so huge, it’s like writing about an ancient hymn. So it came as some surprise to discover it wasn’t even released as a single in the UK until 1975. Why that is the case, I don’t know.

I do know that, in part due to the formidable power of Imagine through the decades, there has also been considerable criticism aimed at the song. Mainly due to the idea that we should imagine no possessions when the man suggesting we do that is a very, very rich man. I don’t think that’s fair, however. Lennon isn’t being hypocritical. As Ringo Starr suggested in a 1981 Barbara Walters interview, Lennon isn’t telling us to give up our possessions. He’s simply asking us to imagine it. Yes, that might make for a convenient get-out clause for the ‘working class hero’, and I can understand the critics who complain that Imagine is trite. And yet, despite being more of a cynic than a dreamer, I buy into it. Imagine is aimed at all the dreamers, the people longing for a better world. The idea that the world Lennon asks us to imagine could be real was out of reach in 1971. In 2024, it’s even harder to picture. But, if you’re still a child at heart or there’s even an element of hippy longing inside you, the chances are you love Imagine.

Musically, Imagine is just as simple as the idealistic world Lennon conjures up – and again, that’s part of its mass appeal. And as prone to overproduction (not as important as him also being a total psychopath, of course) as he was, his work on Imagine is perfect. The piano reverb is warm and enveloping, wrapping you up in the cotton wool of a world with no hell, nothing to kill or die for – a world of peace. The strings are uncharacteristically subtle for a Spector production, and so much better for it.

So, although overfamiliarity breeds contempt and the simplistic world view (ironic considering what a cynic Lennon was) of Imagine understandably rubs some up the wrong way, I could and probably have heard Lennon’s signature solo song a million times, and will hear a million more. But I’ll never tire of it. And if, for all his flaws, Lennon is known for Imagine, well, it does him no harm.

After

Imagine was released as a single in the US in October 1971, where it reached number three. It topped the Canadian charts, and in time became his bestselling solo record. The accompanying album, also released that October in the UK, was also the most commercially and critically successful post-Beatles LP.

The following year, Lennon and Ono released a film of the same name. Its opening scene is now recognised as the official music video for the song, with the couple walking through fog as the piano begins. They enter an all-white room, where Lennon plays his white piano, and as the song progresses, Ono lets light into the room – to the consternation of critics who find it sadly ironic that Lennon is singing of no possessions just as Ono shows how wealthy they were. Four years after the creation of Imagine, the single, housed in a photo by then-girlfriend May Pang in 1974, was finally released in the UK to promote his compilation Shaved Fish. Possibly due to most fans already owning the Imagine album, it only made it to number six.

Following Lennon’s murder in 1980, it was the 1975 single that climbed the charts in January 1981 and became his second posthumous number 1, after (Just Like) Starting Over. The single was re-released in 1988 to accompany the documentary film John Lennon: Imagine, but missed out on the top 40. In 1999 Imagine reached number three.

The Outro

One of the most famous pop songs of all time, Imagine has been covered countless times. Probably the worst version is the widely ridiculed 2020 celebrity version, headed up by actress Gail Gadot during the initial COVID-19 lockdown. It is pure torture.

The Info

Written by

John Lennon

Producers

John Lennon, Yoko Ono & Phil Spector

Weeks at number 1

4 (10 January-6 February)

Trivia

Births

11 January: Singer Jamelia/Kasabian singer Tom Meighan
19 January: Actress Thalia Zucchi
22 January: Footballer Richard Butcher/Rally driver Guy Wilks
25 January: Rower Alex Partridge
29 January: Actress Rachna Khatau
30 January: Footballer Peter Crouch
31 January: Reality TV star Gemma Collins
1 February: Racing driver Rob Austin

Deaths

11 January: Labour MP Malcolm MacDonald
12 January: Actress Isobel Elsom/Labour MP Joseph Sparks
15 January: Racing driver Graham Whitehead
16 January: Actor Bernard Lee
18 January: Engineer David Stirling Anderson
19 January: Boxer Eric Boon/Geologist William John McCallien
20 January: Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Derick Heathcoat-Amory, 1st Viscount Amory
21 January: Racing driver Cuth Harrison/Welsh poet BT Hopkins/Ulster Unionist Party MP James Stronge (see ‘Meanwhile…’)/Ulster Unionist Party MP Sir Norman Stronge, 8th Baronet (see ‘Meanwhile…’)/Jockey Tommy Weston
22 January: Artist Gladys Vasey
23 January: Economist Sir Andrew Shonfield
27 January: Screenwriter Roger Burford/Landscape architect Brenda Colvin/Lawyer Cecil Davidge
29 January: Aviator John Cecil Kelly-Rogers
2 February: Cricketer Jack Parsons
4 February: Tennis player Joan Ingram/Neurologist Douglas McAlpine
6 February: Cricketer Gilbert Ashton

Meanwhile…

13 January: The prison officers’ overtime ban comes to an end.

14 January: The British Nationality Bill is published.

16 January: Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former MP Bernadette McAliskey is shot at home in County Tyrone.
Also on this day, 78% of British Steel Corporation workers vote in favour of their chairman’s ‘survival’ plan.

18 January: 10 people were killed in the New Cross house fire. Three more died in hospital.

21 January: Sir Norman Stronge and his son James, both former Stormont MPs, are killed by the IRA.

22 January: Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch agrees to buy The Times newspaper if an agreement can be reached with the unions.

25 January: Four right-wing Labour MPs: Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, Bill Rodgers and David Owen – dubbed the ‘Gang of Four’ announce The Limehouse Declaration, in which they reveal plans to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

26 January: Nine more Labour MPs declare support for the SDP.
Also on this day, Secretary of State for Industry Sir Keith Joseph announces more financial support for British Leyland.

27 January: Tony Benn replaces Bill Rodgers in the Labour Shadow Cabinet.

28 January: Sir Hugh Fraser is removed as the Chairman of the House of Fraser.
Also on this day, damage is caused in cells at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland.

2 February: The Brixton prison escape is released, resulting in the Governor being transferred to an administrative post.

4 February: Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announces the Government is to sell half its shares in British Aerospace.

6 February: The coal ship Nellie M is bombed and sunk by an IRA unit driving a hijacked pilot boat in Lough Foyle.
Also on this day, the Government drops two controversial clauses of the Nationality Bill.