ABBA’s impressive run of chart-toppers continued with this, their sixth. The Name of the Game can be seen as the sequel to their previous number 1, Knowing Me, Knowing You and it shows their continuing progression into serious, mature pop.
Before
In May 1977 the Swedish superstars began work on their fifth studio LP, ABBA: The Album. Concurrently, they filmed ABBA: The Movie, a docu-drama featuring many of the songs from that album. The first release from the forthcoming album was The Name of the Game. Originally known as A Bit of Myself, it was also the first song to be completed in the sessions.
If Knowing Me, Knowing You was a tragic look at the end of love, The Name of the Game is a tentative sign of a blossoming new romance. Agnetha Fältskog and Frida Lyngstad are singing from the point of view of an ‘impossible case’ wondering whether she can let a new man into her heart. They’ve seen each other twice within a week and she can already feel her defences dropping. So what is the name of the game? Is it love, or is he messing her about?
Review
The Name of the Game isn’t the best ABBA song, but it’s still decent. For me, the best part is that reggae-sounding walking bass that opens proceedings. It was apparently inspired by slowing down the bass in Stevie Wonder’s I Wish from Songs in the Key of Life (1976). Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus were heavily inspired by Wonder’s peak creative period in the mid-70s. It’s unusual to hear ABBA doing funk, but it’s welcome and it suits the hesitant seriousness of the song.
There’s something slightly disjointed here – ABBA were very good at overloading their best material with catchy hooks that complemented each other, but it doesn’t quite work this time. Before researching this song, I could only remember the chorus, I thought the verses were from a totally different song, which makes this an unusually unmemorable one. But it’s an interesting continuation of their maturing outlook on pop, which of course would coincide with the failing of relationships within the band.
After
As usual, Lasse Hallström created the video to the single. The theme of the song was taken extremely literally this time. Hallström simply took the premise of gameplay and had Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida playing a board game. The game in question is Fia-spel, a Scandinavian variant of Ludo.
The Outro
ABBA were by this point regularly scoring number 1s across Europe, so it may have come as a surprise to them and their label that they only topped the UK chart this time around. The Name of the Game marked the end of an era as it was the last time their manager Stig Anderson was involved in the lyrics of an ABBA single.
The Info
Written by
Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus
Producers
Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus
Weeks at number 1
4 (5 November-2 December)
Trivia
Births
22 November:Footballer Michael Preston
Deaths
10 November:Writer Dennis Wheatley 30 November: Playwright Terence Rattigan
Meanwhile…
14 November: Firefighters take part in their first ever national strike, in the hope of getting a 30% wage increase.
15 November: The first SavaCentre hypermarket, a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and British Home Stores, opens at Washington, Tyne and Wear.
22 November: British Airways inaugurates their regular London to New York City Concorde service.
The first ever number 1 by a female duo, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is also one of the best-selling songs of all time.
Before
Spanish duo Baccara had only formed the year previous. Mayte Mateos (born 7 February 1951 in Logroño) graduated as a teacher at the Royal Spanish Academy for Arts, Drama and Dance. She started at a television ballet company, where she met fellow performer María Mendiola (born 4 April 1952 in Madrid). They bonded and formed variety show singing and dancing duo Venus and left the company.
Venus garnered a few TV and nightclub appearances but they decided to relocate to the Canary Islands. In Fuertaventura, they were performing flamenco dance and Spanish songs for mostly German tourists at the Tres Islas Hotel. Among the guests was Leon Deane, manager of the German subsidiary of RCA Records. He invited them to Hamburg to meet producer and composer Rolf Soja.
Soja remodelled Venus, developing their stage act, recruiting backing musicians and renaming them Baccara. This was a reference to the black rose, which Soja compared the duo to due to their dark Spanish looks. He took their flamenco stylings and updated them for the disco era, which was growing ever more popular. By suggesting Mateos, who would normally sing lead, in black and Mendiola in white, he created a striking image. Together with their sexy groans, Baccara fitted in nicely with the era in which Donna Summer had released the filthy epic Love to Love You Baby.
Soja co-wrote their debut single Yes Sir, I Can Boogie with Frank Dostal. In the 60s, Dostal had been singer with German rock group The Rattles.
Review
I was very surprised to see this single ranked so highly among the bestselling of all time. In my mind, Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was a minor entry in the canon of 70s disco hits, but it was very popular around Europe, reaching the top of the charts in Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
It’s not the most inspiring of tracks. The steamy moans at the start bring to mind Summer’s classic and the music is almost a complete lift of Don’t Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Baccara’s number 1 is a low rent combination of the two.
The lyrics, written only the night before the duo recorded, are rather seedy and desperate, depending on how you read them. Is this some kind of dirty game, with the ‘Sir’ in question in charge, and ‘boogie woogie’ meaning something rather less innocent? Incidentally, I hate the words ‘boogie woogie’, which doesn’t help my enjoyment. Unless we are meant to take them on face value and Baccara really are just exclaiming about how great they are in the disco. The way Baccara sing this in a broken English makes it both grubby and rather comical at the same time.
Having said that, there are a couple of lines which are genius: ‘Yes sir, already told you in the first verse and in the chorus/But I will give you one more chance…’. The chorus, particularly the string stabs, are pretty memorable. But for me there are plenty of other better disco tracks out there.
After
Baccara’s eponymous debut LP followed and next single Sorry, I’m a Lady (great title) was another hit, reaching number 1 in many European countries and peaking at eight in the UK. Third single Darling did OK in Europe but the hits then dried up. Their second album Light My Fire was released in 1978 and one single, Parlez-vous Francais? was selected to be Luxembourg’s entry in that year’s Eurovision Song Contest, where it placed seventh. Baccara appeared weekly on French singing star Sacha Distel’s TV series in the UK. Third album Colours failed to chart anywhere in 1979.
Such was Baccara’s fall from grace that their final album Bad Boys didn’t even get released here in 1981. Disco was dying and tensions were high after a disagreement between Mateos and Mendiola over the vocal mix of the single Sleepy-Time-Toy the previous year. As a result of the fall-out neither Soja or Dostal were involved in Baccara’s last album. They decided to go their separate ways.
Following the split Mateos began working with Soja on solo material. She reformed Baccara in 1983 with Marisa Pérez. This pairing was short-lived and Mateos went through umpteen partners across Europe’s light entertainment circuit. In 1999 Mateos and Cristina Sevilla released a reworked version of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie and recorded an album, Baccara 2000. This version attempted to enter Eurovision in 2004 but didn’t get selected. In 2008 Mateos recorded another Baccara album with Paloma Blanco (?) Satin …in Black & White was produced by Soja and Dostal and featured yet more reworked back catalogue material.
In 1985 Mendiola teamed up with vocalist Marisa Pérez and they became New Baccara. Two years later they had a Spanish top five hit with Call Me Up and their Hi-NRG songs went down well in European clubs. Towards the end of the 90s they confusingly dropped the ‘New’ from their name. In 2004 they appeared on UK reality show Hit Me Baby One More Time. To make matters even more confusing, Pérez left in 2008 and was replaced by Sevilla from Mateos’s Baccara. In 2016 they released yet another version of their UK number 1, with the band Plugin.
The Outro
Yes Sir, I Can Boogie was reworked and improved on by Goldfrapp in 2003. Yes Sir turned up the sleaze and dropped any mention of ‘boogie’. In November 2020 the original made the top 60 again after members of the Scotland football team posted online videos of them dancing to it. Sounds bloody awful.
Mendiola’s death was announced on 12 September 2021. She was 69.
1977 was a very successful year for actor and singer David Soul. Not only was he a co-star of one of the hottest shows of the era – Starsky & Hutch, but he topped the UK charts twice. Silver Lady is the lesser known of the two.
Before
It had nearly been his third. Inbetween this and Don’t Give Up on Us came Going in With My Eyes Open, which climbed all the way to two. The name of his LP Playing to an Audience of One, released that year, couldn’t be further from the truth.
Silver Lady could be seen as a sequel to his first number 1. Despite his pleas back at the start of the year, his lover has indeed given up on him. Soul is reduced to ‘drifting, searching, shifting through town to town’, meeting with ‘Double talkers, backstreet walkers at every turn’ in ‘Seedy motels, no star hotels’. As before, Tony Macaulay produced and wrote this, but with Geoff Stephens on writing duties too. Stephens had been in The New Vaudeville Band, who had a hit in 1966 with Winchester Cathedral. Macaulay, as has been well documented here, had written and produced quite a lot of chart-toppers in the 60s and 70s. This was to be his last. He later turned to writing thrillers.
Review
As with many of Macaulay’s number 1s, Silver Lady is OK. Decent chart fodder and fairly memorable but disposable. I prefer it to Don’t Give Up On Us as it’s a bit edgier. Soul seems to be down on his luck through his own mistakes and is regretting where he’s ended up. Trouble is, he doesn’t sound too bothered. Considering he’s an actor I’d have preferred a bit more character.
The video is good fun though. Soul all manly and hurt, wandering around all lonesome, or on a motorbike, or remembering being with his silver lady. Who, it turns out, isn’t an old woman, but a young blonde.
After
Later on that year Soul released the top eight hit Let’s Have a Quiet Night In. I haven’t heard it but I love that title. I’d like to think Soul is either reunited with his love or found someone new. Tired of his old ways, he’s now preferring to suggest they just have a night watching telly. Considering Soul has been married five times, it’s likely he prefers a bit more adventure.
One more hit followed in 1978 – It Sure Brings Out the Love in Your Eyes. For some reason Soul’s music did better in the UK, even though Starsky & Hutch continued until 1979. That year he released another LP, Band of Friends. He also starred in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, which terrified me and many people of a certain age, that weren’t old enough to have been watching it in the first place.
Soul wasn’t as prolific on TV or in the recording studio in the 80s. He had lots of bit parts, and released the album The Best Days of My Life in 1982. The following year he starred a short-lived TV series of Casablanca and a season of The Yellow Rose. From there it was mainly TV movies. The roles became fewer and Soul had become an alcoholic and developed a violent temper. He was jailed and ordered to have therapy classes for alcoholism after attacking his third wife Patti Carnel Sherman while she was seven months pregnant. They soon divorced. I hope he struggled like the character in this song afterwards. However a year later he married actress Julia Nickson and they had one daughter, China Soul, who is now a singer-songwriter.
In the mid-90s Soul moved to the UK, which revitalised his career thanks to many West End roles, including in Blood Brothers. He helped his friend, former war reporter Martin Bell, become an independent MP in the 1997 general election. That year he also released his last album to date, Leave a Light On…
In the early 00s he had cameos in Little Britain and Top Gear, plus an appearance on Holby City. 2004 saw him land replace Michael Brandon as Jerry Springer in the controversial musical Jerry Springer – The Opera. He also appeared alongside his old crime-fighting parter Paul Michael Glaser as joint cameos in the movie version of Starsky & Hutch. Owen Wilson took his role and Stiller was Glaser’s character.
The Outro
Since then Soul has occasionally surfaced in film, TV and theatre. These include a role as a murder victim in Lewis, a cameo lip-syncing to Silver Lady in the film Filth (2013) and as a coach driver in an advert for National Express. He sang along to Silver Lady.
The Info
Written by
Tony Macaulay & Geoff Stephens
Producer
Tony Macaulay
Weeks at number 1
3 (8-28 October)
Trivia
Births
26 October: Paralympian swimmer and cyclist Sarah Storey
Deaths
11 October: Architect Misha Black
Meanwhile…
10 October: Missing 20-year-old prostitute Jean Jordan is found dead in Chorlton, Manchester, nine days after she was last seen alive. Police believe she may have been another victim of the Yorkshire Ripper. It’s the first time he was suspected of a murder outside of Yorkshire.
15 October: Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, go missing after leaving the World’s End pub in Edinburgh, Scotland. The next day their bodies are found tied and strangled in the countryside. It wasn’t until 2014 that serial killer Angus Sinclair was convicted of the crime.
27 October: Former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe denies allegations of having a relationship with and subsequent attempted murder of male model Norman Scott. Also on that day, Sex Pistols released Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. Despite refusal by major retailers to stock the album, it debuts at number 1 in the UK album chart the following week.
After a very successful comeback in the late 60s, Elvis suffered a slow, ignoble decline throughout the 70s. It took his demise for him to achieve his 17th UK number 1, which pointed the way to what could have been if he had returned to form once more.
Before
A live recording of The Wonder of You was Presley’s final chart-topper in his lifetime in 1970. Soon after he was the subject of documentary film and accompanying album Elvis: That’s the Way It Is. It was during this time that he first began to wear the jumpsuits that would become an emblem of his fall from grace. He also began moving away from the roots sound of his Memphis sessions to less inspirational material. Not that it had any impact on his UK sales at that point – he continued to chart in the top 10 for a few years yet. Presley ended the year meeting President Nixon. Both paranoid men at this point, ‘The King’ slated The Beatles, something that still upset Paul McCartney decades later, who felt betrayed after the band had met him back in 1965 and got on well.
In 1972 another documentary film, Elvis on Tour, won the Golden Globe for Best Documentary Film. It was to be his final cinema release before he died. The single Burning Love became his best known song of the final stretch of his career and reached seven in the UK. The same year, he and Priscilla separated. To some who knew him, it was a blow from which he never recovered.
1973 began promisingly. The TV special Aloha from Hawaii was a global smash and the accompanying album his last US number 1 in his lifetime. But his health was deteriorating dramatically. He was hospitalised twice and spent three days in a coma the first time. That October his divorce was finalised. Despite all the drama, he was committing to an ever-increasing run of live shows.
In 1974 he arrived for a concert at the University of Maryland by falling out of his limousine to his knees. Heavily drugged, he spent the first half an hour of the performance holding his mic stand like it was a post and slurred so badly, members of his band were crying. Increasingly garish in his outfits and singing to an ever-ageing generation, he became rock’n’roll’s answer to Liberace. The supercool Presley of his comeback in 1968 was a distant memory. His pop material began slipping from the charts as his waist expanded. Despite this, he did have some hit singles – Promised Land in 1974 (number nine) and My Boy in 1975 (number five).
In 1976 came Presley’s penultimate LP. From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis, Tennessee featured the single Hurt, an acclaimed cover which hinted at the turmoil behind the tragic, bloated man he had become. RCA had sent a recording studio to Graceland and he recorded enough material that year for one more album. Moody Blue‘s title track was a country hit in the US. But as 1977 came around, he was rapidly getting worse. Concerts were cut short, if they happened at all, and Presley slurred so badly he was intelligible at times.
Review
Despite the concern over the state of Presley, nobody knew Way Down would be the last single released in his lifetime. So that title proved rather ironic. It’s a strange beast, because the opening is really promising. It sounds as if The King was about to discover disco! The lyrics are pretty exciting too. Presley is about to get it on with someone and is likening the passion he’s feeling to a sin, so the ‘way down’ in question isn’t about him being buried but associating sex with the devil. Which is still an appropriate way for Elvis to go out considering his faith in God running parallel to his love of women. Girls in fact, if all the stories are true. Yes another musical icon, one of the biggest of all time, was allegedly a paedophile.
Way Down is ultimately a disappointing farewell thanks to how disjointed it is. The disco boogie of the verses is replaced by a boring chorus that’s rather hollow and symbolises the emptiness of the Vegas years. JD Sumner’s deep ‘Way on down’ sounds like a spoof of the backing vocals of The Jordanaires that appeared on many of Presley’s greatest work. It’s fascinating in the way it signifies where he may have headed next though. And for another clue, consider the fact Mungo Jerry’s Ray Dorset wrote disco classic It Feels Like I’m In Love with Elvis in mind. Kelly Marie took it to number 1 in 1980.
After
The same month Way Down was released, Presley was filmed at two concerts, to be made into a TV special, Elvis in Concert, broadcast after his death. He was in such bad shape it was only aired once and is unlikely to ever be officially released. On 26 June he performed for the last time, at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. On 1 April Elvis: What Happened? was published. This book, written by three fired bodyguards, was the first time his drug addictions were made public. He had offered money to the publishers to halt its release. By this point, he was suffering glaucoma, high blood pressure, liver damage and an enlarged colon, each possibly caused and definitely made worse by his drug abuse.
On 16 August, Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis to start another tour. That afternoon his girlfriend Ginger Alden found him lying dead on his bathroom floor. She later said it appeared he had fallen off the toilet and not moved from the spot. The official cause of death given was cardiac arrest. Over the years opinions have differed to what happened but some believe it was a phenomenon known as the Valsava manoeuvre – he basically was so constipated he suffered a heart attack while straining. What a way to go.
The world went into mourning. There had never been a pop star like Presley but he spawned millions of imitators. Two days after the death of Elvis Presley, his funeral was held at Graceland. Outside the gates a car hit a group of fans, killing two. Way Down began to climb the charts and was soon number 1, remaining there for five weeks.
The Outro
It feels like I’ve spent years writing about Elvis. I started this blog in 2017 and when I reached the year of 1957 I was so relieved. Not exactly what you’d call a hardcore fan, it gave me a new sense of understanding of the seismic shift he caused in music and pop culture. He’s come back on and off ever since, for better or worse. And he’ll be back again posthumously eventually – though not for a while.
And yet his star is fading. His fans are dying and his significance lessens with every passing year. Stories of his fondness of teenage girls not exactly helping matters. And nearly 10 years of glitzy Vegas shows while still alive have remained the archetype of the fallen hero.
4 September:Gymnast Zita Cusack 8 September: Freestyle swimmer Gavin Meadows 12 September: Singer-songwriter James McCartney 15 September: Actor Tom Hardy
Deaths
4 September: lllustrator Lynton Lamb 6 September: Mathematician John Littlewood 14 September: Conductor Leopold Stokowski/Welsh rugby league player Jim Sullivan 16 September: T-Rex singer-songwriter Marc Bolan 25 September: Sculptor William McMillan
Meanwhile…
16 September: The UK had another star to mourn. Glam rock icon Marc Bolan of T-Rex died in a car crash in Barnes, London, two weeks before he turned 30. See here for more information.
19 September: FA Cup holders Manchester United were expelled from the European Cup Winners’ Cup after their fans rioted in France during a first round, first leg game with AS Saint-Etienne five days previous that ended as a 1-1 draw.
26 September: Entrepreneur Freddie Laker launched his budget airline Skytrain. The first single fare from Gatwick to New York City cost £59 compared to the normal price of £186. Also on this day, UEFA reinstated Manchester United to the European Cup Winners’ Cup on appeal. But they were ordered to play their return leg against AS Saint-Etienne at least 120 miles away from their stadium at Old Trafford.
3 October: Undertakers went on strike in London, leaving more than 800 corpses unburied.
Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, soul quartet The Floaters achieved one-hit wonder status very early in their careers with this novelty number 1. If you’re British and reading this, try and forget what you’d normally associate the word ‘floaters’ with…
Before
The group were formed in the Sojourner Truth housing projects by James Mitchell. He had been a singer in the Detroit Emeralds, who had scored a few hits earlier in the 70s. The line-up consisted of his baritone brother Paul and Larry Cunningham, Charles Clark and Ralph Mitchell (no relation) as tenors. They signed with ABC Records in 1976 and released debut single I Am So Glad I Took My Time to little fanfare. It closed their eponymous LP, released the following year. Most of the album was written by James, with fellow Detroit Emerald Marvin Willis and Arnold Ingram.
The version of Float On that opens the album is nearly 12 minutes long, with intros from each singer and their star signs. The music then, well, floats on languidly for half the track with the group singing the title. It’s the second half that was edited down to around four minutes that’s the much more well-known single.
Review
So Float On is understandably considered a bit of a joke. It’s very cheesy and camp, with each singer introducing themselves as if they’re taking part in video dating. It is considered all-important by The Floaters that all the ladies out there know their horoscope, which I assume was very popular in the 70s.
First up is Ralph, an Aquarius. He loves women who love their freedom. How kind of him. But they must also be able to hold their own. Charles is a Libra. He’s into quiet women who resemble ‘Miss Universe’, who will take him in their strong arms and say ‘Charles’. I guess for Charles, actions speak louder than words. Paul is a Leo, and he’s not fussy. He likes ‘all women of the world’ because they’re like ‘wild flowers’, if you know what he’s saying. I’m not sure I do, Paul? Last of the Lotharios is Larry, a Cancer. He likes women that love ‘everything and everybody’, because he loves ‘everybody and everything’. Can you try and elaborate further, Larry?
I’m ridiculing the lyrics to Float On, as most people do. But the fact is, it’s set to really beautiful music, particularly on the full version, where it gets chance to breathe properly. Take away the video dating and star signs, and it’s actually pretty cool and sexy. As a single though, the silliness smothers it, which is a shame. The music here is crying out to be sampled.
After
The Floaters only hit went to the top in the UK and New Zealand and two in the US. Nobody took them seriously after Float On though, and they never charted again properly. They did reach 28 on the Billboard R&B chart with their follow-up, a cover of Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me though. The Floaters had the dubious honour of being spoofed by British comedy troupe The Barron Knights on their hit Live In Trouble.
Our romantic heroes recorded another album for ABC, Magic, in 1978. They then moved to MCA for 1979’s Float into the Future. Their final album was Get Ready for the Floaters & Shu-Ga, released on Fee/WP in 1981.
The Outro
Like all good novelty hits, the song was used in an advert in the UK. Float On was rewritten for a memorable early-90s advert for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Produced by (I think) Aardman Animations, clay versions of the star signs tell us how they eat theirs. Taken the wrong way, it’s actually pretty filthy at times.
This must surely win the award for most unoriginal number 1. Not content with a two-man, two-woman line-up and a Eurovision victory, Brotherhood of Man aped ABBA even further with this blatant Fernando rip-off.
Before
Following the huge success of Save Your Kisses for Me, the group released their second album with this line-up. Love and Kisses from Brotherhood of Man did OK, but couldn’t match the incredible sales of their Eurovision single. Nor did their follow-up single My Sweet Rosalie. It didn’t deserve to though, as it was almost a carbon copy of what came before. This time, the lyrical conceit was that they were singing about their love for a dog, rather than their three-year-old child. Eugh. It only managed a number 30 placing.
They fared better in 1977 with their cover of Oh Boy (The Mood I’m In), peaking at eight. They shook things up this time around as it was the women, Nicky Stevens and Sandra Stevens (no relation) taking the lead. And they did so again on Angelo.
So, yes, this song. Clearly at some point in 1976 when Fernando was storming the charts, singers Martin Lee and Lee Sheriden must have said to co-songwriter and producer Tony Hiller, ‘shall we copy that?’. Perhaps at some point in the process, one of them even said ‘This is too similar, should we at least make the lead character’s name end with a different letter?’. And was then ignored.
Er, why run away, avoid peril and then commit suicide? Doesn’t matter, does it, it sounds like ABBA. And not only is it a dead ringer for Fernando, the cheeky fuckers even add some piano reminiscent of Dancing Queen. Utterly shameless!
Review
They did at least manage to change the story of Angelo. But they forgot to add much detail. Fernando was about two former revolutionaries reminiscing over the war in Mexico. Angelo was a death disc about a shepherd boy in the mountains of, yes, Mexico. He and a girl from a rich family fell in love and so ‘They ran away to their destiny’. Despite avoiding danger, and strangers, their destiny was for them to kill themselves. For some reason.
‘They took their lives at night And in the morning light They found them on the sand They saw them lying there, hand-in-hand.’
The Outro
And so the British public, who should be commended for keeping I Feel Love at number 1 for a month, showed how stupid they can also be. How could Angelo top anything, let alone one of the best songs of all time? Not as irritating as Save Your Kisses for Me, but come on! This belongs on some cheap and nasty light entertainment show, not at number 1.
The Info
Written by
Tony Hiller, Lee Sheridan& Martin Lee
Producer
Tony Hiller
Weeks at number 1
1 (20-26 August)
Meanwhile…
23 August: A new, smaller, £1 note was introduced.
‘Queen of Disco’ Donna Summer sold hundreds of millions of records in the 70s and 80s. Her sole UK number 1, I Feel Love, is to put it mildly, one of the greatest, most influential records of all time. Pointing the way towards the future of pop, this collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte will never, ever grow old. It is as important to music as The Beatles’ She Loves You.
Before
Summer was born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on 31 December 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts. The third of seven children, her father was a butcher and her mother a schoolteacher. Her performing debut took place at church when she was aged 10, replacing another child who failed to appear. A popular child, at high school she performed in school musicals. In 1967, weeks before graduation, Gaines left Boston for New York, where she joined blues rock group Crow. Allegedly the band split when they failed to be signed due to the label only showing an interest in her.
Gaines remained in New York afterwards, where she auditioned to be in counterculture hit musical Hair. She agreed to take the role of Sheila in the Munich production. Her parents were reluctant for her to move to West Germany, but she did. In 1968 as Donna Gaines she released her first single Wasserman, a German cover of Hair‘s Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, on Polydor. Over the next few years she became fluent in German and starred in several musicals.
In 1971, Gaines moved to Vienna in Austria, where she married the native actor Helmuth Sommer. She got work as a backing singer, going under the name Gayn Pierre. While flitting between this work and being a part-time model, she got to know Moroder and Bellotte in Munich during a recording session with Three Dog Night at their studio. She signed with them in 1974, releasing their first fruits together, Denver Dream, as a single. Due to an error on the demo’s cover, Sommer decided to keep the name Donna Summer instead. Debut LP Lady of the Night came out that same year. This mix of rock, folk and pop performed respectably in the Netherlands, where it was initially released.
Then a year later Summer approached Moroder with a sketch of a song called Love to Love You. Raunchy and explicit, she was unsure she wanted her name putting to it, but agreed to record a demo. Moroder loved it and insisted her version be released. It reached 13 in the Netherlands, but Moroder knew this was just the start. He sent a tape to Casablanca records boss Neil Bogart in the States. Bogart was a lively hedonist and would play Love to Love You at his wild parties. He loved it, but told Moroder it needed to be longer. This was because people would end up having sex to it at his parties and he got sick of having to put the needle on the record again when it ended too soon. A reticent Summer eventually threw herself into the job, laying on a near-dark studio floor to record a vocal the like of which had never been heard in mainstream pop before. Over 16 minutes long and according to the BBC featuring 23 orgasm sounds, Love to Love You Baby introduced the world to Summer. This filthy disco classic, renamed by Bogart, reached two in the US and four in the UK in 1975.
Summer, Moroder and Bellotte wasted no time in capitalising on the success, with an album of the same name following, then two more, A Love Trilogy and Four Seasons of Love in 1976. These were disco concept albums, featuring lengthy dance floor epics on one side and shorter tracks on the flip. Summer had by now earned herself the nickname ‘First Lady of Love’. Sales dropped in the UK, although Winter Melody climbed to 27 in the UK singles chart.
That October, the trio set to work on another concept album. I Remember Yesterday was planned as an LP showcasing Summer’s ability to put her voice to varying music styles from the past, as well as her trademark disco stylings. The final track, it was decided, would be set to what they envisioned as the music of the future. That future was I Feel Love.
Although Moroder had spent several years developing his string-laden disco epics, he had history with the future of music. His song Son of My Father became the first number 1 to feature a synthesiser when covered by Chicory Tip in 1972. For I Feel Love, Moroder borrowed the Moog Modular 3P from classical composer Eberhard Schoener, who had been something of a Moog pioneer. Schoener’s assistant Robby Wedel proved integral in the recording process. Bellotte later called him the unsung hero of the track as he was able to control the Moog in a way nobody, including Robert Moog himself, thought possible.
The large unwieldy instrument, looking like a small TARDIS, was brought into Musicland Studios in Munich. The first line was laid down and Wedel taught Moroder and Bellotte how to synch tracks. It was he that produced the most distinctive and initiated bassline in electronic music, thought up by Moroder. Each note of the baseline was doubled by a delay effect, with the original note coming through the left channel and the delay through the right, creating that hypnotic strobing sensation. Moroder would alter the key at regular intervals to add variety. The recording process was laborious, with the unpredictable Moog going out of tune every 20 or 30 seconds. For the hi-hat sound they took white noise generated by the machine’s envelopes and cut it up. There was however one human element added to the instrumentation. Because they were unable to get a large enough kick drum sound from the Moog, they used their regular session drummer Keith Forsey, who added seven minutes of thump. Forsey later co-wrote Flashdance… What a Feeling with Moroder.
Summer and Bellotte were supposed to work together on the lyrics. Bellotte headed over to her house one night and got started while Summer was on the phone. It was three hours later before she finally came down, apologising for being on the phone to her astrologer, who was helping her decide between two men she was dating. Bellotte had finished writing the song. Summer made up for the wait by eventually recording her vocal in one take.
Review
There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe this song. It’s far too big to even be called a song. It’s a cultural touchstone. A landmark in music. And unlike some of the greatest songs of all time, I think it’s actually impossible to tire of it. While researching it I fell down a rabbit hole and listened to over 90 minutes of this one song and the many remixes through the years. I could have gone on, too. It’s also an understatement to say no number 1 before it had ever sounded like this. The Moog fades in, shimmering, before the bass and its delay creates a totally addictive, motorik arpeggio, used on countless tunes ever since. It’s alien, electronic, magnetic. And you can feel blissed-out even before Summer comes in. But when she does… total ecstasy. She glides over the retro-futuristic electronic soundscape like an angel.
Understandably when I Feel Love is discussed it’s the backing that gets most of the attention. Summer’s one-take vocal, though, is fantastic. It takes George McCrae’s orgasmic falsetto on that earlier dancefloor revolutionary number 1, Rock Your Baby to another level. The only criticism I could possibly give this single is that it’s too short. The album version, 5:53 long, is hacked down to 3:45, with the fade-in happening too quick, and it fades out before the third verse. If ever a song deserved to stretch out, it’s this.
And yet, Casablanca didn’t seem so sure about I Feel Love. Moroder later recalled that Bogart enjoyed it but not as much as he’d hoped. Bellotte also says that nobody involved in the making of it seemed to realise just how special it was. It was initially tucked away as the B-side to the ballad Can’t We Just Sit Down (And Talk It Over), released 1 May 1977. But it gained traction in nightclubs, particularly in the UK. Casablanca switched sides and I Feel Love became the single here and then internationally. It became huge. The 12″ version, at 8:15, is even better than the album version.
After
Summer followed I Feel Love with the beautiful Theme from “The Deep” (Down, Deep Inside), co-written by John Barry. It peaked at five. Love’s Unkind, also from I Remember Yesterday, went to number three. Summer, Moroder and Bellotte followed up that LP with Once Upon a Time… a double album based on Cinderella. In 1978 she acted in the modestly received disco comedy film Thank God It’s Friday. Her song from the soundtrack, Last Dance, saw Summer win her first of five Grammys, for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance. Also that year, she notched up her first US number 1 with a live recording of MacArthur Park. Her final album for Casablanca, released in 1979, was Bad Girls. This double LP was the biggest selling and most acclaimed of her career. Moroder brought in Harold Faltermeyer to contribute. Hot Stuff and Bad Girls were both US number 1s, making her the first solo artist to have two songs in the Billboard top three. When her duet with Barbra Streisand, No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) also went to number 1 there, she became the first female artist to achieve three chart-toppers in one calendar year.
Casablanca wanted Summer to continue to record disco only but she had other ideas and as the 80s began she signed with the new Geffen Records. Her album The Wanderer was its first release. Despite a more eclectic sound, the album didn’t have the same impact in the UK as her Casablanca material. The next collection, Donna Summer, was released in 1982. A pregnant Summer sang at the funeral of Bogart, who died during recording sessions. The eponymous album was a success, with State of Independence a number 14 hit in the UK. It was produced by Quincy Jones, ending her long and fruitful relationship with Moroder and Bellotte.
This was followed by an I Feel Love (Mega Mix) by Patrick Cowley. The American producer, like Moroder, is now considered a disco and hi-NRG pioneer. But he was virtually unknown while alive. Shortly before he died of AIDS in November that year, Casablanca released this 15:43 version of I Feel Love that Cowley originally produced in 1978. Stretching the song out even further than before by looping the bassline, he laid new effects and synth work over long instrumental passages. Allegedly, Moroder isn’t a fan. This could be because Cowley somehow managed to better the original. This is the definitive version of I Feel Love, and made the song a UK hit once more, climbing to 21.
In 1983 Summer recorded the album She Works Hard for the Money to settle her contract dispute between Geffen and Casablanca. It was her bestselling album of the 80s and the single Unconditional Love, featuring Musical Youth, was her last UK chart hit for four years. She returned there with Dinner with Gershwin, which peaked at 13 in 1987. Two years later she worked with the UK’s biggest production team of the era – Stock Aitken Waterman. They were untouchable at the time and it paid off. The album Another Place and Time featured This Time I Know It’s for Real, which peaked at three, and I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt, reaching seven.
The 90s were a leaner time for the Queen of Disco but she was still doing well. In 1994, Melody of Love (I Wanna Be Loved) reached 21. Not bad for a new song tacked on to a greatest hits. The following year a new mix of I Feel Love was released and soared to eight. Featuring a new vocal from Summer and remixes by Masters of Work and Rollo & Sister Bliss from Faithless. I’ve heard many great remixes of the track and these are not among them – but they’re very ‘mid-90s’. Remixes of State of Independence followed in 1996 and gave Summer her final chart hit (13).
The Outro
In 2003 Summer released her autobiography Ordinary Girl: The Journey. Five years later came her first original album in 17 years – Crayons. It would be her last. She died on 17 May 2012 of lung cancer. A nonsmoker, she blamed the 9/11 attack for causing toxic fumes she inhaled, as she had an apartment near Ground Zero. Many of the world’s top singers, influenced by her, paid tribute. She had many hits in her lifetime but non compare to I Feel Love. Few things do.
An early glimpse of the biggest pop star of the 80s. But not early enough, in a way. The Jacksons, when known as The Jackson 5, were one of the most exciting and successful acts of the late 60s and early 70s. And yet despite their first four singles becoming number 1 in the US, it took until 1977 for them to reach the pinnacle of the charts here.
Before
The Jackson 5, like it or not, began with Joe Jackson in Gary, Indiana. The strict disciplinarian who allegedly put his family through years of physical and mental abuse, couldn’t make it as a professional boxer. He then failed to become a pop star after a stint in the 50s as a guitarist in the Falcons. And so he became a crane operator instead and raised a family with his wife Katherine. Rebbie came first and went on to become a singer in the 70s. Then came Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, LaToya, twins Marlon and Brandon (Brandon died shortly after birth), Michael and Randy.
Joe returned home one day in 1964 to discover Tito had been playing with his guitar without permission. Although initially furious, he wondered if his children could achieve what he couldn’t. He became the manager of The Jackson Brothers – Jackie, Tito and Jermaine, with childhood friends Reynaud Jones and Milford Hite playing keyboards and drums. Within a year Michael, then only eight, was added to the line-up on congas. Soon after Marlon joined on tambourine and Joe renamed them The Jackson Five Singing Group. In 1966 they won their first talent show. That same year Janet, the youngest of the family, entered the world.
Jones and Hite were replaced by Ronnie Rancifer and Johnny Jackson and the band performed at talent shows around the region, soon also performing paid gigs. Little Michael began to outshine Jermaine and replaced him on lead, wowing crowds with his dance moves, mimicking the likes of James Brown. He later said he paid for his talent because Joe focused his strict ways specifically on him, helping to turn his own son into a superstar but permanently damaging his own child in the process.
Allegedly a gig by the band at Harlem’s Apollo Theater earned them their first celebrity fan. Gladys Knight was impressed and sent a demo tape to Motown Records, which was rejected. As was a recording of Big Boy, which became their debut single when Joe signed them to Steeltown Records in 1968. That July they supported Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. Taylor was blown away my Michael and arranged a taped audition with Motown. Founder Berry Gordy Jr refused to sign any more ‘kid acts’ after Stevie Wonder, but he too couldn’t deny they had something special. They finally signed with Motown as The Jackson 5 in 1969.
It was decided that The Jackson 5 had a better chance to make a big first impression by claiming they were discovered by Diana Ross from The Supremes. Michael was billed as being eight, even though he was 10. Gordy had high hopes for his latest signing, even going so far as to assemble a crack team of songwriters specifically to create hits for The Jackson 5. He dubbed them The Corporation. And they certainly achieved their aim.
Their debut single, I Want You Back, was released that October. This effervescent funk and pop was one of the last great songs of the 60s, eventually topping the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1970. It peaked at two in the UK, which is criminal. Their debut LP, Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, didn’t need Ross’s name to sell it after all. Second album ABC‘s title track was another stone cold classic and another US number 1, as was The Love You Save and ballad I’ll Be There, which came from their imaginatively titled Third Album. No act had ever achieved four number 1s with their first four singles before. And before the year was out they released a fourth album, Jackson 5 Christmas Album, featuring their energetic take on Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.
Jacksonmania was everywhere, and they overtook The Supremes as Motown’s bestselling group. The label made the most of it, licensing all manner of merchandise, including stickers, posters, colouring books and even a Saturday morning animated series. Michael’s star appeal was too big to limit to just the group and so he also began a solo career in 1971, reaching the top in the US with his ode to a rat, Ben. To a lesser degree of success, Jermaine followed.
Unfortunately, this tied in with the start of The Jackson 5’s commercial decline. Never Can Say Goodbye and Sugar Daddy went top 10 in the US in 1971 but after that their singles hovered around the bottom reaches of the top 20 in the US. In the UK they had two singles reach nine in 1972 – Looking’ Through the Windows and Doctor My Eyes. The Corporation split in 1973, which hardly helped matters. The title track to Dancing Machine in 1974 marked their foray into the emerging disco scene, and earned them a number two in the US. But the slide continued afterwards.
In 1975 The Jackson 5 released their final LP on Motown – the ominously titled Moving Violation. Joe and his sons were tired of low royalty rates and wanted greater creative control. They announced their decision at a press conference to garner interest from other labels. It worked. In June 1975 they signed with Epic Records for a much greater royalty rate. Well, most of them did. Jermaine had married into the Gordy family so decided not to rock the boat and remained with Motown. Joe replaced him with Randy, the youngest of the Jackson boys. As they were under contract with Motown until 1976, Gordy threatened to sue over the use of their group name, so they became known as simply The Jacksons.
Their eponymous album came out in 1976, and it looked like they’d made a wise move. They were teamed up with expert hitmakers Gamble and Huff and signed to their subsidiary, Philadelphia International Records. First single Enjoy Yourself was their biggest hit in two years, and then came Show You the Way to Go. Written and produced by Gamble and Huff, it featured Michael on lead and he joined the others on backing vocals too. Tito played guitar, Randy played bass and the rest of the music came from their label’s house band of session musicians, MFSB (meaning Mother Father Sister Brother).
Review
How strange that of all those initial massive pop hits by The Jackson 5, it was this more subtle track that gave them their only UK number 1. On first listen, you’d be forgiven for thinking, this is an album filler at best. But Show You the Way to Go is, for me, fascinating. It’s a strong sign The Jacksons were growing up, and Michael in particular. No longer the squeaky voiced cute little boy, he was maturing into just as talented an adult star and the others were fading into the background. Michael makes tentative steps into his signature sound, with the yelps and improvising pointing the way. Showing the way he’d go, in fact.
But then the song has this weird structure, where it sounds as though it’s coming to a natural end, but carries on. It’s even in the single edit and it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard in a number 1 before. It should make for a total mess, but Michael saves it with his interjections. The yelping on the fade out is of note too. It surely can’t have been performed in one take, which means it must be studio trickery – so is it early sampling? It almost sounds like 90s techno. So yes, what on first listen is far from an obvious chart-topper, makes for an intriguing listen. The other Jacksons deserve mentioning too. Those backing vocals, warm and comforting, work so well with the tenderness of the tune.
After
In a curious reversal of fortunes, this period in the Jacksons saw greater chart success than in the US. Their 1978 classic Blame It On the Boogie was a number eight hit here, didn’t even crack the US top 50. By this point they had been given total creative control, and the parent album Destiny was a huge success. It also featured the excellent Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground), written by Michael and Randy. And soon after the former’s solo career really took off thanks to 1979’s Off the Wall album.
In 1980 The Jacksons’ album Triumph lived up to its name, especially thanks to the disco epic Can You Feel It (number six in the UK), written by Michael and Jackie. But there was no escaping the fact that Michael had become a superstar and the rest of the brothers couldn’t match his talent and magnetism. Not that there appeared to be any bad blood. In 1983 on the US TV special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, The Jacksons reunited with Jermaine. It was the show on which Michael’s ‘Moonwalk’ to Billie Jean made headlines around the world.
In 1984, with Jermaine back on board, they recorded their bestselling album yet, Victory. However, it was essentially a collection of solo recordings. Their final UK top 20 single, State of Shock, was mainly a duet between Michael and Mick Jagger. Despite the success, this proved a tumultuous year for the group. Famously, while filming a Pepsi commercial with his brothers, Michael suffered burns to his scalp. Their tour was marred by Jackie suffering a leg injury, ticket issues and friction within the family.
Understandably, Michael felt it was time to concentrate purely on his own career. Marlon left soon after to go solo too, before quitting music entirely. One more album followed in 1989. The remaining four released 2300 Jackson Street and the title track featured Michael and Marlon as well. But it sold poorly and the brothers went on hiatus.
And that was it until September 2001, when all six reunited for two concerts filmed for TV, celebrating Michael’s 30th anniversary as a solo artist. Then in 2009, Jackie, Jermaine, Tito and Randy began filming a reality TV show centred around their plans to reform and record a new album to celebrate 40 years in showbiz. Everything changed a few days after filming in June when Michael died. It was turned into a series and named The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. The surviving Jacksons recorded backing vocals for Michael’s previously unreleased This Is It, intended as the title track to his big comeback. Instead it became his epitaph.
There was talk of a reunion tribute tour and album from The Jacksons but it never transpired. Jermaine and Jackie released new music though. Then a tribute concert was in the running, to the extent Jackie, Tito and Marlon appeared alongside Katherine and LaToya for press conference. But Randy and Jermaine issued their own statement denouncing the idea as it was planned to coincide with the manslaughter trial of Michael’s doctor Conrad Murray. It went ahead anyway and in 2012 Jermaine joined the trio for the Unity Tour, which ended in 2013. In 2018, Joe died.
Although Michael had at times publicly spoken about the abuse suffered at his father’s hands, his brothers are always quick to jump to his defence. Whether this is a case of joint Stockholm syndrome, we’ll never know. At time of writing, Jermaine, Jackie, Tito and Marlon are publicising a political reworking of Can You Feel It.
The Outro
Obviously, there will be plenty more Michael Jackson to follow in due course, but I’ve decided to give The Jackson 5/The Jacksons and relevant solo careers a deeper listen. Forever overshadowed by Michael, for good and bad reasons, I feel it’s time the band’s career was reappraised away from the controversy of their most famous member’s life.
The Info
Written & produced by
Gamble and Huff
Weeks at number 1
1 (25 June-1 July)
Meanwhile…
26 June: Jayne McDonald is found battered and stabbed to death in Chapeltown, Leeds. Police suspect she is the fifth person to be murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper. McDonald was a 16-year-old shop assistant, not a prostitute, which brought a new level of revulsion to the Ripper’s crimes from the media.
1 July: Virginia Wade won the Women’s Singles title at Wimbledon.
US singer-songwriter Kenny Rogers was one of the most popular country-pop crossover artists of all time. This first of two UK number 1s was the song that made him a solo star.
Before
Kenneth Ray Rogers was born the fourth of eight children in Houston, Texas on 21 August 1938. His mother’s name was Lucille – now there’s a coincidence. He was said to be of Irish and Native American ancestry. Rogers grew up in the San Felipe Courts housing project, forming his first band while at Jefferson Davis high school. The Scholars were a doo-wop group, and Rogers sang and played guitar.
Graduating in 1956, he released his debut single That Crazy Feeling a year later and it was a minor hit. He made an appearance on American Bandstand, but a few poor-selling singles later he took to playing bass in jazz group the Bobby Doyle Three instead. They recorded for Columbia but got nowhere, disbanding in 1965. He tried to capture a jazz sound on his next solo single Here’s That Rainy Day in 1966, but again, no luck. So Rogers took to working as a writer, producer and session musician instead.
He moved to Los Angeles later that year and joined folk group the New Christy Minstrels as a singer and double bass player. However, Rogers and other members Mike Settle, Terry Williams, and Thelma Camacho decided to seek their fortune elsewhere. They formed The First Edition in 1967. Fusing rock, psychedelia, folk and country, they featured Rogers on lead vocals and bass, Settle on guitar and backing vocals and Camacho on lead vocals. Drummer Mickey Jones and guitarist and vocalist Terry Williams also joined the line-up.
The First Edition notched up seven top 40 hits in the US, including their excellent cover of Mickey Newbury’s Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In), used to great effect in The Big Lebowski (1998). In 1969, then known as Kenny Rogers and The First Edition, they scored a number two hit in the UK with a version of Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town. Something’s Burning reached eight on these shores in 1970. But as the 70s went on their sales dwindled. Rogers saw the writing on the wall and decided to go it alone once more, splitting up the band in 1976.
He signed with United Artists and released his debut LP Love Lifted Me that May. It was only a modest success but five months later he followed it up with Kenny Rogers. Its second single, Lucille, was a smash hit.
Review
Lucille was a slow, unassuming country tale by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum. I’m no country fan (I may have said this once or 20 times on this blog) and musically, this leaves little impact with me. Compared to what could have been the 406th number 1 (see First Cut Is the Deepest/I Don’t Want to Talk About It), this is rather boring. However, what it does have going for it is the riveting lyrics. Rogers tells the story of a man in a bar in Toledo, Ohio. He gets to talking a disillusioned married woman named Lucille. She’s drunkenly longing for ‘whatever the other life brings’, when her giant of a husband enters the bar. Rogers thinks he’s in big trouble, but rather than attack the narrator, the husband is close to breaking down and says:
‘You’ve picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille With four hungry children And a crop in the field’
He says his piece and leaves but the words have a profound effect on the narrator. When it comes to getting it on with Lucille, he can’t forget what her husband said and he decides not to go any further.
Not your average pop lyrics it has to be said. And they are gripping, but the tune is so one-note it does its best to stop me enjoying it and Rogers sounds so weary he’s barely awake. A decent song but not a memorable number 1.
The Outro
Nonetheless, it set Rogers on the way to the fame he craved and he went on to be a true country icon.
Sorry, but it’s very difficult to talk about the 405th number 1 single and not mention the rumours of a fix preventing what would have been the 406th…
Before
Rod Stewart’s 1975 LP Atlantic Crossing, his first for Warner Bros. was a huge global success. And Sailing, the first single from it, his biggest-selling song ever. The next single it spawned, a cover of The Isley Brothers’ This Old Heart of Mine, went to four. His next album, also considered among his finest, was A Night on the Town in 1976. Once more produced by Tom Dowd at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, its first single, Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) was huge in the US. Reigning at the top of the Billboard chart for eight weeks, it was the longest-running number 1 there since Hey Jude in 1968. And this was in spite of its risky lyrics in which Stewart is basically deflowering a ‘virgin child’. Perhaps because of that it only climbed to five in the UK.
The next release ranks among his finest. The Killing of Georgie (Part II and II) is a beautiful true story about a gay friend of his former band Faces, who was murdered in 1974. The lyrics are Stewart at his best. The second part is basically Don’t Let Me Down by The Beatles, but that’s no bad thing either. Far removed from his laddish image, the US didn’t take to it, but it reached two in the UK. Good old UK.
Another Beatles connection came next when Rod the Mod covered Get Back for the music documentary All This and World War II. This took him to 11. On the back of The Best of Rod Stewart and its use as the theme to BBC documentary series Sailor, Sailing was re-released and went to 31. OK, it’s a low position, but bear in mind it was number 1 only two years previous.
While Stewart was selling millions globally, a new movement was growing. The Sex Pistols became notorious in December 1976 for their sweary appearance on Bill Grundy’s Today. Goaded by a drunken Grundy, the host was sacked. EMI ended their record deal with the punk pioneers after one single, Anarchy in the U.K. But they grew ever more infamous while they recorded their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. They signed with A&M and announced they were to release God Save the Queen in Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee year. Following a riotous press conference and fight with a label executive a few days later, A&M sacked them and virtually all the singles were destroyed.
You may well know why I’m talking about Sex Pistols so much, but if not, it’s fascinating and one of pop’s greatest controversies. Johnny Rotten and co (including new member Sid Vicious) soon signed with Virgin Records, who were more than happy to release God Save the Queen to tie in with the height of the Jubilee celebrations. Punk was quickly gaining traction with a disaffected youth, bored of progressive rock albums and dull light entertainment pop. Malcolm McLaren’s group may have been hated, but any publicity was good publicity for a band that thrived on being loathed.
Allegedly, a panicked music industry may face decided the Sex Pistols needed to be stopped from embarrassing the nation by taking the number 1 spot in Jubilee week. So Warner Bros. released a budget double A-side by a much safer UK pop star.
Reviews
The First Cut Is the Deepest had been the second track on A Night on the Town. Originally one of Cat Stevens’ earliest songs, the most famous version was recorded by US soul singer PP Arnold in 1967. He had sold it to her for £30. Stewart’s version is a decent retread. Not up there with his greatest work, but I prefer it to some of his more famous number 1s like Sailing. It showcases the sensitive side of Stewart, in the role of wounded ex-lover. Dowd’s production is, as always, very slick, and Stewart’s gravelly voice suits it well.
I Don’t Want to Talk About It dates back to Atlantic Crossing. Unusual to pick a song from an earlier album as a double A-side, but it complements the flip very well. The original version by Danny Whitten featured on his band Crazy Horse’s eponymous debut LP in 1971. Best known as Neil Young’s backing band, Whitten was sacked from Crazy Horse soon after and died of an alcohol/diazepam overdose a year later. This is a great song and I prefer it to the better known flip side. Once again Stewart is all broken up over a relationship. It’s another tender, heartfelt performance, and he captures Whitten’s anguish very well. Very similar to First Cut Is the Deepest, you could be forgiven for thinking they were recorded at the same time.
After
First Cut Is the Deepest/I Don’t Want to Talk About It became Stewart’s fourth number 1 on 21 May. The following week, God Save the Queen was released. On the Jubilee holiday of 7 June the Sex Pistols tried to play their song from a boat named Queen Elizabeth on the River Thames. Following a scuffle between Jah Wobble and a cameraman, 11 of the entourage including McLaren and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood were arrested when the boat docked.
The official chart for Jubilee week was to be released a few days later, and the Daily Mirror were predicting a number 1 for God Save the Queen, despite its ban by the BBC. On 15 June it became number 1 on the NME chart, but peaked at two in the BBC and Record Retailer ‘official’ chart.
So, conspiracy theory or not? Nothing has ever been officially proven either way, but there is compelling evidence to suggest it may be the case. According to a 2011 article by The Independent, the British Phonographic Institute decreed that for one week only – Jubilee week, sales from record-company operated shops were excluded from sales figures. Of course, that would have meant excluding Virgin. Pretty bad behaviour, if true. McLaren also claimed that someone at CBS Records, which was distributing both singles, told him the Sex Pistols were outselling Stewart two to one that week. But McLaren was an expert bullshitter, so don’t assume this to be the truth.
The Outro
We’ll never know for sure, it seems. But if it’s true, it’s shocking, and a crying shame. God Save the Queen, a vibrant, angry anti-establishment song, urging the working class to wake up and consider their lot, would have been an incredible number 1, and the only punk song to get there. To achieve it in Jubilee week would have been such a statement. Instead, it was two (admittedly decent) Stewart ballad covers.
‘Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?’
The Info
Written by
First Cut Is the Deepest: Cat Stevens/I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Danny Whitten
Producer
Tom Dowd
Weeks at number 1
4 (21 May-17 June)
Trivia
Births
30 May:Actress Rachael Stirling 6 June: Welsh chef Bryn Williams
Deaths
2 June: Actor Stephen Boyd 3June: Physiologist Archibald Vivian Hill
Meanwhile…
21 May: Manchester United won the FA Cup for the fourth time, beating Liverpool 2-1 at Wembley Stadium.
25 May: Liverpool made up for the loss by winning the UEFA European Cup. They defeated West German league champions Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-1 in Rome.
27 May: Prime Minister James Callaghan officially opened the M5 motorway, 15 years after the first stretch near Birmingham was opened.
6-9 June: Silver Jubilee celebrations were held to celebrate 25 years of the Queen’s reign, with a public holiday on 7 June.
