1978 was the year of Grease. Romantic leads John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John remained at number 1 for most of the summer with a song that was never in the original stage musical.
Before
The stage show had been created by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey and premiered in a Chicago, Illinois nightclub in 1971. It was set specifically in Chicago and based on Jacobs’s time at high-school there. Noticeably grittier than the later productions and film it spawned, there were a number of other differences. Most of the characters were Polish-American, Doug Stevenson played Danny Zuko and Leslie Goto was Sandy Dumbrowski. The T-Birds were known as the Burger Palace Boys. The only person from the cast of the original Grease to become famous was Marilu Henner, who played Marty. It had a much shorter running time, was shocking and had an almost entirely different soundtrack.
The team behind the musical made a deal to take the show to Off-Broadway in 1972. It became very popular and received seven Tony nominations. By the summer it was on Broadway itself, where it ran until 1980. Barry Bostwick played Danny and Carole Demas was Sandy. During the course of its run, several actors and actresses came and went, becoming famous and/or starring in the movie. Among the Dannys were Jeff Conaway (before becoming Kenickie) and Patrick Swayze. Richard Gere was Sonny and John Travolta was Doody. In 1973 Grease also started a UK run until 1974, featuring Gere, promoted to be Danny, and Stacey Gregg as Sandy. Paul Nicholas and Elaine Paige took over.
It was only a matter of time before someone decided to turn this musical into a movie. Robert Stigwood, manager of The Bee Gees and producer of Saturday Night Fever (1977), produced with Allan Carr, who had worked on Tommy (1975) and Saturday Night Fever. Randall Kleiser made his movie directing debut after being recommended by Travolta, one of the hottest talents of the era.
John Joseph Travolta was born 18 February 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey. His father was a Sicilian-American tire salesman and his mother an actress and singer. The Travolta children all wanted to follow in their mother’s footsteps. He dropped out of high school in 1971, aged 17 and moved to New York, where he landed the role of Doody. His first major role came in the horror Carrie in 1976 and that same year he had a Billboard top 10 hit with Let Her In. Landing the roll of Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever turned him into a superstar and so he was a natural choice to star as Danny in Stigwood’s latest project (although apparently Happy Days star Henry Winkler had turned it down). As well as suggesting Kleiser as director, Travolta reckoned pop and country singer Olivia Newton-John would make a great Sandy.
Newton-John was born in Cambridge on 26 September 1948. Her Welsh father had been an MI5 officer and worked on the Enigma project in the Second World War. Her maternal grandmother was Jewish Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born and her third cousin is comedian Ben Elton. In 1954, when she was six, the family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia.
Newton-John’s singing career began at the age of 14 when she formed all-girl group Sol Four. She entered and won a talent contest on TV show Sing, Sing, Sing and won a trip to the UK. Although reluctant to go, her mother encouraged her and while here she recorded debut single Till You Say You’ll Be Mine in 1966. When friend and fellow singer Pat Carroll moved to the UK, they formed a duo but she turned solo once more when he returned to Australia.
Music mogul Don Kirshner briefly hired Newton-John to feature in short-lived girl group Toomorrow. From there she released her first solo album, If Not for You in 1971. The title track, written by Bob Dylan and recorded by George Harrison the year previous, was a big hit, peaking at seven in the UK. Follow-up Banks of the Ohio did one better and a cover of Harrison’s What Is Life climbed to 16 a year later. Newton-John’s version of Take Me Home, Country Roads went to 15 a year later.
In 1974 Newton-John entered the Eurovision Song Contest for the UK. She finished fourth with Long Live Love but it did respectably enough chart-wise, reaching 11. Later that year she scored her first US chart-topper with I Honestly Love You and her second with Have You Never Been Mellow in 1975. Despite this and scoring several Grammys too, there was a backlash in the States over a foreigner recording country music. Nonetheless, Newton-John left the UK to live over there. She returned to the UK singles chart in 1977 with the ballad Sam, peaking at six.
Following a dinner party at Helen Reddy’s home in which she met Carr, Newton-John was offered the role of female lead, renamed Sandy Ollson and was told they would make the character Australian to accommodate her accent. However she was initially reticent, fearing she was too old at 28 to be playing a high-school senior. It’s fair to say she probably doesn’t regret changing her mind in the end.
The scene in which Danny and Sandy are finally reconciled had until the film been soundtracked by a song called All Choked Up. It was in similar in theme to You’re the One That I Want but as the name suggests, much closer musically to an Elvis Presley pastiche. It was decided that one of Newton-John’s top songwriters and producers, John Farrar, who was a fellow Australian and had featured in The Shadows from 1973-76 would write two brand new songs for the movie. One was Hopelessly Devoted to You and the other, You’re the One That I Want.
Neither really fitted with the rest of the soundtrack which mostly evoked the spirit of 50s pop and rock’n’roll. The former was a country-tinged love song in more in keeping with Newton-John’s usual output. Kleiser was not fond of the latter. Fortunately, the rest of the world didn’t really agree with the film’s director.
Review
Me neither. I’m a self-professed hater of musicals. And yet, there are a few exceptions and this is probably the biggest one. It’s certainly the most famous. Like many of my age, I was first shown Grease as a child in the early 80s. I remember being enthralled from the opening bars of The Bee Gees-written theme tune sung by Frankie Valli when a friend down my street loaded his VHS copy (the Gibbs really were on fire back then). I also remember being really disappointed when the animation ended and an actual film began. The disappointment soon dissipated though.
I loved everything about Grease. I didn’t understand all the risqué jokes and sexual stuff going on but I was bowled over by the characters and music, like most people. And I also think I was chuffed that Danny and Sandy got together and even then, knew that there was something very exciting about Newton-John wearing the tightest clothes I’d probably seen at that point while purring ‘Feel your way’. Not thrilled with the perm, though.
The pure pop brilliance of You’re the One That I Want never dims despite decades of overexposure. It’s unlikely I’d ever put it on by choice but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it every time I hear it. Pure cheese of course, but the strutting verses are cool and the chorus ultra-catchy. It’s always hilarious to watch Travolta miming to those legendary opening lines sung by him like a cat in pain and ‘It’s electrifying’ will never not be funny. Unfortunately I can’t hear it without singing ‘Those new yoghurts you’re supplying, they’re electrifying!’ due to a 90s advert for St Ivel Shape. Weird how these things stick.
After
I’d assumed until now that You’re the One That I Want reigned supreme for almost the whole of the summer of 1978 because Grease was a box office smash and this marks the happy ending of the movie. Amazingly, Grease hadn’t even been released in the UK at this point. The US release came on 16 June, the day before it topped the chart in the UK. The British premiere came on 14 September. So for many, the clip from the film used to promote this single was their introduction to Grease. Which means you can take that mammoth nine-week run, the longest of the decade (equalled byBohemian Rhapsody and Mull of Kintyre/Girls School) mostly as a sign of sheer love of the song.
However by this point the term ‘new wave’ was being coined to describe the alternative music scene that had risen from the ashes of punk. To the young music fans of acts like Blondie and The Police, the sight and sound of You’re the One That I Want on Top of the Pops throughout that summer must have become a huge annoyance. The Boomtown Rats proved the point to great effect later that year.
Travolta and Newton-John went number 1 across the globe with this first release from what was to become the highest-grossing musical of all time up to that point. It soon became prone to spoofs, from the likes of The Goodies and sadly Hylda Baker & Arthur Mullard. This ageing duo, both comic actors (the latter a horrible bastard), dressed up as Sandy and Danny and performed a truly dire version on Top of the Pops, which took them to 22 in the chart later in 1978.
The Outro
As I write this, You’re the One That I Want is ranked the fifth biggest-selling single of all time. It’s unlikely this will change. In 1990 itsaw chart action once more thanks to The Grease Megamix. This amateurishly edited medley of You’re the One That I Want along with Greased Lightnin’ and Summer Nights peaked at three. It remained popular for years though – it was still getting played in my student union in the late-90s. To mark the 20th anniversary of the Grease film phenomenon, a dance version called You’re the One That I Want(Martian Remix) climbed to four in 1998. I have no recollection of this whatsoever. Nor do I remember the London cast recording by Craig McLachlan and Debbie Gibson which reached 13 in 1993.
The Info
Written & produced by
John Farrar
Weeks at number 1
9 (17 June-18 August)
Trivia
Births
20 June:Footballer Frank Lampard 22 June: Race car driver Dan Wheldon 30 June: Comedian Romesh Ranganathan 2 July: Actor Paul Danan 23 July:Footballer Stuart Elliott 31 July:Coldplay drummer Will Champion/Racing driver Justin Wilson
Deaths
23 July:Footballer Tommy McLaren 30 July:Scottish Labour MP John Mackintosh 31 July:Actor Carleton Hobbs 14 August:Writer Nicolas Bentley/Nuclear physicist Norman Feather
Meanwhile…
17 June: Media reports suggest a general election is on the cards in the autumn as the Labour minority government led by James Callaghan appears to be coming to an end. Only four months previous the Conservatives were 11 points ahead but it now looked like Labour would return with a majority.
19 June: Ian Botham becomes the first cricketer to score a century and take eight wickets in one innings of a Test match.
21 June: An outbreak of shooting at a Post Office depot in Belfast between Provisional IRA members and the British Army results in the deaths of one civilian and three IRA men. Also on this day, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Evita opens at the Prince Edward Theatre in London.
6 July: 11 people are killed when fire breaks out in a sleeping car train in Taunton, Somerset.
7 July: The Solomon Islands are annexed to the Crown and made independent from the UK.
25 July: Louise Brown becomes the world’s first human to be born from in vitro fertilisation in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
In 1974, ABBA looked ready to go huge. They’d won Eurovision with Waterloo, and then… not a lot happened. It seemed likely that Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were to become one-hit wonders. But 1976 proved the doubters wrong.
Before
So what did happen in the two years inbetween Waterloo and Mamma Mia? Well, ABBA’s UK record label didn’t help matters. They decided to follow up their Eurovision smash with a remix of Ring Ring, whereas elsewhere, Honey, Honey did pretty well, including reaching two in Germany. Ring Ring didn’t even enter the top 30, whereas a cover of Honey, Honey by Sweet Dreams went to 10.
November 1974 saw them embark on their first European tour, but most venues didn’t sell out and some dates even had to be cancelled. Around that time they released So Long as a single but it didn’t chart. It was followed in mid-1975 by I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do. It didn’t. Although it reached the top five in many European countries, it scaled the lofty heights of 38 in the UK.
Fortunately, things picked up after that. Their eponymous third studio album was released in April and hit number 13, and their next single SOS went to six. And rightly so – it’s one of their best.
Mamma Mia was the final track to be recorded for ABBA but would be the LP’s opener. It had been written at Ulvaeus and Fältskog’s home, and never intended as a single. It was even offered to Brotherhood of Man, soon to become Eurovision winners themselves, but they turned it down. Which is rather ironic when you consider they would completely rip off Fernando with their number 1 Angelo in 1977. In addition to Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Björn and Benny, it featured session musicians Janne Schafer on guitar, Mike Watson on bass and Roger Palm on drums. That distinctive and memorable sound you hear tick-rocking in the opening was a marimba, which was incorporated at the last minute when Andersson found one in the studio and rightly thought it could work well.
Review
As I stated in my blog for Waterloo, I’m far from ABBA’s biggest fan, and was turned off by them in general for many years, but there are exceptions to my rule. Where does Mamma Mia rate in my opinion? Well, it’s chock full of hooks and an excellent introduction to the songwriting of Andersson and Ulvaeus, featuring bittersweet lyrics set to an upbeat sound. While it can work well to use sad lyrics in a happy song, and it’s something ABBA would excel at, I’m not sure it works so well here. The girls are singing about being ‘cheated by you since I don’t know when’ and have had it happen so many times, it’s over. They don’t sound particularly cut up about that. However, you can rightly point out that love isn’t that simple, and as we discover, ‘just one look’ is all it takes to forget all the bad times, and bring the good rushing back. Such is love. Does ‘Mamma Mia’ sufficiently encapsulate the power of that love? It’s no ‘A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-lop-bam-boom!’, that’s for sure, and was perhaps a placeholder that they decided to keep, with deadlines approaching.
Ultimately for me, despite its good points, Mamma Mia makes me think of the ‘cheesy’ aspects of ABBA that used to turn me off. They still sound a little ‘Eurovision’ here, and while I’m quite partial to a bit of cheese, and the guitar sound is a nice throwback to the glam they would soon ditch, I’m not fussed about hearing this song ever again. But I know I will, such is its ubiquity.
After
Mamma Mia was released in Australia in August, and spent 10 weeks at number 1. Epic went full steam ahead on promotion this time around in the UK, and it paid off. They filmed a video that’s proved to be an enduring image of the group – the girls and Ulvaeus dressed flamboyantly in white against a white backdrop, with Andersson tickling the ivories. You can see it in the link above.
It’s appropriate that future legends Queen, after nine weeks at the top, could only be defeated by another band that would in time be one of the biggest in the world. Even more appropriate when you consider thatBohemian Rhapsodycontained the lyric ‘Mamma mia’ in the opera section.
The Outro
And of course, there’s the fact both bands have had musicals and films named after their songs. ABBA got there first, with the theatre show Mamma Mia! hitting the stage in 1999, followed by the cinema adaptation in 2008 and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018. I’ve seen enough clips of the film, starring Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, to know that I would be physically ill if I was ever made to sit through it in full.
The Info
Written by
Benny Andersson, Stig Anderson & Björn Ulvaeus
Producers
Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus
Weeks at number 1
2 (31 January-13 February)
Births
2 February:Swimmer James Hickman 10 February: Actress Keeley Hawes
Deaths
11 February:Actor Charlie Naughton 12 February: Philosopher John Lewis
Meanwhile…
2 February: Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.
4–15 February: Great Britain and northern Ireland competed at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. They only win one gold medal, on 11 February, when John Curry won the figure skating competition.
And how. Initially ridiculed upon its release, Bohemian Rhapsody established Queen as rock royalty. It is the third biggest number 1 of all time, selling over six million worldwide, and became the first to reach number 1 twice – for nine weeks in 1975/76 and again for five weeks in 1991/92 after singer Freddie Mercury’s death, making it the only song to be a Christmas number 1 twice. It also spearheaded the rise in popularity of music videos, had an Oscar-winning film named after it, and even has it’s own nickname. I will not be referring to it as ‘Bo Rap’ here.
Before
Before Queen there was Smile, a struggling rock band featuring guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Their singer, Tim Staffell, had befriended a fellow Ealing Art College student named Freddie Bulsara. The movie Bohemian Rhapsody contains many factual inaccuracies, and Bulsara joining Smile was the first. He didn’t stand and audition in broad daylight, he was already a fan when Staffell quit in 1970 to form Humpy Bong with former Bee Gees drummer Colin Petersen. Taylor’s friend Mike Grose became Smile’s bassist and soon after their first gig that June, Bulsara suggested they change their name to Queen. At the same time, he became Freddie Mercury. Several bassists later, John Deacon joined in February 1971.
Queen were playing to tiny audiences in the early 70s, but set to work on their eponymous debut. Queen was released in July 1973, with production by Roy Thomas Baker and John Anthony. It was a mix of heavy metal riffs and progressive rock, featuring tracks including debut single Keep Yourself Alive and My Fairy King, containing a mention of ‘Mother Mercury’, which is where the singer’s surname originated from. Neither Keep Yourself Alive or second single, also from the album, Liar, charted.
A month after the LP’s release they set to work on its sequel, Queen II, while supporting glam rockers Mott the Hoople on tour. When their next single was released shortly before the album, it rocketed to number 10. Seven Seas of Rhye showcased a more sophisticated production, very-70s fantastical lyrics, and was very catchy. Queen II, incidentally, features the Mick Rock photo of the band in Marlene Dietrich poses, which would prove the inspiration for much of the Bohemian Rhapsody video.
The third album, Sheer Heart Attack, got them noticed in the UK and abroad. A more eclectic collection, its first single, camp pop anthem Killer Queen just missed out on the top spot at two in the UK and was their first US hit. Now I’m Here got to 11 in the UK.
Queen’s star was rising ever higher, but they were broke and unhappy with their management deal with Trident Studios. They broke away and with Elton John’s manager John Reid taking care of business, they set to work on their fourth album A Night at the Opera.
Usually Queen’s songs germinated in the studio, but Mercury had it in mind to join together three song fragments, some dating back to the late-60s. Chris Smith, keyboardist in Smile, said that Mercury played him a tune he was working on called The Cowboy Song, which featured the lyrics ‘Mama, just killed a man’. Producer Roy Thomas Baker once recalled Mercury playing him the opening section on the piano, stopping abruptly and saying ‘and this is where the opera section comes in!’.
Mercury, May, Deacon and Taylor rehearsed Bohemian Rhapsody and other songs from A Night at the Opera at Ridge Farm Studio in Surrey in mid-75. The recording of the single began on 24 August at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, but due to its elaborate nature was also recorded at Roundhouse, Sarm East Studios, Scorpio Sound and Wessex Sound Studios.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBqMbefDgys
Review
There have been many interpretations of the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody. Is it Mercury dealing with personal issues? May has suggested it was, but that he never actually said so to the other band members. Could he be talking about his homosexuality? He hadn’t come out to his then-partner Mary Austin at that point. Taylor said on a BBC Three documentary about the song that he thought the subject matter was ‘fairly self-explanatory’ with ‘a bit of nonsense in the middle’. It’s definitely worth noting that when Queen released a Greatest Hits in Iran (the first official pop release ever in that country), they included a booklet with translations and explanations of the songs. It says that Bohemian Rhapsody is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution he calls God in Arabic, ‘Bismillah’, and so regains his soul from Satan. So perhaps we really are meant to take the lyrics literally.
Where does one start with a review of Bohemian Rhapsody?! It’s almost too big to even have one. I first heard it on a cassette compilation as a child, and back then, strangely, I didn’t find it too weird. Maybe childhood in the 80s was so constantly weird, a nearly-six-minute-long single about murder and the devil didn’t seem that strange. The thing I found ‘very, very frightening’ was the video. Growing up, Mercury’s look was short hair and moustache. Seeing him looking different, lined up in that famous formation with the others, I found them all ghostly and unsettling, but Mercury especially. At first, I didn’t even believe they were the same person.
How strange that this stitched together prog-influenced epic should somehow become a monolith of pop music. The nearest thing to it in 1975 is 10 cc’sI’m Not in Love, another lengthy symphony, but at least that has a relatable message at its core. Bohemian Rhapsody just screams ‘album track’. So why has it not only endured, but grown in stature?
It may well be as basic as: it’s fun to sing along to, from power ballad to surreal opera to rock anthem and back to ballad, it’s as eclectic as it gets. Like I’m Not in Love, it’s beautifully produced and sounds great through good speakers. It also shows how far production had come since The Beach Boys similarly landmark moment Good Vibrations in 1966 (Brian Wilson was very complimentary about Bohemian Rhapsody). And the moment in which the opera section turns to rock is always a total joy and release of energy and tension. May’s guitar work throughout is excellent, not just when he rocks out either, he does a great line in maudlin accompaniment as Mercury describes his woes.
Of course, Bohemian Rhapsody is really all about Mercury. What a voice. Anyone can attempt and enjoy singing along to this track, as I’ve already said, but nobody could perform it with the prowess of Mercury. And as downright odd as the opera section may be, it’s a great display of an amazing vocal talent. Not that it’s only Mercury at that point – he takes the middle range, with May on the low notes and Taylor on the high. To create the virtual choir took 180 separate overdubs and three weeks alone to finish. The tape was worn out several times, resulting in repeated transfers. The piano Mercury plays is the same used by Paul McCartney on another lengthy number 1 classic, Hey Jude.
My opinion of Bohemian Rhapsody has changed several times over throughout my life. I loved it in my teens and 20s, and spent much of my 30s thoroughly sick to death of it, and feeling there were many better ‘weird’, long songs out there that did what it does better. I was wrong to an extent, and in my 40s, I love it once more. I’m no superfan of Queen, and can take or leave some of their material. But this is fantastic and deserving of its status.
Back to the video. It does annoy me when this gets the credit of being the first promo for a single. It’s simply not true. Promos were being made in the 60s. The Beatles made loads, for example. And Queen! What is true is that they became more and more popular, and more adventurous in the wake of this number 1. You may well see more and more appearing on this blog. According to May, they decided on a video to avoid miming a complex song on Top of the Pops and were touring at the time anyway. I wonder what Pan’s People would have made of it?
It was filmed in November 1975 at Elstree Studios and directed by Bruce Gowers. The spooky effect in which Mercury’s face repeats on ‘Magnifico’ and ‘Let me go’ is a very simple trick in which a camera is pointed at a monitor, creating visual feedback. I stumbled across it as a teenager while playing with my camcorder and it blew my mind. After the many hours spent recording the song, the video was ready in five hours and rushed to the BBC for its debut on Top of the Pops.
After
Despite pressure from EMI, Queen wouldn’t cave in and edit Bohemian Rhapsody, thankfully. Radio 1 DJ Kenny Everett, a close friend of Mercury, was instrumental in its initial success. He promised the band not to play the song in full at first and he would tease listeners by playing snippets. Eventually he played it in full 14 times in two days, and fans were asking in shops for it before its release.
The Outro
Bohemian Rhapsody‘s nine-week run was the longest concurrent stint since Paul Anka’s Diana in 1957. An incredible achievement, particularly for such a bold experiment in pop. It even reached nine in the US, which was also unexpected. Perhaps another reason it did so well is the sense I get after reviewing 1975’s number 1s that with depressingly few exceptions, it was a rather drab year for pop. With glam gone and disco yet to make its mark, few songs stand out or push the envelope other than this or I’m Not in Love, and Space Oddityis six years old at this point. 1976 would be another poor year, although ABBA were about to make a big return. Weirdly, Mamma Mia would finally dislodge Bohemian Rhapsody, a rather odd event considering the latter’s ‘Mamma mia let me go’.
The Info
Written by
Freddie Mercury
Producers
Roy Thomas Baker & Queen
Weeks at number 1
9 (29 November 1975-30 January 1976)
Trivia
Births
5 December 1975:Snooker World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan 12 December: Gymnast Jackie Brady 19 January 1976: Actress Marsha Thomason 21 January: Spice Girl Emma Bunton
Deaths
29 November 1975:Racing driver Tony Brise (see below)/Racing driver Graham Hill (see below) 5 January 1976:Beatles roadie Mal Evans 12 January:Writer Agatha Christie 13 January:Actress Margaret Leighton
Meanwhile…
29 November: Two-time Formula One world champion Graham Hill, 46, dies in an air crash in Hertfordshire. He was piloting a plane in thick fog containing five other members of the Embassy Hill team who all also died, including Tony Brise.
5 December – The Government ends internment of suspected terrorists in Northern Ireland.
6-12 December: IRA members on the run from police break into a London flat on Balcombe Street, taking the residents hostage. The siege ends after six days with the gunmen giving themselves up to the police.
11 December: Donald Neilson is arrested in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire on suspicion of being the ‘Black Panther’, believed to have carried out five murders in the last two years.
29 December 1975: The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equal Pay Act 1970 come into force.
2 January 1976: Hurricane-force winds of up to 105mph kill 22 people across Britain, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to buildings and vehicles.
5 January: 10 Protestant men are killed in the Kingsmill massacre at South Armagh, Northern Ireland, by members of the IRA who used the alias ‘South Armagh Republican Action Force’.
7 January: The third Cod War continues, with British and Icelandic ships clashing.
18 January: The Scottish Labour Party was formed by a group of disaffected Labour MPs. It disbanded five years later.
20 January: Emily Jackson is stabbed to death in Leeds, and police believe she may have been killed by the same man who murdered Wilma McCann in the city three months previously. It is revealed that Jackson was a part-time prostitute and the unidentified killer becomes known as ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’.
21 January: The first commercial Concorde flight takes off from Heathrow.
29 January: 12 IRA bombs explode in London’s West End. They are the first in the city in over a year.
For a while, weirdly, it looked like Mungo Jerry may be the heirs to The Beatles’ throne. This rock/pop/skiffle/jug band scored 1970’s biggest-selling number 1, and one of the most memorable songs about summer of all time with their debut single In the Summertime. ‘Mungomania’ was a very real thing.
Before
Mungo Jerry formed from the ashes of 60s rock’n’roll and blues band The Good Earth, featuring, among others, singer-songwriter and guitarist Ray Dorset and keyboardist Colin Earl. The other half of the band were gone by the end of 1968, and with one remaining commitment – the Oxford University Christmas Ball of 1968 – left to go, Dorset hired Joe Rush to play double bass. The Good Earth played again when the night was over, performing folk, skiffle and jug band originals and covers.
This more low-key, acoustic version of the band went down well, and they built a following thanks to regular gigs. Banjoist, guitarist, and blues harp player Paul King made them a quartet. Rush left, to be replaced by Mike Cole, and they changed their name to Mungo Jerry, taking the name from TS Elliot’s poem ‘Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer’, as featured in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
Mungo Jerry signed with Pye Records, who placed them on their progressive imprint Dawn Records. They set to work recording their eponymous debut album, and the tracks that would make up their first single. This was to be one of, if not the first maxi-single in the UK. Vinyl maxi-singles were played at 33⅓rpm, rather than 45, and featured more than two tracks.
Dorset was still working his day job in a lab for watchmakers Timex when he came up with lead track In the Summertime, which he knocked off in 10 minutes. Clearly he could tell this ditty could make for a great debut for Mungo Jerry, but it’s unlikely he knew the impact this tale of youthful freewheeling would have for the next half a century.
Review
Much like Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit in the Sky, In the Summertime will be the one track associated with Mungo Jerry (despite a second, long-since-forgotten, number 1), has been used countless times in the media, and is a tune neither I or millions more will ever tire of. It’s all about that loveable, rickety old backing track, really, with a distinctive rhythm created by Dorset stomping and playing an African percussive instrument called the cabasa. I assume it’s also him doing the breathy interjections. Dorset’s an interesting character. His voice has an unusual bleating quality, like a friendly sheep. Footage of him from back in the day though, such as in the video they filmed for the single, above, used to scare me when I was younger. I used to think, with all the teeth and sideburns, he was some kind of hairy villain. Special mention must go to Earl’s piano riff, too.
50 years on, its the lyrics that prove problematic. In the Summertime is a song about being young, about the generational divide of 1970. You could even call it a somewhat passive-aggressive statement of intent: ‘We’re no threat, people, We’re not dirty, we’re not mean, We love everybody but we do as we please’
Dorset and his gang are happy-go-lucky, but in the end, they’ll do what they want, so don’t stop them. And that involves womanising and driving recklessly, possibly while under the influence. The lyric ‘If her daddy’s rich take her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor just do what you feel’ may have just sounded cheeky back then, but it’s unpleasant to hear these days.
And of course, thanks to a memorable public information film from 1992, it’s ‘Have a drink, have a drive/Go out and see what you can find’ that stands out the most. Anyone that saw this at the time will likely never get the graphic image of the drink-driving accident out of their head whenever they hear this song. But because my mind has unlimited storage for 80s adverts, I also can’t hear it without picturing the curly-haired juggler of oranges in the rewritten version for Outspan. Pretty sure that’s Dorset himself singing ‘Grab an Outspan, the small ones are more juicy naturally’.
After
Despite the bad vibes of some of Dorset’s lyrics in the 21st century, it’s such an addictive song, it seems it’s never going to go away, and I’m glad about that. In the Summertime stayed at number 1 for seven weeks that summer – the lengthiest run of the 70s until Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody managed nine weeks in 1975/76. The UK’s brief flirtation with Mungomania had begun.
The Outro
Jamaican-American rapper Shaggy released a version of In the Summertime in 1995, which reached number five that summer. Featuring his mate Rayvon, it eschewed the drink-drive references, but kept the rest of the dodgy bits intact.
The Info
Written by
Ray Dorset
Producer
Barry Murray
Weeks at number 1
7 (13 June-31 July) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*
Trivia
Births
19 June: Singer-songwriter MJ Hibbett 20 June:Field hockey player Russell Garcia 22 June: Field hockey playerChristine Cook 24 June: Footballer David May 25 June: Actress Lucy Benjamin 2 July: Footballer Steve Morrow 6 July: Singer-songwriter Martin Smith 7 July: Boxer Wayne McCullough 10 July: Take That singer Jason Orange/Actor John Simm 11 July: Conservative MP Saj Karim 29 July: Children’s TV presenter Andi Peters 30 July: Director Christopher Nolan 31 July: Actor Ben Chaplin
Deaths:
15 June: Scottish sociologist Robert Morrison MacIver 27 June: Artist Edwin La Dell 30 June: Dramatist Githa Sowerby 7 July: Publisher Allen Lane 20 July: Conservative MP Iain Macleod
Meanwhile…
13 June: Actor Laurence Olivier was made a life peer in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Olivier was the first actor to be made a lord.
14 June: England’s defence of the FIFA World Cup came to an end when they lost 3-2 to West Germany at the quarter final in Mexico (see here).
17 June: The bodies of two children were discovered in shallow graves in woodland at Waltham Abbey, Essex. The bodies were believed to be those of Susan Blatchford (11) and Gary Hanlon (12). The tow children had last been seen alive near their homes in North London on 31 March. This became known as the “Babes in the wood” case. Also on this day, British Leyland launched its luxury Range Rover.
18 June: The first general election in which 18-year-olds were entitled to vote. Opinion polls pointed towards a record third consecutive victory for the Labour government, led by Harold Wilson.
19 June: Edward Heath’s Conservative Party defied expectations, to win the election with a majority of 30 seats. Notable new MPs included future Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith for Labour, and Kenneth Clarke, Kenneth Baker, Norman Fowler and Geoffrey Howe, who would all serve in Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Cabinet in the 80s.
21 June: British golfer Tony Jacklin won the U.S. Open.
22 June: The Methodist Church allowed women to become full ministers for the first time.
26 June: Riots broke out in Derry over the arrest of Mid-Ulster MP Bernadette Devlin.
29 June: 32-year-old Caroline Thorpe, wife of Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, died in a car crash.
3 July: British Army soldiers battled with IRA troops in Belfast, leading to the deaths of three civilians. Also on that day, 112 were killed when Dan-Air Flight 1903 from Manchester to Barcelona crashed in the mountains of Northern Spain. There were no survivors.
8 July: Roy Jenkins became Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
14 July: 5 speedway riders were killed in Lokeren, Belgium when a minibus carrying members of the West Ham speedway team crashed into a petrol tanker after a brief tour. One of the casualties was Phil Bishop, a founding member of the West Ham speedway team from before World War Two.
15 July: Dockers voted to strike, leading to a state of emergency the following day.
16–25 July: The British Commonwealth Games were held in Edinburgh. Australia came first, England second, Scotland fourth and Northern Ireland were 10th on the medal table.
17 July: Lord Pearson proposed a settlement of dockers’ strike.
30 July: The dockers’ strike was settled.
31 July – The last issue of grog in the Royal Navy was distributed.
I’ve been blogging my reviews of all the UK number 1s in order for four months now, and have reached the end of 1957. Despite not being a fan of 50s music in general (maybe that’s a bit harsh, I should say I’m not too knowledgeable about it), I’ve found it more interesting than expected. Hopefully, some of the readers I’ve gathered are enjoying it too.
Anyway, I decided a nice addition for Christmas would be to work my way through every Christmas number 1 to date. Now, I love music, and I’m also fond of Christmas, so initially it sounds like a no-brainer. However, Christmas number 1s are a complete wild card. No matter the decade, no matter your musical taste, it would be impossible to enjoy them all. Indeed, after a first glance, I realised there are far fewer festive songs than you’d maybe expect. From children’s songs, to rock’n’roll and psychedelic classics, to total, utter dross, the Christmas number 1 offers examples of the mammoth highs and terrible lows of pop music over the last 65 years. And although sadly pop is no longer the cultural force it once was, the Christmas number 1 is still considered important. So much so, they even bring Top of the Pops back especially for it.
So, 69 songs (if a number 1 was a double A-side, I’ve included both), 4 hours and 15 minutes of seasonal chart-toppers, broken down into decisions on the best and worst of each decade, and then one overall winner. With two young children in my house, it would be impossible to take on this task in one sitting. So I decided to do it while working my day job, which today is working on, appropriately enough, the Christmas TV listings for TV Times. I think I already know which song will win out. Let’s see if I’m right…
The 50s
The 50s songs went by in a blur. This could be because I started listening at 7.30 in the morning and didn’t have enough caffeine in me, but it’s also because the charts didn’t start until 1952, and most tracks were pretty concise back then. In fact the first ever Christmas number 1 was the first ever chart-topper – Al Martino’s Here in My Heart. With pop music in its infancy, the yuletide number 1 wasn’t yet an event, and there wasn’t a festive-themed chart-topper until crooner Dickie Valentine’s Christmas Alphabet in 1955, which is a slight but charming enough number. You could perhaps argue Winifred Atwell had kicked things off the year previous, with the piano knees-up Let’s Have Another Party – it contained a snatch of When the Red Red Robin. Harry Belafonte’s Mary’s Boy Child in 1957 was the last explicitly Christmas song to reign until Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody, 16 years later.
Elvis-mania changed pop forever and rock’n’roll ruled the roost in the late 50s. For me, this is where music started to get interesting, so it’s probably no coincidence that one of my favourites of the 50s was the last – Emile Ford and the Checkmates’ clever and cocky What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? (1959), later covered by Shakin’ Stevens.
The Best:
Johnnie Ray –Just Walkin‘ in the Rain (1956): One of rock’n’roll’s pioneers, the eccentric, troubled ‘Mr Emotion’ sang this melancholic yet strangely cheery song written by two men languishing in prison. It’s not seasonal in the slightest, it’s just a great song by an influential but under-appreciated talent. One listen and you won’t be able to resist whistling the refrain. I can’t whistle, but this is one of the few times I wished I could.
The Worst:
Frankie Laine with Paul Weston & His Orchestra – Answer Me (1953): The hardest part of blogging about many of those early number 1s was wading through the sea of near-identical overwrought ballads. The majority of them leave me cold, and despite Frankie being able to hold a note well, this did nothing for me. Hilariously, the BBC banned it at the time due to the then-shocking mention of God in the lyrics, which only increased its sales. The BBC clearly never learnt its lesson, as this wasn’t the last time this happened to a future number 1.
The 60s
Pop music evolved at a mind-blowing rate and came of age during this decade. Obviously the 60s were dominated by the best group of all time, The Beatles, and they also hold the record for most festive number 1s to date, with four in total – I Want to Hold Your Hand (1963), I Feel Fine (1964), Day Tripper/We Can Work it Out (1965) and Hello Goodbye (1967). Never anything but a pleasure to listen to, John, Paul, George and Ringo played a large part in making this decade’s list pretty darn enjoyable. The classic Moon River, sang by Danny Williams, topped the charts in 1961, and Elvis also got a look-in, with one of his better tracks – Return to Sender, in 1962.
In the latter half of the decade, children’s records grew in popularity, and were obviously going to sell well in December, beginning the trend for novelty Christmas number 1s. The Scaffold’s Lily the Pink (1968) may be irritating but served it’s purpose, and my five-year-old seemed to love it recently. More problematic is Rolf Harris’s Two Little Boys in 1969. Finding out what a pervert Rolf Harris was, under everybody’s radar, for so long was like finding out there’s no such thing as Father Christmas, yet this tune seems somehow still strangely moving, and now sadder than ever, because he’s bloody ruined it for everyone.
The Best:
The Beatles – Hello Goodbye (1967): It was always going to be a Beatles song. I did struggle between Day Tripper and Hello Goodbye, though. Despite the former’s killer riff, I decided to go with the latter, as I’m a sucker for most psychedelic 60s stuff. Although it’s not the Fab Four’s best example of pyschedelia, I love it’s joyous simplicity, and especially the singalong at the end, which is lie-affirming pop at its best. I also think it would make for a hilarious funeral song.
The Worst:
Cliff Richard and The Shadows – I Love You (1960): Look at that title, it’s as generic as it gets, which at least sets the scene for the song itself. Tepid, basic and very forgettable, it’s no wonder it’s been largely forgotten. Cliff of course became a festive staple in the 80s. Whatever you might think of his later yuletide tunes, you’d find it difficult to argue that they’re not better than this.
The 70s
It was in this decade that the idea of the Christmas Number 1 really became an event, beginning with Slade and Wizzard’s battle for best festive anthem in 1973. An honourable mention for fellow glam rockers Mud’s Elvis tribute Lonely This Christmas (1974) – always had a soft spot for that one. Benny Hill’s children’s song Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) in 1971 was deceptively filthy – I’ve never realised just how smutty the lyrics were until today (although to be fair I probably haven’t heard it in full since I was about seven).
Several ‘classics’ also hit the top, and having long since grown bored of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (1975), I was impressed by it for the first time in years. It’s complexity and sheer oddness really made it stand out during my mammoth listen, and I didn’t mind hearing it again once I reached the songs of the 90s (it was of course reissued following Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991). Wings’ Mull of Kintyre (the biggest single of the decade) seems to be either loved or hated – I just think it’s alright – but who remembers it was actually a double A-side, along with the long-forgotten rocker Girls School (which fared far better in the US) in 1977? Mary’s Boy’s Boy Child – Oh My Lord (1978) saw Boney M cover Belafonte’s 1957 tune, livening it up but increasing the tackiness tenfold.
I find it hilarious and brilliant that Pink Floyd’s dark disco classic Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) was 1979’s festive bestseller. I don’t know about you, but nothing says Christmas more than a choir of children singing ‘We don’t need no education/We don’t need no thought control’ with an air of menace.
The Best:
Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (1973): Overfamiliarity hasn’t dimmed my love of Noddy bellowing ‘IT’S CHRRIISSSTTTMMMAAASSS!’, and although I sometimes think I prefer Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, it was Slade that won out back then, so it was Slade I heard today, finally bringing some yuletide cheer back into my rundown, and doing it with such wit and a tune that still holds up so well. I think the fact the production doesn’t labour the festive theme, unlike some of the songs yet to come, only adds to its brilliance.
The Worst:
Jimmy Osmond – Long Haired Lover from Liverpool (1972): Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing I can say about this that’s remotely festive, but it’s not meant as a compliment. I know the Osmonds were huge back then but I fail to see how anyone ever found this remotely appealing. It’s memorable I guess, but so is a bout of diarrhoea. My ears were genuinely pained when Jimmy hit the high notes, and it seemed to go on forever.
The 80s
I was born in 1979, so it’s this decade that takes me back to Christmas as a child. One of my earliest memories is of clutching my copy of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (1984) in the playground before taking it to a school Christmas disco, aged five. A landmark moment in music, it was of course the start of charity singles gunning for the all-important top spot, and it’s a classic, but it’s controversially not even in my top two 80s number 1s. And the less said about the Stock, Aitken and Waterman-produced Band Aid II version (1989), the better. I wondered why it had been airbrushed from history and I was only 20 seconds in before realising why. It’s total crap.
The quality of the number 1s really jumped about in the 80s, particularly the first half. Special mention must go to The Human League’s electro classic Don’t You Want Me (1981). I really struggled to decide whether this was my 80s favourite, or the one that just pipped it to the post. It may not be seasonal in the slightest, but I’m not purely judging these singles on festive merit, which is why Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the highest-selling festive chart-topper of all time, isn’t the winner.
Warm memories of the reissue of Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite in 1986, originally from 1956, were rekindled. And although it’s terrible, I found myself amused by Renée and Renato’s Save Your Love (1982), because it’s damn funny and it reminded me of the Kenny Everett spoof. Plus I think my mind might have started unravelling by this point. You can certainly argue that Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine is tacky shit, but nostalgia can really affect critical judgement, so I won’t be agreeing, sorry.
The Best:
Pet Shop Boys – Always on My Mind (1987): I feel this may be a controversial choice due to it having nothing to do with Christmas, and the fact it kept Fairytale of New York from number 1, but I picked it because it’s bloody brilliant, and for me, this cover of the ballad made famous by Elvis gets better with age. Taking a great song, transforming it and improving upon it is no easy task, but Nick Tennant and Chris Lowe did so without any of their usual irony, simply turning it into a disco juggernaut. There’s no wonder it often finds itself in the upper reaches of lists of best cover versions of all time. Joss Ackland didn’t half used to scare me in the video, though.
The Worst:
St Winifred’s School Choir – There’s No One Quite Like Grandma (1980): Like Pet Shop Boys, this kept a festive classic off the top, namely Jona Lewie’s excellent Stop the Cavalry. However, unlike Pet Shop Boys, it’s wretched. And did a nation coming to terms with the murder of John Lennon really pick this over reissues of his work? A perfect example of Christmas chart insanity, like Long Haired Lover from Liverpool before it, this grates big time. And yet, I’d still take it over some of the ‘serious’ work that’s yet to come…
The 90s
The Christmas number 1s of the late 80s had marked the turning point, in which the standard began to fall, with occasional exceptions. I knew this before beginning my foolhardy task, but failed to appreciate how painful the job was going to become. Cliff had his third and final appearance to date (he was part of Band Aid II) with the execrable Saviour’s Day (1990) (The pan pipes! Not the pan pipes!), in which he came up with his own, duller version of Christmas. No thanks, Cliff, we’re happy with mistletoe and wine. Queen pared up Freddie Mercury’s farewell, These Are the Days of Our Lives, with a reissue of 1975’s Bohemian Rhapsody (1991), and I was tempted to award the best of the decade to the latter, but in the end it seemed unfair to let it have two chances.
By this point in my youth I was starting to develop my own tastes, and my music snobbery had begun. I hated the seemingly eternal reign of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You back in 1992, and it didn’t do much for me in 2017 either. I did appreciate Houston’s singing more than I used to, though. It’s the production that kills it. Mr Blobby (1993)… this track came up more than any other when I told people what I would be doing, as though this would be the ultimate form of torture. You know what? It wasn’t. I genuinely found myself laughing at it. The people behind it were sick geniuses, throwing every trick in the book to seemingly irritate and infuriate anyone who didn’t watch Noel’s House Party. In fact, after rehearing it, I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if one day it turned out to be yet another prank by twisted geniuses The KLF. Just as insane in it’s own way was Michael Jackson’s Earth Song in 1995. Fair play to the self-proclaimed ‘King of Pop’ for trying to highlight the damage humans have done to the world, but heavily implying he was some kind of Messiah-like figure while doing so was a bit daft.
Who would have thought that East 17 would be one of the decade’s few Christmas highlights with Stay Another Day (1994)? Then and now I found the Walthamstow gang ridiculous, but I have to hand it to songwriter Tony Mortimer, Stay Another Day is a great song, especially when you know it was written about his brother, who committed suicide. Poor old troubled Brian Harvey sings it well, too. He veers out of tune at times, but that fits perfectly in the context of this song. I admire the chutzpah of tacking on bells at the end, but it’s a shame it was then adopted by seemingly every other boy band aiming for a number 1 on 25 December.
The Best:
Spice Girls – 2 Become 1 (1996): I have an inkling this may also be a controversial choice, mainly for people who know me. Back in the day I claimed to hate the Spice Girls. I was a huge Britpop fan and I blamed them for ruining pop music by not being ‘for real’. It didn’t occur to me that many guitar-bands were running out of steam, or becoming so experimental, they were never going to maintain their followings. Now I’m nearly 40, I’m less concerned with whether a song is ‘cool’ or not, and grudgingly admit the early Spice Girls singles were great pop songs. You have to make room for love ballads at Christmas, and 2 Become 1 is a great example of one. I’ve even been known to listen to it outside of Christmas. And you have to admire the fact it gets a cheeky reference to wearing a condom in there. Their next two yuletide number 1s, Too Much (1997) and Goodbye (1998), were tosh, though.
The Worst:
Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun (1999): This was the easiest choice to make by far. I hated Westlife for being the final number 1 ‘artists’ of the 20th century. Was this really what the last 50 years of pop had been leading up to?! Time has certainly not changed my mind. I’d forgotten this was coming up so soon, and as the Irish boy band’s tepid cover of ABBA’s I Have a Dream began, I wanted to punch my ears. Only problem is, that would have pushed my earphones further down my now long-suffering hearing vessels, and thus increasing the torture. The next two or three minutes were vacuous, contemptible, cynical pap, but at least it would soon be over. Fuck! It’s a double-A-side! And they’ve had a go at a song about dying! I think Seasons in the Sun is actually even worse! This single only deserves to be the final number 1 of the millennium because it signposts the downward trajectory in quality and worth of the charts in the 21st century to date. But I’d rather listen to There’s No One Quite Like Grandma than ever suffer these two songs again.
The 00s
Before Simon Cowell did irreparable damage to December’s charts with the X Factor, there were a few more years of oddities. At 21, I had no time for Bob the Builder’s Can We Fix It? back in 2000, but coming after Westlife in my marathon listen, it was actually easy on the ears. It’s quite funny to think Neil Morrissey has had a number 1 with a dance anthem. Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman’s Something Stupid (2001) seemed rather pointless, then and now. Girls Aloud had won Popstars: The Rivals in 2002, and Sound of the Underground still sounds like one of the few reality show songs that wasn’t a power ballad put together by a committee. Perhaps if talent show winners were still releasing songs like this, The X Factor wouldn’t finally be dying a slow death.
Michael Andrew and Gary Jules’s haunting cover of Tears For Fears’ Mad World (from the film Donnie Darko) seemed an appropriate choice after the conflict in Iraq in 2003, but strikes me as simply too downbeat now. Easily the most depressing track in the collection. The 20th anniversary of Do They Know It’s Christmas? brought about yet another version, and while Band Aid 20’s cover is better than Band Aid II, it goes on way too long and sounds too earnest. Speaking of earnest…
The second series of The X Factor in 2005 was where the Christmas charts were first hijacked. The next five years were wall-to-wall Cowell. Manufactured MOR with a revolving door of singers, some who have long since been forgotten about. Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah (2008) was the only remotely memorable one, and that’s undoubtedly due to me loving Jeff Buckley’s version of the Leonard Cohen classic, which was that year’s runner-up.
The Best:
Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name (2009): By the close of the 00s, some record buyers had had enough of Cowell’s dominance. Beginning an internet campaign which quickly snowballed, Zack de la Rocha and co’s rap-metal call for revolution from 1992 was the perfect antidote to yet another lightweight pop ballad. After suffering so much tripe beforehand I was on the verge of shouting ‘THANK FUCK’ in the middle of the office. Although it wasn’t the end of X Factor number 1s, Rage Against the Machine had inflicted serious damage to their stranglehold of the charts.
The Worst:
Leon Jackson – When You Believe (2007): Jackson won the fourth series of the X Factor with this cover of a power ballad sung by Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey for the animation The Prince of Egypt in 1998. Dreary and tedious, it’s a throwback to some of the very first number 1s of the early 1950s and the worst X Factor Christmas number 1. I don’t think Jackson has been seen since – another victim of Cowell’s ruthlessness.
The 10s
Rage Against Machine had given the list a much-needed kick up the arse, but I don’t think it was just the potential lethargy my ears were suffering that caused the remaining tracks to be a tough listen. In addition to further X Factor tracks, charity singles became very popular once more, beginning with Wherever You Are by Military Wives with Gareth Malone in 2011. Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir’s A Bridge over You (2015) was along similar lines, combining Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and Coldplay’s Fix You. I don’t want to belittle charity singles, but the combination of these and yet more talent show winners made for a very musically uninspiring final few tracks.
Some potential hope for the future came with the last song of all. Rockabye (2016), by Clean Bandit featuring Sean-Paul and Anne-Marie, broke the malaise that had set in and was simply a modern pop song by a young group, just like in the old days. It didn’t do much for me personally, but pop should primarily be for the young, not a man who’s nearly 40, so fair play to them. Here’s hoping there’s further life in the charts for years to come.
The Best:
The Justice Collective – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (2012): Adopting the Band Aid approach and featuring an all-star cast of musicians and celebrities, The Justice Collective was assembled by Peter Hooton of The Farm, in order to raise money for various charities associated with the Hillsborough disaster. Covering the classic Hollies track was an inspired choice, and it would be difficult to not be moved by this, whatever your thoughts on charity songs.
The Worst:
Matt Cardle – When We Collide (2010): Shock, horror – it’s another X Factor song! Matt Cardle won the seventh series and released a cover of rock band Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror and renamed it, for some reason. That’s the most interesting thing I can say about this leaden waste of time.
The Best UK Christmas Number 1 Ever is…
Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody (1973): I predicted this would win beforehand, but I didn’t predict just how many non-festive songs it would be up against, so Noddy, Dave, Don and Jim almost won by default. That’s not to take anything away from their win though. If it wasn’t for their chart battle with Wizzard, would the Christmas number 1 be the annual event it still is today? Possibly not. Back in 1973, the UK was going through a rough ride, with strikes and power cuts, and Merry Xmas Everybody brought some light back into (literally) dark times. 44 years later, we need this song more than ever.
The Worst UK Christmas Number 1 Ever is…
Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun (1999): I think I made my feelings on this clear earlier, but even thinking about the damage it did to my ears is making me angry all over again. Pop music at it’s very dreariest, and far more offensive than any of the novelty hits I’ve had to suffer. I expected my lowest-rated song to be from the X Factor conveyor belt, but I feel some degree of sympathy towards those artists involved. It’s the man behind them that’s the true villain of chart music.
The Outro
Well, that was quite an experience. Yes, you could argue putting myself through every Christmas number 1, only to ultimately rediscover my love for Slade and hatred for Westlife, was pointless, but, despite my forlorn face above, and lots of moaning within this feature, it’s made for a fascinating experience. Tracing the Christmas number 1s from the inception of the charts has been like following the history of pop itself, which is after all what this site is all about. And no number 1 single better captures the eccentricities of the record-buying public than the Christmas number 1, throwing some real curveballs in there. Of course, listening to a history of pop like this has highlighted how far chart music has fallen over the last few decades. But there is still some hope for the future. And while this four-hour-plus experience has left me somewhat scarred, I’m already wondering if next year I should make my way through every UK Christmas number 2… Maybe I have developed a form of musical Stockholm Syndrome?
Of course, everyone’s entitled to an opinion… why not tell me yours? Feel free to shout me down and leave a comment in the box below the list.
Every UK Christmas Number 1 (1952-2016)
1952: Al Martino – Here in My Heart 1953: Frankie Laine with Paul Weston & His Orchestra – Answer Me 1954: Winifred Atwell & Her ‘Other’ Piano – Let’s Have Another Party 1955: Dickie Valentine with Johnny Douglas & His Orchestra – Christmas Alphabet 1956: Johnnie Ray – Just Walkin’ in the Rain 1957: Harry Belafonte – Mary’s Boy Child 1958: Conway Twitty: It’s Only Make Believe 1959: Emile Ford and the Checkmates – What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? 1960: Cliff Richard and The Shadows – I Love You 1961: Danny Williams – Moon River 1962: Elvis Presley – Return to Sender 1963: The Beatles – I Want to Hold Your Hand 1964: The Beatles – I Feel Fine 1965: The Beatles – Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out 1966: Tom Jones: Green Green Grass of Home 1967: The Beatles – Hello Goodbye 1968: The Scaffold – Lily the Pink 1969: Rolf Harris – Two Little Boys 1970: Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking 1971: Benny Hill – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West) 1972: Donny Osmond – Long Haired Lover from Liverpool 1973: Slade – Merry Xmas Everybody 1974: Mud – Lonely This Christmas 1975: Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody 1976: Johnny Mathis – When a Child Is Born (Soleado) 1977: Wings – Mull of Kintyre/Girls School 1978: Boney M – Mary’s Boy Child – Oh My Lord 1979: Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) 1980: St Winifred’s School Choir – There’s No One Quite Like Grandma 1981: The Human League – Don’t You Want Me 1982: Renée and Renato – Save Your Love 1983: The Flying Pickets – Only You 1984: Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas? 1985: Shakin’ Stevens – Merry Christmas Everyone 1986: Jackie Wilson – Reet Petite 1987: Pet Shop Boys – Always on My Mind 1988: Cliff Richard – Mistletoe and Wine 1989: Band Aid II – Do They Know It’s Christmas? 1990: Cliff Richard – Saviour’s Day 1991: Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody/These Are the Days of Our Lives 1992: Whitney Houston – I Will Always Love You 1993: Mr Blobby – Mr Blobby 1994: East 17 – Stay Another Day 1995: Michael Jackson – Earth Song 1996: Spice Girls – 2 Become 1 1997: Spice Girls – Too Much 1998: Spice Girls – Goodbye 1999: Westlife – I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun 2000: Bob the Builder – Can We Fix It? 2001: Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman – Something Stupid 2002: Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground 2003: Michael Andrews and Gary Jules – Mad World 2004: Band Aid 20: Do They Know It’s Christmas? 2005: Shayne Ward – That’s My Goal 2006: Leona Lewis – A Moment Like This 2007: Leon Jackson – When You Believe 2008: Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah 2009: Rage Against the Machine – Killing in the Name Of 2010: Matt Cardle – When We Collide 2011: Military Wives with Gareth Malone – Wherever You Are 2012: The Justice Collective – He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother 2013: Sam Bailey – Skyscraper 2014: Ben Haenow – Something I Need 2015: Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir – A Bridge Over You 2016: Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie – Rockabye
