The Intro

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

Before

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

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

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

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angel’ was Southern American slang for a prostitute, the whiter-than-white pop star was horrified and insisted it was withdrawn.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

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

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

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

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

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

Review

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

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

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

After

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

The Info

Written by

Alan Tarney

Producer

Bruce Welch

Weeks at number 1

4 (25 August-21 September)

Trivia

Births

14 September: Rugby league player Stuart Fielden

Deaths

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

Meanwhile…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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