IRA

382. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)

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The Intro

‘My time has come’

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’s I’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 Oddity is 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.

381. Billy Connolly – D.I.V.O.R.C.E. (1975)

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The Intro

‘The Big Yin’ had a number 1? Really? Yes, Glaswegian giant of comedy Sir Billy Connolly covered country icon Tammy Wynette’s break-up song, turned it into a ditty about his dog and topped the charts. How very 1975.

Before

To say Connolly came from humble beginnings is rather an understatement. William Connolly was born at home in Anderston, Glasgow on 24 November 1942. This home had no hot water, and he was bathed in the sink. His father was in Burma during the Second World War and afterwards, in 1946, his teenage mother abandoned him and his older sister Florence for a new man. Considering the circumstances at the time, he has never felt ill will towards his mother and said he would have done the same. They were raised by two aunts, but not happily, as they resented the children. His father eventually returned, and physically and sexually abused his son until he was 15.

Connolly did at least take solace in discovering the joy of being able to make people laugh while a young schoolboy of seven, and at 14 he fell in love with the music of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. He left school a year later with two engineering qualifications – one belonging to a boy named Connell. Taking up odd jobs until he was old enough to be an engineer, he was ruled overqualified and so he became a boilermaker at a shipyard. Shooting up in height as a teen, he soon towered over his father and earned the ‘Big Yin’ nickname.

In his late-teens during the early-60s Connolly attended the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and began modelling himself on the folk singers that performed there. Following jobs including building an oil platform in Nigeria, he decided to become a folk musician and bought a banjo. In 1965 he and guitarist Tam Harvey became The Humblebums and they began touring the pubs. In 1969 they were approached by a singer named Gerry Rafferty and they became a trio. After recording one album that year (First Collection of Merry Melodies), Harvey left. Connolly and Rafferty released two more albums before they split in 1971, with Rafferty going on to release, among others, Stuck in the Middle with You (with Stealers Wheel) and Baker Street.

So, Connolly was a folk singer on his own now, and he became known for his charismatic stage performances, where the introductions to the songs were as lengthy and entertaining as the music. In 1972 he made his comic debut with a revue called Connolly’s Glasgow Flourish. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe then beckoned, and his first solo album, Billy Connolly Live! was released, a mix of comedy and songs. But it was the 1973 double album Solo Concert that propelled Connolly to the mainstream. Sell-out gigs followed, and in 1975 came the first of a record 15 appearances on Parkinson, in which an edgy joke about bikes changed his life forever.

Connolly was by then signed with Polydor Records and had released The Welly Boot Song. Next up was a timely rewrite of Wynette’s 1968 hit D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Timely because she had just divorced George Jones and had been number 1 with Stand by Your Man, also from 1968. In the original, Wynette is heartbroken and determined not to tell her four-year-old-son that his dad will soon be elsewhere, so she spells out the word, and several others, including ‘C.U.S.T.O.D.Y’. It’s all very maudlin, so ripe for spoofing.

Review

Connolly made it about a dog that was going into ‘Q.U.A.R.A.N.T.I.N.E’ because it’s bitten him, caused he and his wife to have an argument, in which she bit his arse, and then the dog bit the vet too. As a result of which, Connolly has decided to get a D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Yes, all a bit silly really, and it hasn’t aged well at all. Held in by the need to make it family-friendly, Connolly doesn’t get the chance to be let off the leash. Although, there is the line ‘She sank her teeth in my B.U.M. and called me an effin C’. I’m guessing he’d say ‘cunt’ when performing this live. So without the shock element, it’s not very funny.

Also, why would you need to avoid saying ‘quarantine’ in front of a dog anyway? I mean, I know this isn’t meant to be realistic, but the whole thing is rather pointless, and isn’t helped by Connolly constantly bursting into laughter. You can’t deny Connolly has bucketloads of charm, but I don’t like to think of him seeming so smug about something so unfunny. I doubt you’d get away with the closing line of ‘Oh I must admit that dog is acting Q.U.E.R. queer’ these days either, but that’s with 45 years of hindsight.

After

Further similarly tame spoofs followed, including No Chance (the awful No Charge, originally) in 1976 and In the Brownies (yep, In the Navy) in 1979. He served as Elton John’s warm-up man on a US tour in 1976, but he bombed. By then he was living like a rock star himself, using cocaine and alcohol in large doses, and collapsed in a studio, and shocked comedian Pamela Stephenson with his self-destructive ways backstage in 1979. They fell in love and began an affair. That same year, Connolly became the first non-Oxbridge member of The Secret Policeman’s Ball.

As the 80s began Connolly was now concentrating almost solely on comedy. 1985 was to be an eventful year. He went teetotal, starred in the British film Water, sang the rollicking theme to Children’s ITV series Super Gran (released as a single) and divorced his first wife after four years separated. He also introduced Elton John at Live Aid. In 1989, Connolly and Stephenson married.

After several false starts, the Big Yin finally conquered the Big Apple and the rest of the US in the 90s. He starred in stand-up TV specials and landed a part in the sitcom Head of the Class and spin-off Billy. In 1994 World Tour of Scotland, for the BBC, followed the comedian around his home country, and spawned Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Australia a year later. He even provided his voice to a character in Disney’s Pocahontas (1995). Connolly was fast becoming a jack of all trades, and won critical acclaim and BAFTA nominations for his role in 1997 historical drama Queen Victoria, alongside Dame Judi Dench.

Further ‘World Tour’ series followed in the 00s, and roles in Hollywood films The Last Samurai (2003), Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004). He also voiced a character in Brave (2012) and starred in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies in 2014.

The Outro

In 2013 Connolly announced that he had undergone minor surgery for prostate cancer, and was also in the early stages of Parkinson’s. Since then, the disease has progressed and has caused Connolly to retire from live stand-up, aged 78. Connolly has been a singer, artist, actor, playwright and boilermaker, but it his outrageous comedy for which he will be remembered mostly. Let’s hope he has many years left to enjoy his retirement.

Trivia

Written by

Billy Connolly

Producer

Phil Coulter

Weeks at number 1

1 (22-28 November)

Trivia

Deaths

25 November: Actress Moyna Macgill
27 November: Co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records Ross McWhirter (see below)

Meanwhile…

27 November: The Provisional IRA assassinated Ross McWhirter, co-founder with twin brother Norris of the Guinness Book of Records. He was shot dead for offering reward money to IRA informers.

378. David Essex – Hold Me Close (1975)

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The Intro

Since David Essex’s first number 1, Gonna Make You a Star, he had, with the help of producer Jeff Wayne, remained a top 10 mainstay. His next single Stardust was the theme to the sequel to the film That’ll Be the Day (1973). In Stardust, as before, Essex was the lead, playing wannabe pop star Jim MacLaine. This time his rise and fall took place through the 60s and early-70s. It’s not a bad song, but tries too hard to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of Rock On. Stardust reached seven in the singles chart, and the film, released in October 1974, did well, but Essex felt it was inferior to That’ll Be the Day.

Before

Next, Essex and Wayne set to work on a concept album of sorts. All the Fun of the Fair was a schizophrenic collection which touched upon Essex’s fascination with fairs as a child. Among the album’s personnel was session guitarist extraordinaire Chris Spedding, who had featured on the number 1 Barbados, and soul group The Real Thing, who would soon go from supporting Essex to having a number 1 in their own right with You to Me Are Everything. First single Rolling Stone went to five.

Ironically, Hold Me Close, which became Essex’s second and last number 1, was almost an afterthought in production. With record label executives waiting in the studio reception to hear the album in full, Essex banged out two vocal takes, and the mix was made in only half an hour.

Review

This information perhaps explains one of the problems with Hold Me Close. Now, Essex was a proper bona fide working-class Londoner, but he definitely played up to stereotypes and laid on the friendly cockney schtick too much at times on this vocal. And that, combined with Wayne’s cheesy production, makes this number 1 seem light years away from the edginess of Rock On. Essex’s transformation to light entertainment star was complete. Which, knowing now that the LP this comes from was all over the place stylistically, is a shame. Mind you, Essex, still popular all these years later, is probably fine with that. He’s very likeable, and despite my criticism, I can’t dislike Hold Me Close too much, it’s good at what it is.

Soon after this, Essex’s chart sales tailed off somewhat, although Oh What a Circus reached three in 1978. But he did take on a role in the original theatre run of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. It was also the year he appeared as the Artilleryman on Wayne’s huge concept double album, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, an idea the producer had been working on for years. Now a star in his own right, Wayne went on to be a prolific writer of music for TV, including the TV-AM and Good Morning Britain themes of the 80s. The War of the Worlds has spawned a remake and a theatre show.

After

The 80s started off well for Essex with a lead role in motor-racing film Silver Dream Racer (1980) and a song from it, Silver Dream Racer (Part 1) motoring to number four. In 1982 his seasonal single A Winter’s Tale did very well, reaching two in January. It’s been a festive favourite ever since. Tahiti, in 1983, is his last hit to date, reaching eight. As his music slowed, his theatre and TV roles were increasing, and Tahiti came from the West End show Mutiny!, which he co-wrote and starred in. He was the lead in BBC One’s gentle 1988 sitcom The River, which I enjoyed as a nine-year-old but I dare say it won’t have aged well.

Essex was still releasing albums to mixed degrees of success throughout the 90s, and rounded off the millennium with an OBE in 1999. He played a kind-hearted nomad in an episode of Heartbeat in 2000, a subject close to his heart due to his gypsy roots. He had been Patron of Britain’s National Gypsy Council before moving to the US.

The Outro

In 2005 he was a guest vocalist on dance group St Etienne’s album Tales from the Turnpike House, and was due to join the cast of EastEnders in 2006 but couldn’t fit the time needed into his schedule. He eventually joined the soap in 2011 as Eddie Moon for several months. 2008 was a big year for Essex, with the stage debut of his jukebox musical All the fun of the Fair, based on his back catalogue. It had a West End run two years later. In 2013 he starred in and wrote the score for Traveller, a film in which his real-life son Billy Cook played a half-gypsy searching for his true identity. Now aged 73, Essex still has that boyish smile that charmed so many in the 70s and beyond. Rock on.

The Info

Written by

David Essex

Producer

Jeff Wayne

Weeks at number 1

3 (4-24 October)

Trivia

Births

5 October: Actress Kate Winslet
9 October: Actor Joe McFadden

Deaths

22 October: Historian Arnold J Toynbee

Meanwhile…

9 October: The IRA strike again. An explosion outside Green Park tube station near Piccadilly in London kills one person and injures 20.

13 October: Motorcycle producer Norton Villers in Wolverhampton closes down due to bankruptcy. 

23 October: Another IRA bomb, this time intended for Conservative MP Sir Hugh Fraser, kills oncologist Gordon Hamilton Fairley.

366. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel – Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) (1975)

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The Intro

Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is one of the best examples of a song where the original intention of the writer is largely ignored by the masses. Like REM’s The One I Love, a spiteful song that has, because of its title, become popular at weddings, for example, with little attention paid to the lyrics. Steve Harley’s number 1 is to most a song about positivity, about enjoying yourself, about seeing the ones you love and soaking up the good vibes. For Harley, it was a giant ‘fuck you’ to the original Cockney Rebel, who dared to question his authority. He showed them who was right, and how, with this glam rock classic.

Before

Harley was born, ironically, Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice on 27 February 1951 in Deptford, London. His father was a milkman and his mother a semi-professional jazz singer. He contracted polio aged two, and between the ages of three and 16 he spent a total of four years in hospital. Aged nine, Nice began classical viola lessons, and guitar a year later. While recovering from major surgery in 1963, aged 12, he fell in love with literature, enjoying the poetry and prose of giants including DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, and the lyrics of Bob Dylan, all of which would influence his music as he grew older. At 15 he wrote an autobiographical poem called ‘The Cockney Rebel’.

At 17 Nice left school and became a trainee accountant at the Daily Express before making the move into reporting, working for a variety of regional newspapers in Essex before settling with the East London Advertiser. Becoming disillusioned, Nice moved into the folk club scene in 1971, performing on line-ups featuring John Martyn and Ralph McTell, and busking on the underground He grew his hair and refused to wear a tie in his day job, and got the sack in 1972. His replacement was Richard Madeley.

Before the year was out, Nice’s stage name became Steve Harley, and he decided to form a glam rock band. The original Cockney Rebel consisted of Harley as singer, his friend from the folk scene Jean-Paul Crocker on electric violin, Stuart Elliott as drummer, Paul Jeffreys on bass and Nick Jones on guitar. Jones was quickly replaced by Pete Newnham but Harley decided Cockney Rebel were not going to be your average glam rock outfit. They ditched guitars and Milton Reame-James became their keyboardist. Labels were soon showing an interest in their demos, and they signed with EMI Records.

The first Cockney Rebel LP, The Human Menagerie, was released in 1973. Debut single Sebastian was a number two hit in Belgium and the Netherlands but never troubled the UK charts. Harley set to work writing a hit single, and proved he could when Judy Teen soared to five in 1974. With Alan Parsons, he co-produced follow-up album The Psychomodo, which featured number eight hit and inspiration for a classic 80s advert, Mr Soft.

By the time that single had reached the top 10, Cockney Rebel effectively didn’t exist. Harley has always maintained the understanding within the group was that he was the songwriter, but Crocker, Reame-James and Jeffreys chose to quit after demanding they be allowed to contribute. While Harley searched for a new band he released his debut solo single Big Big Deal, which proved to be anything but. Shortly afterwards, with Elliott back on drums, he hired guitarist Jim Cregan, who had played bass for Family, keyboardist Duncan Mackay and bassist George Ford. To ensure everyone knew where they stood this time around, the group was renamed Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, and they recorded their first album together, The Best Years of Our Lives.

Harley penned Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) within days of the original Cockney Rebel split. Harley was distraught and very bitter, and had the idea to write a dark blues song in order to get his feelings off his chest. One day in November as the new group were recording, Harley performed Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) as a slow dirge. Parsons saw something in it but suggested they speed it up and rephrase the chorus and Harley agreed. One of the masterstrokes was the addition of tacets before the verses, which is the deliberate use of silence. As Talk Talk singer Mark Hollis wisely noted, the space between the sounds can be as important and effective as the music. It added drama to the song, and although it’s been played to death so it’s impossible to imagine hearing it for the first time, it will have left the listener wondering what was on Harley’s mind next.

The instrumental break was originally to be a saxophone, but Cregan had the idea to play it on his guitar and give it a flamenco feel. Harley has noted since how difficult it’s been over the years for band members to perform live, as it was in fact three composite takes. The addition of female backing singers was another masterstroke. As well as Yvonne Keeley, Linda Lewis and Liza Strike there was Tina Charles, who would be number 1 a year later with I Love to Love. After having them sing the chorus, Harley liked the idea of having them add some ‘oooh la la la’ as a nod to Rubber Soul-era Beatles. The excitement grew throughout recording. Harley’s revenge was going to be very sweet. When the finished product was played to EMI’s head of A&R, Bob Mercer, he was blown away and uttered only two words. ‘Number one.’

Review

It might be considered a ‘glam’ tune, but to me Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) is pure pop brilliance from that memorable intro to the fade. Parsons deserves more credit for wrapping Harley’s barbed lyrics inside a shiny chart-friendly package. Not that Harley doesn’t deserve all the credit he has received over the years, once Parsons set him on the right path. I’m a bit ashamed to admit that I am among those who has misunderstood part of this song over the years – it’s only now that I discover it isn’t ‘I’ll do what you want, running wild’, but ‘Or do what you want, running wild’. Which is a key part of Harley’s message to Cockney Rebel Mk1 really. By all means, come and watch me now, see how well I’m doing without you, it’ll put a smile on my face… or just do what you want, because I don’t care really what you do anymore.

Perhaps Harley and Parsons’ success in making a pop classic did too good a job in masking the real message, as the backing vocals, as great as they are, distract from the lyrics. I’ve also only just discovered he makes it explicit who his ire is directed at, the second line being ‘And pulled the rebel to the floor’ – an obvious reference to Cockney Rebel. Of course, you could argue that Harley is being precious and needs to get over himself, but even then you’d be hard pushed to argue what a great, slick tune this is, and that it never gets old.

In 2015 it was reported the single had sold around 1.5 million copies, and the Performing Rights Society have confirmed it as one of the most played songs in British Broadcasting history, and over 120 covers, and counting, have been recorded.

After

Fresh off the back of their number 1, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel released The Best Days of Our Lives, which reached five in the album chart, and Mr. Raffles (Man, It Was Mean) was a top 13 singles hit. However, Harley produced the next album Timeless Flight alone, and it was a failure. More experimental than their previous LP, the critics slated it and its singles tanked. The final album by the band, Love’s a Prima Donna, fared better thanks to a faithful and timely cover of The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun. Released in the long, hot summer of 1976, it was their final hit, reaching 10.

Harley featured on The Alan Parsons Project’s album I, Robot in 1977, and that July he announced Cockney Rebel were no more. He moved to America to work on his debut solo album, but Hobo with a Grin, released in 1978, fared badly. It featured his friend Marc Bolan’s final studio performances before his shock death. When his next album The Candidate also tanked a year later, he was dropped by EMI.

The 80s were, in Harley’s own words, his wilderness years. When The Best of Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel was released in 1980, along with a reissue of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), he formed a new Cockney Rebel. Over the next few years they had failure after failure, despite working with big-name producers like Midge Ure and Mike Batt. However, Andrew Lloyd Webber was planning a single to promote The Phantom of the Opera, and Batt suggested Harley audition to be the male voice on the title track. Harley succeeded and together with Sarah Brightman they had a number seven hit on their hands in 1986. He starred as The Phantom in the video, and won the audition to play him on stage, but the role was given to Michael Crawford instead.

1986 also saw the debut of an advert that fascinated and terrified my six-year-old self in equal measure, which Harley was inadvertently responsible for. Trebor had rewritten Mr Soft as the soundtrack to an advert for their Softmints, and asked Harley to record it, but he declined and an effective soundalike was used. The quirky, catchy song was perfect for this bizarre ad, as you can see here. So successful was the long-running campaign, Mr Soft was re-released in 1988. Years later when Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was used to advertise Viagra, Harley wittily remarked that Mr Soft would have been more appropriate.

In 1989 another Cockney Rebel incarnation was created and Harley would flit between solo and band work for years to come. Upon its fourth reissue, Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was back in the top 40, thanks to its use in a Carlsberg advert. It reached 33. Only two years later it was in the public eye again thanks to it being featured in The Full Monty. Harley branched out into radio work in 1999 when he became the presenter of Radio 2’s nostalgic The Sounds of the Seventies. It was so popular he would end up presenting it all year round until it ended in 2008.

Harley became involved with the charity Mines Advisory Group in 2002, later becoming an ambassador. The first album released under the Cockney Rebel name in 29 years, The Quality of Mercy, saw the light of day in 2005. A 30th anniversary remix of Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was also released that year, and the original garnered attention yet again in 2015 when Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May began a campaign to download the song to help Harley pay for a speeding fine. He reunited with the most successful incarnation of Cockney Rebel for a tour performing The Best Days of Our Lives in full, also in 2015.

The Outro

The Cockney Rebel leader unveiled his sixth solo album, Uncovered in 2020. Consisting of some of his favourite material by other artists, he released The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen a Face as a single, but the intended tour was postponed due to COVID-19.

And what became of the original Cockney Rebel? Elliott remained as Harley’s drummer throughout his career, and Jeffreys and Reame-James had some success in the prog rock band Be-Bop Deluxe, while Crocker performed with his brother in obscurity. Jeffreys was among those who died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. He was with his bride returning from their honeymoon.

Of MKII, Cregan became a session musician, working mostly with Rod Stewart. Mackay appeared on Kate Bush’s first three albums and George Ford went off the radar. He died in 2007.

The Info

Written by

Steve Harley

Producers

Steve Harley & Alan Parsons

Weeks at number 1

2 (22 February-7 March)

Trivia

Deaths

22 February: Violist Lionel Tertis
26 February: Police officer Stephen Tribble (see ‘Meanwhile…’, below)
28 February: Writer Neville Cardus
3 March: Theatre organist Sandy MacPherson/Poet TH Parry-Williams

Meanwhile…

26 February: 22-year-old Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Tibble is shot and killed after giving chase to a fleeing Provisional IRA member.

28 February: The Moorgate tube crash kills 43 people and injures 74 when a London Underground train failed to stop at the Northern city Line’s southern terminus and smashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground. 

1 March: Aston Villa, chasing promotion from the Football League’s Second Division, win the Football League Cup with a 1-0 victory against Norwich City at Wembley Stadium.

4 March: Comedy acting legend Charlie Chaplin, 85, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. 

7 March: The body of teenage heiress Lesley Whittle, who disappeared from her home in Shropshire in January, is discovered in Staffordshire. She had been strangled on a ledge in drains below Bathpool Park near Kidsgrove. 

362. Mud – Lonely This Christmas (1974)

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The Intro

Christmas 1974, and anyone refuting the claim glam had become too in thrall of the past would have been hard pushed to defend Mud’s second number 1 of the year. Rushing together an Elvis Presley spoof for the festive market, they took Slade’s Christmas crown with Lonely This Christmas.

Before

To say the preceding 12 months had been good for Mud would be an understatement. They started the year with 1974’s biggest seller, and one of my favourite chart-toppers, Tiger Feet, then a number two with the inferior soundalike The Cat Crept In, and a respectable number six with Rocket. They also released a cover of In the Mood under the name ‘Dum’, which failed to chart.

The well was perhaps starting to run dry for Chinnichap’s songwriting, but they’d had a very impressive run over the last few years, and seeing the excitement the chart battle between Slade and Wizzard caused in 1973, they no doubt thought one of their acts could be in with a shout. If they could pull it off, it would be their third number 1 of the year.

There was some strong competition though. Mike Batt’s Wombles had enjoyed a good year and Wombling Merry Christmas was bound to do well, plus there was Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet close to the top spot. Elvis too.

Speaking of which, how can you talk about Lonely This Christmas without comparing it to the work of ‘the King’? Although you could point out it’s more akin to his early-60s work than 50s material – Are You Lonesome Tonight? is the obvious song to note – there’s also his cover of Blue Christmas to consider, which he recorded in 1957. And of course, singer Les Gray’s voice was similar to Presley’s in general and it gave him an excuse to be the country’s best-selling Elvis impersonator over the holidays.

Review

Now Lonely This Christmas is no Tiger Feet, nor is it of the same class as Merry Xmaƨ Everybody, but I’ve always been fond of it, and the sheer nerve of releasing it amuses me. The clip below, from Top of the Pops, of Gray miming sincerely to a sinister-looking (aren’t they all?) ventriloquist puppet is a classic, bizarre TV moment. Mud have always struck me as charming chancers who somehow lucked into being in the right place and the right time, and the sight of them struggling to keep a straight face when performing this proves it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAZjiLeDWlc

It’s not for everyone. It certainly doesn’t have the universal appeal of Slade or Wizzard’s festive classics, and the only way you could get emotionally attached to it would be if you really were unlucky enough to be going through a break-up with someone, and even then, you can’t, because the whole song is a joke, and you’d feel like you were being laughed at. But come on, it’s Christmas, a time for taste to go out the window. Embrace the tackiness, like a nation exhausted from elections and terrorism did at the time. It’s also quite a funny way for Chinnichap’s chart dominance and number 1s together to come to an end, although there was Mud’s final number 1, produced by them, to come.

The Outro

So that’s 1974. An eclectic mix of pop, late glam, with a welcome return of some reggae and soul into the mix. Things were about to steadily slide downhill as the 70s progressed further. It seems the more the country slid into the economic doldrums, the worse the singles chart became.

The Info

Written & produced by

Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman

Weeks at number 1

4 (21 December 1974-17 January 1975)

Trivia

Births

6 January 1975: Radio DJ Jason King

Deaths

21 December 1974: Artist James Henry Govier

Meanwhile…

22 December 1974: A rotten year for Conservative Party leader Edward Heath ends with his London home bombed by the Provisional IRA. Fortunately he wasn’t in but only cheated death by 10 minutes.

24 December: Former Labour government minister John Stonehouse is discovered living in Australia after having faked his own death. He is quickly arrested by Australian police, who initially believe that he is Lord Lucan.

6 January 1975: Brian Clough, the recently sacked former manager of Leeds United, is appointed manager of Second Division strugglers Nottingham Forest.

14 January: 17-year-old heiress Lesley Whittle is kidnapped from her home near Bridgnorth in Shropshire.

360. David Essex – Gonna Make You a Star (1974)

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The Intro

With bucketloads of charisma and good looks to melt the heart of his fans, singer-songwriter and actor David Essex was a star in the making in the early 70s and finally hit the big time playing… a star in the making. And his first number 1 was about, yep, a star in the making.

Before

Born David Albert Cook on 23 July 1947 in Plaistow, Essex, his father Albert was an East End docker and his mother Olive was an Irish traveller and a pianist. Albert contracted TB and underwent hospital treatment, so Olive and David lived with Olive’s sister in the early years. When Albert was finally better and David was two, the Cooks moved to Canning Town.

As a schoolboy, Cook was obsessed with football and played for West Ham Juniors, but that all that changed when he visited an R’n’B club called The Flamingo in Soho at the age of 13, and he learnt to play the drums, driving his neighbour mad to the point where he had a fight with Albert and was knocked out.

By the time he was living in Romford, Cook had played with a handful of blues bands, but manager Derek Bowman encouraged him to become a singer. He changed his name to ‘David Essex’ and recorded a single for Fontana in 1965, And the Tears Came Tumbling Down. For the next two years he toured nightclubs with a band as David Essex and the Mood Indigo, while also cutting his teeth as an actor in repertory theatre.

As the 70s began he built up momentum, at least in his acting, with small roles in the thriller Assault (1971) and drama All Coppers Are… in 1972. But it was getting the lead role in the stage musical Godspell in 1971 that really took things up a notch. Also among the cast was Jeremy Irons.

In 1973 Essex really struck gold when he was cast as the lead in the coming-of-age drama That’ll Be the Day. Set in the late-50s and early-60s, the film told the story of hedonistic teenager Jim MacLaine, and Essex was picked due to his inherent charm in an attempt to make the character more likable. Set to a nostalgic rock’n’roll soundtrack, it also starred musicians including Ringo Starr, Billy Fury and Keith Moon.

As the film was in production, Essex was also working on his debut album with Jeff Wayne. The son of actor and theatre producer Jerry, Wayne had composed the music for his father’s musical Two Cities in the late-60s. Inspired by his role in That’ll Be the Day, Essex wrote eventual title track Rock On, which name-checked James Dean, Summertime Blues and Blue Suede Shoes. Entering the studio for a vocal demo, Essex banged on a bin for the rhythm, and with echo applied, they liked the groove that formed. When it came to recording the song proper, they stuck to the sparse approach, with only three session musicians, and the bass played by Herbie Flowers brought to the forefront. Rock On was a slinky, sexy, edgy tune, and it deservedly became a big hit.

A year later, Essex was working on his eponymous second album and also filming Stardust, the sequel to That’ll Be the Day, marking MacLaine’s rise to fame later in the 60s. Once again inspired by his second job, he wrote Gonna Make You a Star, which became the opening track on David Essex.

Review

Had Essex carried on down the path Rock On set out, he may be considered a more credible artist than he is. Instead, his two number 1s widened his fanbase by taking him down the family-friendly, lovable entertainer route, and to be fair, it certainly worked for him.

Although Gonna Make You a Star is inferior to Rock On, it’s an enjoyable commercial pop tune, which is partly down to Wayne’s colourful synthesiser work, which adds a nice bounce and sprightliness to proceedings. That line ‘Oh is he more, too much more than a pretty face’ shows a witty touch of irony from Essex, as does the retort ‘I don’t think so’. Pretty decent 70s pop-rock with a wink and a cheeky smile. Shaun Ryder, mentioned in my previous blog, was clearly a fan, as he quotes the chorus in the Happy Mondays track Lazyitis (One Armed Boxer), melding Essex’s song with The Beatles’ Ticket to Ride.

The Info

Written by

David Essex

Producer

Jeff Wayne

Weeks at number 1

3 (16 November-6 December)

Trivia

Births

24 November: Comedy writer Stephen Merchant
27 November: Welsh racing cyclist Wendy Houvenaghel

Deaths

25 November: Folk singer-songwriter Nick Drake

Meanwhile…

21 November: The Birmingham pub bombings became one of the worst atrocities in the Troubles, when 21 people were killed and 182 injured by Provisional IRA explosions at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town. It was the worst terrorist act on English soil between the Second World War and the 2005 London bombings.

24 November: The Birmingham Six were charged with the pub bombings. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975, they protested their innocence and claimed they were coerced into signing confessions through severe psychological and physical abuse. They weren’t released until 1991 after their convictions were declared unsafe. It’s one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history

25 November: Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announced the government’s intention to outlaw the IRA in the UK.

27 November: The Prevention of Terrorism Act was passed.

5 December: The final episode of Monty Python was broadcast on BBC Two. The last series of the classic surreal sketch comedy had shortened its title and lost a member, when John Cleese declined to take part other than the penning of a few sketches.

359. Ken Boothe – Everything I Own (1974)

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The Intro

A tune that started out as a soft rock tribute to Bread singer David Gates’s dead father was repurposed as a reggae love song by Jamaican rocksteady singer Ken Boothe and became his sole number 1 in the autumn of 1974.

Before

Gates’s father had died in 1963, long before his son’s group became successful, but he considered him his greatest influence. The title was also inspired by him, as when Gates was a struggling musician he had bought his mother an orchid, and his father wrote to him saying he could have ‘anything she owned’ in return. It’s a lovely song, and will mean a lot to anyone who has lost a parent, but despite reaching number three in the US in 1972, it stalled at 32 in the UK.

Boothe was born in Denham Town, Kingston on 22 March 1948. He developed an interest in music while at Denham Primary Elementary School, with the help of his eldest sister Hyacinth Clover, who was part of a comedy double act. One of his biggest influences was Owen Gray, considered Jamaica’s first homegrown singing star.

As a teenager, Boothe formed a singing duo with his friend Winston ‘Stranger’ Cole. They released singles together as Stranger & Ken between 1963 and 1965. He also recorded as Roy & Ken with Roy Shirley in 1966, the same year he went solo and began recording at the famed Studio One, scoring his first hit with The Train Is Coming, on which he was backed by The Wailers. Boothe toured the UK the following year, promoted as ‘Mr Rocksteady’. To the unitiated, ‘rocksteady’ came after ska and before reggae, and is basically a slowed-down version of the two. It has nothing to do with rock.

Boothe enjoyed a number of hit singles over the next few years, including Moving Away and covers of American and British soul tunes. He switched to producer Leslie Kong’s Beverley’s Records in 1970, but following his untimely death he moved around and eventually settled with UK-based Trojan Records and Lloyd Charmers in 1971.

Two albums, 1973’s Black Gold and Green and 1974’s What’s Going On followed, and then when they began another album, Charmers suggested they work on a cover of Everything I Own, which eventually became the name of the LP too. It featured the Federal Soul Givers, Lloyd Parks on bass, Paul Williams from Toots and the Maytals on drums, Willie Lindo on guitar and Charmers on organ, piano and percussion. Unlike most covers, not only was the arrangement updated, but the lyrics were changed enough to alter the meaning of the song, altering it from a son mourning his father, to a spurned lover hoping to change her mind by whatever means necessary.

Review

Although a minor number 1 (strong enough to top the charts once more when Boy George released it in 1987, though), Boothe’s cover is a pleasant slice of light reggae-pop – the type of reggae I’d normally avoid (don’t get me started on UB40, plenty of time for that when I reach the 80s). Most of that is simply down to Boothe’s voice. Some find his delivery too exact and too tight to the music but his trademark deep timbre is unusual and makes the performance feel real to me, suggesting Boothe is wounded and broken but hopeful. However, it sounds like it was his fault, as Boothe mentions taking someone for granted.

Musically, Boothe’s version is better, but I prefer the lyrics to the original. They stand out more and after all, there are a million songs in which the singer is broken-hearted and trying to persuade their lover back. Not bad at all though.

After

Boothe had one more UK hit from the same album when Crying Over You reached 11. Unfortunately Trojan’s financial difficulties resulted in the label suspending operations, and Boothe’s career struggled to regain momentum when it returned in 1978. That year, he was name-checked in The Clash’s (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais.

Boothe and Trojan parted ways again, and his recording output dropped considerably from then on, with only two albums released in the 80s – Imagine (1986) and Don’t You Know (1987), but often he was reworking old Studio One material. UB40 (there they are again) covered Boothe on their Labour of Love album in 1983, and its sequel in 1992. In 1995 Boothe collaborated with Shaggy on a remake of The Train Is Coming on the soundtrack to the action film Money Train.

The Outro

In 2003, Boothe was awarded the Order of Distinction from his homeland for his contribution to Jamaican music.

The Info

Written by

David Gates

Producer

Lloyd Charmers

Weeks at number 1

3 (26 October-15 November)

Trivia

Births

29 October: Cricketer Michael Vaughan
2 November: Hammer thrower David Smith
4 November: Singer Louise Redknapp

Deaths

28 October: Poet David Jones

Meanwhile…

28 October: The wife and son of Sports Minister Denis Howell survived a Provisional IRA bomb attack on their car.

4 November: Judith Ward was sentenced to life imprisonment for the M62 coach bombing on 4 February. It took 18 years for her to be released due to a wrongful judgement.

7 November: Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, better known as Lord Lucan, went missing after his children’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, was bludgeoned to death in the Lucan family home. He was never found and his death certificate was granted in 2016.
Also that day, an IRA bomb explodes at the Kings Arms, Woolwich, killing two. 

11 November: The New Covent Garden Market in Nine Elms opened.

13 November: The Americanisation of the UK took a giant leap forward when the first McDonald’s restaurant opened in Woolwich, South London. 

343. Mud – Tiger Feet (1974)

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The Intro

Early 1974 was peak ‘Chinnichap’, with the writers/producers responsible for two number 1s in a row. This first one took Mud out of the minor leagues and made them one of the biggest names in glam rock. And rightly so, because Tiger Feet is a classic pop anthem and one of my favourite number 1s of the 70s. If you don’t love Tiger Feet, you are dead already.

Before

The origins of the Surrey quartet begin with singer Thomas Leslie ‘Les’ Gray, born in Carshalton on 9 April 1946. Gray was a self-taught musician who originally played trumpet in a jazz band while still at school, before forming a skiffle group called The Mourners. When he left education he wrote commercials for cinema advertising legends Pearl & Dean, and then worked for Moss Bros.

By 1966, The Mourners featured guitarist Rob Davis, who had joined with drummer Dave Mounts, his companion in several previous bands. Along with bassist Ray Stiles, they became Mud that February. The following year they released their debut single on CBS Records, the very 1967-sounding Flower Power. It failed to make an impression, and nor did their next few singles, released on Phillips, over the next three years.

With psychedelia largely over, Mud were sinking (sorry) until they met impresario Mickie Most, whose Rak Records were fast becoming the hippest label around when they joined. Much like The Sweet before them, as soon as they began working with their new writers and producers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (despite being on different labels), things swiftly improved.

In 1973 they scored three top 20 singles – Crazy (number 12), Hypnosis (number 16) and best of the three, Dyna-Mite, which climbed to number four. With the Chinnichap template of pop-rock, Gray’s sideburns and deep Elvis-style vocal and Davis’s increasingly outlandish get-up, Mud became a fully fledged glam band with this single, which had originally been rejected by labelmates The Sweet. And then came Tiger Feet.

But what the hell is it actually about, if anything? Much like Can the Can, it’s likely they just stumbled upon a phrase they liked and worked it into a song. Clearly, in general though, Tiger Feet is a come-on to some ‘dance hall cutie’, and Gray sees her as a kind-of sexual predator in the way she cuts a rug (I’m lost at ‘tiger lights’ though). Which is ironic, considering the dance that Mud and their crew made up to this song – which may be the least sexy ever witnessed in pop.

Review

It may look ridiculous, but let me say in all seriousness that watching Mud performing the Tiger Feet dance is for me one of the most uplifting moments in pop music. It encapsulates the power of pop, and glam in particular, to make grown men act and look as stupid as possible, with all worries abandoned, totally lost in the moment. At the music night I used to DJ at with friends, I would, without shame, perform said dance time and time again, and I am proud of the fact. Everyone should try it.

So, yes, I am a huge fan of Mud’s first number 1. Ignore the words and any notion of being cool and feel the rip-roaring, childlike glee running wild throughout, from the manic rhythm guitar at the start to the ‘t-t-t-t-t-t-t-tiger feet’ at the song’s fade. It’s very difficult to analyse something so stupid and brilliant too much, so just enjoy it.

The Outro

Just like Slade, Mud gave the country some much-needed light relief in particularly trying times. This is 70s pop at its best.

The Info

Written & produced by

Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman

Weeks at number 1

4 (26 January-22 February) *BEST-SELLING SINGLE OF THE YEAR*

Trivia

Births

30 January: Actor Christian Bale
6 February: Sports presenter Ed Chamberlin
11 February: Footballer Nick Barmby
13 February: Singer Robbie Williams
22 February: Singer-songwriter James Blunt/Radio DJ Chris Moyles

Deaths

29 January: Novelist HE Bates

Meanwhile…

4 February: One of the Provisional IRA’s most shocking attacks took place when 11 people, three of whom were civilians, were killed in the M62 coach bombing. 

7 February: In the midst of the Three-Day Week, Prime Minister Edward Heath, called a General Election for 28 February, asking who governed, he or the unions. During the campaign, the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress agreed a ‘Social Contract’ intended to produce wage restraint. 
Also this day, Grenada became independent of the UK.

8 February: The death toll from the M62 coach bombing reaches 12 with the death in hospital of a seriously injured 18-year-old soldier.

12 February: BBC One first aired the classic children’s series Bagpuss, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate’s Smallfilms in stop-motion animation. 

14 February: Birmingham City centre forward Bob Latchford becomes Britain’s most expensive footballer in a £350,000 move to Everton. 
Also this day, opinion polls showed the Conservative government in the lead for the forthcoming election.

339. David Cassidy – Daydreamer/The Puppy Song (1973)

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The Intro

David Cassidy continued his existential battle to be loved for his music rather than his looks throughout 1972 and 1973. After his first number 1 How Can I Be Sure, the star of The Partridge Family had further hits with the title track to Rock Me Baby and I Am a Clown, which was lifted from his debut LP Cherish.

There were also more albums by The Partridge Family, Cassidy’s fictional TV brethren, on which he had made his name and would have rather been rid of by this point. In October 1973 their final album, Bulletin Board was released, alongside Cassidy’s third solo effort, Dreams are Nuthin’ More than Wishes. To get the point across that he was in charge of his own music, he wrote notes for his reasons for choosing each song. This second number 1 release was a double A-side of tracks from the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKukFhUQPLQ

Reviews

Daydreamer was written by South African professional songwriter Terry Dempsey, who had written for many big names including Cliff Richard and The New Seekers. In 2910, Dempsey was killed in a bizarre accident when he was struck by the blades of a gyrocscope making an emergency landing during a ceremony in which the family were scattering ashes.

Cassidy stars as a heartbroken loner, walking round in the rain, chasing rainbows in which he may find someone new. Nice, clever wordplay there. It’s reminiscent of 1956 Christmas number 1 Just Walkin’ in the Rain by Johnnie Ray, not just due to the obvious mention of rain, but in the sense there’s a melancholy that’s quite comforting at play, that he’s actually kind of happy being on his own and wallowing in misery.

Unfortunately, as with How Can I Be Sure, I can’t enjoy Cassidy’s voice. For someone so determined to be admired for his ability, his singing is so affected, it doesn’t do a lot for me. Once again though, I’d take this over any of Donny Osmond’s number 1s.

The Puppy Song was penned by Harry Nilsson of Without You fame, and had featured on his album Harry, released in 1969. He had written it on request from Paul McCartney for Mary Hopkin’s debut album Post Card, which also included her number 1 from 1968, Those Were the Days.

More light-hearted than the flip side, the two songs complement each other well, with Cassidy’s daydreams moving on to thoughts of owning a dog, to replace the hole left by his love. The second verse comes from the viewpoint of a puppy daydreaming about having a friend to hang around with it. It’s a very ‘Nilsson’ kind of song, with a music-hall feel like a lot of his late-60s work, and an interesting departure for a teen idol, but again, I couldn’t warm to it too much. However, I do like the opening lines, which were paraphrased and became the title of Cassidy’s album.

After

Cassidy remained a familiar presence in the UK charts over the next few years, with hits like If I Didn’t Care and a cover of The Beatles’ Please Please Me in 1974. However, that same year, he was performing at London’s White City Stadium when nearly 800 people were injured in a crush at the front of the stage. 30 fans were taken to hospital, and 14-year-old Bernadette Whelan died four days after her injuries. Cassidy was devastated.

In 1975, Cassidy was free of The Partridge Family, and was the first person to have a hit with I Write the Songs, later to be Barry Manilow’s signature tune. But the follow-up, Darlin’ was his final top 20 entry for 10 years. In 1978 he was nominated for an Emmy Award for a role in Police Story, and he starred in David Cassidy: Man Undercover in 1979 but it was cancelled after one season.

The early-80s saw Cassidy performing in musical theatre, including Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Blood Brothers. He returned to the charts in 1985 with The Last Kiss. It featured backing vocals from George Michael. Another teen idol with ambitions to be recognised for his ability over his looks, Michael cited Cassidy as an influence, and the duo no doubt had much in common. It was his last UK single of note though, despite occasional chart action in the US.

Cassidy struggled over the years with his public image, and claimed the death of Whelan would haunt him all his life. He was arrested several times in later years for drink-driving incidents. Former Page 3 model Samantha Fox claimed on a 2017 Channel 4 documentary that he sexually assaulted her in 1985.

The Outro

In 2008 he went public with his alcohol problem. Then in February 2017 he struggled to remember lyrics while performing, and fell off the stage. Despite assumptions he had been drinking, Cassidy announced he had Alzheimer’s and retired soon after. That November Cassidy was hospitalised with liver and kidney failure. He was induced into a coma, and although he came out of it, doctors failed to find him a liver transplant in time, and he died of liver failure on 21 November, aged 67. It was revealed after he died that he hadn’t had Alzheimer’s.

The Info

Written by

Daydreamer: Terry Dempsey/The Puppy Song: Harry Nilsson

Producer

Rick Jarrard

Weeks at number 1

3 (27 October-16 November)

Trivia

Deaths

10 November: BBC Controller Gerald Cock

Meanwhile…

31 Octobe: The sixth series of much-loved BBC One sitcom Dad’s Army opened with the episode ‘The Deadly Attachment’. It’s the one featuring the line ‘Don’t tell them, Pike!’

8 November: The second Cod War between Britain and Iceland came to an end.

12 November: Miners began an overtime ban, while ambulance drivers started selective strikes.
Also this day, long-running BBC One sitcom Last of the Summer Wine began its first series run, following a premiere in the Comedy Playhouse on 4 January. Roy Clarke’s whimsical comedy set in rural Yorkshire would run for 31 series spanning 37 years.

14 November: Eight members of the Provisional IRA were convicted of the March bombings in London.
Also, The Princess Royal married Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey.

336. Donny Osmond – Young Love (1973)

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The Intro

Only a few months since Donny Osmond’s last number 1, which was a cover of a 50s ballad, the teen heartthrob hit the top once again with… a cover of a 50s ballad.

Before

Young Love, like The Twelfth of Never, was taken from his most recent solo album Alone Together. Since its release, The Osmonds had released an ambitious LP, The Plan, best described as a Mormon concept album with aspirations to be progressive rock. Young Love was nothing like this.

This was the first time a previous number 1 had returned to the top spot – well, sort of – there was Answer Me in 1953, and Singing the Blues in 1957, but both were hits released by two different artists at the same time, competing against one another. Young Love was originally recorded by Ric Cartey in 1956. Cartey had co-written it with Carole Joyner, but it was country star Sonny James who first made it a hit, and then US actor Tab Hunter went all the way to number 1 and made it one of the best-selling singles of 1957.

Review

When I reviewed Hunter’s version (available in my book Every UK Number 1: The 50s), I remarked how Warner Bros. Records were really on to something, picking a good-looking film star to sing a dreamy love song for the teenage girls to go wide-eyed over. 16 years on and the girls are still going ga-ga for handsome young singers. I also said Hunter’s version was better than ‘dross’ like the Osmonds would release in the 70s. I was perhaps harsh there, as boy bands and teen pop is never going to be my bag, but the Osmonds did also record some good material. Donny’s Young Love is serviceable enough – it’s the best of his three solo number 1s. But the slushy backing from Don Costa is a bit overbaked and I preferred the subtlety of Hunter’s take and the uncertainty of his vocal.

After

Donny continued to release material under his own name, but only two more releases charted in the UK – When I Fall In Love, also 1973, and, fittingly enough, Where Did All the Good Times Go the following year. He was growing up and his voice wasn’t the pre-pubescent squeak with which he had first found fame.

He had more luck in his duets with sister Marie in 1974 , with I’m Leaving It (All) Up to You reaching number two. Marie’s presence renewed interest up to a point, but the sight of siblings singing love songs while looking deep into each other’s eyes proved too much for many. In 1976 they began hosting their own variety show, The Donny & Marie Show, which ran until 1979.

The 80s weren’t a great time for Donny’s music. He and his brothers were considered desperately unhip, and his audience dwindled, although he did return to the charts briefly here in 1988 with Soldier of Love.

The Outro

In the 90s Donny guested on an album by Dweezil Zappa and performed music for animated films including Disney’s Mulan in 1998. From there he began to record more solo work, inbetween appearances on reality shows like Dancing with the Stars, voiceover work and Vegas appearances with Marie. He even returned to the UK top 10 for the first time in 31 years in 2004 with Breeze On By, co-written by Gary Barlow. His most recent album The Soundtrack of My Life, went into the top 20 in 2014. Donny has kept a loyal following since the 70s, of women who look back fondly on their young love for the boy wonder.

The Info

Written by

Ric Cartey & Carole Joyner

Producers

Mike Curb & Don Costa

Weeks at number 1

4 (25 August-21 September)

Trivia

Births

12 September: Athlete Darren Campbell
20 September: Racing cyclist Jason MacIntyre

Deaths

29 August: Actor Stringer Davis
2 September: Writer JRR Tolkien
6 September: Composer William Henry Harris
11 September: Anthropologist EE EVans-Pritchard
21 September: Welsh scholar CH Dodd

Meanwhile…

8 September: The Provisional IRA detonated bombs in Manchester and Victoria Station in London, with injuries obtained.

10 September: Further IRA bombs at King’s Cross and Euston railway stations in London injured 13. 

12 September: The terror campaign continued, with more bombs exploded in Oxford Street and Sloane Square.