The Intro
‘BOO BOO! BOO BOO! BOO BOO! BOO BOO!’ It’s cheap. It’s tacky. It’s the arse-end of disco. But I love Kelly Marie’s Feels Like I’m in Love and I’m not ashamed of it.
Before
By 1977, Mungo Jerry’s fame was drying up. It was seven years since In the Summertime, six since their last number 1 Baby Jump, and they hadn’t charted in the UK since Long Legged Woman Dressed in Black peaked at 13 in 1974. But they still had a following in Europe, and singer-songwriter Ray Dorset hoped that Elvis Presley might record a demo of his called Feels Like I’m in Love. Dorset impersonates Presley here, so you can easily imagine what a fleshed-out version would have sounded like.
Unfortunately of course, ‘the King’ died that year, and Way Down became his last new number 1, signposting a move to disco that was never realised for Elvis. Mungo Jerry recorded Feels Like I’m in Love and it was relegated to a B-side for their Belgian single Sur Le Pont D’avignon. Two years later, Scottish singer Kelly Marie chanced across the song in a music publishing office.
Marie was born Jacqueline McKinnon in Paisley, Scotland on 16 October 1957. She wanted to be a star from a young age and her parents were happy to help, entering her at voice and drama school at the wee age of 10. Two years later she was singing in competitions and at 15 she made her TV debut. Aged 16 she was appearing on Thames Television’s popular ITV talent show Opportunity Knocks. As Keli Brown, she won four times with her cover of I Don’t Know How to Love Him from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.
The exposure led to her signing with Pye Records in 1976 as Kelly Marie, and she went to number 1 in France with her debut single Who’s That Lady with My Man. She also featured on Joe Dolan’s number two hit in Ireland, Sister Mary. But despite a few hits in South Africa and Australia, including most notably Run to Me in 1977 and Make Love to Me in 1978, it didn’t look like she was ever going to trouble the UK charts. Singles came thick and fast in 1978, including Loving Just for Fun, a prototype for Feels Like I’m in Love, even including a very similar synth-drum sound. Nothing charted.
One day in 1979, Marie and her producer Peter Yellowstone were in the Red Bus Music office, where they came across Dorset’s tune. They saw its potential and set to work.
Review
These days Feels Like I’m in Love is laughed at. A low-budget, throwaway, cheesy disco track sung by a very ordinary looking club singer with a distinct lack of subtlety. Coming after classics like The Winner Takes It All, Ashes to Ashes and Start!, it simply doesn’t hold up. Balls to all this is what I say. Least of all, the detractors of Marie’s appearance – there’s no need, and fair play to her for adopting the early 80s boiler suit look.
OK, cards on the table – nostalgia plays an important part in the personal appeal of Feels Like I’m in Love. One of my very earliest memories involves playing this at my Nanna and Granddad’s house. I was very young, but it must have been a few years after it was number 1, as I was born in 1979. But in my head, it was this moment in which I fell in love with pop itself – the title had a very literal meaning for me.
Hearing that effervescent, bouncy backing, complete with the infectious ‘BOO BOO! BOO BOO! BOO BOO! BOO BOO!’ synth drum, was like downing a bag of sugar. Everything was turned up to the max, including Marie’s voice. I remember thinking that being in love sounded brilliant. The instrumental break was exciting and I lost myself in it, and by the time the grand finale, with the ‘ahhs’ comes in, I felt sick with happiness and excitement. I felt alive. Hearing that swirling intro unexpectedly still takes me right back to that moment.
So yes, it’s very hard to be objective about something that had a personal impact like Feels Like I’m in Love. However, I’d still defend it as a very catchy example of cheap and cheerful late-period Brit disco. Marie of course gives it the welly it deserves, but the star here is Yellowstone’s production.
The video also turns up the camp, with Marie on a ship with two sailors, who go off on a tour of London, performing in front of mostly non-plussed people. At the end the sailors are back on their ship, waving off Marie who’s now on a tiny boat, heading for London Bridge.
After
Feels Like I’m in Love was released in 1979 but didn’t make a mark anywhere other than South Africa. But upon re-release a year later, it was gaining traction in the discos of Scotland, and then England. Climbing the charts, Marie achieved what must have felt unthinkable only a year previous. For two weeks in September, she was number 1, and she was a hit all over Europe too.
The success was short-lived. Marie rushed out a re-release of Loving Just for Fun, but it sounded like a pale retread of her biggest single, and it peaked at 21. Hot Love in 1981 was her last charting single, reaching 22. UK disco was on its way out, to be replaced by Hi-NRG, which you could argue was exactly what Feels Like I’m in Love was an early version of.
Marie continued releasing singles and performing at clubs throughout the 80s and 90s. In 2005 she appeared on the ITV talent show featuring stars of yesteryear, Hit Me, Baby, One More Time. She lost out to Chesney Hawkes.
The Outro
There were two inferior remixes of her number 1 in the 90s. Stock Aitken Waterman may have been responsible for many Hi-NRG classics in the early to mid-80s, but by 1991 they had run out of steam, and their version is a pale imitation. The 97 remix is even worse.
The Info
Written by
Ray Dorset
Producer
Peter Yellowstone
Weeks at number 1
2 (13-26 September)
Trivia
Deaths
14 September : Fashion journalist Alison Settle
17 September: Enid Warren
18 September: Antiquarian Edward Croft-Murray/Opera singer Walter Midgley
22 September: Labour politician Raymond Dobson/Town planner JR James
23 September: Cricketer Geoffrey Latham/Linguist Alan SC Ross
24 September: Novelist Jacky Gillott/Mycologist Clarence James Hickman
25 September: Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham
Meanwhile…
13 September: Hercules, a popular TV bear, which had gone missing on a Scottish island while filming an advert for Kleenex toilet tissue, is found.
21 September: The CND hold a rally at RAF Greenham Common for the first time.
24 September: 34-year-old Singapore-born doctor Upadhya Bandara is attacked and left injured by Peter Sutcliffe in Headingley, Leeds.
