Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

420. Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights (1978)

/ robbarker1979

The Intro

Only 19 when this debut single was released, Wuthering Heights introduced the world to one of our most unique singer-songwriters. In an era where ABBA rip-off merchants could get to the top of the charts with dated pap, this Kate Bush song captured the hearts and minds of record buyers while being based on a 19th-century Gothic classic by Emily Brontë. Good work, record buyers.

Before

Catherine Bush was born 30 July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent to Doctor Robert Bush and his wife Hannah, an Irish staff nurse. She grew up in their East Wickham farmhouse surrounded by artistic people. Robert was an amateur pianist, Hannah an amateur traditional Irish dancer and her elder brothers John and Paddy were both involved in the local folk scene.

Bush was only 11 when she taught herself how to play the piano. She would also play an organ that was in the barn behind her parents’ house and studied the violin. By 13 she was composing her own songs and writing lyrics too.

The nascent musical prodigy attended St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School in Abbey Wood. A demo tape was put together by the Bush family featuring over 50 of her compositions but record labels kept turning it down. Fate intervened when she was 16 however, when family friend Ricky Hopper passed the tape on to Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour, then working on Wish You Were Here.

Gilmour was intrigued and captivated by Bush’s talent and strange singing voice and he decided to pay her a visit. Blown away by watching her perform, he decided the world needed to hear her and he arranged for a more professional demo to be recorded. Produced by Andrew Powell and former Beatles sound engineer Geoff Emerick, the demo saw Bush get signed by EMI executive Terry Slater.

With the large advance she received, Bush enrolled in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, who had taught a pre-fame David Bowie. She spent more time on her education than recording for the first two years of her contract but left school after her mock A-levels. From there she fronted the KT Bush Band and began performing in London pubs during the summer of 1977.

It was during this time she set to work on her debut LP, The Kick Inside, which featured Gilmour along with other progressive rock stalwarts. EMI wanted her first single to be James and the Cold Gun but Bush had other ideas. In an early sign of her determination for creative control, she insisted her introduction to the public should be Wuthering Heights.

On 5 March 1977, aged 18, Bush had enjoyed a repeat of a 1967 BBC adaptation of Wuthering Heights and wrote the song late that night within a few hours. Upon reading Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, she discovered she shared her birthday with the author. Written from the perspective of the character Catherine Earnshaw, only those who know the story would realise the wild and passionate Cathy is a ghost, haunting her beloved Heathcliff. Bush paraphrased the line ‘Let me in your window – I’m so cold!’ from the book itself and built the chorus around it.

The song was recorded one summer night, with Bush’s vocal laid down on the first take. She also played the piano. Backing her were the album’s producer and arranger Andrew Powell on bass and celeste, former Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel member Duncan Mackay on Hammond organ, former Pilot singer David Paton on acoustic guitar, Ian Bairnson, also from Pilot, played the famous guitar solo, drummer Stuart Elliott (also from Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel), Morris Pert on percussion and orchestral contractor David Katz. The production team, with Bush, began mixing at midnight and finished at five or six in the early hours of the morning.

Review

From that beautiful piano opening to the heroic guitar ringing out over the fade, Wuthering Heights is a dark, quirky delight. Bush’s voice isn’t for everyone and I’ll hold my hand up to being someone who can only take it in relatively short doses, but here it commands your attention. As Cathy, Bush recounts her tempestuous relationship with Heathcliff in the opening verse (‘I hated you. I loved you, too’). In the second verse, she’s about ‘to lose the fight’ and pass away, before her triumphant spectral return in the chorus. One of the highlights is the verse where Cathy’s need for Heathcliff is all-consuming: ‘Ooh! Let me have it/Let me grab your soul away’. It’s stirring, it’s wonderful, it’s a startlingly good number 1.

The first video of Wuthering Heights, made for the UK and Europe features an iconic performance by Bush, portraying the ghost of Cathy and dancing in a white dress in white mist. The alternative version for the US market featured Bush in a red dress dancing in grass.

After a two-month delay due to Bush being unhappy with the record sleeve (you’ll notice more and more single artwork featuring in the blog now), Wuthering Heights was released early in 1978 and thanks to lots of Radio 1 airplay it shot up the charts and beat Blondie to their first number 1 with Denis. Bush had become the first British woman to get to number 1 with a self-penned song.

After

Bush’s second single, the lovely The Man with the Child in His Eyes, was the same version on the demo which gained her a record contract. It peaked at six. Despite Wow reaching 14 in 1979, her second album Lionheart failed to match the success of her first. she underwent an exhausting tour combining music, dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre in which Bush was involved in every aspect of the show. During the tour she became the first pop star of note to have a microphone strapped to her face (courtesy of a self-made construction of wire coat hangers). Babooshka, from third album Never for Ever, reached five in 1980. This album saw the introduction of synthesisers and drum machines to her sound.

In 1982 Bush released the self-produced album The Dreaming, which baffled critics with its weirdness, yet spawned a number 11 single with Sat in Your Lap. The title track originally featured Rolf Harris, but since the obvious he’s been removed and replaced.

For her next album, 1985’s Hounds of Love, Bush had a private studio built so she could work at her own pace. The result was an excellent collection of pop art featuring my favourite track by her, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), which peaked at three and had a profound effect on me as a young boy. Cloudbusting later became the basis of Utah Saints’ Something Good and is another Bush banger, as is the title track. When Dolly Parton turned Peter Gabriel down, Bush featured on his 1986 duet Don’t Give Up, a number nine hit. That year also saw the release of a compilation The Whole Story, for which Bush rerecorded her vocal for Wuthering Heights.

In 1987 Bush was at number 1 again due to her appearance on a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be, a charity single by a group of pop stars known as Ferry Aid, after the MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized, killing 193 passengers and crew. 1989 saw her release The Sensual World, an LP she described as her most personal and honest yet. The title track reached 12, as did a cover of Elton John’s Rocket Man two years later and then Rubberband Girl two years after that. It was the first release from her seventh album The Red Shoes. This LP divided opinion among her fans due to the simplified production, designed to create a live sound.

A planned year-long hiatus after The Red Shoes lasted much longer and she became a virtual recluse. It is believed that in this time Bush grieved the loss of several friends and her mother, who had died of cancer in 1992. She became a mother in 1998 and devoted her time to raising her son Bertie. Stories would occasionally emerge of Bush – I remember one where she invited an EMI executive over. The label were very excited, assuming she had finally made a new album. Instead she revealed she’d baked a cake.

In 2005 Bush made a triumphant return with the album Aerial. The single King of the Mountain peaked at four, her highest chart placing in 20 years. It was another six years before she released Director’s Cut, comprising reworked tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, recorded with analogue rather than digital equipment. A proper new album, 50 Words for Snow, also came out in 2011, featuring Elton John. She turned down an offer to appear at the 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony but a remix of Running Up That Hill was played in her absence and reached 12 in the charts.

Two years later Bush shocked critics and fans alike by announcing her first live dates since 1979. Before the Dawn was a 22-night residency at the Hammersmith Apollo. It was a huge success, with an album released two years later. she became the first female artist to have eight albums in the top 40 simultaneously.

The Outro

Bush is a national treasure. Totally unique and an amazing talent. While watching her video to Wuthering Heights on a repeat of Top of the Pops, my eldest daughter, then around four, sat entranced and declared at the end that ‘That Katie Bush is a funny onion’. I hope the performance has stayed with her.

The Info

Written by

Kate Bush

Producer

Andrew Powell

Weeks at number 1

4 (11 March-7 April)

Trivia

Births

16 March: Labour MP Anneliese Dodds
22 March: Scottish field hockey player Samantha Judge
31 March: Footballer Stephen Clemence
3 April: Actor Matthew Goode
7 April: Blue singer Duncan James

Deaths

4 April: Aeronautics engineer Sir Morien Morgan

Meanwhile…

26 March: The Yorkshire Ripper looked to have claimed another life when the body of 21-year-old prostitute and mother-of-two Yvonne Pearson, who was last seen alive on 21 January, was found in Leeds.

30 March: The Conservative Party recruited up-and-coming advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to revamp their image.

3 April: Permanent radio broadcasts of proceedings in the House of Commons began. 

386. Tina Charles – I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance) (1976)

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The Intro

Tina Charles holds the unusual honour of being a backing singer on a number 1 before reaching the top spot in her own right. A year after she featured on Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’s Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance) became the first homegrown disco tune to conquer the UK charts.

Before

Charles was born Tina Hoskins in Whitechapel, London on 10 March 1954. As well as being a backing singer she also worked as a session musician. She was only 15 when she recorded her debut single, Nothing in the World, and it featured Elton John, then unknown, on piano. Charles released one or two singles a year from then until 1974, but didn’t make a mark. In the meantime she sang on the Top of the Pops album series, in which anonymous session singers and musicians performed covers of hits. In 1971 she guested on The Two Ronnies, performing The Rolling Stones’s Ruby Tuesday, among other famous hits.

1975 was where Charles’s career took off. In addition to providing the famous ‘Oooh la la la’ backing vocals on Make Me Smile with her friend Linda Lewis, she sang on 5000 Volts’s disco hit I’m on Fire. Due to contractual issues her name was not given publicly and singer/actress Luan Peters stood in for Charles on Top of the Pops. Then she met Biddu, the Indian/British producer responsible for making Kung Fu Fighting. They recorded the album I Love to Love, but it wasn’t the first single to be released. You Set My Heart on Fire preceded it but despite going top 10 in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden, she still couldn’t crack the UK top 40. She and Biddu must have known they were on to something with I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance) however, to name the LP after it.

Review

I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance) starts very promisingly, bouncing along to a nifty disco groove played by Manchester musicians Richie Close (keyboard), Clive Allen (guitar), Des Browne (bass) and Tom Daley (percussion). The conceit appears to be, Charles wants to make love, but her partner is too busy dancing. This rather suggests there is a problem in the relationship and Charles should start asking him a few awkward questions really, but she doesn’t sound too upset about her situation and ends the night danced out but still hoping to ‘have my way’.

Unfortunately, the song doesn’t really go anywhere and is too lightweight to get much out of. Charles certainly has a powerful voice, but what at first sounds appealing gets a bit annoying. This song is probably as frustrating as wanting a good time with a partner who goes off to dance as soon as he hears music. If it came on at a club on a drunken night out (remember those?) you could probably enjoy yourself but that’s about it.

After

I Love to Love (But My Baby Loves to Dance) was a massive hit all over Europe. Charles’s follow-up LP, Dance Little Lady, was also produced by Biddu and spawned two top 10 hits in 1976 – Dance Little Lady Dance (reached six) and Dr Love (four). At the time her then-boyfriend, future genius producer Trevor Horn, featured in her backing band for live shows.

Only a year later, her hit rate was decreasing, and in 1978 I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me was the last time she charted (at 27). Charles tried to move with the times in 1980 with the harder sound of her album Just One Smile but interest was low. She concentrated on family life for the next few years. In 1987 there was a brief resurgence when I Love to Love and Dance Little Lady were remixed by Sanny-X. Both songs did well in Europe.

The Outro

Since then she has resurfaced from time to time, touring in Europe since 2000, performing on stage as a guest with The Producers, Horn’s supergroup of, yes, you guessed it, producers.

The Info

Written by

Jack Robinson & James Bolden

Producer

Biddu

Weeks at number 1

3 (6-22 March)

Trivia

Deaths

19 March: Free guitarist Paul Kossoff

Meanwhile…

16 March: Labour leader Harold Wilson shocked the nation by announcing his resignation as Prime Minister, to take effect on 5 April. Since returning to Downing Street in 1974, he had admitted in private that he had lost his enthusiasm for the role. Publicly, he claimed he had always intended to retire at 60, and said he was physically and mentally exhausted. He may have also been aware of the first stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

19 March: Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon announce they are to separate after 16 years of marriage.

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

/ robbarker1979

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.