Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #43: March 6th 1969 - Ah-Ha-Ha-Ha!

Episode Date: September 6, 2019

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: Why didn't NASA do something for the old 'uns?It's the mid-point of our Critics Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and this time Our Taylor has taken us back - way back - to the spring of 1969, when two-thirds of Team ATVland weren't even thought of and the third was imprisoned in a cage made out of pallets, with all nails sticking out. Musicwise, well: we are 301 days from the end of this decade - the greatest decade in history, mark you - and Top Of The Pops has failed to paint it black. Many things happen in this year, but mainly in America, and this episode is rammeth with Beat groups on their last legs, all expertly dealt with by the voice of Brentford Nylons. Dave Dee, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub celebrate ritual animal abuse. Love Affair awkwardly wink at the camera as the sand runs out on their career. Lulu swings an imaginary beer stein frothing with Schlager as she makes her bid for Eurovision glory. The Tymes do something really impressive at the end of their song. The Bee Gees stop bitching at each other long enough to curl off another dud single. Stevie Wonder drops one of the all-time great TOTP performances. And Jesus in a jumpsuit, the state of the Number One.Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham on the barren, grey surface of Top Of The Pops in the Sixventies, pausing from their exploration to discuss Jon Pertwee's conversion to Rock, the G-Clamp Tree, Geoff Sex, Right-Wing Swingers, ridiculously blunt LP reviews, and Dick Emery getting preferential treatment over Moby Grape. The swearing is heavy, and progressive.  Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook  | TwitterSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words sharp music Up you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music,

the podcast that puts its face between an episode of Top of the Pops and goes blubble, blubble, blubble. his face between an episode of Top of the Pops and goes blubble, blubble, blubble. I'm your host, Al Needham, and standing by me today are Neil Kulkarni. Hello there. And Taylor Parks. Hello. Boys, the pop things, the interesting things, tell me all about them. Well, I have been to a pop thing, actually.

I went to a show in London. No. Oh, yes. A real pop show, a band in London. Get you. Yeah, get London. No. Oh, yes. A real pop show. Get you. Yeah, get me. Big Thief, they're called. I really quite like them. Although the bloody audience, man.

Just compulsory shit moustaches everywhere. Is that just the look now? But yeah, I've been to see some nice pop shows. I'm getting just annoyed about this bloody Indian summer because I was all set for autumn, getting ready for coats and jackets back on again and not feeling like my trouser pockets are overly burdened yeah it's a horrible feeling

that but no it's back I'm hot as fuck I'm sweating like a pig digging a ditch I've got my sleeves on my t-shirt rolled up like I'm wearing a sort of metal vest or something like John Cougar Mellencamp you've got your pack of fags tucked under but the thing is normally obviously I think I've said in the past in the summer I always worry that

my I don't get I don't do stuff with my kids you know I mean so I'm always worried that they're going to go back and draw a picture of a tin of pringles and stuff as to what they did in there but no this year unaccountably my youngest has sort of dragged me out you know and taken me out on wildlife rambles and things out in country parks which actually is very good for me my doctors will be very happy but um it does bring me face to face with my biggest um my fear my biggest hatred which is insects in general i loathe all insect life but in particular if i'm near water uh dragonflies i just fucking hate dragonflies and they can smell mine they can smell fear those things they i run shrieking from them and they chase me um and my children laugh at me and that's what i've been doing this summer basically running

away from dragonflies fears fearsome little bastards. Do you run about with your hands in the air like crystal tips? No, I haven't been, but I will from here on in. Good lad. Taylor? Yeah, I'm sat here.

I've got all the windows closed to drown out the neighbours' blethering. Got the door shut. I'm sat here in my low ceiling room. It's like being in It Ain't Half Hot Mum. I've got like the bead of sweat on my top lip. I'm going to put on my khaki shirt and look like Stuart McGugan by the end of it.

It's not good. I'm a bit under the weather this week as it is. So bear with me as I come across as a disagreeable human being. Yeah, the most exciting thing that happened to me this week as it is so bear with me as i come across as a disagreeable human being yeah the most exciting thing that happened to me this week i was texting someone the other day and uh i typed the word patrick into my phone um and predictive text based on my texting history decided that my most likely choice for the next word would be mower and i thought that says something really terrible about my life and what says something even more terrible about my life is that actually was the next word no taylor may what was the conversation about? Patrick Moore. Patrick Moore, obviously. But which one of his many facets?

I was bemoaning the downturn in quality of the series' special branch when he takes over the main action man role. Not quite as disastrous a dip as when he took over from Anthony Valentine in Callan, which really was like replacing the Mona Lisa with a child's drawing of a pig. Yeah, this sexting, Telly, you haven't really got the hang of it yet, have you?

Well, you know, give me a break. It was 2.30am. But hold fast, Pop Crazy youngsters. You know how we do in the 1-9, or whatever you call it nowadays. You know we do nothing in chart music before we stop and bow the knee to the lovely people who have slipped that dollar down the collective G-string.

So the latest batch of people who have dropped $5 this month are Neil S, Dan White, Michael Strong, Paul Thompson, Lee Swanick, Thomas Danny, Matthias Recker,ah leclerc miles jackson matt savine john mackie and laura lean aren't they fucking lovely people them god bless them they bloody won us the war they did and in the three dollar section we have dan ober tobin ober Dan Ober, Tobin Ober, Dickie from the Hot Pots, Russell Clark and Joris Gillet. Them heavy people hit chart music in a soft spot. Them heavy people help chart music. And if you want to join them in keeping the greatest podcast in the world

about old episodes of Top of the Pops going, you need to take them fingers over to the keyboard. You need to type in patreon.com slash chart music and you need to fill that g-string with whatever you can offer remember that url Paul Craze Young says give me a hand chaps

patreon.com slash chart music patreon.com slash chart music patreon.com slash chart music you can.com slash chart music. You can do it right now, please. I felt like I was in downtown Kingston or Uxbridge. And of course, if you're paying your subs,

you're contributing to the latest top 10, as compiled for Chart Music by the Pop Craze Patreons and the British Market Research Bureau. Hit the music! Down one place from nine to ten, it's Clit Richard.

Down three from number six to number nine, here comes Jism. It's a three-place drop for the dub-plate pressure of Bergerac meets Rockers Uptown, now at number eight. But it's a two-place jump from

number nine to number seven for your dark mates. A former number one down this week from number two to number six Sarah B and Rakim It's a new entry at number five For Gug City Slaggers

Another new entry at number four A group who choose to call themselves The Queen's Fanny Into the top three And no change at number three choose to call themselves the Queen's Fanny. Into the top three and no change at number three for Bomber Dog. This week's number two and the highest

new entry, the whiff of the cat-o-meat. Which means... Britain's number one! It's still there at number one for the second week running. Man to man meets Al Needham. Congratulations.

Well done, Al. Well done. What a chart that is. Well, who can account for the whimsical nature of the chart music subscribers, eh? You can never predict this chart. I mean, obviously, Gug City Sliders are releasing their commemorative single for the Oxenania FA Cup final,

but what are the Queens finally like? What's their game? What, art school punk? I was thinking just a more ribald Baron Knights. And the Whiff of the Academy, obviously. Sleazy synth pop. Yeah, it would be, yeah.

Which is better than your cooking, mummy. Do you remember that advert for catamete? Oh, yeah. And there was that one where that was Arthur, wasn't it, who could get some cat food out of a tin with his paw, which was like one of the most remarkable things anyone had ever fucking seen in a pre-social media age. Yeah, yeah, no YouTube.

All these people in like Russia sat there fuming. My cat fails jump from snow-covered car. We're in a sad age now where I think even older people, like people past 80, watching an advert and seeing a talking animal, I don't think anymore they would go, how's that done then? Oh, my mum's like that. Seriously, she'd go, are those elephants really dancing like that? I'm like, no, mum, it's CGI. She says, what's CGI?

And then I forget and I just say, oh, it's computers. That's a catch-all answer for the older generation. It's computers. Yeah, it's computers. That's a catch-all answer for the older generation. It's computers. Yeah, it's all computers. So, this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, sees us at the halfway point of our Critics' Choice miniseries, and this time the hand of fate falls upon the shoulder of Mr Taylor Parks.

Yeah, well, first of all unfortunately my actual favorite episode of top of the pops is currently out of bounds on account of a particular jingling jangling unpleasantness which we're not going to address just yet so rather than settle for a shameful second best i thought fuck it let's just go right back and watch the earliest complete non-christmas non-pedo helmed episode in the archive because it will at least be interesting we haven't done a 60s episode there aren't many of them it's always nice to watch things from before you were born um and generally apart from your parents conceiving you. So, yeah, because that was wiped by the BBC,

this is my choice of episode to watch and talk about. March the 6th, 1969. Yeah. So I thought it would be the most interesting rather than the best, as will become obvious when we see what's actually on it. Yes. I was tempted to be perverse

and pick a particular Ed Stewart-hosted episode from 1970, which is unquestionably the shittest Top of the Pops I've ever seen. It's just wall-to-wall granny music to the point where me and my mate were watching it, throwing things at the screen and shouting, where's the rock? But, um,

no, I didn't. Okay. Chaps. If I said to you the music of 1969, what, what is immediately hitting you? Well,

it's heavy. Yep. And it's none of this shit really. Perhaps too heavy. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No, we, the, what we do find here is that top of the pops is now just slightly off the pace culturally yeah because this is already the six vintages

and yes there's a new uh sort of darkness and hardness and paranoia and bleakness and nihilism in pop music and in society. But it's not represented here because this is about the singles charts, which had been abandoned by the heavy groups. Yeah. And also because this is still a light entertainment program. And it's a really noticeable thing about pre-glam Top of the Pops. It's like the televisual impact of the hit groups from this period is not so great

that they can seize control of the show just by their presence. So the tone of the show is still being set by the production team rather than the S. So there's no star man moments. And so, yeah, you know. And so, yeah, you end up with something that, in a sense, you think, well, this doesn't really tell the story of 1969. But obviously, in another sense, it absolutely does. Yeah, it probably tells a true story in a sense.

Because, I mean, if, like most of us, we go backwards to the 60s from a sort of vantage point of the 80s, really, 1969, well, it's, you know, we go back to albums, don't we? So you go back to 69 and it's the Stooges' first album, Let It Bleed and Trap Mask Replica and all these amazing records. And it's the year in a rock historical sense of Woodstock and Altamont and all of that, but none of that appears here at all. No one's going to get shot in this episode no no no but but crucially the the tension of that year coming out of 1968 and sort of in dread of what was going to happen in the 70s I mean for me that period's best summed up rock and

roll wise in books actually the Stanley Booth book true adventures of the rolling stones and parts of grail marcus's mystery train really get that late 60s doomy kind of vibe um spot on and you know you get that sense that something's ending and something new and fearful is starting up but of course you don't see jack shit on top of the parts no no no what we get here it's a bit peculiar because this program uh it still has something of the tea and manor house cake uh drawing room yeah of jukebox fury or or six five special you know like we don't have the outrageous frugging dolly birds yet um no or the sort of unsafe teenage party atmosphere uh that creeps in in the next year or two it's still very firmly set in the old days like sort of church hall dance well even though they'd they'd stopped actually filming top of the pops in a church hall but you know that's the feel while already you outside, that's like people are listening to Bitches Brew.

You know what I mean? There's a sit-in in the college canteen and people in great coats are taking morphine and Richard Burton is bumming Ian McShane. What a great film that is. But stuff had already changed out there in popular culture and in society, but only for about 300 people.

Yeah, that's it. It's a reminder that for the vast majority of people, yeah, all of that stuff was happening somewhere else. I mean, when I was snapping up old records left and right in the mid-80s because I was sick of the fucking charts, it took me absolutely ages to dare approach 1969 because i'm that age where late 60s hippiness uh the whiff of the patchouli oil just put me off but as soon as i got into it i fucking loved it i think the first album from that from that year i ever bought was

stand by sly and the family stone it's like like, oh, fucking hell, yes. More of this, please. But from the deodorised vantage point of the mid-80s, the whiffiness of the late 60s was precisely its appeal. I'd follow daft, blind alleys and end up listening to fucking 10 years after live albums and shit

just to get away from the 80s. For me, 69, it's a year of those albums, things like Stand, but just so much good. I mean, Miles is making In a Silent Way and Cannes are making Monster Movie and Fairport Convention are making so many good records as well.

You know, Dusty in Memphis comes out this year. It's an amazing year for albums, but yeah, that's not Top of the Pops' job. I mean, and of course, we've had 1969 rammed up our arse of late due to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in Woodstock. And 1969 seems to be a very American year, doesn't it? You know, all the things that are going off, both good and bad, tend to be from over here.

You know, Apollo 11, Altamont, people burning the draft cards, Easy Rider, Sharon Tate, Woodstock, Midnight Cowboy I mean this is the era we look back on the 60s as being you know one of the peak eras for to be British but by 1969 America's practically sitting on our heads and farting on us. Yeah Britain is just someone trundling down the road in a pale blue Austin. Like a bit of rain on the windscreen. Yeah, it summed up perfectly by, if you watch say if you watch Gimme Shelter, that

Stones film, and watch the Hells Angels in that bit, that movie and then compare them with the Hells Angels that do the security at Hyde Park there's just such a massive difference between those two cultures. We are a lot softer and gentler and a bit more bumbling, basically. Yeah.

You can see it as well. Like, in America, like, Rolling Stone had started publication, you know. Now, Rolling Stone was always really quite a commercial paper in that it was catering to an audience where there was money. But, you know know it had these pretensions as being counter-cultural and stuff and there was you know there was all these sort of you know underground papers going around in britain there were you know you you did have underground papers but when you look at the actual music press it's still kind of it's like the trade

papers you know it's still got that it's still got that slightly trad jazzy feel to it you know it hasn't caught up so you you still get like these new stories about engelbert humperdinck's new tv series or what the three remaining monkeys are up to you know you know when we had all the ap Apollo 11 50th anniversary stuff you know I was reading quite a lot of that and it would be you know here's this woman who wrote like a big stack of mathematical equations to get this thing on the moon and oh here's this bloke from Britain who watched it on a big telescope yeah that was our big contribution to Apollo 11 looking at it there's a brilliant documentary that was made years ago

for one of the previous anniversaries of the moon landing by the BBC, and it's got clips in it, like a montage of clips of reactions from all around the world. And there's people in America going, oh, my God, man, we're on the moon. And people in France going, like, oh, congratulations. And then eventually they get around to britain and it's an old lady sat on a deck chair at the beach and she goes i think it's bloody terrible

why are they doing this they should do something for the oldens every penny given to nasa and just put it into Meals on Wheels. Yeah. Yeah, they want to give it to no-no, not NASA. It's like your Meals on Wheels gets there in 0.2 of a second. Pill form. But, oh, come on, Taylor. You know, I know who you want to talk about.

What? The other great opinion about the moon from uh from britain oh yeah there's this one clip that that you showed me taylor it's fucking glorious tell tell the pop craze youngsters all about it well i don't want to spoiler it for anyone who can rush to the playlist and watch it but it's a retired spring maker from redditch being interviewed on atv news about why he thinks the americans never landed on the moon and all i can say is uh his conspiracy theory is not your conspiracy theory you got a postcard off neil armstrong didn't that neil armstrong took the time to go mate i did it what the fuck are you going on about

and he's still not having it I have a suspicion someone is riding him with that postcard so for about the third time

the presenter says to him you still don't believe the Americans went to the moon he goes no

he says well why don't you believe it and he looks smug and goes I don't anyone who it? And he looks smug and goes, I don't.

Anyone who grew up in the Midlands will understand that kind of line of argument from someone who's a little bit older than you. Just look down and say, I don't. Case closed. Radio 1 News In the news this week, the Kray twins have been sent down for life. The USSR and China have a bit of a skirmish across the Yuzuri River. A planned spacewalk on the Apollo 9 mission is cancelled after an astronaut texts Badler. Concorde has

been on its maiden flight in Toulouse. Sir Anne Sarand admits in court that he murdered Robert Kennedy. Contraceptive pills for dogs are being trialled in the UK. The Victoria Line is to be officially opened tomorrow. Assorted angry Welsh people are kicking off and threatening protests and worse during the forthcoming investiture of the Prince of Wales. Paul McCartney is getting ready to get married to Linda Eastman early next week. Arrest warrants have been

issued for Jim Morrison after he got his knob out at a gig in Florida. But the big news this week is in tomorrow's Daily Mirror. Headline, name change for Mr. Sex. The brawny village blacksmith has finished with sex forever. He told his wife and four pretty daughters, I'm browned off with it. For fate had dealt a cruel blow.

Sex was their surname until 40 year old jeff sex had it changed by deed poll jeff sex that's a fantastic name why would you change that the mickey taking went on and on it got too much he said four other members of his family have changed their name too but not bachelor charles sex of richmond park road kingston upon thames i'm quite happy with sex he said oh so i love how they say uh he's notified his four pretty daughters so he didn't mention it to the ugly one because they they lost because they lost the key to the trunk. On the cover of the NME this week, the small faces. On the cover of the TV Times, Linda Thorson.

The number one LP in the UK at the moment is Diana Ross and the Supremes Join the Temptations. Over in America, the number one single is Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone. Yes. And the number one LP in America is Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell. Hey, lovely. Yeah. Linda Thorson. Presumably, this is just after she took over in The Avengers.

Yes. I see. So, me boys, what were our parents doing in march of 1969 well they they were they were pregnant um with my sister um they didn't know that they thought she was going to be a boy so that was gonna be me yeah presumably neil armstrong already in the news said they'd already chosen that name um but it wasn't to be could have been sex called carter they're going out of the newspapers if they bought the mirror

that day yeah but I often wonder you know those three years difference I know it doesn't count for much but by the time you get

through to the 80s it does start counting actually those three years being three years younger I wouldn't have minded being born in what

the year I would have liked to have been born in the most I think would be about uh 52 something like that so i was 17 18 coming up for the end of the 60s but it does make you think what would i have been into in 69 all this great music going on i probably would have been into some right old shit yeah engelbert yeah yeah possibly and even if i was a music critic i'd be

totally missing the boat. I'd be writing earnest articles about why the electric prunes point the way to the 70s or something. Yeah, I would have probably missed out on all the good stuff. Think about being named after Neil Armstrong. If it hadn't been for the terrible tragedy of Apollo 1, the first man on the moon most likely to have been Gus Grissom. There you go, Gus Kulkarni.

It's got a ring to it. That's even better than Buzz, actually. Neil, yeah. And there's so many bloody kids born around about that time. Yes. I had a fair quota of Neils at my school. Yeah, well, Neil, Neil Orange Peel. I'm sick of it.

Taylor. What's really peculiar for me is the thought that my parents, who were really pretty straight and nobody's beatniks, spent quite a lot of the late 60s on motorbiking holidays in Ibiza around about the time when it would have been full of Nikko and all these opiated, burnt-out disaster areas, which I presume they just rode straight past, you know. Or over.

Yeah, never encountered. But, I mean, they'd already been married for seven or eight years. So, like, they got hitched, you know, between the end of the Chatterley band and the Beatles' first LP. So, unlike a lot of people my age, I didn't grow up with hippie parents at all. But the older I get, the more I realise that my dad, especially although he was fairly conservative in a lot of ways,

was part of that sort of in-between generation who were sort of looking for greater freedom than their parents, but the social apparatus wasn't there yet. So it all came out a little bit mild and a little bit trad jazz. So, yeah, they were on a sort of a fut-fut-fut tiny motorbike riding across the blasted landscape of Ibiza, bizarrely. I'm the only one who was alive at that time. I was 10 months old,

living in 7 Plimsoll Street in Ice and Green. My mum and dad were still working at the lesbian door factory. That's what it was known as. It was a small factory in Sherwood that made doors, obviously, and it was staffed entirely was a small factory in sherwood that made doors obviously and it was staffed entirely by lesbians how well nottingham still had the big three factories you know boots rallying players but there were so many other smaller factories dotted around nottingham that if you were a factory worker you could pick and choose where you wanted to work you know you could

leave one job on a friday and start a place where your mates worked on the Monday. So people were really picky about where they wanted to work. They just wanted to be with their mates and all that kind of stuff. And this door factory was known for being, you know, quite open about lesbians, I suppose. How progressive. They all wanted to work together. And, you know, this company was like, yeah, we don't give a shit. You want to lob it up or whatever. So they to work together. And, you know, this company was like, yeah, we don't give a shit who you want to lob it up or whatever.

So they all worked together. My mum and dad, I think they were the only straight people that worked there. My mum made doors and my dad drove them about in a lorry. You know, because my mum was still working, I'd be packed off every day to my granny's in St Anne's. And so I'd be spending the time in a sort of on a play mat surrounded by a wooden cage a sort of on a play mat surrounded by a wooden cage made out of pallets that her brother had made

that still had nails sticking out of it there was a documentary that was broadcast this very month on ITV that was made by Stephen Frears about poverty in St Anne's because apparently it was one of the worst places to live in the country and yeah if you're interested in socialist or you're a brexit twat um go on the video playlist look for the video uh st

anne's 1969 and then you know come back here and tell me how great the good old days were so yeah before we pile into um what's on telly today you know whenever we do a chart music from the mid 90s or whatever simon always comes forth with a uh with a breakdown of what was in that issue of melody maker and i found a pdf of the issue of melody maker that was out this very week so shall we go through it yes on the cover there are three main news stories a pop proms is being organized for the royal albert hall in july and they're hoping to get together a supergroup featuring Eric Clapton, Stevie Wynwood and Ginger Baker.

This doesn't happen, but the seven-night programme featured Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, The Pentangle, Amen Corner, Marmalade, The Incredible String Band, Famle, The Dubliners, The Who and Chuck Berry. Other news story is Louis Armstrong's back in hospital in New York and is in critical condition and Peter Sarstedt has celebrated his recent chart success by flying to Copenhagen to see his girlfriend who's a dentist. Other news Bob Dylan has completed his next LP which will be released in a month's time

and will be called Nashville Skyline Bill Graham is trying to organise a package tour of British acts across America including The Who Jeff Beck Joe Cocker Jethro Tull 10 Years After

and Pro Call Horror The Beatles have turned down a million dollars each to play four American concerts this summer. John Peel has announced that the brand new Concord should be used to house the homeless. And Leapy Lee has cancelled his tour of the USA and Australia to concentrate on his third album. Oh, man, who said America had it all in 1969?

Those little arrows are pointing downwards. Inside the paper. Well, Scott Walker's described Bob Dylan as someone who writes marvellous lyrics and fraudulent melodies. He also says he doesn't want to put out a single because he couldn't bear to work on a beautiful record and have it beaten

in the charts by something like Lily the Pink and points out that he can't stand performing in northern clubs where people are drinking and chattering Oh bless Scott, he's always a little over sensitive and a little over precious despite being a genius

Is that also the interview where he says he couldn't bear to see any single of his beaten by lily the pink or that thing that's number one yes yes i'm with him i'm with him but more of that later richard harris talks about his follow-up to macarthur park and threatens to bring out an lp of his poetry. The Hollies talk about life after Graham Nash in the BBC bar after last week's Top of the Pops, and they talk about how shocked they were at still having screaming girl fans,

and they also talk about their plans to record an LP of Dylan covers. And Jimi Hendrix talks about trying to get Miles Davis to lead a jam session at his funeral, and says, when you're dead, you're made for life. Oh, Jimmy. Single reviews.

Well, the single of the week is the Small Faces double A-side Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am and Afterglow of Your Love. Pinball Wizard by The Who is a track which will appeal to both P table and who fans alike aretha franklin's cover of the weight is dismissed as vocal gymnastics while trifles cover of the beatles is all together now is pleasing meanwhile the cats and ex cats singing orchestral circus a super group of eight u.s bubblegum bands including ohio express and the 1910 fruit gum company that gets slagged down oh dear but the biggest slagging is for nancy's chanatra's god

knows i love you which goes as follows ah but does god care if we are going to be blasphemous that is indeed the obvious question the young cynics of Britain are going to ask. As our leaders are not concerned with building a worthwhile socialist state, it is hardly surprising that youth has an opportunity to be idle and indulge in cynicism, drug-taking and street

violence. Meanwhile, this bourgeois musical decadence is fed like opium to the masses, a symbol of so-called Western culture. Oh, for God's sake, Melody Maker, were you even at the same single that I was at? Talk about the music, for God's sake. There's five pages of LP reviews, the majority of which are dispatched with a mere sentence.

LP of the month is Blood, Sweat and Tears by Blood, Sweat and Tears, described as the finest album released in months. The best of the rest section features the debut LP by Peter Sarstedt, Goodbye by Cream, no drum solos on this one, but all three are in superb form, Stonehenge by Ten Years After after the compilation rock machine I love you Ruben in the jets by the mothers of

invention and the amazing adventures of Liverpool scene the review of which it's alignment by Glenn Campbell reads in full find selection of different songs by the

man with which it's alignment in the chart varied selection of material so not only is that got he does by the man with Wichita linemen in the chart. Varied selection of material. So not only does that review repeat itself, it repeats itself three times, because you can't have a varied selection of the same song. Yeah.

No. It's like a review from a Hi-Fi Separates magazine or something. Yeah. Now, I had a look through some old Melody Makers too, and what struck me about the review section, the singles reviews are mostly preoccupied with whether or not a record is going to be a hit rather than anything else,

which is really old-fashioned for 1969. And yeah, the hilarious thing about the album selection is just every every week there's about eight albums have come out which in future years will be regarded as uh significant classics and they just get yeah next um yeah i got one here from a couple of months later um and it's got a review of uh nick drake's five leaves left right with the review in full reads interesting debut album from composer singer guitarist drake which doesn't even tell you what kind of music it is it's like who is he what is he a blues guitarist is he what is he i don't know and that same week um also released was unhalf bricking by

fairport convention uh stand by the family yes happy sad by tim buckley all just tossed off in one sentence the only album that gets a full length review by which i mean about 350 words is that week's most important release which is stand up baby by jethro tull it's amazing stuff to read i've got it here yeah if only for a moment by the blossom toes gets a review that says good original material and nice performances add up to a well above average group album

it's incredible to think that whoever wrote this will have had their own desk and an expense account and you know a house the thing is though those albums

the Nick Drake one, the Sly and the Family Stone one you could say that by the late 80s let's say, that consensus that that was irrelevant and yeah I don't know, Jeff O'Toole were more important had been overthrown, I wish that would happen with the stuff that was getting big reviews in the 90s say

we're still accepting that oasis were what the 90s were all about you know what i mean um whereas it's probably those little things that got 50 100 word reviews that were fucking amazing that we should be concentrating on that did that has now happened with the 60s looking back at that music press but it's not happened yet with with stuff from 20 years ago from now there There's so much shit being released. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Fucking tons of it. Across a lot of genres, yeah. And they feel they have to review everything.

It does have the feel of a trade paper, doesn't it? Yeah. By 1969. It's probably still printing jukebox receipts and stuff like that, you know, like it used to. So, yeah, it's crossing that music week slash critical journal divide. Yeah.

The gig guide this week. Well, David could have seen Led Zeppelin at the Hornsey Wood Tavern, The Move at the Lyceum, or Benny King at the Mistrial in Beckenham, but probably didn't. Sarah could have seen Desmond Decker in Leeds. Taylor could have seen Scaffold in two different Birmingham clubs on the same night Or seen Alan Price and friends at the Cavendish in Yardley

Or gone down to Mothers in High Street, Erderton To check out Straubs, Terry Reid, Country Joe and the Fish And Spooky Tooth Oh, sorry, Spooky Toth Neil could have nipped over to the Connacht Hotel to see The Toast. Al could have seen Freddie King at the Boat Club or the Horace Faith Show at the Broken Wheel scene in Redford. And Simon is pretty much fucked as there are no Welsh listings.

So disrespectful to the Welsh. Well, there was just no gigs. In the letters section, Danny Holloway and Boo Mix of Long Beach, California, have a bit of a moan about having to pay over the odds for British LPs and the fact that their fave raves, The Small Faces, The Kinks, Manfred Mann and The Pretty Things never play in California and ends with the words, inform these groups that there is money and comfort

waiting on the West Coast. Oh, yeah. As well as menclists who creep into other people's homes and murder them. Yeah. That word comfort doing a lot of work there, I think. Yes, very much so. Blues fans, meanwhile, are up in arms about Fleetwood Mac

selling out with their latest single, Albatross. And John Paddy Carstairs of Kingston Hill picks holes in the lyric of Where Do You Go To My Lovely by Peter Sarsnet. He writes, the girl was born in a poor quarter of Italy, yet she has a French name. And what we are told of her, clothes, friendship, etc. She certainly wouldn't take her summer vacation in one lapin these days the editor of the letters page points out the cost is directed

Tommy the toreador and a weekend with Lulu and is the producer and director of the Saints and therefore knows what he's going on about and Eric Whiteside of Belfast slags off top of the pops for not having Diana Ross and Supremes on all the time.

Hear, hear, sir. So yeah, 24 pages, one shilling. I never knew there was so much in it. Just before we get off the music press, there was another letter that jumped out at me this month from Ed Walsh in Barnet Hots. And if you don't mind, I'd like to read it out. from Ed Walsh in Barnet Hots and if you don't mind I'd like to read it out Top of the Pops seems to go from

bad to worse every week recently on the new release spot we were treated to the latest disc by Dick Emery Moby Grape were in the country at the time and also had a single released.

So why didn't we get a chance to see them on the programme? Even if they were unavailable, there were new singles around by The Locomotive, Neil MacArthur and Tyrannosaurus Rex, among others. These sort of people never seem to appear on television and Dick Emery has his own weekly series and thus has ample opportunity for plugging his own disc. Aunty or Granny

BBC certainly looks after her own. I must add that I am not getting at Dick Emery personally but at the whole idea of promoting an average run of the mill ballad when there are far more interesting and progressive sounds around.

Oh, BBC, you are awful. But Ed Walsh doesn't like you. I love how he puts in that bit. I'm not having a go at Dick Emery personally, just in case Dick Emery gets a hump about this, comes out of his house and playfully gives him a shove on the shoulder. That's a good letter.

I wonder if they hired him. Yeah. To cover the bold new progressive heavy sounds that were going on. So, what else was on telly this day? Well, BBC One starts the day at 9.38 with a three-hour schools and colleges mega blast, including merry-go-round, science session, maths today, watch, primary school mathematics,

and the history of Ghana. Followed by, and apologies now to our Welsh listeners, a big Welsh splurge of singing in that for St David's Day. I said that so fucking wrong. I got Simon to phonetically spell it out for me, and I'm fucked here. After Watch with Mother Joe and the Fog

it's the afternoon news followed by the Faye Weldon play Time Hurries On for the school's programme scene then it's Play School with Carol Ward and Brian Kant Jack and Ore Blue Peter Tales from Europe and the Magic Roundabout

After the news Robert Robinson presents a look back at the 50s, then it's the American sitcom Mothers-in-Law, the first of the new series of Top of the Form, the rural soap opera The Newcomers and one minute of news headlines. BBC Two kicks off at 11 with Play School and then shuts down for seven hours and 40 minutes and they've just finished engineering craft and science itv begins at 11 with the school's programs messenger and conflict then shuts down for an hour and three quarters before returning at 20 to 2 with picture box heritage maths for and against and first steps in physics after the news it's the daytime soap opera honey

lane then the puppet show sugar ball the little jungle boy the adventures of robin hood the return of puff the welsh mountain pony in magpie then it's the news regional news in your area crossroads and they're half an hour into the film of the week the 1957 Robert Taylor flick Tip on a Dead Jockey. Tales from Europe that was a kids show was it? Yes wouldn't be allowed now would it? No. Would not be allowed Alright then

pop craze youngsters it is now time to take your protein pills and put your helmet on because we're going way back to March of 1969. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget, they've been on top of the pops more than we have. Yes, it's number one. It's Top of the Pops. It's Thursday, March the 6th, 1969,

and Top of the Pops is now firmly bedded into the BBC schedule and slowly groping towards the format we know and love. But they're not there just yet. This episode would have been broadcast in color a switch which occurred a mere five months ago but the footage that survives and that we're reviewing is in black and white that affects it a lot doesn't it black and white so important to the way this episode works yeah um you're not simply watching a previous format or a previous color scheme when you're watching black and white as a rock and roll years fan in the 80s it always had an effect seeing old clips in the 60s from from top of the pops but seeing them neatly recut for that show

isn't the same as actually seeing the shows that they were cut from like watching this whole episode which you do as you get older i think and you realise that a lot of black and white telly is messier and consequently kind of more interesting than you thought. Yeah. You know, it just seems black and white telly, what's great about it, and I'm constantly rinsing BBC iPlayer, the archive, for really old shows. Yeah. There's just this non-pleadiness and neediness about television

in black and white. It seems much more full of mistakes, but at the same time, way, way more sure of itself. And the further we get away from it, the more that the kids and the geeks take over in a sense, the more panicky and pleasing TV comes to be. With regards to Top of the Pot specifically in black and white, for me, I don't actually like it. Because by then, 69, I mean, from 67 onwards, I mean, there's an argument for saying that shows like Ready, Steady, Go! and Shindig and stuff absolutely suit black and white

because of the things that the bands are wearing, things that the audience are wearing. But by now, pop's really colourful, you know? And this feels like her last gasp for black and white. But to be honest, it annoys me that all performances on top of the pops after sort of 67 weren't in colour um i don't see a benefit i want to see the colours and the palette of people and the pop stars and what they're wearing um but black and white has that little little hold over you with this episode well didn't the bbc spend a load of money on recolouring an episode of top of the pops from

this era oh Oh, really? Wouldn't that look like a Laurel and Hardy thing or something? Yeah. But I've seen a clip of it. It looks really good. Problem was, a certain presenter on it. Oh. Yeah.

Yes. But that's the thing. Because of the black and white, don't forget, we're only two years after the dropping of things like the disc girl on top of the pops you know so it still has those traces from those days which are amplified by the black and white but at the same time you can imagine this show in color the way the bands are laid out and the way the camera moves well it was it was it was done in color yeah yeah yeah but we've only got we've only got this yeah yeah as the intro kicks in we are assailed by close-up fast cuts of musical instruments being hit or pushed or blown into an extreme close-up, interspersed with groovy neon numbers counting down from 20 to 1,

and then shots of a record being pressed, finishing with the show logo as an RP voice proclaims, yes, it's number one, it's Top of the Pops. This is the first time we've come across this theme and opening credits, isn't it, chaps? Very 1965, isn't it? Yeah. Already feels dated. Yeah, just as the changes in popular culture and society

have yet to percolate through to commercial pop. Yeah. Yeah, the changes in graphic design technology have yet to percolate through to commercial pop. Yeah. Yeah, the changes in graphic design technology have yet to percolate through to Top of the Pops also. Yeah. And also I hate the old Top of the Pops where it says it's number one, it's Top of the Pops. Because I had that Kinks album

with the song Top of the Pops on it for years before I ever saw this. And they do a, it's not even a piss take, they just say it at the start of that. They go, it's number one, it's top of the pops. So I can't hear it without expecting to hear Dave Davis's guitar clanging in immediately. So just, it throws me off.

It's almost like a wrong nostalgic idea of what swinging TV would have been like in the 60s. And they've got the date a bit wrong. And, you know, sort of got the period detail a bit wrong. Yeah, when they do documentaries about the Beatles and it's shown you John Lennon's wedding and they've got that stock music playing over it. Yes.

Yeah. But, yeah, so it's... But, no, this is... That actually was it. That's the terrible truth. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so it's, but no, this is, that actually was it. That's the terrible truth. Yeah. But even in contrast to the 1970 episode that me and Taylor did, this show's got a long way to go before it,

before it hits its kind of stylistic high points in a few years, it's still got a long way to go. And it's not even as developed as that 1970 show was. We're pitched disconcertingly into a wide shot of the studio and the kids failing to dance properly to this week's number one. Fucking hell. Spoiler alert.

Yeah. Yeah. Shocking. How could you dance to that anyway? Then we have the top 20 rundown that's thrown at us from the big screen at the back of the studio. And Taylor, it's another chance to see

the contents of Jeffrey Dahmer's fridge, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. This time on a white background, which makes them stand out a little bit more. It's true. It's weird, though. It's a pretty good chart until you get to the top 10, which is all middle-of-the-road solo singers.

Yes. Very peculiar makeup of the charts at the time. And strange rundown photos in as much as... You know that ageing app everyone was using to age their face? It's like... It's a racist ageing app that's been applied here because it seems that only the white stars look absolutely... Some of them look...

Like, Sandy Shaw doesn't look like that in 1969, surely. Whereas Marvin Gaye looks smooth as an eel and beautiful. so yeah there's not there's no disparity there unbelievably as recently as a year ago they were actually doing this but counting up so it would go from number one to number 20 that's just that's perverse yeah i mean we were talking about in the 81 episode that changing the rundown from being at the beginning to being during the show built the tension, built everything. Any possible tension is dissipated in the first 20 seconds of this show as to the actual contents of the charts and what, you know. So that definitely needed a major rethink.

It culminates in a massive number one next to the head of Peter Sarstedt. There's a pan back and a sweep across the kids who are still trying to dance to a waltz time melody by listlessly swaying about and in one case jogging on the spot. And we're finally introduced to the host, Alan Freeman. Born in Melbourne in 1927, Alan Freeman abandoned his childhood dream of becoming an opera singer and worked as an assistant paymaster for a timber company after leaving school. In 1952, he auditioned as an announcer for the Tasmanian radio station 7LA and got a job as a continuity announcer, newsreader, voiceover artist for assorted adverts, quiz master and DJ.

After moving back to his birthplace to work for 3KZ Melbourne, he took a nine-month break to travel around the world. But when he arrived in London, he decided to stay on this side of the equator. In 1958, he started working as a fill-in DJ at Radio Luxembourg, picking up the nickname Fluff in tribute to the manky jumper he practically lived in at the time. In 1960, he was poached by the BBC and worked on the Light programme as the presenter of Records Around Five, which saw the introduction of his theme tune at the sign of the swinging cymbal. A year later, he took over from David Jacobs as the host of Pick of the Pops, the original BBC radio chart show, which at the time was a segment in the jazz show Trad Tavern. But a year later, it was spun off into its own two-hour show.

However, Freeman's non-BBC accent and full-on delivery grated with a sizable chunk of the listenership, and in 1962, he was replaced by Jacobs for two years. After recording a flop cover version of Madison Time Freeman moved into television presenting the quiz show Play Your Hunch for the BBC, the pop show Spin Along and Thank Your Lucky Stars for ITV and the interview show Here Come The Girls also for ITV, and the interview show Here Come the Girls, also for ITV. In 1964, Freeman restored his grip on the charts as he returned to the presenting chair at Pick of the Pops and became one quarter of the rotating cast of presenters for the new BBC One show Top of the Pops,

along with David Jacobs, Pete Murray and Jimmy Savile. along with David Jacobs, Pete Moray and Jimmy Savile. Not only that, but he became a regular panellist on Jukebox Jory and the face of Omo. For the rest of the 60s, Freeman divided his time between working for Luxembourg on weekdays and the BBC on Sundays and was one of the original 29 DJs at the launch of Radio 1. Coming back in 1968 to present All Systems Freeman, a Friday evening prototype pop video show

where Freeman operated a complicated control panel like Ali Bongo to bring up clips of Herman's Hermits, which was scrapped by the BBC halfway through its run due to low viewing figures. At this point, he's holding down the midnight slot of Radio Luxembourg between Paul Burnett and Kid Jensen and still presenting pick of the pops

and he's very much a regular fixture on top of the pops. He's also earning over twice as much as the Prime Minister. Not off. Etc. Etc. It's fair to say chaps at this point Alan Freeman's pretty much up there with Savile

as the most prominent DJ in Great Britain don't you think yeah but so so much more likeable oh hell yeah the odd thing was anyone who's obviously got a 50 year radio career we all come to him at different times in my life,

in our lives, I guess, you know, so we've all got different memories for me. When Pick of the Pops became a retro show, you know, picking a couple of years of the charts, he was fantastic on that when he,

when he did that show and the way he talked about pop, he has that thing that a lot of that original rotating team uh of top of the pops had that that sort of insane dizzying knowledge of the charts a bit like tony black you know he knows the movers and the uppers and the downers and and you can't really tell if his links are scripted or just what he would have done on the radio yeah um there's there's still that sense here that essentially what you're getting is a radio show televised but for me personally my experience with with fluff is is when he took over the rock show the friday night rock show from tommy vance and also the saturday rock show as well um the way he presented that it was just

he was great and and he just played these 13 minute prog songs and really enjoy himself um i mean just his intros were to those shows were nuts because he'd cut up classical stuff and sound effects and acdc and and all this stuff um because essentially he understood his audience the crucial thing about metal fans at any given period um even though metal is quite a derided musical form metal fans balance that by being colossally snobbish about their own musical taste, you know. You know, it's that old, to play an instrument that fast thing. You know, actually, this music is...

That's cold thrash. That actually metal is, you know, perhaps the closest music to classical, in a sense, in a lot of metal music fans' heads. So the way he used to speak to the audience was fantastic that that way he used to start the show with greetings music lovers as opposed to you know pop pickers and he fostered that sense of metal community with those shows i was listening to one the other day and he starts it off he goes um we who once were two hours are now forever more three hours long.

Hallelujah suddenly comes on. So crucially, whenever he was on, for me, Pick of the Pops or anything, he's just likeable, really likeable, self-deprecatory, assured and reassuring. And I think it's probably easy to forget what a pioneer he was. I suspect other people were perhaps trying the same thing. But, you know, think about all the DJs that came in his wake who basically totally copped his style and had a little bit of his style in there. Perhaps the first DJ on British radio, perhaps,

to do things like talk over intros, you know, and put one record next to each other. The granddaddy of them all, both good and bad. But I've always got on with Fluff. I've always really enjoyed hearing him on the radio yeah well he's one of those people who is almost a victim of their own innovation because they create a distinctive start and it ends up being so influential and so widely parodied that decades later it looks a bit silly but that's not their doing and he no he's the real thing and he's very

stiff like here he's very stiff and he's very uh stagey and it's obviously enormously dated in his style but he's so much more natural and likable than most of his successors and you do believe in him as a bloke who's there to convey information and mild enthusiasm like controlled enthusiasm yeah like he's a man doing a job which might not be terribly important but it's harder than it looks and certainly hard to do without coming across as a cunt which in fairness he doesn't um and he's you know he's got the radio voice which he thinks you need and you know there's something a bit phony about him but it doesn't matter because he's not selling himself as a as a loony or a hero or a pinup or a super personality he's just a self-created cardboard cutout that handles the transition between acts

and because he actually likes music there's a sort of sincerity underneath it which you can pick up on, you know what I mean? And you look at him, he's not yet into that later phase where they'd wheel him out in a bath chair, you know, with a tartan blanket over his knees. He's cool, he's got his middle-aged roll neck and he's got his dark hair parted above the temple. He looks like Carl Sagan, except instead of beamingaming come and get me please

into interstellar space he's just he introduces zager and evans or love sculpture uh and goes home for his tea you know yeah just before he went off to do 16 takes of him patting a pile of brentford nylons negligees thus collecting a static charge big enough to power Finland through the winter that's why he had six cans of Cossack sprayed on that comb over for the rest of his life

it's from the Nylons, if it hadn't been for that he'd have had hair like Ziggy Stardust he'd go shake his hand it'd look like the opening titles of the South Bank show that's the thing with the Brentford and Islands adverts all it makes you think of is the colossal discomfort you would have

it's all like a panoply of polycotton sheets that you know are just going to pull the fucking hairs out of your legs but I mean he's just a joyous voice to hear and you know when that generation were getting the piss ripped out

of them massively by things like Smashy and Nicey you'd still get him popping up for two seconds on the young ones you know the only one probably likely to be asked to do any of that stuff and it was always Taylor said because he

was a real music fan that's what's great about listening to the old rock show because if it was just like big big names um that'd be one thing but what's glorious about listening to especially the intros of the old rock show he'll be saying like metallica um you know and and kiss and these big bands and then he'll say and dump his rusty nuts you know which for any old these big bands. And then he'll say, and dump his rusty nuts. You know, which for any old Melody Maker reader obviously has resonances. But yeah, he was fair-minded in his rock show.

And for metal fans, you know, with not a lot of rock on the radio, obviously, apart from Tommy Vance and Alan Freeman, his show was a joy, it really was. And there is something really cool about the fact that he just liked pop music until he was about 50 and then suddenly got into metal yes really good it's like the only other person i can think of who did that was john pertwee who had no interest in popular music until he was about 50 and he got into led Zeppelin. Oh, excellent. Fucking hell.

And a welcome to this week's top DJ, Alan Freeman. Welcome to another sparkling edition of Top of the Pops. Yes, the same number one, Amen Corner, a bit unlucky, the second week at number two. I want to make it next week. Anyway, let me tell you that Darlene Ross, The Supremes and The Temptations, they've left number three, taken a bit unlucky the second week at number two i want to make it next week anyway let me tell you that uh daddy ross the supreme's and the temptations they've left number three taking a nosedive right down to number eight donald pierce creeps in at

number three we have the silver black and sandy shore and marvin gay making very determined bids this week in the top ten that could be very interesting but anyway on this very thursday night in top of the pops let's get underway with our new release spot as a matter of fact they've uh they've been on the scene quite a time, and they've had some many tremendous hits, I might add, as a matter of fact, because this one, I think, is going to follow up the other ones. It's going to be sensational. Don Juan, Top of the Pops, Dave DDozy, Vicky Mick, and Titch. Come on!

So Freeman, in a dark jacket with a light roll neck, possibly mustard, welcomes us and immediately reels off chart information before launching into the new release spot and dropping the term pop pickers not once, but twice, as he introduces Don Juan by Dave D, Doze, Beaker, Mick and Titch. Formed in Salisbury in 1961 as Dave D and the Bostons, Dave D, Ken, Kenny, Ken and Ken were a band led by a policeman called David Harmon who was at the scene of the car crash that took the life of Eddie Cochran

and salvaged, stroked, nicked Cochran's Gretsch guitar and had a bit of a strum on it at the station before it was returned to his family in America. After packing in the day jobs and taking the Hamburg route they were discovered in 1964 at Clacton Bucklins by the songwriters Ken Howard and Alan Blakely who had written Have I the Right for the Honeycombs who they were supporting that night. Howden Blakely immediately signed them up, changed their name and booked them a recording session with Joe Meek, but he made them play at half speed and lobbed coffee at them in a fit when it wasn't working out.

Although their debut single No Time got them on Ready Steady Go, it failed to chart, as did the follow-up All I Want. But the third single, You Make It Move, put them over the top, getting them to number 26 in February of 1966. The next single, Hold Tight, got to number four for two weeks in April of 1966, kicking off a run of ten chart hits on the bounce, which peaked in March of 1968 when Legend of Xanadu knocked Cinderella Rockefeller off number one and stayed there for one week until it was usurped by Lady Madonna by the Beatles. This is the follow-up to The Wreck of the Antoinette, which got to number 14 in November of 1968, and it's a new entry this week at, if the official chart website isn't fucked,

Joint 49th with Fox on the Run by Manfred Mann. Ties in the charts, that's insane. Because also in this week, White Room by Cream, Going Up the Country by Candide, and You're My Everything by Max Bygraves are all tied at joint 46. Which only highlights the lack of precision in the information gathering.

Yes. Because, of course, obviously they didn't sell precisely the same number of records. No, or there's a lot of Max Bygraves satin tour jackets being preferred at record shops so this this is shit shit shitty shit and shit isn't it oh god i mean first things first nobody likes bands with a copper in them right and you you don't have to be some sort of nutty anarchist or you know obsessively anti-police to feel uncomfortable with it

because you just know deep down that making time by the creation or Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos or Holidays in the Sun, none of these records could have been made by policemen. It's just a fundamental thing. No human being can move that far in one direction and then cut back so far in the other direction it's just not possible uh but in this case they used it uh as a selling point um because you know in in the course of his duty when he called to the scene of eddie cochran's fatal car crash. And it's like,

it's supposed to be a rock and roll claim to fame as if like, you know, his spirit might've risen from the wreckage and passed in the PC dipshit, you know, obviously didn't. Um, and it backfires because at the end of the day, you can't loosen up the way rock and roll compels you to with policemen in the room.

Even if you're not doing anything illegal. It's just an obstacle. It's like if the lead singer was the CEO of an outsourcing company or a former rector. It's not right. It's like, excuse me, sir. I have reason to believe you can shake your ass till the morning light proceeding down lonely street towards heartbreak hotel saw the accused crying in the gloom and uh when asked if he had ever been to electric ladyland the suspect became very aggressive and assaulted myself and pcl getty while hurling

himself around the cell sustaining injuries to his cheekbone and spleen yeah i hate it i can't stand fucking dave d creepy swat and cunt i can't stand them i don't like them no even when they're quite good right which they were at time yes hold tight is a great record in the way that the dave clark five tried to be and failed right it's just really brutal and moronic with no pretensions to being music at all you know and bend it is great as well because it's so shameless no i hate bend it well it's's so British and unsexy and these kind of terrible innuendos. I like it for that. It's got that

sort of Nylon Nighty feel to it. Band in America, wasn't it? It was, for the innuendo reasons. You have to ask though, really, why would a band sound like this in 1969? This could have come out in 63, 64. i mean i

kind of liked the the matador theme as it enabled me to fantasize about a kind of misguidedly literalist bbc floor manager actually getting a raging pamplona bull onto the stage and they're all getting brilliant yeah and they're all getting gored up the gusset one by one but i mean the trouble with that would be great the trouble with d That would be great. The trouble with DDBMT, as I believe the cool kids call them, there's actually three records I can't resist by them, which is a bit annoying.

Bend It, actually, purely for innuendo reasons. Zabadak, for reasons... I know it's awful, but for reasons of child-rearing and its usefulness as a tranquilizer um in my in my in my in my parental past and i love legend i can't resist legend of xanadu because because of those whip noises it always reminds me preemptively of this town ain't big

enough for the both of us actually that moment in that where it all goes off and there's all lightning strikes and stuff but this one jesus yeah It's not helped by the look of them. Oh no. I mean the singer, he's got a massive head covered in face, hasn't he? As I've said before about somebody. But the drummer, oof, he keeps giving slightly mad, randy

looks to the camera. Yeah, that's Mick isn't it? Yeah. I've tried to work out who does what. It's like being cornered by some sort of Victorian pervert. They look like the shop window of John Collier, don't they? You can just see them spending the Saturdays in the

director's box at Chelsea in matching white fur coats. Strangely featureless faces on the rest of them. That bit when the guitarist attempts a bit of humour with the castanets as well. That's Dozer. Yeah, well I mean let's rewind a little bit because I mean the song

Don Juan's about a bullfighter. So it's a big celebration of animal abuse right from the off. Yeah, it's a throwback to when TV themes and things like Hernando's Hideaway could get in the charts. Well I mean this Matador shit was quite, you know,

it was seen as quite chic in the 60s, wasn't it? Yeah, but it's laughable. It's like Carry On Abroad. It's like... Yes, the best of the Carry Ons. It is, yeah. But they're trying to cash in on this fascination for Franco's Spain amongst British proles at the time, right?

It's like you can't afford a package holiday, buy this single and you feel like you're coming back through the airport with a toy donkey and some grog in a bulb-shaped bottle covered in a fishing net with your shoulders peeling off. And also, it's like he's trying to pull the same trick on English women that actual Spaniards did at the time, which is thinking that English women are so used to being treated

like overcooked root vegetables that all you have to do is bullshit them with a bit of ole. Yes. You've got yourself a handful of creamy, untoned English goose flesh. Fucking dirty Dave D. I hate him. And I hate Dozie and Beaky and to a lesser extent, Mickey.

It's fucking ridiculous hired bullfighter outfit with his imaginary cojones. He's obviously making a come and get me plea for Leggy Mountbatten, isn't he? Yeah. For his solo career.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's like as if he'd ever have the nerve to get in the ring with one of those bastards. You know what I mean? You imagine it. It's like, yeah, he does. If only. As Neil's saying, they need an actual bull to come charging.

A horn through the bladder. That would make him go, hey. Yes. Because I hate that constant, hey! Normally, it'll improve any record if the whole band shouts hey at regular intervals. But no, it makes you wretch. They're no glitter band, you've got to say. No, certainly not.

And also, a thing that's common actually with a few of the records in this week's Top of the Pops, it goes on for too fucking long. Yes, it fucking does. It really does. You can sense the audience hoping that it's over, and yet they do another bloody ole and another hey, don't want shout,

particularly listless shouting, really. Yeah, which is a horrible record. Yes, it is. And just when you think it can't get any worse, we get the Wiltshire talkover in the middle not the ideal accent for spoken sincerity he like looks deep into the camera and he goes lord my whole life has been like a raging tyrant I was proceeding down a case here avenue when I noticed a raging torrent. I mean, I'm from the West Midlands, right?

So I'm in no position to laugh at people's accents. And yet, just as I felt entitled to laugh at Nick Kershaw from the lofty height of 5'7", for him being so short, in the same way I feel able to laugh at Dave Dirt and his bull bull murdering farmer's voice also he's got a yokel copper face right it's simultaneously he looks really thick and really arrogant and pompous which is the nightmare combination in a policeman and Alan Shearer. But it's horrible to see because rural cops with nothing to do

are always scarier than city cops because they have to make their own fun, right? And you can just see them in a panda car just slowing down next to a bunch of kids, you know, with the nerve to be out on the street at 11.50. I've been to a party, lads. When I used to live in the sticks when I was a teenager, I swear 95% of arrests were for possession

of a 16th of squidgy black or for throwing an empty beer can onto a bowling green. You know what I mean? Except for that time someone made a citizen's arrest on me. Have I ever told you about this? No. Yeah, we were really bored. We were drunk and there was a disused factory that had just been standing empty for years

and we were throwing rocks through the windows, you know, as kids do. And this bloke... The kicks. Yeah. And this bloke came out of nowhere and everybody else ran away and I thought, no, I'm not going to run away. It looks too suspicious. So I just sort of walked along. This bloke came and grabbed my arm and goes, right, I'm making a citizen's arrest.

And it was hilarious. I thought, I'm going to go along with this to see where it goes. So went back to his house and he knocked on the door and i'm not joking his wife answered the door in like a sort of fluffy pink dressing gown and short nightie and slippers with all her makeup on as though she was entertaining a gentleman caller while he was out doing his own looking a little bit yeah i'm making a citizen's arrest call the police so the police came along and while he was out doing his own looking a little bit for hello yeah i'm making a citizen's arrest call the police so the police came along and while i was waiting for them to

turn up i looked down at my hands and i had sort of bits of soil on them off the off the rocks so i brushed them off on my trousers and eventually the police turned up and you could see that they were delighted to be called out on a friday night for bloke saying, I've made a citizen's rest. He was throwing a rock at a deserted building. Okay. So they took me into the back of the police car, and the bloke came out, got his torch out, and he said, hold your hands out.

Put my hands out. He shone his torch onto the palms of my hand. They talked to each other, and they came back and said, all right, you can go. We decided that if you'd been throwing rocks, you had dirt on your hands. There you go, you see. Well done, Taylor. I fought all right, you can go. We decided that if you'd been throwing rocks, you had dirt on your hands. There you go, Steve. Well done, Taylor.

I fought the law and I won. Yes. But I'd deal with them over Dave D any day of the week because there's something disturbing ultimately about a copper trying to be glamorous or sexy or pose as good looking because it automatically has that faint whiff of fascism do you know what i mean it's like if you you know when you watch a crime film or a police procedural

you know what the agenda is going to be by who's the best looking like the villains or the cops like if the villains are better looking than the cops, it could be anything. But if the cops are good looking and cool, you know you're going to be in for some heavy authoritarian propaganda, which can be fun. I just watched the film Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man, directed by Rogero Cannibal Holocaust Diodato, which is a buddy-buddy, pretty-boy-thug-cop movie. Which is like...

It's like a proto-Professionals. It makes Professionals look like Juliet Bravo. But... And it's one of the most entertaining films I've ever seen. But you wouldn't buy an album by those guys, right? Same as you wouldn't buy an album by Dave D, Dozie, Belen, piss and shit. It's not... The lyrical content

of the song. He's Don Juan and he spends all his time killing bulls and getting his leg over. But there's one special girl that's captured his heart. And he's looking round for her as he fights the biggest bull ever. And she's with someone else.

And so he decides he decides to basically let the ball gore him to death hurrah and that's pretty much it isn't it well yeah but just one last thing it does need saying that the story that he kind of sold himself on that's been mentioned several times about him using eddie cochran's guitar that why was that considered a good thing to do i think that's grisly it's almost theft it's it's yeah it's it's a copper's move in it so the following week don juan soared 18 places to number 31 and a week later it got to number 23 its highest position the follow-up snake in the grass also got to number 23 in June of this year, but three months later, Dave Dee announced that he was leaving the band to pursue an acting career, which resulted in a part as a motorbike gang leader called Wednesday Playstar in the Marty Feldman sex comedy Every Home Should Have One. Every home should have one.

The band continued on under the name DBM&T until 1972 without having anything to do with the charts whatsoever while Dee started a solo career and got to number 42 in March of 1970 with My Woman's Man. But due to it coming out at the same time as Fontana Records moved in its distribution plant, it was impossible to find in record shops until it was too late and after giving up both singing and acting d moved into a and r for atlantic magnet and wea having a hand in the signings of acdc bony m gary newman and b Boney M, Gary Newman, and B.A. Conterson.

Indeed. But before we step away from Mr. D, I'm going to run a finger once more along the chart music bookshelf, and I'm pulling out the 1970 Fab 208 annual. There's a very poor crop of people on the cover. It says, a feast of dishy people, but I'm looking at tony blackburn morris gibb uh davy jones and uh a whole lot of kennage but there is an article an open letter to the females if you will written by dave d although the top fashion designers may decree that weird makeup,

coloured tights and baggy pants are all the rage, Dave D does not agree. The title, I love real girls. From way back when I was a kid, I remember a poem. Little bits of powder, little bits of paint, make a lady look like what she ain't. It's not from your actual Willy Shakespeare, but it's got a whole stack of basic truth to it. Now, I'm not a kid anymore, and I take what you could call a close interest in what a lady is and what she ain't. a close interest in what a lady is and what she ain't. A girl starts off with a considerable advantage in this world in that she's cuddler and warm and pretty and shapely and there

are blokes around just wanting to be nice and matey towards them. But I hope with all my heart that next year we'll see how glorious girls concentrate a bit more on what they are as opposed to what they're not girls are essentially feminine so why the deuce do they insist on trying their best to look like blokes or paint themselves up so that they'd be better suited to the life of a squaw on a red indian reservation fuck Let's dig a little deeper into this problem, which I can assure you is worrying a lot of us members of the opposite. Ahem. Sex.

Every so often, we have outbreaks of girls using weirdo eye makeup. It was terrible some years ago, but we thought it had vanished for all time. Now it's back. Great deep black indentations so that you try to look deep into a girls eyes and find difficulty in actually locating them. Fault eyelashes? Fine as long as they don't wave way out in front like the antenna of some horror movie insect. I guess I'm just a simple soul at heart. Where men have basically short hair then I reckon girls should have long hair. I have mentioned this before and got some diabolical letters from chicks who simply

had hair so fine or something that they couldn't get it down to more than half way down their shoulders. Well I've got nothing against short hair. Just expressing an opinion that long hair, hanging free and with a windblown look is my personal cuppa. But even short hair can look feminine. What can't look feminine is the close cropped look. The flat on the head sort of thing. If you don't have long hair, they

surely don't go the other way and reduce it to half an inch of crowning non-glory all over the head. Trouble is that girls seem to get carried away by massive advertising campaigns. Wear black lipstick, say the posters. Wear green lipstick. Wear, believe it or not, transfers stuck upon the forehead or the cheek. I've seen girls wearing all this stuff, and I doubt very much whether they'd even be accepted in one of those wigwam Indian reservations. Most blokes don't like plastered on makeup anyway, so you're left with the theory that the girls are actually using it

to impress other girls, which is a pretty funny state of affairs. Oh, fuck off, simpleton. It's so bizarre, this late 60s, early 70s thing, where men thought that people wanted to know, like Dave Dee thought people wanted to know what made him wank into his helmet. You know what I mean?

It's like, we all have tastes. Who cares? You can sort of understand those sort of articles in Cosmo and stuff that were like, what George Best is looking for in a lady or what T-Rex is looking for in a lady. But who gives a fuck what this... I know, but also it's because

because of his kind of naturally authoritarian nature he's not talking about what does it for him he's talking about what he thinks girls should look like which is a subtly different thing that's his opinion on hair and make up let's hear about clothes

shall we let's be mansplained to by Davey shall we in Let's be mansplained to by Davey, shall we? In the year ahead, we're threatened again with long skirts and trousers for the chicks. In fact, there's already too much of it about. We will wear the trousers, thank you very much. Please, girls, don't start hiding the old Scotch eggs. Alias legs. Oh, God.

Just because some money-grabbing designer says you should. You ask us. We'll put you right. For fuck's sake. Ah, but trouser suits are warmer than mini skirts. That's one thing I've heard. Alas and alack. Wear mini or micro skirts and you'll never be short of a fella to keep the cold out.

Wear trousers and cropped hair and you can't blame the lads if they accept you simply as one of themselves. These dual purpose clothing outfits scare the pants off me if you pardon the expression. Boys and girls wearing identical gear. UGH. Let's forget about looking for startling new fashions and styles through 1970. Let's instead get back to the natural, feminine look. I believe that every girl has something that is naturally attractive and it's up to her to decide what it is and then accentuate it but not by piling on the wall paint and hiding a natural

shape in sack like clobber that leaves everything but everything to the imagination yeah i can see how that would be a problem for dave d not possessing an imagination yes there is just one problem tights apparently you have to wear tights if you wear those adorable mini skirts but we lads are not in favor especially the ones that are like a technical a nightmare and in thick old may-maidish material. Can't somebody dream up the equivalent of the old nylons adopted to suit miniskirts? In bold, if the human race is capable of putting men on the moon,

then surely we can come up with something to go under a miniskirt. For fuck's sake, shut the fuck up, you old cunt. So, as we look ahead, the plea is this. Just be natural, girls. Just be your own charming, sweet selves. Don't hide yourself away under layers of what the so-called experts say is high fashion or wanger dang makeup.

You'll certainly oblige yours truly, Dave D. Oh, it went a bit gove there, didn't it, at the end of it? Well,

he's got that fucking thing of telling women what they should be wearing whilst also sort of tightening it up as kind of actually he's liberating them in some way, back to their true seven in cells. Yeah, don't listen to all these blokes telling you what they should be wearing whilst also sort of tightening it up as kind of actually he's liberating them in some way,

back to their true seven in cells. Yeah, don't listen to all these blokes telling you what you should wear. Listen to me telling you. Yes. I mean, you know, as the parent of my eldest daughter who's very much into her fake tan and hair extensions,

and if I really, if I wanted to really fucking wind her up, I know exactly what to say. Don't wear makeup. You look so beautiful without it. You look so natural. If you fucking say that to a woman, you're right to get a jab in the bollocks for that.

I mean, you know, and man, that is an infuriating article. I hate him even more now. Cheers, Al. That's provided much justification for my loathing of this record. Quite predictable. I mean, the only surprise

is that he didn't end that article with evening off. quite predictable I mean the only surprise is that he didn't end the article with even in all the week one one from Dave D dozy beaky Nick and teacher incidentally pop because we've had lots of letters say that we never have American artists on Top of the Pops, whether there's a chance. Well, you know, it's often pretty difficult because when their records break in America, and start to break over here too,

they're usually pretty busy working in America. We're delighted to say we've got somebody over in Top of the Pops tonight. He's been in the Top 20 very recently, and is still there at number 20 with For Once in My Life. He's got a brand new one called I Don't Know Why. Top of the Pops is delighted to say good evening to Mr. Stevie Wonder. I don't know why I love you. I don't know why I love you. I don't know why I love you.

I don't know why I love you. But I love you. Freeman talks about getting letters from the pop-craze youngsters who aren't getting enough American artists and putting on Dick fucking Emery instead. He points out that American artists are in America, but one of them is here right now in little old England, Stevie Wonder with I Don't Know Why. Born Steve and Judkins in Saginaw, Michigan in 1950, Stevie Wonder is Stevie

fucking Wonder. This single, his 20th release in the UK, is the follow-up to For Once In My Life, which got to number three for three weeks in February of this year. It's the fourth cut from the LP For Once In My Life, which was released in december of 1968 and was put out in america two months ago it's not out here just yet but as stevie's in the country and about to embark on a uk tour that will take in three london dates slough coventry birmingham wolverhampton and cardiff to name but a few but no fucking East Midlands gigs I notice. Here he is, perched at the clavinet.

Fucking hell, imagine seeing such mintness and skillness in Wolverhampton. It's not fair. I've already mentioned this in the question and answer podcast that me, you and Siri did, Neil, where we were asked for what we thought were the greatest top of the pop performances ever. I chucked this in and having reviewed it, I'm

not backing down from it. This is fucking amazing. It's great. Great song and a great grungy sound on that honoured clavinet, which immediately plugs you into that funky-ass late 60 60s early 70s sound plugs you into it's like miles davis or something do you know what i mean it's that kind of sound

and stevie stevie at this point is in the late stages of his kind of first contract with motown his childlike contract if you like so he'd continue really be to be making albums up until really music on my mind Mind in 71 or 72, making albums that were a mix of covers and standards and his own songs like this. It's so weird to think he's only 18 here. I know.

The tensions regarding his contract, you can tell are kind of, in a sense, already there. He gets to void that contract as an adult and then he gets to exert more control. And that leads to the run of amazing LPs in the 70s. But this is still a great, great record. And I can't tell what's going on here

in terms of is this the original being played through really fucked up speakers or is this the Top of the Pops Orchestra doing, I have to say, a fantastic version. It's not the original version. No. And it is being sung live. It's heavy as fuck.

And it's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, the drums are bigger, the strings are bigger. It's a really, really great performance, this. I know it seems like a little thing, but the moment he stands up, it just lifts. It just absolutely takes off, and he really starts belting it out. You know, the guy at this point,

he's a musical bomb kind of waiting to go off. Pretty soon, he's going to be making records as important in the development of electronic music as can and craft work. For now, he's just kind of waiting for that. But it does remind me that kind of, you know, we're talking the year of supergroups in a way, things like Blind Faith and stuff like that.

I wish more black collaboration had been encouraged from that period. You mentioned that Jimmy wanted Miles playing at his funeral. I wish somebody had got Stevie and Sly and Jimmy and Miles just together, just put them in a room, just dangle a mic. I don't know, get it down there. But by some distance, and no spoiler alerts or anything, but this is the most fantastic thing on this show. It's absolutely fantastic.

Yeah. I mean, the late 60s period of Stevie Wonder tends to be overlooked. It does. I can't lie. This is my favourite period of Stevie Wonder, I think. Right. Not to do the early or the mid the mid-70s stuff down because I love that too but I just love this more Funk Brothers on absolutely peak form as well on this

record but you know this version in a sense is more aggressive than the original but I really like it in its own right it's a really delicious little thing I think a week before he came to Britain he was on Hollywood Palace with Diana Ross and the Supremes. And he does another version of this song here on that. And it sounds different again. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I would love to know how much input the Top of the Pops Orchestra had.

But I get the feeling that kind of like the late 60s Top of the Pops Orchestra is going to be a bit better than the late 70s one. Yeah, their liver's still in better shape. I'm weird about Stevie Wonder, right? And I had a bit of a voyage with this clip in the week or two

that I've been watching it. I'm very selective. I'm too selective for some reason with his stuff. Obviously his best stuff is up in the stratosphere uh there's also loads of his music that doesn't really grab me and i'm not sure why and then in the middle is stuff like this where this was my original uh impression of this where i'd hear i think well

this is obviously great but i sort of admire it more than i'm enjoying it and i don't know why and it sounds phenomenal coming after dave d dozer oh my god yeah fuck up cuspid devil and grub but but it's this was only a minor hit and it sort of sounds like it um and i was listening to it thinking this is good music but i can't do that much with it i can't imagine paying for it it's sort of great in a in a very passive way and i knew the record but only vaguely so it was like a pure experience just this top of the pops clip uh and then the last time i watched it i was just in the mood and i was able to hear all the bits and feel how they fit together. And as soon as that happened, it all came streaming through. And yeah, suddenly, you know, I was frozen to the spot by especially by the singing.

Yes. And the very natural and remorseless procession of the song and the steady build. And I could hear it also maybe like rod stewart this record is a grower not a shower um but that still means it's a poor choice as a single yeah i mean it hasn't it hasn't got a chorus has it it's basically it rotates the chords over and over and over again and the voice is the only thing providing drama in a sense in that it lifts certain sections it had it is an odd choice as a single it's a perfect album track but it is an odd choice as a single yeah and also like Neil was saying the muddiness of the audio on this file is quite weird um and it's often the case with

lushly arranged records or performances uh crammed into tv's very narrow dynamic range, to the point where the last minute of this sounds a bit like the inside of your head when you're drowning. It's like this music has got too big for an old TV or a dance set, and it's already in the 70s, just waiting, drumming its fingers. The arrangement's extremely Elvis in Vegas, isn't it? Yeah, I guess it is. And Tom Jones, just big fucking orchestral punch in the valley. So I wonder if perhaps the problem I was having here

is that Stevie is already an albums act, but such a thing has only just begun to exist. I mean, obviously he would still come up with loads of great hits but generally the musical concerns of a lot of his songs are no longer the concerns of a pop single and i think this is yeah yeah yeah it's great music it's just not topped and tailed in the way you would uh to make a really memorable single. He's still suffering. I mean, he's still got the very gaudy constrictions on kind of what he can sing about

and what he can write about to a certain extent. And obviously, in 1969, if you're a young black man in America, you're going to want to write about something more than love. But he's not yet allowed to do that. So he's just on the cusp. But my God, he doesn't need to do anything with his voice because his voice is there and and he's just purely waiting for the technology to come along to fully flesh out the visions that he has for black pop um yeah but yeah i mean like you

say taylor taken after dave d dozy cunt Twatto, it's just a different world. You just want it to be like Wizard of Oz and suddenly burst into colour. After them twats. Like bad puss. I mean, you do get this a lot with juxtaposition of particularly British records followed up by particularly American soul records. Yeah, you do get that effect.

We've seen it quite a lot in the past, but probably never quite as dramatically as this. No. Stevie Wonder does not have to keep shouting, hey, to liven this record up. No, or wave a cape about. I mean, I'm all for gimmicks, but, you know. There's two heart-in-the-mouth moments.

Number one, when he's singing live. And you can tell he's singing live because he tries to pull the microphone out of the stand and hits himself in the teeth with it, and you can hear it. But he just carries on. Yeah, yeah. And when he gets up and stands in front of the clavinet. I mean, we've seen Billy Preston do it, doing a chicken dance in 1971 in front of the camera. You know, wasn't that impressed by it.

But this is like, oh, fucking hell, please don't fall off the stage. Please do not fall off the stage, Steve-o. Yeah, but he's standing up to testify and it gives his voice an extra push. It's just fantastic. Yeah, and it's such a small movement. You know, it's all greatly stood up the drama of it is vastly greater

than anything. A little bit more impressive than when Westlife does it shall we say but the greatness of this, I mean I'm not entirely sure if the audience are cognisant of what's going on. Oh they're not they're fucking ignorant cunts this Top of the Pops audience is very ready steady go isn't it what's going on they're not they're fucking ignorant cunts this top of the pops audience is is it's it's very it's very ready steady go isn't it they're more interested in

looking like they're making the scene yeah yeah the parlance of the day and they basically spend the time either dancing with each other or rabbiting on and looking at the camera yeah but i mean i don't mind the rabbiting on and looking at the camera i quite like that but but yeah i sort of think with these late 60s early 70s top of the pops's i do sort of question where they get these people from um that you know a lot of them you know especially the girls doing a sort of professional go-go type moves yeah you just wonder whether these are sort of prototype zoo wankers in a sense you know i mean well exactly yes elsewhere so yeah their response isn't isn't what this song this song and this performance deserves it is it is by miles like the high point of this show there's also a lot of what looks like old mods in the audience as well

yes 1969 it's like it's not very modernist is it you? No. The same way that you see, there's that famous clip of the, what's it called, the 14-hour Technicolor Dream at Alley Pally. Yes. The hippies swanning about in caftans. There's a bloke there going, I came down here to have a good time and I haven't.

And it's like, he's got like a black suit on and a white shirt and a thin black tie. And it's like, he thinks it's 1962. That's what these people look like here. You know, guys in like wraparound sunglasses with a V neck and, and it's like, yeah,

you would have looked great five years ago, but yeah. It's like only two years previously, our world. Have you ever seen that in full? You know, the there's around the world satellite show with all you need is love on it. As much as I could take. Yeah. Because you ever seen that in full? You know, the round-the-world satellite show with All You Need Is Love on it. Yeah, I watched as much as I could take.

Yeah, because everybody forgets about the other British contribution to that, which was a kind of a barn dance up in Scotland. And they're waiting for the fucking 60s to begin, never mind anything else. But yes, this is fucking mint and skill well done steve so three weeks later i don't know why entered the chart at number 47 and by the end of april it got to its highest position number 14 however when the song started to slide down the chart tony blackburn picked up on the b side and played it on his radio 1 Breakfast show, a song that was recorded in 1967, leading to Motown switching the sides over and putting it out again.

And this time, My Sharia Moore spent three weeks at number four in August of this year. They also repeated the trick in America, where it also got to number four in July. And he finished off the 60s by taking yes to me, yes to you, yesterday to number two in December of this year held off number one by sugar sugar by the arches

fucking hell sitting on my sharia mall for two years man that's insane as you can see in the charts of 1962 people are not willing to let go of that mid-60s soul. Yeah, there's people even now. Yes. Yeah, me included.

Yeah, but the thing is, I mean, when I read sort of contemporary reviews in the late 60s into some of the records that I'm sure all of us here love the most, in a sense, you know, when Isaac Hayes started stretching out and doing 20-minute songs and stuff like that, what you actually get from an awful lot of the kind of the white mainstream press, in a sense you know when isaac hayes started stretching out and doing 20 minute songs and stuff like that what you actually get from an awful lot of the kind of the white mainstream press in a sense is that oh they've forgotten what they're all about you know they've forgotten that they've forgotten their roots they've forgotten that you know the stack sound sound

should be like this and it should basically sound like it's been recorded in a tin shack or something and all the songs should be two minutes long there's a real resistance to black pop stretching itself out in that way and this sense of sorry to use a horribly contemporary phrase but this sense of white people curating black music and deciding what it should be doing or how it should be adhering

closer to its roots and I'm guessing Stevie suffered from a bit of that as well Oh no! Yeah! Yeah! Anyway, right now, let's go on to our tip for the top. Oh, before we have our tip for the top, for the Cliff Richard fans, good news. In at number 16 this week with good times. They look like being better times, too. Anyway, back to our tip for the top in Top of the Pops tonight. The group we've had here before with many smash hits. As a matter of fact, the song is just a little down-tempo this time, but the feel's the same. It's called One Road, and it's Top of the Pops with the Love Affair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. like you. Freeman hopes that Stevie Wonder has another smash with that single and that he'll be back on top of the pops very soon. And nearly five years later, he was with Living For The City. Then he introduces the tip for the top section, but before that, he mentions some good news for Cliff Richard fans. Hasn't been arrested yet. And finally he introduces One Road by The Love Affair.

Formed in London in 1966 from an advert in Melody Maker, Love Affair consisted of Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken and Steve Ellis, the lead singer. They were signed to Decca and taken under the wing of the producer Mike Smith who had worked with Billy Fury on Halfway to Paradise for Decca in 1961 but was best known in the early 60s as the producer of the Beatles Decca audition and turning them down for Brian Poole and the Tremolos who he took to number one with Do You Love Me in 1963. Their first single, She Smiled Sweetly, written by Jagger and Richards, flopped in early 1967, but when they switched to CBS, they latched onto an American single by Robert Knight called Everlasting Love. And in the same week that they were arrested and fined £7

each for climbing on the Eros statue in a publicity stunt, it knocked The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde, another Smith production, off number one in February of 1968, staying there for two weeks before being usurped by the mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann. However, when the band appeared on Good Evening, the ITV Saturday tea time show hosted by Jonathan King, appeared on Good Evening, the ITV Saturday tea time show hosted by Jonathan King, it came out that Everlasting Love was put together by Gasp Session Musicians, with only Ellis having a hand in the finished product, which landed the band with a teeny bopper tag they couldn't shake off.

Although it didn't stop them getting to number 5 with Rainbow Valet, and number 6 with A Day Without Love in that year. number five with Rainbow Valet and number six with A Day Without Love in that year although the LP The Everlasting Law Affair failed to chart in the UK. This is their first release of 1969 the follow up to A Day Without Love. This is the first radio ad you can smell the new Cinnabon pull apart only at Wendy's it's oo, gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.

And this week it soared 19 places from number 40 to number 21. Well, here's some more late 60s chaff for you kids. There's a really unnerving opening shot of the bloke on guitar who looks like Bertram Muffet out of Carry On Loving.

Yes. And he stares into the camera like he's really nervous and terrified, then suddenly breaks into an easy smile and a wink. Yes. And it's odd because he's not doing it as a bit. It's a genuine change of expression. And it makes his charm seem really false and stately.

Yes. And it adds to the not quite right feel of everything to do with this clip and this record. Yes. But they can't possibly have thought this was going to follow everlasting love right they must have known that they were on the way down because what is this it's nothing really and there's something really bleak about seeing a group like this halfway down the pipe because yeah they've made the deal where without hits they have no reason to exist yes you know because

they're a band they're a professional group and you just think of all that time spent learning the guitar fingertips bleeding and all those terrible gigs for unappreciative animals you know getting ripped off by the promoter and his

bent faced goons and driving back from Gloucester in the sleet, you know, all for a couple of months in the sun that you can't even enjoy because you're being driven so hard while it lasts. You're always on the ferry from Harwich to do TV work in the Benelux countries, you know, and having your telecaster stolen while you're pissing against a wall, and it's like

you're sleeping on an amp in the van with the drummer's feet in your face, you know what I mean? And wondering why you're still on a quid a week, and it's just, oh, have a handful of dexedrine and fuck off, you know, they won't even let you into Sibilla's, because your last

record's stiffed at number 38 and they're all so young and finished before they started just a taste of heaven and banished from the citadel you know because people couldn't handle the fact that on their first record it's not

I think it's them playing on this record yes it's just their first record because they were a new group in the studio. So, oh, we'll get Session Men to do it. Well, the second record. I'll admit it. Second record, I beg your pardon. So it's them playing on this record.

It's just, you know, they were a new group. They hadn't got used to the studio yet, so they put Session Men on it. Okay, well, but this is before it was widely known, for instance, that the Wrecking Crew were the real band on practically every great white American single of the 60s, right? Including stuff like Mr. Tambourine Man. But it was after the decision had been made

that every credible group had to be fully self-sufficient or else their immortal soul was compromised. But it's the love affair. Who gives a fuck who played the bass? Nobody. Nobody cares. Jonathan King's a wanker for bringing that up completely.

And Everlasting Love's just an immortal banger. It's a great tune. It's a great record Everlasting Love. There's things to like about the Love Affair they look I think they look really good they're photogenic

teenage boys and I like the back story as well about them you know the drummer's dad was a handbag magnet wasn't he

and he let them rehearse in a disused warehouse and sent 200 quid to Radio Caroline to get Everlasting Love the radio play

that perhaps turned it into a hit they are kind of forgotten about now get Everlasting Love, the radio play that perhaps turned it into a hit. They are kind of forgotten about now, but Everlasting Love. Everlasting Love you don't forget. I mean, it's up there. It's a sound alike, really,

with Young Girl and Willpower and Love Goes Where Our Rosemary Goes. It's that kind of white boy soul thing. And it's a shame that when they went from being soul survivors, as they were called, to becoming Love Affair uh there was talk amongst their management of calling them the thin red line um oh yeah with the idea being to have a painted line down the middle of their heads that went down in that went down into their suits and trousers uh which is quite a radical idea i've read an interview where one of the love affairs

say yeah it was like clockwork Orange or something, you know, but they refused to do that. And they all say... Dave Dee should have done that with a blue line. Yeah, we've cut here. I like the fact that they did She Smiles Sweetly, which is a great Stone song. And I think they did an early Bowie song as well

in the same session. Cobbled Streets and Baggy Trousers. And the whole eros story is good but fuck me all of that's good but this song it's just dreary as fuck nice camera moves through the crowds but when you've got lyrics like i don't want you to be confused or demoralized or to be abused it's not a laugh a minute it's um it's it's just dreary and yeah It can't be over soon enough, really. Well, it's the drift towards adult-orientated rock, isn't it? That's already begun. Yeah, and they're one of those bands that I've mentioned before

who appeared in the charts to fill the gap left by groups going progressive and album-orientated. groups going progressive and album orienting but they seem to have suffered for it far worse than most I think because they're so clearly neither one thing nor the other

but they're obviously not just pretty boys put together to be a pop act you can tell they got started playing soul and R&B and stuff so it's almost like the purists got a whiff of that and mixing that with middle of the road strings and stuff they think oh no that's an insult to the purity of the source you know it's like what Neil was talking

that terrible sort of lofty white snob approach to black music or to to to black styles of music even when played by white bands and it goes right back to um alan lomax you know what i mean where the appreciation it is more ethnological than musical um and it has no understanding of the actual attitude of most of those musicians to commercialism and to assimilation of other styles um which was always really different from their white champions you know because they wanted to make music uh and they'd be growing up around white musicians like sort of you know on the circuit where they were playing and there was a lot more crossover than people ever thought

and they didn't think of themselves as exhibits or carriers of somebody else's flag you know and there's like traces of that go all the way down to love effects oh well the guy's got a sort of an R&B voice

but they're doing this kind of ballad and it's like oh that's that's you know you might as well might as well go go out to the cotton fields and spit in everyone's face individually you know what i mean so they really suffer from being neither one thing nor the other um if everlasting love had been by a solo singer, I think there'd have been more room to manoeuvre because if you're a solo singer, you travel light and you can always change. And cabaret gigs don't feel like defeat, if you have to do that for a few years. But this group are dragging each other around

and pushing a 20-piece orchestra in a wheelbarrow. There's nowhere they can go. They sound like they want to become the faces but unfortunately for them a better group got there first and they lost that split second of opportunity and forever more

were stuck down here. It's a shame they weren't encouraged to actually never mind getting the pop hits in a sense somebody just recorded them not not live but captured something of what they were doing live because by all accounts live they were kind of white hot james brown style show almost playing you know on record and it would have been great to have to have heard that i mean speaking of uh you know the mods in the audience and stuff they this band the love affair they do look very small faces,

but without the kind of... I love their suits. I love everything they're wearing, actually, but they haven't got that kind of gutter-snipe, high-cock-a-lorum-ness that Marriott had. So they look great, but this song is instantly forgettable. Yeah, I mean, I don't like the attitude that did for The Love Affair, but what I sort of object to a bit

is that you listen to stuff from around the same time, like Story by Honeybuss, and it's just the same thing as this, but it's much better and sharper and less sludgy and more interesting, and no one gives a shit. I mean, this isn't even really a good example of this kind of 60s anthemic pop with strings. There was a lot of it about,

and a lot of it was better than this. So, yeah, this just feels like an illustration of the directionlessness of a lot of chart pop at the time. I mean, Steve Ellis, he looks ahead of his time, doesn't he here? Very much so. Yeah, he looks very Steve Harley, doesn't he? He does, he really, really does. Sookie 1975.

Well, he's got tight trousers, a low-cut top with a crucifix, and a white swallowtail dinner jacket. Yes. And I don't know about this. He looks like if Roger Daltrey had been rushed on stage before he'd finished changing from his day job at the Savoy. But then you look from the neck up at his face and he looks like a runaway from the Annasher Theatre School.

Yes. You know what I mean born too soon for scum and it's as a pop idol it's like he's constantly trying to deny what his face makes all too clear which is how ordinary he is

it's just the bits just don't go together and that's the tragedy of the love affair. Yeah. I mean, the other tragedy is that they were being pushed hard as dishy hunks. Yeah. In the Fab 208 annual here, there's a two-page spread. Wanted, dead or alive, the love affair gang.

So they've got posters. And Steve Ellis, accused of making people happy Mick Jackson accused of dazzling people with his clothes Rex Brayley the bloke who does the nervous winky thing at the beginning is accused

of stealing young girls hearts Mo Bacon is accused of turning girls head over heels wait a minute mo bacon mo bacon yeah yes yeah and morgan fisher is accused of arson no he's not he's playing with girls emotions dubious though much of that copy is at least none of it contains the word iconic yes yes yeah i tell you what i've got a another old copy of melody maker where steve ellis reviews the single oh does he now yeah it's this is a copy of melody maker with the front page headline erotic record show which is a reference of course to Je T'aime Moi Non Loup

but it also reminds me of my own fruitless entreaty to Norris McWhirter the prudish Nazi bastard but Steve does singles reviews and the intro to the singles column says as a sharp

witted cheery ex brush head he typifies the baloney free Colum says, as a sharp-witted, cheery ex-brush head, he typifies the baloney-free, hard-working attitude of today's straight commercial pop artists. Well, he may be baloney-free, but he's everything else free as well, unfortunately, because he doesn't really say anything very interesting, except that he has a go at John Peel. Does he now?

Yeah, he says, I don't like John Pe john peel he sets himself up as the big i am because of course when you think of john peel the first thing you think of is the guy who sets himself up as the big i am yeah he goes around saying us and groups like amen corner are a load of blank and just teeny bopper crap he may not actually say that but that's his attitude well i've got no time for him so the following week one road nudged up three places to number 18 and the week after that it got to number 16 its highest position the follow-up bring on back the good times went all the way to number nine in August of this year, but when their next single, Baby I Know, failed to chart, Steve Ellis walked out on the band and signed a reputed solo deal for £100,000 with CBS. While Ellis was recording

the soundtrack for the Joe Orton film film Loot but scoring no chart hits whatsoever Love Affair rebranded as LA and they struggled on until they split up in 1971 that was quite the thing for bands wasn't it at the turn of the 60s kind of like getting shit but just initialising themselves themselves. Yeah. One Road, One Road is the Nazis.

One Road, One Road is the Nazis. That's our tip for the top this week in Top of the Pops, One Road from the Love Affair. It's a record that sort of really gets into the system after a while too. I think it's going to be a big smash hit for them. Anyway, right now in Top of the Pops, let's go on to a very, very special song indeed because we think that it could be one of the big smash hits of 1969, particularly in Europe. That's right, we are talking about the British entry for the 1969 Eurovision Song Contest. Boom, bang, a bang, Top of of the pops and lulu

the beat of my heart is on mission Most of the quick isn't. Come closer and love me tonight. That's right. Freeman predicts that One Road is bound for the top 20 and it's a grower, not a shower. He then pivots towards a song that he feels could be one of the biggest sellers of the year. Boom Banga Bang by Lulu. We've already discussed Mary Laurie in Chart Music number 38

and here she is performing this year's UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest which is taking place in Madrid after Cliff Richard was absolutely shit on by ignorant foreigners last year I thought he'd have enjoyed that No I was thinking he's that same thing It was picked up by the viewers of a saturday night bbc one show happening for lulu which also featured the johnny harris orchestra

and pans people who at this point were occasional performers on top of the pop's own layer and wouldn't be a permanent fixture until 1970 sorry dads they're not on this episode. With one song performed per week culminating in a song for Europe type show. This tune, written by Alan Morehouse, who had written the World Cup march for the Joe Loss Orchestra in 1966, and Peter Warne, who wrote Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me for Shirley Bassett, beat out entries by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and is Lulu's follow-up to I'm a Tiger, which got to number nine for two weeks in December of 1968.

It'll be available in your local record emporium tomorrow, and here she is plugging the single, her BBC show and the Eurovision Song Contest which will be broadcast on BBC One in three weeks time. Oh Eurovision, a chance to have a chit chat about that, lovely. You may notice we're not really discussing Freeman's

presenting skills much and that's testament to how good they are. Exactly, yeah. Apart from he has the same failing as every radio one dj which is when he says a record i think that's going to go on to be a big smash hit it never does yes kiss of death isn't it you're all the time it's that's gonna definitely go to number one and it's just you know dewey defeats truman every time right at the beginning we always talk about the camera crew barging in

and the opening shot of this is fucking amazing, isn't it? The camera just barges its way to the front and the kids are reacting like that. My second Ruckels reference, when Ron DeKline marches into the office with his henchmen. That's what the kids look like. Just absolute terror. It's like they've mounted the camera on a Sherman tank.

It just rolls straight, just scattering dolly birds left and right. Yeah. The only sadness is that it doesn't keep on going right over the moon. Everybody's got the clap and decades of infuriatingly bubbly mumsiness. It's weird because on the previous song there's nice gliding

almost steady cam moves through the clouds but this is during the Love Affair song it's just The camera work's been brilliant so far there was that shot in cunt cunt cunty cunty cunt cunt where the shot's gone right

up the neck of the bass at Dave D and it looks beautiful man there's so much thought and care and attention where the shot's gone right up the neck of the bass. Yeah, yeah. At Dave Dean. It looks beautiful, man. There's so much thought and care and attention gone into this. But at this, they clearly just gave the camera to some hooligan. This is a time when Eurovision was taken very seriously in the UK, wasn't it? And there's been a lot of mithering in the papers that this song's actually a poor representation of

British musical talent. Bill Martin, for example, who wrote Puppet on a String, was moaning in this week's Melody Maker that the song, quote, doesn't give Lulu the chance to show off her bubbling personality. That's a shame. Yeah, he also pointed out that the Music Publishers

Association, who decided upon the songs for this year's Song for Europe turned down Good Times which Cliff Richard has recorded and has already jumped up 20 places to number 16 the next Tremolo single Hello World which will get to number 14 at the end of next month and

My Sentimental Friends which will be picked up by Herman's Hermits and is going to get to number 2 for two weeks in May. So, you know, people are taking this shit seriously. Yeah, but there was something exquisitely contemptuous about the way Britain treated Eurovision in those days. It's like, OK, we're one of the two elite pop-producing nations in the world,

but we'll join in this bit of fun. We'll join in this lark with all of you weird countries of shepherds and reindeer eaters. Obviously we'll have to drop our standards a bit just to make it a contest. And they get really angry when we don't win every year.

Yeah, but it's, you know, but we've given them a trite bit of shit somebody wrote in ten minutes, you know, which no one would ever have had the nerve to put out as a single on any other day but the attitude is like well this is what you foreigners like right it's called bing bong biddle bong and it swings like a hammock and there's your there's your song for europe your-crunching continental monkeys. Enjoy. Because at this point, a lot of British people were... It was popular with the viewers, because at this point, a lot of British people

were peering into the monochrome murk. And it might as well have been the moon landing. You know what I mean? These brown-eyed gentlemen in frilly shirts with bazookas were like representatives of an alien civilisation about which we knew nothing, you know. And there's always the possibility they might have ray guns. But from the point of view of the music business,

it was like, yeah, you know, we've got to make this shit because it's for Eurovision. I mean, we sneer quite rightly at our continental chums for introducing Euro-ees into song titles for Eurovision Song Contest but this clearly shows that we're just as much to blame. I mean this didn't start

until about a year previously when Holland did Ring Ding a Ding and Monaco did Boom Bada Boom. That was in 1967 and of course last year Spain worked in 138 Lars in their song

La La La but you know we're as guilty as everyone else with this completely I mean and also the success of this in Britain I mean it proves that yeah we had a healthy taste for this kind of shite as well if you listen to lulu's like other records safe and round about now in a few months she's going to release oh me oh

my which is a debut single for atlantic i'm never going to make a real case for lulu but that's produced by tom dad and jerry wexler and it's got strings by arithman and you can imagine what that sounds like it's not a bad record and in america that was her biggest hit since to serve with love in 67 but over here yeah didn't even get in the top 50 because what we wanted from lulu was was shite like this you know a record that she herself hated and i think probably continues to despise and probably didn't have many complaints about you know heard it through the grapevine keeping it at number number two i mean, even to Sir With Love itself, one of the biggest selling singles in the US in 67,

that wasn't deemed worthy of being an A-side over here. It was B-side status in England. So I think we wanted Lulu to sing squawky shit like this. It's Brit schlager, isn't it? It's schlong life, if you will. Brood for the can. You can't really love any song in which the orchestral flourishes are what you'd hear in a black and white comedy when someone sits in a water barrel

and trips over their own trousers. These are not swinging sounds. But it sort of won. It came joint first in Eurovision. And partly because this is back when other countries in Europe would vote for Britain, because it made them think of the Beatles and Bobby Moore putting his coat down in front of the Queen

so he could walk through a puddle. And also, you know, that war. You know that time when you could go round Greece with a Union jackpatch on your backpack and you wouldn't get murdered. People would come up and clap you on the shoulders. You talk about this Euro-ese, but I think part

of the reason why this is called Boom Bang a Bang, it's not just to cross language barriers, it's to say subliminally remember us. Perhaps this chorus will jog your memory. You know one minute you had a swastika flying from your town hall, and then all of a sudden there was no town hall.

Well, yep, here we are. This was before the days when just the words Great Britain sounded like a piece of garden furniture crashing through a cafe bar window. We still had that goodwill from the Second World War before we pissed it all away, largely by never shutting up about it. Yes. This is Carnaby Street on par par, isn't it?

Oh, God. Yeah, absolutely. Let's not forget that it was the people who selected this. And, you know, as we've learned, never let British people vote upon things to do with Europe. No, quite, quite. From this point, it looks like an astute move, because it is.

It's very much aimed at middle Europa, isn't it? Same people who would eventually, presumably, buy Live Is Life by Opus. It's got that Ballad of Harfield. Basically, a song that appeals to both children and grown-ups whose minds are going and who are returning to a childish state. So, yeah, I mean, i have a lot of problems with lulu in a in terms of her as a personality but i always

have a residual sympathy for her because of the appalling way that um davy jones and the monkeys treated her um so i i you know i was going to detail on that one n Neil, I didn't know this. Well, no, you know, it was much rumoured that she was a girlfriend to Davy Jones, but she soon discovered the truth, that he had a long term, that he had been playing her along basically, and he had a

long time girlfriend, Linda Haynes, who Lulu found out later was pregnant with his child, and who later became the first of Jones' three wives. But years later, Jones wrote about the time that he spent with Lulu in his autobiography. And he said, In show business or any other business that exposes you to the media,

when you are seen out with a member of the opposite sex, the press assumes that the next step is marriage. Ridiculous, really. I couldn't have. My girlfriend would have punched me out. Checking back, I was reading, as you do, a July 1968 issue of Monkey

Spectacular magazine where Lulu gets a three page feature talking about Davy Jones and Davy Jones as I know him, the adorable Davy Jones as I know him, with lovely little subheadings like, meet Davy's sisters, Davy was and Davy Jones as I know him. The adorable Davy Jones as I know him. With lovely little subheadings like Meet Davy's Sisters. Davy was considerate.

Davy to the rescue. Saw Davy at Christmas. It's a nuts thing. But yeah, I think she was treated a bit shoddily by Davy. So I've got a little bit of sympathy for her still. Yeah, his only true love is in the stable. That's true. I mean, once again, the kids,

both the actual kids and the dollies, they're having a job cutting an acceptable length of rug to this one, aren't they? But they're having a go, which is nice. There's one girl in the miniskirt and the short curly hair who's giving it lots of arm-related flourishes and shaking her

head a lot do you see her but but the arm related flourishes i mean that's all you can fucking do to this record even lulu can do nothing but swing her arms in a kind of orangutanish way yeah as if she's got a massive beer stein in her hand it music and movement. It's music and movement music. It's not danceable music unfortunately. I can't lie. I don't mind this. Compared to your 2D Stain Free. I don't mind this at all because it's a fucking Eurovision song.

It does what it says on the tin. It gets the Germans swaying about. It's shaking puppet on a string, isn't it? Yeah. Just a bit slower. And a bit worse.

But no, but instantly recognisable. You feel you know it the first time you've heard it. Makes it the perfect Eurovision entrant, I think. Well, 20 seconds into it, you've got it, haven't you? You've got this song completely, and you understand it completely. People will be sitting there going, oh yeah, we'll piss this one again. But the thing is, this effectively ends Lulu's career as a pop star, doesn't it?

She's already got the BBC light entertainment show, which is always the kiss of death. But also, you know, she's built a career on being a gutsy, bluesy singer and then people like Janis Joplin are pitching up. She was working, you know, with Atlanta Cove in America, but it never really happened in terms of her launching that other phase of her career. And, of course, she's just got married to Morris Gibb.

But she tried to do Dusty in Memphis, didn't she? Yes, she did. And she ain't Dusty, so it's just, you know, it's always going to look like a poor relation. Yeah. Quite right, though, that this song was blacklisted in 1991 during the Gulf War. Oh, God poor relation. Yeah. Quite right, though, that this song was blacklisted in 1991 during the Gulf War.

Oh, God, yes. Yeah. So, two weeks from now, Boom Banga Bang entered the charts at number 22 and stayed there the following week as she made her way to Spain. In the end,

the song had to make do with sharing first place with Spain, Holland and France, resulting in the Eurovision committee debating a four-way sing-off the following night, but letting the results stand and extending the programme by another 20 minutes because everybody had to sing the fucking song again.

Yeah, no, it's a shambles. About an hour and a half, wasn't it, Taylor? Tell us, tell us, oh wise man. Yeah, the whole of 1969 Eurovision Song Contest is available on YouTube, although it's all shambles. About an hour and a half, wasn't it, Taylor? Tell us, tell us, oh wise man. Yeah, the whole of 1969 Eurovision Song Contest is available on YouTube, although it's all in foreign, which makes it even more incomprehensible. But they've got this bizarrely

complicated voting system where each jury have ten points that they could split unevenly between as many records as they wanted. So like, quite often you get one country will get five points and then five will get one point. And this was combined with a complete lack of any tie-break system.

And so to everyone's immense surprise, you get a four-way draw and nobody on or off stage has got any idea what to do about it. This is coming live from fascist Spain, masquerading as a jolly place to sing jolly songs. But even in that era of iron discipline, Spain was not the most organised place in the world. So there's just this complete shambles on stage

while they try and work out what to do. It's hilarious. But it's worth watching, even though it's horrible because first of all what's remarkable is what an unfussy production it is um it's just a theater stage done up sort of like a new town shopping precinct with all these fake flowers and an ugly modern sculpture in the middle which turns out to have been a Dali original. Yes. As keen as ever to lend artistic credibility to the regime. And an audience

of unsmiling men in dinner jackets who all know where Lorca is buried. They're perpetually disapproving looking wives in fur coats. And nobody's enjoying it. They all look really surly. They've got their chins on their

hands they've all got those dark glasses like lenny peters you know it's like real corroding fascist chic um it's really odd and really unlike entertainment and there's some sort of weird entries uh monaco are in it and they send like this freaky stage school kid dressed like a lift operator who's the favourite? yeah he does a song about his mum Ireland have got shaking Sandy Shore

like a green nightie bounding around as if the floor's hot who else Holland have got a solid lady with primary school kids hair playing a spanish guitar everyone's trying to ingratiate a little bit but mostly you just watch it and think whoever's on you just think stop fucking smiling while you sing it makes you look like you're performing at gunpoint um yeah it's really

unpleasant but yeah you can see why lulu did well because it's better than most other songs in this yeah and what is cool is you know how they used to have the conductor from each country would come out before the singer and take a bow uh and in this, every one of them comes out and they all look like a cinema manager from Sidcar coming out to apologise because the projector's broken down. Until the British guy, what's his name, Johnny Harris. The great Johnny Harris. Yeah, he comes out, he's got ginger sideburns down to his jaw.

He's got a limp. He looks like he's just been woken up by a park keeper prodded with his prong you know brushed the twigs and the sweet wrappers off himself and staggered off to conduct these these tuxedo phalangists through boom banger bang johnny harris to my mind did the best ever version of uh light my fire oh beautiful well you know the shirley basse version yeah it's basically that the instrumental version of that that he did for an lp called movements which came out this year and is uh it was spike milligan's favorite lp of all time and lulu's there in a coral pink mini dress, which

not only clashes with her own hair, it clashes with the set and with the false flowers on the set. And the thing about this clip that's really disturbing is that Lulu does crazy girl eyes all through it. And she does it even more

on the Eurovision. She's so fired up and so desperate to communicate to these people who don't necessarily understand the language. She's doing this unbelievable mugging, and it looks like it's not comfortable. It looks like when someone who's visibly not quite right in the head is trying to seduce you. But the erotic charge is actually a sharp edge of panic um they may as well have a flashing red light strapped onto the top of the head you know

fastened on with a buckle under the chin it's like you want to walk backwards while smiling and i'm you know i'm usually pathetically easy to entice erotically but yeah the sight of googly lulu makes me want to go and live in a lighthouse eating bromide sandwiches it's not comfortable it really isn't yeah i mean janice choplin's just hassling some bloke telling him that he needs a mama and all this kind of stuff. Meanwhile, Lulu's there going, come closer, I could be tight. The Eurovision result propelled the song up to number nine

and two weeks later, it made it all the way to number two. Held off the top spot by I Heard It Through the Grapevine by Marvin Gaye, making it her biggest solo hit ever. The follow-up, Oh Me, Oh My, I'm a Fool for You Baby, would only get to number 47 in November of this year, and Lulu would be reduced to prowling the light entertainment wilderness for much of the early 70s, until David Bowie lobbed her The Man Who Sold the World,

which got to number three in February of 1974. That's not all he lobbed her, if rumours are to be believed. Oh, really? Good on you, Lulu. Boom bang bang bang, boom bang bang bang, boom bang bang bang Dean Martin's hit number 10 this week. I wonder if we can kid Dean Martin over here to Great Britain at the top of the pops. You never know. Anyway, we've got an American group, and they make sensational records. They've been in and out of the top 20, and they're just slightly out of it at the moment. They could dash back in.

Call people. Here come the times. Yeah! Everybody's never had somebody Everybody's never had somebody. Everybody's never had somebody. People! People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. Freeman chills the forthcoming Euro splurge

with his arm firmly linked with one of the kids. Yeah, it looks like she's helping him across the road. It looks more like he's a store detective at Chelsea Girl who's just made a citizen's arrest. Really does. It also looks like he's got a false arm because he's still in exactly the same stiff position, like the right angle, holding the mic. it looks like they've just lifted it up threaded this girl's arm through it and then

put it back down again yeah i wonder when the the the you know cavorting about with girls thing came in for top of the pots whether it was there from the beginning or not i don't i'm not sure but but freeman doesn't look uncomfortable about it. And neither does she. But it just looks odd. Yeah, I think she's probably heard the rumours. She knows she's safe. I mean, he's 42 at this point, remember.

Wow. And he does look like he's going to nip off to the bowls club afterwards with his roll neck get up. Roll neck and a false arm. That's a good pre-emptive look for Mr. Hahn in Enter the Dragon. going to nip off to the bowls club afterwards with his uh with his roll neck get up roll neck and a false arm that's a good it's a good pre-emptive look for mr hahn in enter the dragon if only he had sort of yes attachments for the end of it that'd be great wouldn't it if he just sank his tiger paw into the camera at the end it's dawned off he then goes into his chart spiel and threatens us with dean martin before introducing people

by the times formed in philadelphia in 1956 the latin ears began as a part-time do-what band who entered a talent contest sponsored by a local radio station and tip-top bread where people could vote for their favoritesites by filling in a voucher on bread wrappers. But they were signed up by a local label before the contest finished. After the label changed their name to The Times, their very first single, So Much In Love, went all the way to number one in America and got to number 21 over here in August of 1963. and got to number 21 over here in August of 1963. Although they had a regular chart career in the US,

they never came near our top 30 until this month when they put out their cover of the 1964 Barbara Streisand song which featured in the film Funny Girl. And it's up this week from number 29 to number 24 and here they are in the studio. Well chaps, as we've firmly established in previous episodes of chart music the black americans a great bunch of lads but do we really need a do what group in 1969 what's going on there well that's the weird thing isn't it because you can really tell they were a do what group because of range, the bigger sort of old school range of the city. Very Ink Spots kind of vibe to the lead singer

and some of the low voices. And obviously they're a bit older than the kind of the Temps and the Isleys. So their moves aren't quite as tight. They're kind of, there's a looseness to the moves. I actually quite like this. I actually didn't mind this that much. It's not a bad record at all. But I got lost as I frequently do, especially for some reason with 60s pop shows um in one of those falling in love

moments with a random person from the audience oh yes oh there's a girl um she's got a black sort of long bob and a white collared floral dress and you only see her for about three seconds but oh god i totally fell in love with that and and yeah so that this whole performance if this sounds like you from 50 years ago get in touch with chart music it's fucking beautiful and she looks so fucking cool as well and she's dancing really nicely as well unlike a few people who as you as you mentioned previously i'll um just chatting just having a chat looking looking for the camera having a chat there's a bit of that going on um but they the times seem

to be enjoying themselves anyway yes they do it is it's good times isn't it it's good times but but that doo-woppy thing is unmistakable in the range of voices that they give which makes them immediately antique in a way in an age where you know other male black male vocal groups that uh do it you know i mean think about it temptations are doing fucking psychedelic shack and ball of confusion by this stage so this is a completely different catfish yeah we always make the mistake that everybody's going to be bang on the money at a certain point. In 1969, a lot of people still want this old stuff. Yeah, there will always be people trying to get music to do what it used to do

and not liking what music is doing now. And that's precisely who the times are appealing to. I mean, it wasn't uncommon in the 60s for soul groups to do really, really middle-of-the- road songs in a pretty generic style yeah like on the album that this is from they do all those like jimmy webb and backrack and david or what an album what an album cover it is as well yeah the times at the seaside draw really frighteningly yeah yeah but i mean these are great songs but i mean they're not really where soul was having in 1969 and they're frankly not as good as those songs done in the more traditional orchestrated style but i mean

there's examples of this which work fine because they sound so sweet on their own terms it doesn't really matter that you're listening to something which by this point in time you'd sort of be entitled to call artistically cowardly and irrelevant. But, I mean, this doesn't quite make it, but it's chunky enough and it's sufficiently well sung. You just end up wishing they were doing a song you could believe in. You know what I mean? And it'd be a great record.

Unfortunately, they're doing this song, which I hate, for several reasons. And mainly because I fundamentally disagree with the premise right people who need people are the luckiest people as someone who resents and is hurt by the necessity of caring i don't happen to agree with this i think that people who need people are vulnerable trapped in perpetual emotional debt and not in control of their own happiness. So if there's one thing you know you can't trust, it's people. And it's like saying people who need it not to rain in March are the luckiest people in the world.

People who need their cat to not jump up onto the kitchen counter are the luckiest people they're clearly not um i mean as a person who needs people and yet frequently goes a fortnight or more without seeing or speaking to anyone who isn't a doctor and doesn't work in a shop or drive a bus, I beg to differ. I would consider it lucky were I an emotional old man of Hoy who could just sit in this room on my own and produce work instead of succumbing to the wholly pathetic human weakness of needing people, which I consider to be a curse. human weakness of needing people which i consider to be a curse i mean i i spent most of my life suspicious of human shitness including my own and the compromises necessary to get on

as a result of that shitness and tried to keep a distance you know and then in middle age realized that in fact i'm actually a naturally sociable and quite ambitious person. Whoops, too late now. So I don't need the times telling me how lucky I am. Right. Although I will take it from them before I take it from Barbara Streisand, because, you know, at least they seem like nice fellas, which they do. Taylor, you've just got to whittle that down. Three verses.

Make it all rhyme. You could have a song on your hands there. You could have a hit on your hands there. It speaks to today. Yeah, I know. It's terrible, isn't it? By the by, the flip of this on the 7-inch for Love of Ivy is better, I think. I think they should have made

that the A-side. This is supper club music, isn't it? Yeah. Well, that's what Americans call it. You know, we call it chicken in a basket. But once again, it's good chicken. The chicken's a lot chlorinated. And, you know, the breadcrumbs are panko.

This is going to get them a lot of bookings being on top of the pops. You must have seen that advert for nightclubs in Plymouth from around this time, haven't you? Oh, Neil, have you seen it? I haven't seen this, no. It's like the Sixth Vent is just ramming its crotch into your face until you suffocate. It's the nightclubs are the Birdcage, the Cascade and the Commodore.

And it's, oh, it's remarkable. I mean, my favourite bit in it is, well, there's that DJ who looks like Fred Dynage at some local TV awards ceremony, but the barman who looks like Adrian Street but is a lot camper. The way he drops the change into this bloke's hand is just dripping with homoeroticism. If you didn't know, and I was to tell you that one of the acts on this episode of top of the pops was going to have a number one in five years time these

would be the last you'd pick wouldn't it yeah yeah they look they look like they're on the way out i mean yeah but one thing you can definitely say for the times right which really impressed me right when they leave the camera on them at the end through the whole of the fade out which is really unusual and a bit of a cruel thing to do to a group because they have to find something to do physically as the record dies away yeah you're still looking at them and they're doing that synchronized hand dancing you know yes usually when you see that over a fade out uh people stop doing the synchronized hand movement yes in a really shit disorganized way yeah um they just sort of flop at different times

and it's like a deflating balloon you know uh and they don't they keep going right until the last note has died away and then they just stop in unison it's really impressive first time I saw it I was so impressed I rewound the whole thing and watched it again in a new light but it just sounded the same and I was left thinking fucking hell I need people

there's one scene that I can't fail to mention there's a proper bro creamed up dad right at the front in the bottom right hand corner with his partner. And all of a sudden they get yanked out of shot by the camera crew and you never see them again, man. It's like they're just following up on a few inquiries in the wake of the Kray twins trial. So the following week, people jumped eight places to number 16, its highest position. The follow-up,

a cover of the 1941 Billy Holiday standard, God Bless the Child, failed to chart, and they were seemingly done in this country. But amazingly, they roared back in 1974, getting to number 18 with You Little Trustmaker, and number one with miss grace in

january of 1975 i love that song Somebody, somebody, need me somebody, need me somebody. And that's about the story, Pop, because everybody's got to have somebody, and that's for sure. That was the times there, and people. Glad to have them in Top of the Pops, and I hope they come back very soon. Now, along with the Cliff Richard fans, I think the Elvis Presley fans can feel very happy, too. He's coming this week at number 17 with if i can dream and i think elvis is heading for the top 10 make no mistake about that but talking about big jumps last week at number 26 this week right into the top 20 just outside the top 10 at number 11. it's a beautiful

sound and top of the pops welcomes back the boys who've won so many awards it's unbelievable this one's called the first of may and it's the Bee Gees when i was small and christmas trees were tall We used to laugh while others used to play Freeman hopes the times come back soon and then imparts good news for Cliff and Elvis fans before introducing the 1st of May by the Bee Gees. We've already covered the Brothers Gibb in chart music from number 41 and here they are in their mark one phase. It's the follow up to I've Gotta Get A Message To You which became their second number one in September of 1968

when it knocked Do It Again by the Beach Boys off the top and it stayed there for a week until it was usurped by Hey Jude. It's also the lead cut from the forthcoming LP Odessa which is due out at the end of the month and is named after the birth date of Barry's dog. They've had a lot of publicity this month due to Morris Gibb marrying Lulu just over a fortnight ago but unbeknownst to the pop craze youngsters there are ructions afoot behind the scenes barry has made it clear that he disapproved of the marriage as both parties are too young robin's wife has kicked off in the press over her husband being replaced as lead singer by barry and robin himself is walking around with a face like a smacked arse because his choice for the

next single has been relegated to the B-side. And it's all getting in the way of their forthcoming movie project, a Boa War spoof entitled Lord Kitchener's Little Drummer Boy. Meanwhile, 1st of May has leapt 15 places from number 26 to number 11. Now then chaps, if there's a pattern to be detected in this episode, it's what the sports pages would call the want-a-wave front man. Dave D, Steve Willis, and now Robin Gibb.

It's like the end of the 70s, all these bands are breaking up. The Bee Gees are a blind spot for me that I know I should investigate. Look, I have to say obviously the disco records fucking fantastic there's no idea about yeah but i know i'm meant to explore mark one bgs and early bgs and particularly odessa the album but they're a blind spot that i should perhaps investigate i think i gave odessa a go once i just couldn't be arsed um didn't really

need that music journalist badge that you only get if you like that record and also I'd have to start worshipping the Pet Shop Boys or something they're similarly joyless for me I have a problem with them partly it's nothing to do with their music, it's to do with them and you know him leaving because he didn't get his single as the first choice

sums that up, it's this po-facedness this sort of humourlessness or humour only when they can be in control of it but but i mean to be honest with you a big part of my dislike of the bgs is knowing that they've made some decisions on probably one of my least favorite records and one of my least favorite number one records of all time which is leaping ahead years but i hate you win again by the people by the bgs i hate the drum sound i hate the way that record makes me feel um and i've got to say this record well it's just fucking boring man i mean

please somebody educate me why should i like this and why should i like adessa because this is i'm prodding this i don't want to disturb it too much because it might start smelling worse but i don't really get it and and massachusetts i just found creepy i'd probably salvage from the mark one bgs from the pre-disco era maybe message to you and perhaps new york mining disaster 1941 but yeah that's about it and this i'm sure it's meant to be a classic but I ain't getting it I ain't feeling it either no you're right I think Mark 1 BGs are mostly shit too yeah this is like somebody's vacuumed out all the interesting bits from the Walker Brothers

and hidden them and you're just left with this thing that doesn't really know what it is sort of trembling in the spotlight uh and trying to sell you this useless emotion you know there's something really cavernously empty about this record which yeah the the the massive warehouse echo on the vocals just accentuates it's like they've taken a route one approach to writing an emotional ballad um and it's like they they have no actual real feelings to draw on because they're psychopaths so it feels very cynical and very manipulative they've just mixed together

these basic ingredients you've got a stair-step piano, booming vocals, singing about childhood and loss and this sort of cloying feel. And that's literally all there is to it. There's no juice. It's like, who cares? It's like a facsimile of human frailty from a shark-eyed businessman, as well as being another example from this episode of pop music sliding towards Vegas and it just sounds horrible on its own terms. The beginning

of this song has got that very specifically Lancastrian unpleasantness like Jennifer Eccles by the Hollies you know and all those Davy Jones showcases on Monkeys Records where he turns up his manchester accent it's a real cloth-capped cobblestone misery you know i mean at least

matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs didn't pretend to be deep and emotional you know and i just i don't believe this record i i believed them more when they were singing about being stuck down a mine yes well they go from being small and christmas trees being tall to to them being tall and christmas trees being small i mean how fucking tall do they get but that's because this that's the conceit of the record the whole record was written from that first line and it reveals its emptiness because of that they're just happy to get from one that line to the line about being tall and christmas trees being small they're happy to do that and there's a smugness on their face when they get to that that is cleverness in songwriting according to

the bgs yeah but i mean you know i mean we're slagging it off but if i have to have a christmas tree in my house um it's going to be as small as possible yeah you know i originally thought they're saying oh now we're now we're absolute giants uh but no what they're saying is now we've grown up and we don't need ostentatious ornamentation just a little tree you know thingy preferably white or silver that's progressive man but but christmas trees got bigger over the years al that's the thing even if you were small Christmas trees were never that tall and I've been trying to persuade

my kids of the virtues of me not having to go up the fucking attic every year and get the big Christmas tree down and actually having what I had because I've got photographic evidence as it were of the G clamp tree that you clamp to a table and was literally about a foot high.

Roll, roll the G-clamp tree, never too late for you and me. But yeah, you have entire shops full of Christmas tat now. But yeah, the first line antagonises me about this song. What Taylor's saying about the arrangement and the voice in particular, that Lancastrian thing,

Gibbs, the lead singer's voice, I can only stomach his voice when he does the disco falsetto, when it's in this sort of naked state and it's quite sort of tinny and abrasive almost. It's just horrible. It's a horrible sound. I don't see why, as Alan says, as Alan Freeman says,

they were winning loads of awards and stuff. I don't see what the fuss is about. No. And it's doubly bad. The pained, fake sincerity of the singing just adds to the misery of these awful lyrics. I don't want to harp on this, but yes, they really believe it's a clever switch

to say, when I was small, Christmas trees were small. Now we are tall and christmas trees are small and it's look i i don't want to go into it too much because you know you end up sounding like a it's hack stand-up material you know like some scrawny posh cut in a green t-shirt deconstructs the hits right you know just before angling for an applause break by suggesting that donald trump has bad hair you know it's like you sound like you're going to just read the lines out slowly and sarcastically and then look around with an expression of mock confusion waiting for the laughter but it's got to be said it doesn't

make any sense because yeah christmas trees there's a jump in scale they're either 10 inches high or they're at least four foot because those little ones like what envision continuity announcers would have on the thing or what like you see in care homes and then there's a big jump so no christmas tree that a child would consider tall can realistically be called small by an adult. They should have gone with, when I was small and vacuum cleaners were tall. Because you can get the mini Dysons nowadays, can't you? So that, yeah, that would have worked, Bee Gees. And then just when everybody is already sickened and bewildered by this overextended Christmas tree motif,

they come back at the end. Yes. And it goes, when i was small and christmas trees were tall do do do do do do do do do do like he can't even be why do they find it hard to write the next line oh christ so it's like the whole song has been like a beckoning finger trying to draw you in with this christmas tree bullshit and then just when you get there the hand spins around and gives you a two-fingered salute it's horrible i wanted this song to be really good and i was looking forward to listening to it at last because you know the

first of may the previous year i was born so you know i was expecting yeah that the bgs were gonna you know gonna celebrate me a little bit but uh no they didn't so i was upset by that the Bee Gees were going to celebrate me a little bit. But no, they didn't. So I was upset by that. The camera crew putting in some work here. There's some nice under-the-piano shots. There's a lot of care and attention being applied here to the Bee Gees. And they're being showcased a lot better than they were in an unnamed TV show that was mentioned by Simon Napier-Bell

in the book You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, where the rest of the group was superimposed without their knowledge inside Robin Gibbs' quote, goatee mouth, making them look as if they were performing under a shop awning. So, you know, they've done well to get out of that. But I mean, you know, another theme, this is the year where loads of pop stars get married and you know the the impression is that all these crazy pop

stars are finally settling down and you know growing up becoming nice people yeah well they've even got grown-up clothes they've all got these good suits which would look cool in like an itc thriller serial or something but on them coupled with this music it just seems sort of haughty and smugly adult you know yeah um it's like have you ever seen that so in fact i mentioned it earlier didn't i that series special branch right which is a itv show which started around this time it's like an exciting drama serial uh about special branch mostly run by george markstein who's best known as patrick mcgoohan's right hand man on the prisoner but is also chiefly responsible for who dares wins the lew Lewis Collins vehicle, and preposterously lustful love letter to the SAS.

And this is like a sort of an early run of that. It's quite reactionary in its attitudes. But the star of it originally was Deron Nesbitt, and he was like TV's first right-wing swinger. You know what I mean? It's like, I guess, derived from James Bond or something, but you would get these people culminating in, I guess, the professionals.

But he works for the generally quite reactionary special branch and clearly holds those views himself. But he dresses like Austin Powers and he's driving around in a fancy sports car like charming dollies in London and all that. And that's what these bgs remind me of it's like it's like a macho dandyism built on a reactionary base um and you know i mean they

were always that but it doesn't really matter when they're making fabulous music and this isn't isn't fabulous music oh and the other great thing about early special branch, by the way, is that the newbie detective constable is called DC Morrissey. So people keep saying, like, Morrissey is an idiot. Where the hell is Morrissey? And he has to infiltrate some student radicals, like played by Nicola Padgett and Tom Chadbon. And they keep calling him a fascist

so the following week first of may jumped six places to number five its highest position the follow-up tomorrow tomorrow got to number 23 in july of this year and they closed out 1969 with don't forget to remember getting to number two in September held off the number one spot by Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival but this performance would be the last one Robin Gibb made with the band for a while because a week later he announced he was pulling out of the film deal

and the next day he quit the band. Lord Kitchener's Little Drummer Boy was never made unfortunately but the remaining brothers would go on to make Cucumber Castle with Frankie Howard and Spike Milligan which went out on BBC2 on Boxing Day 1970 by which time Robin had returned to the fold just in time for the grim slog that was the bg's early 70s have we seen cucumber castle it's fucking appalling isn't it it is i mean not just for

blind faith but lulu's version of mrs robinson is a particular low as is as is the boys acting proving their humorlessnessness yeah um and when they try and be funny, Jesus Christ. Bands making TV films for BBC Two that go out on Boxing Day, it just doesn't work, does it? No, it doesn't. No, it doesn't at all. Apparently, it's the Bee Gees that we have to thank for this episode being discussed because I've heard this has come from Morris Gibbs video collection

he recorded it when it was on because the BBC wiped it immediately because that's what they do so cheers Morris sorry we coated you come first out when I was small and Christmas trees were tall

Do-do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do Don't ask me why, but time has passed us by. Someone else moved in from far away. That's right. Just about to move into the top ten. This week's number 11 there, first of May, from the Bee Gees. Well, we've told you all about the challenges. There's Donald Pierce and Cilla Black and Sandy Shaw and Dean Martin and Elvis Presley all on the go. Amen Corner still waiting

at number two. But again, in top of the pops this week, number one to Peter Sasted. You talk like Marlena Dietrich And you dance like Zizi Jarmel Freeman runs off a list of mainly rubbish acts trying to get to number one, but is forced to concede that this week's chart-topper is the same as last week. Where Do You Go To My Lovelair by Peter Sarstedt. Born in Delhi in 1941, Peter Sarstedt was the son of a tea plantation manager who was relocated to Croydon at the age of 13 when his father died. Along with his brothers, Richard and Clive, he formed the skiffle group The Fabulous Five,

which mutated into the beat group The Saints, with Richard as lead singer. But the band split up when Richard was offered a solo deal, changed his name to Eden Kane, and scored a number one in 1961 with Well I Ask You. Sarstedt spent the early 60s as the bassist and backing singer for his brother until 1965 when Eden Cain decided to emigrate to Australia, which led to him moving to Copenhagen and latching on to the folk boom. He returned to London in 1967 and was picked up by United Artists a year later. His debut single, I Am A Cathedral, flopped, but his next single was this it runs at four minutes and 45 seconds but could have been even longer just like chart music really eh chaps the label demanded that he trim off an extra 30 seconds and it was the highest new entry at number 18 a month ago

and last week it knocked if paradise is half as nice by amen corner off number one and is that its second week on the summit of mount pop and here he is in the studio neil get him first quickly well um yeah british british pop can mainly over its history be characterized by its kind of relationship with its own past and the american present but spasmodically now and then it does aim for the sophistication of continental europe which isn't always a bad thing i'm the queen of the rapping scene but but you know it's not always a bad thing i mean think of the mod's love for italian suits and think about krautrock and you know italian disco have an impact on british pop it's not

always a bad thing but in the singles chart it usually means british people using european stereotypes you know from david whitfield back in the day all the way through to renee renate but i would say that the worst example of it is probably this and if you download where do you go to my lovely as an mp3 as i did and open it up in windows media player it puts it in the genre chanson. It puts it, you know. The setup of this song, Street Kid Becomes Rich Socialite That Can't Escape Her Past, becomes basically pretty quickly

an excuse for a colossal smart-arsedness nasty song, which basically piles a lot of high-ticket brand names and celebrity names drawn out to a ridiculous length as you've said it's nearly five fucking minutes long that is too long for a pop single um so we get yes marlena dietrich and and the rolling stones and sasha distel and sorbonne and picasso all these things reeled off each of them having i don't know a little unpleasant tagline of a lyric usually. Particularly the one that gets to me is...

Yes, we know. We don't, don't we, pop-craze youngsters? Well, we'll see. The one that really gets to me is with your carefully designed topless swimsuit. You get an even suntan on your back and on your legs. There's just something revolting about that. Isn't a topless swimsuit just some pants you go on the beach in your pants i i think they were conceived

of and designed god knows what they were yeah just a pair of pants i presume but the fact that her name the the the girl he's singing about is uh marie claire reveals the depth of his european knowledge i mean she might as well have been called Shambhela or Shambhorsi Nouvelle or something. I don't know. But his delivery, I mean, we can establish it's a pretty awful song.

His delivery makes it even worse. His kind of pseudo accent and the bit, you know, you know the bit I'm going to say. The bit when he follows the phrase for a laugh with a ha ha ha ha ha ha fucking how man the way this performance goes in for a close up every time he hits the chorus and basically fills out the frame with that fucking tash um now as aforementioned sported by 98 of hipster london um it's revolting but the question is this was a big big seller this year obviously the question is did listeners in 1969 buy it to kind of laugh at it or because they

believed in it and were moved by its mystery and sophistication now if the former fur him off but if the latter to paraphrase chris needham you know burn this world and burn all you greens with it i've seen much discussion of this record i mean whenever i've i've had mentioned this record in the past and it's always come up on facebook anyway in discussion of the worst record ever made and most people in response to this being mooted it's it's a kind of don't think too much about it just enjoy it well no fuck you and and the way his chest puffs up when he sings boulevard saint michel as well makes me want to slap him particularly hard i tried to do a bit of digging about peter sarset but truth be told it repulsed

me so my research um stopped pretty quickly i found an article um with the headline, Peter Sarseth's tears help create his songs. And I didn't pursue it any further than that. But beyond the nastiness of the song's outlook and the slight creepiness of looking inside someone's head, it's the fucking monotony of it that's the most irritating, I would say. And where I put it mentally, it's actually alongside something like, I don't know, Seasons in the Sun. I know this won the 1969 Ivan Avella Award jointly with Space Oddity,

but for me, it's Seasons in the Sun fronted by Peter Wingard. I don't like it, never have liked it. Peter Wingard came up in my notes as well. He looks like a Jason King action figure that's been held up against a three-bar fire. He does. I know we're meant to just treat it as perhaps a bit of fun,

but I can't treat it as a bit of fun. It just grinds on and on and on with a tune that actually becomes more dislikable the longer it goes on and fundamentally at root what we get to is i mean one of the things by the way that i said about the beatles was that they were all about craft that was probably unfair actually that's massively unfair i would apply that to say the bg song that we just listened to it is just joyless craft there's something of that going on here as well but beyond that it's the nastiness the

vituperativeness of it um you know this is somebody that he grew up with and he's now singing in just a horribly creepy vengeful hateful way about this girl yeah um and and ending with that i can look inside your headline i mean what the fuck is going on a deeply unpleasant record. I've shagged you is what he's saying. I guess so but musically and spiritually on all levels I find this record repulsive Yeah Neil last episode you said that the

Rolling Stones were more psychedelic than the Beatles and some of the pop craze youngsters jumped up and down and waved their fists at you I sensed that. Explain yourself young man. Well truth be told the moment those words came out of my mouth, I thought, oh, fuck. Because to my mind, Rolling Stones and Psychedelia just basically amounts to Mick Jagger looking like a right bellend

in that pointy hat on the Satanic Majesties LP cover, which is like a really big and rubbish wibbly wobbler. I like the preposterousness of that record and I like some of the songs on it. I mean, I sensed, as soon as I said that, then it might have

wound some people up. And I would like to stress something that perhaps I didn't communicate effectively last time. I do like the Beatles, you know. There's certain songs by them I absolutely love.

I'm only sleeping. Yeah, we're not in Simon's gang. You know, I mean, she said, Tomorrow Never Hours, Strawberry Fields,

these songs. It tends to be the songs where i feel that the songs overwhelm them and their presence in a way but yeah i do love the beatles don't get me wrong but i i have to go on personal pleasure and music that i'd associate with my own psychedelic experiences over the year for me that's that's aftermath more than revolver and it's between the buttons and satanic majesties and we lovemath more than Revolver, and it's Between the Buttons and Satanic Majesties, and We Love You more than Sgt. Bleeding Pepper. And yes, look, it was somewhat contrarian to say that they out-psychedelicised the Beatles in a way.

Of course, Beatles are year zero and alpha and omega of that. But I would just ask people to listen to Going Home off Aftermath. Listen to All Sold Out off Between the Buttons which Brian Wilson was actually present at the recording of and it fried his tiny little mind. Listen to things like Citadel and 2000 Light Years From Home. These are good

little psychedelic pop nuggets. I'd still also suggest that We Love You is one of the greatest psychedelic singles of all time. Perhaps I was not um exactly being even-handed but that's not my job my job is to probably piss a few people off well you should have doubled down there neil and said well dave d dozy beaking mick and titian more psychedelic than the beacles no i mean that's what you got to do nowadays man if you want to get a career as a journalist there are things you can say like i prefer the monkeys to the beatles but i mean that is clearly just the wind-up but at the same time

oh i prefer the arctic monkeys to the beatles go further neil well no i would say that you know it always comes to these ridiculous questions about kind of if i could only listen to one or if i had but you know i actually would rather hear sometime in the morning by the monkeys than pretty much anything by the Beatles. But that's just me. Yeah. The other thing he reminds me of now come to think of it is, uh,

it, it just looks like Ray out of nuts in May, but he is also dressed as Fred out of Scooby-Doo, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. He's got this kind of like white top on

and a scarf I mean one of the things that annoys me is there's pointless bits of the lines that just seem added to be mean the line about

Napoleon Brandy why don't her lips get wet when she drinks it I don't get that either what's that supposed to use as a straw yeah what's the insinuation

and why's he got so many problems with this girl if there's one thing we know about the 60s or what we've been constantly told about the 60s and it was the era that people from deprived backgrounds bursting through and taking their place amongst the elite you know a cultural or or whatever and you know here we are in 1969 it's like oh he's basically saying oh you think you're summit but I know you're not you're all fur coat and no knickers

dog and we don't know what the relationship is they could be brother and sister they could have been child of friends or you know he could have given her one until sausage of stale came along it's essentially don't you want me isn't it but a lot nastier don't you want me isn't it but a lot nastier but well

don't you want me isn't nasty the guy singing that song is is desperate the power relationship of that song the guy's not you know got the power in this song that's a bit more that's a bit more dubious you don't know what's going on exactly he's just emitted this bolus of smuggery and nastiness. And that's what this song is. You can imagine a Sun advertising campaign where Peter Starr says, yeah, I know Marie Claire and tomorrow I'm going to tell you all about her in the Sun. The Sun.

Before we even get to the emotional content of this song, I think what really disgusts me the most about it, as with a lot of truly deeply objectionable pop culture, it's not so much what's actually in the grooves, repulsive as that is, but it's what it so perfectly represents and exemplifies. This is worthless as a pop song because it's amateurish and it's uninspired and you can see the joins where it's been hammered together

but it's also a classic example of certain really ghastly trends and tendencies within pop and as such it becomes a magnet for all this righteous fury which you might say more than it deserves. But no, that's in fact precisely what it deserves because pop is in large part, it's about moves and suggestion and association and impression and where it places you within your own reality. So when a charlatan like this blunders in, he gets what he deserves, you know,

and it's not disproportionate or silly to hate it as much as I or we hate this record because those are the rules of pop music. You mentioned in a previous episode of Child Music that this is one of your top five worst songs. It is, yeah. Didn't you, Taylor? It is. music this is one of your top five worst songs it is yeah didn't you taylor it is i mean first of all it encapsulates all that fake ass troubadour bullshit right where some clown hears bob dylan

and yeah this is the point and all he sees is the image of the poet and the storyteller like up on his stool raised above the fray to a position of social and moral superiority. And he thought, I fancy that. They won't be laughing at me then, you know. And people who do that have no content in their soul and no meat on their personality. So it's like a status grab. It's like their entire act is affectation in the pursuit of personal glory it's an attempt by

an a fundamentally uninteresting person to reap a harvest that they didn't sow and as a result everything that comes from it is cultural pollution and so this isn't really pop music at all this is something lower and less honourable, posing as something superior. Whereas really, it's a growth on pop. It's like a polyp on pop music. The man is a parasite, you know. He's just seen an opportunity to advance himself. So that pisses me off.

But then, when you zoom in and examine the actual song, as well as being really embarrassing to listen to, it is, as they always say, it's nauseating, partly because it is such a transparent attempt to affect this continental man-of-the-world sophistication just by listing things, just grabbing at tokens of european high life and all this spurious glamour uh and just saying them you know and that's gonna make you think you're dick

diver you know it's not gonna work but also worse than that it tries to have it both ways by twisting around at the end to assume a position of moral superiority over the subject of the look so it's a perfect blend of the pretentious and the banal and the charmlessly self-serving and all of that stuff is everywhere in pop music it's commonplace and often we hardly notice it or wave it through because it doesn't overwhelm the song and it doesn't outweigh whatever other charms the record has to offer. But here, that's all there is. There's nothing else. that dumb recitation over a nursery rhyme tune, which sounds about as authentically Euro chic as the music from Hello, Hello.

It's everything that Scott Walker records might have been. If rather than being a genius, he'd been an idiot and a cunt. Right. I mean, I complained that by the way, that the love affair, we're getting attention,

which should have gone to Honeybust. But fucking hell, right. As this program was being broadcast, Scott 3 has just come out and died on its ass. Well, this is number one in the charts. Right. Yeah. And First and May is hot on its heels. Yeah.

Fuck Britain. Right. No wonder Scott Walker was so pissed off about it in that interview. Yes. And if you're going to do a song like this, this is a technical point. At least work on the fucking lyrics so you're not shoehorning in phrases which don't even scan.

Because this song is just a lyric hanging on three chords. So do a bit of work on it. Don't sing, and when the snow falls, you're found in Samarit with the others of the Jet Set. But it's horrible because... The good thing about that though, Taylor,

is that we get the full version here after hearing a big chunk of it at the beginning of the show. So this has taken up so much space in this episode of Top of the Pops. But you get so bored of it at the beginning of the show. So this has taken up so much space in this episode of Top of the Pops. But you get so bored of it that you start trying to sing other song lyrics to it to see if they

and make them fit as badly as easy. So I started singing Rat Race along to this. You've got your qualifications You've got a PhD I got one auto level it meant nothing to me

no it didn't ha ha ha yeah that scans better than the real lyric the thing I hate most about those lines that I just quoted not only might they just as well go something cool

something cool something cool yes something cool that I saw quoted, not only might they just as well go, something cool, something cool, something cool. Yes. Something cool that I saw on a film. It doesn't even have any flow because the syllables don't fit the tune. And yet he has the nerve to stand there like a fucking poet, like neckerchief and all.

Even his basic phrasing is itchily awkward. And another technical point i hate songs whose lyrics address someone directly and proceed to tell them a list of things which they would obviously already know right why are you telling me this you live in a fancy apartment off the boulevard san michel yeah i do yeah i'm of that. That's how I manage to get home every night instead of stumbling around the back streets of Wigan going, oh, where do I live?

Oh, fuck. Yeah, you live in a fancy apartment on the Boulevard of San Michel. It's a stalker song, isn't it? Yeah, but it's like in a soap opera where people say, well, Keith, you only just got over being abducted by those Tunisian cigarette smugglers. And now you've just been told that your worst enemy, Gavin, is your real father.

You know, it's like, yes. Yeah, that's the other thing. Like most really terrible records, it has a vortical point, which in this case is obviously the fake laugh, which is not as bad in this version where he's singing live as it is on the actual record, where it's even worse. And he says, the Aga Khan gave her a racehorse. And then he says, and you keep it just for a laugh. Not only is this enraging as a musical event,

it also makes no fucking sense. Because what's funny about keeping a racehorse? No, keeping a racehorse is faff. Perhaps if it was Mr. Ed and it's wisecracked from over the stable door, then maybe that would be cause to say, ha ha ha ha ha ha. But if it's just a lump of bloodstock that just stands there munching straw and shitting around its own feet,

I'd fail to see the hilarity. No. No, unless you dress it up in silly costumes. But, you know, we are in a pre-Instagram era, aren't we? So that'd be no good. Race horse fail is a... Yeah. A race horse is for life, not just for a laugh.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And in a small way, I'm also pissed off by that line near the end, right, where he says, and they say that when you get married, it'll be to a millionaire. Oh, no shit,

because generally, idle, rich, international jet-set women marry blokes who work in chicken cottage don't they so he's reported the evening standards londoners diary oh there's not going to be a honeymoon because if he's not available for work he'll be sanctioned for three months have to eat cardboard again. There's also, just, you know, he's managed to squeeze in lots of horrible things into this song. But he also manages in the line,

what is it? So look into my face, Mary Claire, remember just who you are, then go and forget me forever. Self-pity as well. Yeah. A huge degree there that's just really revolting.

The odd thing was, listening to this, I mean, obviously, none of us would expose ourselves to this record voluntarily. No. But it was on this episode of Top of the Pup, so I inevitably started hearing it again. And what it actually reminded me of,

in a contrasting kind of way, but similar kind of way, was actually Killer Queen by Queen, which similarly lists a lot of, you know, bohemian type stuff. But that song is not only a much, much, much better song, interesting musically and everything else, but it's generous in spirit, you know, and that's what's key. And Sarstedt has none of that at all.

Well, that's the worst. Yeah, at the end when we're meant to gasp, spellbound, as he reveals the twist that they're both of humble origins but what it turns out that what's really pissing him off is not some sort of spiritual emptiness on the part of this woman at which he's pointing a bony finger you know it's that while she's off getting an even suntan on her back and on her legs, he isn't, right? Yeah. And he's just moaning about it.

That's all it is. And it's like as if he's astonished at what's happened. And it's like, well, Pete, for a start, what do you fucking expect? Because it's a known fact that really good-looking women, if they choose, don't have to pay for anything and can get as far as they like in terms of status if they're prepared to shut up and become objects of desire. Now, if you've actually got something to say about this, which, after all, demeans both sexes

and is sort of a reasonable grouse, then let's hear it. But no, he's just moaning and sneering about the fact that a lovely, italian girl with a french name has managed to freeload and piggyback more successfully than a some big nose cunt with a droopy mustache who by right should be busking on the piccadilly line for 25p and six francs and a toffee wrapper well i mean fucking hell who'd have thought who would have thought that someone with one thing to offer would go further than someone with nothing to offer yeah what a surprise it's one of those particularly antagonizing records because

everyone who liked it likes it for reasons that make it repulsive so it was liked presumably for the simplicity of the arrangement. You know, you've just got an acoustic guitar and accordion. There's no drums on it, is there? And I think that's about it. An acoustic guitar and accordion, that is exactly what's so fucking drearily awful about this record.

The go-nowhere arrangement, the rotation of the chords and the melody with these horrible, horrible words. Yeah. The only joy in this whole scenario is that for Peter Sarsdott, the title of this song would prove bitterly ironic. And thank God for that.

You know, give me Robin Sarsdott any day. At least he's a weirdo. You know what I mean? I just wish an answer record had been done. I was just about to say that. By, I don't know betty davis or something just or hilda baker the answer be were sorry who are you again yeah yeah and that that is a really that sorry there's just i know we've basically talked about pretty much all the lyrics

in this but the line that again i really don't like is then go and forget me forever but I know you still bear the scar deep inside yes you do what is that about I don't want to know actually what that's about and if she's looking into his face is this some kind of Michael Fagan deal going

on Taylor you did mention that this was one of your top five songs gotta ask oh no I'm gonna keep that under my hat that would have been the next four chart musics yeah that's what I was worried about so where do you go to my lovely

spent two more weeks at number one before being dragged off the top by I heard it through the grapevine by Marvin Gaye oh thank you Marvin cheers man but the song was the fifth biggest selling single in the UK in 1969 I heard it through the grapevine by Marvin Gaye. Oh, thank you, Marvin. Cheers, man. But the song was the fifth biggest selling single in the UK in 1969. And as Nils pointed out, would be the joint winner of the Ivor Novello Award for the best song of 1969 with Space Audited by David Bowie.

The follow-up, Frozen Orange Juice, got to number 10 in July of this year. But that same month, he and Radio 1 got into some right shit when the Radio 1 club broadcast him playing a session of the song Take Off Your Clothes. News story in July of 1969. Filth shocks the radio fans. A BBC radio official apologised yesterday for broadcasting what a listener heard, the biggest load of filth I've ever heard. The filth, a song about a man seducing a virgin,

went out on the popular Radio 1 Club programme. Listeners protested after hearing some of the words sung by 27-year-old pop star Peter Sarstedt. The BBC official said, several songs were pre-recorded on tape for the programme. I should think that this one probably crept in by mistake. One listener who complained, Mr Ron Radford, 47, of Enfield Middlesex said, My wife and I had two children visiting us and we were really appalled. The song, Take Off Your Clothes, is published by Mortimer Music.

A secretary there said, Peter does change the words when he does a session. I should think the BBC went mad when they heard it. Oh, Ron Rathfell, I bet he put his foot through the radio, he did. Have you heard it or Ron Ruffin I bet he put his foot through the radio he did have you heard it no it's Peter Sarcef doing a sex at us he

deploys the Roger Daltrey did in My Generation so yeah he's been spending too much time on the continent picked up some of the dirty waves. Denmark. Well, say no more, eh? I'll tell you what I've also never heard,

which is frozen orange juice. Yeah. Which I hear people saying it's good. Is it? I've never actually bothered. It's... A much better title. Well, it's shaking Cat Stevens, to be honest.

Oh, great. This faff didn't stop the BBC offering him his own Wednesday night TV show on BBC Two, which began in October, and a weekly show on Radio 1. But his next single, as though it were a movie with Take Off Your Clothes on the B-side, flopped and he never troubled the UK charts again. He spent the early 70s shuckling between london and copenhagen to be with his now wife turning down another bbc show because he didn't like an unnamed co-host but cilla or lulu isn't it reuniting with his brothers in 1973 for the lp world to part together launched a series of comebacks and ended up as a regular guest

on the Solid Silver 60s tour at the end of the century, retiring from music in 2010 and dying at the age of 75 in January 2017. That BBC show was basically billed as an aware young songwriter takes on different subjects

every week. It's veering very alarmingly into still-go territory there, I think. And also, we should always bear in mind, no matter how nasty we've been about him, he made £60,000 a year PRS from that song for most of the rest of his life.

So, you know, there you go. So he was the one looking at us and going ah yes Thank you. And where do you go to, my lovely? Can he hold it for a third week next Thursday night? I wonder. Anyway, that's well known. Next Thursday night, 7.30, for another sparkling edition of Top of the Pops.

Ta-ra! Freeman, having arrested another girl who was probably nicking some roll on mum, instructs us to tune in next week to see if Peter Sarsdek can hold off Marvin Gaye and signs off as the kids start making the scene to Top of the Pops by the Dave Devaney Four, pop's theme which was first used in 1965 until it was retired in january 1966 in favor of unknown instrumental guitar track but it's been the sign off music ever since which is fucking thick because they could have got another record off the charts in here a good one for a change i like this closing wig out though yes it has me falling in love again all over the shop. There's a girl with sunglasses on her head and what looks like a sort of Fila or D-Dass top on. It isn't obviously but No. Yeah. Maybe Umbro. Yeah. But she looks

fucking amazing. But I can't tell again whether she's a pro go-go type dancer or just one of the punters but we do get a blissful couple of minutes with the punters here. Yeah. We see that woman who's been there right through the show, who's got this horrible knitted crochet long waistcoat kind of thing that looks like the kind of thing Stan Butler's man would wear

if she was going out for a rave up at the Derby in Joan. So, what's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One immediately pitches into the police drama softly softly then after the news it's sports night with coleman which covered the national hunt jockey show jumping championship of great britain then it's holiday 69 with cliff mitchell more or i think i've seen that video the news show 24 hours news and weather viewpoint the documentary series which covers saint richard of chichester and they close out the night with a thriller series suive la piste ahaha bbc2 has just come out of newsroom and piles straight into the money program then jazz at the maltins features the

dizzy gillespie big band reunion then 30 30 Minute Theatre features the Polish war drama A Hot Day. Horizon examines why the youth are turning their backs on science. Then it's the final part of the Dostoevsky drama The Possessed. And they finish the night with news and weather and late night line-up. ITV has another hour of the film to go. Then it's the pre-porridge prison sitcom Her Majesty's Pleasure. Then this week, news at 10, a look at the career of Gina Lollobligido in cinema. James Fox and Orson Bean pitch up in the Eamon Andrews show.

There's a look at the papers and they finish off with some feminist blather in the second sex. In the second sex. So me boys. What are we talking about in the playground tomorrow. If we were around. For playground activity. I would say Stevie probably. And.

The absolute highlight of the show. And the pretty ladies. Or how amazing it must be. To be Peter Sarstedt. And to actually know. Slinky bohemian women with aristocratic airs who you haven't just made up to make yourself sound interesting by association and so

that you can then insult them What are we buying on Saturday? Stevie Wonder Probably all, which is a bit of a shame but never mind, it's the 60s plenty of fun to be had And what does this episode tell us about the spring of 1969 stodge rules the pop charts and rock is on the other

side of the room with its arms folded very visibly not getting involved uh but also it's partly because the media hasn't adapted to the change in the times and because no one's yet been able to build or rebuild that bridge between nihilism, decadence and outsiderism and the young teenage audience. But that will come. And when it does, the 60s will be over. At this point, pop and rock. Well, rock's fine somewhere, but we need the electricity of rock in pop, and we're not getting it here.

What we're getting is some shuffling acoustic balladry most often. The most pleasurable sound you hear in this entire episode is the sound of Stevie Wonder's keyboard. We need more kettle leads in pop music, is what is being said here and that's gonna happen in a couple of years when pop and a rock sense gets more interesting but at the moment yeah stodge all the way yeah i mean as far as i'm concerned you can clip out the stevie wonder bit and a few bits of the crowd dancing and you can just shove the rest down the memory hole as

far as i'm concerned i mean you know we've got to stress that this is a color tv show that we're watching in very shonky black and white but i've seen other music television from around this era and it just pisses on this episode from an enormous height i mean as far as the music goes you know i have to compare this to the 1971 we saw which was broadcast 11 months from now and we were raving about that because you could see things like the Jackson 5 and John Lennon doing Instant Karma and going, ah, yeah,

you can see a future for pop music here. In this episode, you just can't. It's just loads of bands winding down to a close, solo singers getting ready for, you know, light entertainment careers. The greatest decade in world history is coming to an end. They're selling hippie wigs

in Woolworths. Well, I mean, as we'll see through, as we always see on Chart Music, fantastic year for music, shit year for Top of the Pops. The great thing about this episode, apart from Stevie Wonder, was Alan Freeman. This would be the last

year that he presented top of the pops and on this showing he could have gone for a few more years and uh you know if he'd have been the go-to person for top of the pops as opposed to savel um things would have been a lot better and that pop craze youngsters brings us to the end of another episode of Chart Music. All that remains now is the usual promotional flange, www.chart-music.co.uk, facebook.com slash chartmusicpodcast, twitter at chartmusictotp, money down the g-string,

patreon.com slash chartmusic. Peace and love, Taylor parks all right stay bright cheers bab my name's al needham and i can look inside your head chart music Chart music. Hi, pop beggars. This is clean speech from a dirty old man. This is Brentford Nylons, the money savers. Where you can save pounds on nylon sheets,

bedspreads, house coats, nighties, and of course, top quality polyester cotton sheets in prints and planes. Only from Brentford Nylons, the money savers. There's the music, and here I am in here like that, and thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, thing. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Pick of the Pops, and here we are on

Radio 1 & 2. There it is like that and it's uh... Tears of a... Alright, is that okay? Ladies, when Brentford's lowered their sale price of blankets they sold thousands. When they reduced their sale price of polyester cotton sheets to $1.69, you bought in millions. You keep buying, and they'll keep the prices down. All right? Noel Edmonds is, um... Brentford's Sale of Blankets.

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I've got it I can't be bothered today Now wait I've got to do it again Because I mistimed it Somewhere I think the word is Fucked it up I do hope I'm not on relay And if I am May I'm not on relay.

And if I am, may I say fuck again? Retired springmaker Harold Court has been annoying the regulars at the White Lion in Redditch for years. He keeps on telling them that the Americans never landed on the moon. It was all a con trick. He mooned on about it so much that his offbeat opinions appeared in his local paper. And before you could say blast off, a postcard arrived from Florida. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, had heard about Harold, and he gave him a rocket in the form of a postcard. I think there's somebody got some relatives in America, and I passed it on to Neil Armstrong. And so suddenly, one day, through your door came this postcard.

Yeah. And it said, Dear Harold, it's been brought to my attention about an article printed in your local paper that you don't believe that I and my fellow lunar modular pilots have been to the moon. I can assure you that we have, as this picture of my friend Edwin Aldrin Jr. will prove. All the best for the future, Neil Armstrong. Well, you must believe it now, then. Well, I thought it was a very nice thing.

Well, did you believe then that he'd been to the moon? No. Why not? Oh, I don't. So what were the pictures then that we were seeing on the moon? Where do you think they really were? Well, I can't think of anywhere that was better than Portcawl. It comes to my mind of being there, and there's plenty of sand and rocks,

and I might have been kicking the rails on there. We've still got the best engineers in the world today, in this country, although perhaps too depreciated. And if I couldn't get one up there... You don't believe the Americans could then? No. So you still don't believe the Americans went to the moon? No. Nothing can convince you?

Nothing. If there was a new moon, when I was a shooting across space, looked outside I would, well I'd have to wouldn't I? Shoot across space. If it was a new moon as we see it, the mirror, I'd miss it. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.