Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #54 (Part 4): 25.5.1978 – Nineteen Seventy Gibb

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

We’re into the final stretch for an outstanding episode of The Pops, and Al Needham, Taylor Parkes and Neil Kulkarni strain every sinew as they navigate Disco Cilla, avoid Jimmy Pursey as he tumbles to the floor, bow to the true bosses of 1978, and join Joe Jordan and Kenny Burns for a geographically incorrect carnival, just before they fall on their faces like Bobby Davro in front of Keith Chegwin and Jim Bowen…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon 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. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. 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. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music Chart music There are worse things I could do Than go with your boy or two Even though the neighbourhood

Thinks I'm trashy and no good. I suppose it could be true, but there are worse things I could do. And the worst thing I could do for the pop craze youngsters is to carry on talking bollocks like this and deny them the final part of Chop Music episode 54.

Ay up, you pop-crazy youngsters. Let us not fanny about. Let's get stuck in. He puts everything he's got into it, doesn't he? That's Black Sabbath right there. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have gone straight in at number 23 this week with You're The One That I Want.

And here to dance with right now, a Lexington co-worker with a friend of theirs called Floyd. He puts everything he's got into it, doesn't he? Says Tony, before moving on to Safer Ground with the next single, You're The One That I Want by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Born in Englewood, New Jersey in 1954 and Cambridge in 1948 respectively, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were paired up by Robert Stigwood

in 1977 as the stars of the film version of the 1971 musical Grease. Both Travolta and Newton-John already had form as recording artists. The latter had scored seven chart hits in the UK since 1971, the last one being Sam, which got to number six in July of 1977, while the former signed a deal with RCA Records in 1976, scored a top ten hit in America with Let Her In in the same year, and released the ballad LP John Travolta, which is being rushed out over here this week and got absolutely coated down by Melody Maker.

This single, one of two songs written specifically for the film, along with Hopelessly Devoted to You, has been put out a whole month before the film even comes out in America and almost four months before it comes out here. It entered the charts last week at number 53 and this week it soared all the way up to number 23, the highest new entry in this week's top 40. And because no footage has been released from the film yet,

here come Legs & Co and their mate Floyd for a bit of a jive to it. Yeah, Tony introduces Floyd like he's a cartoon character. Yes. It's like the Lex and Co gang with an animatronic Floyd, or like a CGI Floyd. It's a bit juby, but at least they're letting him on screen now. Yes. And they're relatively close to each other, aren't they?

Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, it's just over time, certain old barriers just just start to be broken down so what do we talk about the film or the song or the routine or the what the phenomena of the of greece first time we've dealt with greece unbelievably wow yeah let's start with the song because something really obvious struck me while I was watching this that had never really struck me before, that this isn't a 50s song, is it? No, it certainly isn't.

It's not like a 50s-style song. It's sort of got a kind of an R&B feel, but the way it's produced and with these two singing, it doesn't sound like anything that was made in the 1950s or pre-Beatles 60s. It's like the world's first line dancing song, isn't it? Yeah. But the only thing on the whole record that there is to listen to is the bass line.

It's quite a bleak record other than that. It's got the drums mixed so low that they're barely there. It's like nothing is supposed to distract you from the celebrities singing so there's almost nothing on the record except this leaping hyperactive bass line that's the only thing that holds your attention it's the whole the motor of the the whole record it's weird isn't it and also yeah when you look at Legs & Co dancing here, because this has come before the film and before the release of Summer Nights that had that film trailer.

I mean, it was the bit out of the film, but it functioned as a trailer. Legs & Co don't feel any particular obligation to do this in 50s gear. Yeah, no. And so it's interesting to see it distanced from you know what i mean but that's what's weird that this really when you hear it in greece it should stand out as glaringly as olivia newton john's anachronistic lycra leggings and yes bird's nest hair but because greece is so weird and fantastical and just a big camp daydream,

nobody's ever really noticed this, that the climax of the film is basically the 1970s abruptly bursting into this created fiberglass world and being greeted as a liberator, which is probably the one progressive message in Grease. But it is very jarring. And it's like the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And I don't recall anybody finding it odd or even noticing at the time.

Well, you can tell. I mean, it's all the numbers in Greece, which are not part of the stage show. They sound nothing like the 50s. There's this. There's obviously the theme tune, you know, the Frankie Valli theme tune, which sounds nothing like the 50s. There's this, there's obviously the theme tune, you know, the Frankie Valli theme tune, which sounds nothing like the 50s,

sounds like the 70s records. I suspect that the hand jive number as well in the Grease film isn't in the actual original musical because that sounds like another disco number. This song, yeah, it's nothing to do with it.

This is country pop disco in a way. Yeah. With, it's kind of effective. Olivia Newton-John's voice is just kind of syrupy really and smooth, which is fine. But I actually think for all his faults, John Travolta's got a good voice. He's got a good singing voice that commands kind of attention. He's got that kind of electric jolt to it uh on this number so it's it

is odd because you know as taylor says uh legs and co don't feel a need to dress 50s ish um floyd sure i guess there's a vague 50ness to it but it's it's the routine seems to be i mean it's piss poor routine really but it's it's conjured from a kind of half knowledge of the film like they've heard of like a couple of facts about it um and that's about it but there's deeper problems with what legs and kerr wearing i find in this routine um their outfits specifically the skirts now they're wearing these lacy kind of mesh skirts but some of them have got this thick band kind of around the knees at knee length and the mesh is so super fine a couple of them just look like they've got their knickers down like they've got their knickers down by their knees

and the first minute i was watching this i was like that can't be right until i realized yeah they're lace skirts but they just look like they've got, yeah, their knickers down. But even at this point, that's what's odd. Like you say, the film's like someone had gone, legs and coat, legs and coat, can you come to the stage now, please, loves? And they were caught at a really bad moment. But, you know, I mean, especially on a fuzzy 70s telly, that's what I would have been thinking, I'm sure.

But it is odd that you know i didn't know that al i knew it was before that this appearance is before it comes out in england but this is even before it comes out in america and yes and yet i remember sort of knowing this song quite a lot obviously all you needed back then for hype was a bit of radio play which it was getting but i also seem to recall grease being in magazines like jackie and looking and even fucking jinty covered grease in this you know it just seemed to be everywhere so so yeah when jinty gets involved you know it's gonna blow up don't you they don't put any old shit in you you've got you've got to reach a standard haven't you yeah

yeah absolutely but i i seem to recall me and my sister knowing things about this film even before it came out in America. It was obviously a film that I was too young to watch, but it was one of those first films that I remember my sister going to see. And it was one of those days where she stayed at the cinema all day

and just went back in time and time again to watch it like three or four times. And then, of course, you know, later on in the year. Stranded at the drive-in then later yeah well absolutely and then later in the year you know obviously the soundtrack album turns up in everyone's house and this cultural juggernaut is with us but it's odd how much we knew already definitely because i remember uh round about this time we were um we had weekly trips to the swimming pool on the next estate and we get all get on a coach and i remember one lad perry wilkinson who was absolutely mad into elvis and he read an article in the paper that said something like john travolta he's a better dancer than frederick

sear and a better singer than elvis presley and i watched him reading this just going well this could go either way yeah and he was like yeah i i agree with that wow john travolta is a better singer than elvis and i just like oh my fucking god as a singer he's more like martin degville who was elvis 1990 so yeah this is close but he's got that same sort of yelping tone to his voice that's quite effective in the right in the right surroundings i'm confused by this because me and neil are the same age and i went to see greece wasn't it an aa though no it might have been i went to see it as well it must have been an a10 no it was on at the abc in Kidderminster for about eight weeks.

And everybody went to see it. Everybody in my class went to see it. And I remember as a kid thinking, how come this film is so entertaining, but at the same time so completely unsatisfying? Because at that age, I didn't quite understand, oh, it's a camp confection by possibly quite kooky men of a certain age. But at that age, I didn't really understand the camp aesthetic. And being a kid in the 70s, born in the 70s, in Europe, not America, that whole time period meant nothing to me either.

So I was just thinking, well, none of this seems quite right or believable and why is it all so deadly serious and yet on the verge of smirking all the time you know but it was really confusing but this was the 50s for us you know this sort of distorted rewrite of the 50s yeah became the 50s yeah yeah i mean it's it's essentially the um the big budget version of Happy Days, isn't it? Yeah, basically the 50s was represented to us like the 80s is presented to kids now in a really sort of false and dishonest and confusing way. I bloody love Grease. I still love it.

I will watch it when it's on telly and I know it off by heart. Has anyone watched Grease for this? There's research for this. I don't need to. It's in my head permanently. The whole script is in my head permanently. You know? I mean, I'm always

fond of anything where teenagers are portrayed by 30-year-olds, you know? But, you know, I love the songs in Grease. I love the whole film. So, you know, it was one of those cultural behemoths that I was happy to eventually let, you know, trundle over my head.

And I've been a sucker for it ever since. To the point where, you know, I'm inserting phrases into conversations with students. Like, you know, the whole place is a no parking zone, create a face. And they don't know what I'm talking about. There's that assumed argo with people of a certain age that we all know.

You haven't said it to any of your kids, tell me about it, stud. No, I haven't. But, you know, there is that. Yeah, it's a shared experience for a whole generation, Grease. And yeah, there's loads wrong with it. Yeah, it's simplistic. Yeah, it's not exactly an authentic portrayal of the 50s. But in a weird way, I'll take it over something like American Graffiti every day.

It's not sincere um it's not sincere it's not earnest it's just a ton of fun with some good songs i really like that film yeah i mean i researched for this episode by watching saturday night fever and watching the store with greece no no no fucking need i've been on this planet long enough and known enough women to have seen it so many fucking times you know but there's something unsanitized about greece i mean i know olivia newton john's you know peachy keen and and it's all clean looking in a sense but as a kid yeah watching teenagers drink watching teenagers sing lines about you know we won't be taking any shit because we'll be getting lots of

all of that stuff there's there is a there's a ribald edge to it yeah very much which i've always enjoyed and that i still enjoy you know yeah and you know one of the key plot lines is is someone going to get up the stick or not yeah yeah absolutely and one of the best songs about it as well so yeah yeah i'm not really going to wear a word against it i think i'm not saying it's i wasn't seeing at the the age of seven with Taylor's hypercritical awareness that there was something wrong here. But I just let it roll over me. It was a ton of fun. It remains so as well.

Yeah. And considering what a massive record this would turn out to be, it does sort of get thrown away here a bit. There's only two minutes of it. Well, do you think anybody in that studio has any idea how massive this song's going to be? No. No, not in sight. No, they don't, do you think anybody in that studio has any idea how massive this song's going to be? No. No, not the slightest.

Especially not the lad in the Sham 69 T-shirt with the boots and braces and dark glasses. And the first time we see him, he stood with his arms folded, like just motionless, looking on in disgust, chomping on half a pack of Wrigley's. And then literally a couple of seconds later, it cuts back and you see him again. And he's frugging and skanking wildly with this grotesque, gurning expression, with his skinhead mate cackling at him. And he thinks he's taking the piss and playing the fool for a laugh. But it's actually the least foolish he looks at any point possibly in his whole life and there's also uh because you get to see an awful lot of the audience in this

clip the other highlight is this group of uh very buxom lasses and i hate to draw attention to that but it leaps out at you quite unavoidably all wearing long edwardian maxi skirts and oversized flat caps like yeah the tetley tea yeah they're like the tetley tea men's girlfriends or daughters don't don't you know hands off or you get a teaspoon around the back of the head they'll put 2 000 perforations in you motherfucker yeah it, so there's more to look at, really, in the kids than there is with Legs and Floyd in this particular

routine, which they don't appear to have spent very long on. I just want to, sorry, I just want to thank Taylor for letting his language there slip back to 1978, like time travel, by using the word buxom. Thank you, Taylor. Most polite word I could think of.

But yeah, no, I think what Taylor said earlier about, you know, I think Summer Nights is the next one, isn't it? That's the one where we all knew, oh, this is what this is all about. Oh, I see. This is what the film's characters are. This is going to be a juggernaut. At this point, we don't

know anything. The moment where it all became crystal clear was where it goes in that video i don't know when they start showing uh the the film clip to me that is up there with um bohemian rhapsody as a definitive music video yeah you don't need any explanation in that video as to why they're at that fairground. You don't need any character explanation. It works. Everything about it, on the shaken shack. Yes, while they're putting the freshness back.

But when you were watching that in 1978, it was basically, obviously, a massive advert for the film and it was just saying, come and see how they get to this point in the film. And also John Travolta and Olivia Newton, John look amazing in that clip. They look at their best in a sense. They look,

they don't look, um, I mean, they look good throughout the whole film, both of them, cause they're good looking people. But at that point, that's when they're best looking,

if you like, where Danny Zuko is, is, is most Danny Zuko. So, um, yeah, a fantastic advert for the film. So the following week, you're the one that I want

soared 16 places to number six, then pounced upon the number two spot and then assumed its place upon the summit of Mount Pop, deposing this week's number one and staying there for nine weeks. It would finish the year as the second biggest single of the year and when you factor in the re-release which got to number four in july of 1998 it has sold 2 million and 72 000 copies in the uk making it the fifth biggest selling uk single of all time

the follow-up, Summer Nights, got to number one at the end of September, while You're The One That I Want was still in the top 30, and the cover by Hilda Baker and Arthur Muller was at number 22, and it stayed there for seven weeks, meaning that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John

spent 16 weeks at number one in 1978. Bl's crazy I mean the thing is just one more thing to say about this we forget that 78 you know pre-video age really there's not that many music videos about definitely a pre-MTV age I think Grease is popular fundamentally because what it promises is two hours of pop music and dancing yes which you don't get anywhere else at that point you kind of starved of it. And certainly there haven't been that many musicals for kids apart from Bugsy Malone in this decade. So that's possibly why it was so popular.

We were starved of music and dancing. Grease gave it you. And then we got Sgt Pepper's Lonely Arts Club band. There it is. That's John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. You're the one that I want. From the film Grease, it's over here very, very shortly. And Lakes and Co and Floyd doing a marvellous dance routine to that one.

Here's a guy who's got a sound all of his own in Jewelry and the Blockheads. And what a waste. It's at number 14 this week in the top 30. Blackburn, alone once more, shields the film before pivoting to a guy who's got a sound all of his own. It's Ian Jury and the Blockheads with What A Waste. And also, he says, it's number 14 this week in the top 30.

What else would it be number 14 in? The Periodic Table. Formed in London in 1977 from the ashes of the Loving Awareness Band and Kilburn and the High Roads, Ian Jury and the Blockheads recorded an LP and shopped it round the major labels, but were knocked back. Luckily, Durie's manager had an office next door

to the recently formed Stiff Records, who immediately snapped them up and put out their debut single Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, which was banned by Radio 1 and failed to chart, and the LP New Boots and Panties. They rose to prominence on the Live Stiffs tour in late 1977 with Nick Lowe, Reckless Eric, Larry Wallace and Elvis Costello in the attractions.

The plan was to rotate each act as the headliner, but Costello and Durie were the obvious standouts. And as Costello was insistent on playing new stuff and cover versions, Jury and the blockheads became the breakout stars. This is the follow-up to Sweet Jean Vincent, which failed to chart. It entered the chart four weeks ago at number 48, then began a slow pull up the charts aided by an appearance on Top of the Pops a fortnight ago.

And this week it soared 14 places to number 14. So here's a repeat of that last Top of the Pops performance. Oh, where to start with this? I mean, when this was on a fortnight ago, it absolutely dominated that episode of top of the pobs the one that the thin lizzie fan was raving about in the enemy i mean next morning me and my mates were absolutely fucking raving about that song and we even forsook the usual normal game of football to stand in the middle of the playground and play at being Ian Jury. I was Norman Watt and Ian Jury was bagged by my mate

who was the best fighter in our year and was also the brother of Chris Fairclough. Well, you could do that as a kid because they're an engagingly odd collection of individuals, the blockheads, so you can choose characters like this. I mean, yeah, I, as a five-year-old, I think I'd been aware of rhythm stick which i'd love but you know this to me reminds me the crucial importance for some of us of siblings

when it comes to music yes because very early in the 80s i remember my sister coming home with an ian jory compilation and it just blew my tiny mind this secret music that no one seemed to know about. Songs like, you know, the B-Side to Rhythm Stick. There have been some clever bastards, which is just, it's like a Noel Coward. Lucky bleeders, lucky bleeders. But it's like a Noel Coward number, you know? Yes, it's fucking brilliant. The Blockheads could seemingly do anything.

And songs like Razzle In My Pocket, which seemed, it's a brilliant story anyway, about Nick in a porn mag in a very very clever way but all of his songs just seem to suggest this hinterland populated by those i don't know i wouldn't say forgotten about by society but just ne'er-do-wells basically these kind of lunatics and ranters and idiot savants which is why in a way this appearance for what a waste is as odd and mind-blowing at the top of the pop's appearance as later we'd come to see with, I don't know,

Adamant or Gary Newman or Soft Cell or something. But here, it's not kind of who let the freak in, but it's kind of who let this alien sort of normally abnormal guy in? Disability is so underrepresented in pop. You know, in the 70s, all we pretty much had, I guess, would be wyatt in his wheelchair doing daydream believer but you know even if you didn't know jory's um you know polio he just seemed a genuine outsider always just a bit old bit too old a bit too odd a bit too confident and a bit too intellectual to fit

anywhere but you know living a life of his own making and utterly alien to everything else in this episode in fact and everything else going on yeah when i'd heard that ian jury best of a couple of things sealed it for me the fact that the blockheads just seem to be the funkiest band on earth they're like an essex steely dan you know and and that Jory I mean he's properly a unique poet what I didn't fully appreciate back then because I didn't have any friends from Essex is just how Essex they were every person I've met since from Essex has had a sort of Joryness to them in a sense and what what the Blockhead seemed to be aiming for was totally different to sort of any other

band then there's no new waviness or sort of aggravation really it's slick it's smooth it's funky music and they could they can all play amazingly it's it's weird because later on much much later on when i'm a music journalist and i'm interviewing people like umney P from London Posse and Roots Maneuver. These are guys talking about Ian Jury. Ian Jury has as much of an impact on these guys as, say, Smiley Culture does. And they learn, really, from people like Ian Jury that, yeah, you can talk about your real life. And you can talk about it in your own accent, you know. Yeah.

Which is a revelation to some of these know um yeah which is a revelation to some of these guys and it was a revelation to me at the time by miles i think ian jury's the coolest person on this show he's always an actor and a performer as much as the front man but is his shtick wasn't really a shtick it did just come across as just him. So I love this. I mean, you know, and as a kid, this would have made my eyes widen with amazement. And just following all the words and being able to learn all these lines about being a ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station

and all the rest of it was a delight. I've loved the Endurus music ever since this period, I think, when my sister was introducing me to him. And I was too young thank god in a sense to dig into stuff like Playstow Patricia and stuff but um Plastow Plastow I'm sorry I don't know the entire south is is a is a mystery to me um but yeah I mean I've since come to dig much deeper into the Blockheads music but yeah if you haven, go buy a Best of Ian jewellery because there's just so much wonder on it.

You know, he lied about being from Essex. Ah. Yeah. Well, I think he lived there for a bit, but he wasn't raised there. It's interesting. He must be the only person ever to lie about coming from Essex. Like how Ian Nairn used to lie about being from Newcastle. But at least that makes some sense

because Newcastle's a fucking beautiful city to look at. So if you're an architecture critic, you know, you might. But Essex, I don't know. But I tell you what, I'm no great lover of the county of Essex, but everywhere needs its bard. And it tells you something about the differences between british and american pop in this period or british and american rock in this period right if essex is the new jersey of england which it is then new jersey got bruce springsteen right the heroicized

dream of the regular guy whereas essex got someone who wasn't a regular guy at all. Yeah. And it was like, well, if he had been, no one would have been interested. I like it much better. Although they're two bands of seasoned old pros. I wish I liked the Blockheads more because they're so obviously brilliant. And Ian Jury is so obviously great and a genuinely fascinating bloke. The problem I have is they're non-hits.

I can't listen to them. They remind me of everything I don't like about late-period kinks with this sort of unhealthy funk arrangement. And it's OK. Well, don't listen to them then, Taylor. Well, I have to try sometimes. I eventually got into Steely Dan at the age of about 41 on about my fourth go. And I'm glad I did.

But I love the hits, right? And I love this one especially. Not just because I haven't made a full living for 22 years. So I can feel it a bit. And I just don't have the comfort of playing the fool in a six-piece band. Oh, unless you count the chart music truth, of course. What a waste. What a waste.

Podcasting don't mind. So, yeah, I wish I had more love for the bloggers, but I love this record. And I always like records that sound like TV themes, which the instrumental bits on this really do. Oh, yeah, like Sorry. It's like Sorry. Yeah.

If somebody told you this was by the same people who'd done the theme from Sorry, you would believe them, at least provisionally. It's not as good as the theme from Robin's Nest, but not much is. He looks the coolest fucker in the whole world in this episode. Yeah, totally. I mean, he's just got rid of the quiffy mullet that he had in the video that made him look like billy the fish's alcoholic dad but you look at him now and he's properly shorn and he's got a bit of stubble i remember watching this and at first being

absolutely terrified by him but then also drawn to him and then by the end of the song, I wanted to be him. I mean, I couldn't get a handle on what the music was. At this time, the first question was, well, this isn't disco. So is it punk? It's London funk, isn't it? Yeah. Well, to steal an insight from Tony Blackburn, he has a sound all of his own.

Yes. Here's a British band who are playing funk but not imitating funk. Yeah. And a lot of the sort of new wave groups who are influenced by funk, the whole point was they couldn't play funk but they were using it as a bass rather than using

rock or blues just to make their music sound new. And the fact that they couldn't play funk was part of the charm of it. But the Blockheads can play funk because they're all fantastic musicians so they just use it as part of their sound and the song lyrics as well i was confused by them because to me it's a song that appears to be saying rock and roll woo yeah but it isn't actually is it i mean it sounds now that he's taken that government questionnaire that thinks Taylor ought to be a stuntman and he's cocking his nose up at all of them for a life on the road.

But then when you dig into the lyrics, it turns out that being in a band is only, at best, it's only slightly better than all those other jobs. Yeah. He's not saying, oh, being the ticket man at Fallen Broadway Station, what a cunt he is for doing that when he could be doing what I'm doing yeah he's not really that asked about what he's doing now is it no i mean he's saying you know that he's mad to be that way inclined and and that's a waste as well you know but he doesn't mind it's a nice message and neither does rock and roll yeah me my mates

always thought that the line first night nerves every one night stand we sang it as first rate birds every one night stand you know like like joyce mckinney and daniela mind your language and you know people like that yeah i'll tell you what the only thing that detracts a little bit from this for me was that i purely by coincidence i recently saw them play it live on Revolver, as we were discussing earlier. And, yeah, the thing about Revolver, most of the bands on it are lousy, but when you get a good one, they sound amazing,

which the Blockheads certainly did. And so 90 seconds snipped off a mimed performance seems a little bit drab by comparison. But that's my fault for colouring outside the lines. 90 seconds snipped off a mimed performance seems a little bit drab by comparison. But that's my fault for colouring outside the lines. I was fucked off by this performance because they cut off the best bit. They cut off that amazingly funky heavy bit in the middle with the drums that are just so gorgeous

and amazing when you're a kid. You love them drums. I would have been pissed off about that. Yeah. And the bit where the guitar does that fadey bit, you know. Yeah. Because they're great musicians, they are musically detailed their songs in really interesting ways that you have favorite bits you have bits that even when the right you've just dropped the needle on the start you know you're going to have to hear the whole thing because there's this bit three

minutes in that's fucking amazing they're one of those bands the blockheads yeah yeah the only other thing that annoys me is uh i try to keep concerns like this separate from musical consideration, but the blockheads are just very slightly tainted for me in retrospect by the fact that their recent lineups have included Gilad Atsmon, a very good sax player who's also an extremely active and energetic anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier. Oh, no.

Which, as I say, has got nothing to do with music, but, you know, if everyone's happy to sit in a van with that for days on end, you know. Oh, Taylor. It's not quite, oh, the drummers are Tory, is it? Well, you've got to bring politics into it. It's just music, man. I know.

Call me old-fashioned. So the following week, What A Waste jumped five places to number nine, its highest position. The follow-up, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, got to number one for a week in January of 1979, slipping in between YMCA by The Village People

and Heart Of Glass by Blondette. That is Ian Durie and The Blockers. How nice of you to get there. And that's another call of What A Waste. Number 14, Cilla Black. She always makes great records. But I think this one is an exception. I think this is a gorgeous sound.

It's called Silly Boy. Here she is. Cilla Black. You come on like a movie star But I know exactly who you are And you won't get me in your arms tonight. Blackburn, still in his quarantine period, mumbles something about Ian Drury that I didn't quite catch and then tells us that the next act always makes great records,

but this is an exception. It's his best moment in the whole episode there are no take twos on top of the pot yeah yeah if he'd accidentally said well i think she always makes great records but this one is like having liquid hyena shit pumped into your ears until your skull explodes would they have stopped the camera then no no time keep going just just great the great thing about that moment is you can see it in his eyes that tiny moment of realization that he's fucked up and that that beat a block of bap that he had before filming is really having some bad effects on him but he has to roll with it and he has to continue it's a wonderful moment yeah

realizing he's fucked up again he adds I think this is a gorgeous sound. It's Silly Boy by Cilla Black. We've covered our Cilla too many times on Chart Music, and this, her 29th single release in the UK, is the follow-up to I Wanted To Call It Off, which failed to chart in the summer of 1977. It's the lead cut from her 10th LP, Modern Priscilla, which is her final project on EMI as her 15-year record deal is coming to an end.

In an attempt to put her back in the charts for the first time since Baby We Can't Go Wrong got to number 36 in February of 1974, EMI have drafted in Mike Hurst, who's currently having hits aplenty with Show Waddy Waddy and the songwriting team of Dominic Bugatti and Frank Musca, who have just given Woman In Love to the three degrees and wrote reggae like it used to be for the Don Gorgon himself, Paul Nicholas. It's just come out and it isn't in the charts yet,

but even though Scylla isn't a BBC woman anymore after presenting Scylla's Comedy 6 on ATV in 1975, finishing the eighth and final series of her BBC Saturday evening show, Scylla, in April of 1976, and then turning down the chance to be Bruce Forsyth's replacement in the Generation game, she's been welcomed back onto Top of the Pops

for the last throw of the dice of her musical career. This is it Cilla, you better sparkle baby. I mean people think there's something new about what Megan the Stallion and cardi b are doing let's look still a black is one of those strange stories that just happens sometimes right no

talent not likable personally objectionable behind the scenes um not good looking not funny no charisma horrible voice and they become this huge light entertainment star for 50 years like their appeal it's like their appeal is at a frequency audible only to the elderly um pathologically tasteless and cilla black is now one of those people that you don't have to think about very often because you don't have to see or hear her very often but that wasn't always the case um no this is a fine example of that because nobody asked for this certainly top of the pops viewers didn't and here she is she's like a collective punishment for being British or living in Britain. Whether the natural egalitarian instincts of ordinary people are diverted away from social change and forced through dark pipes to emerge as sort of strange, quasi-threatening celebrations of obliterative mediocrity.

Celebration, if you will. Yeah, I won't. And that's the British idea of liberation and equality. You know what I mean? Just filling the space with witlessness and just smirking faces just like you. So there's no suggestion that there's anything greater anywhere or that you're missing out on anything and so as hard as I try I can't shake the sense of this record which is otherwise just beneath consideration being the specially composed

incidental music for that gradual shift from a vibrant post-war culture to a wilderness of pedestrianized high streets of vape shops and wind-blown cardboard soaked in chicken grease you know and people blame thatcher for kicking that off but part of me thinks she might not have managed it without a soundtrack of Cilla Black and all the other fucking national treasures who are culturally indistinguishable from Cilla Black and that is my last remaining angry teenage lunatic position but I'm sticking to it I mean a latest tv show that the cleverly titled Cilla was on ITV last night. And this is the actual episode where she forms a punk band with Frankie Howard.

Christ. You've seen the photo of that? I sent you a photo of them too. Yeah. Very Velvet Underground, isn't it? And if they'd done it for real, it would be an improvement. I mean, I really handled Joan Sims,

Nicholas Parsons and Lewiswis collins were also on that episode don't know if they were part of the band i really handle it a punk band that makes sense doesn't it well no it doesn't and and this being on top of the pops doesn't really make sense no i mean i kind of get why silly boy is the single choice for a modern Priscilla. Part, I mean, which is it was Me and the Elephant instead, which is a truly dreadful song from that album. What's that about? It's about going to the zoo.

Oh, yes. Yes, I remember that now. Me and the Elephant, we still remember you. Yes. Was it like the elephant tried to mount her or something? To call in a bloke with a tranquilizer and then i'm afraid no oh god how is this coming back to me now i must have heard it once over 40 years ago but it's about silla going to the zoo on her own where she used to go with a bloke and the lions forgot him and the tigers forgot him. Yeah, yeah. And all the other animals didn't give a fuck.

Yeah, yeah. Presumably because they had other things on their mind, like being in fucking cages in a country that there's a different climate to their own. But Scylla and the elephant remembered the bloke. The elephant, unfortunately, cannot forget, obviously. No. But that, I mean, yeah, that would have been a better perhaps more interesting single and it would have been interesting to see perhaps what legs and co would have done with that

song oh yes but um oh it'd be jungle rock all over again wouldn't it but she does i mean scilla just does what she always does it doesn't really matter that there's a fake disco sort of backbeat what she's doing she has this voice this rather unlovely voice, and she rests on it. She never pushes it, really. She just has this endless attitude of, yeah, I can do this pop singing thing. But she seems to always see the whole business as a bit silly. It never really feels like anything's at stake. I mean, even when the ghostly, ectoplasmic, headless saxophonist floats in for his solo, we can never see his face it's creepy as fuck even that can't undermine her

remorseless joyless professionalism and that's what we get here and it is a hateful voice i've never liked it the worst traits of morris's voice remind me massively of cilla black's voice it's just an unlovely thing but I get why this is a single I guess I've never liked Cilla I've never liked her storing nuts for winter slash running mcdonald face and I'm not really I mean we've all heard the terrible tales of Cilla and her monstrous behavior backstage with people to you know and to air stewardesses and things like that I I kind of I'm not put off by that stuff. I kind of expect that and almost admire that in a certain extent.

But, but I, and I did, I must admit, look, I liked her on Blind Date. To me, that was her real home.

Cause I mean, the main thing, it stopped her fucking singing. Even though it's theme tune is obviously right for a Sweeney style sing the title to the tune version but there's always been something unlovely about her voice I think what I do now salvage from that entire I mean it was a 50-year career as Taylor says the one thing I salvage and certainly not in a kind of actually this is good way but this so shit it's kind of entertaining way is those musical montage medleys she did on surprise surprise where where there'd just be a random bit of film of her singing happy

birthday or something to a load of squaddies eye of the tiger yeah those kinds of things i guess are salvageable but other than that yeah what has she left us that we cherish not a lot that clip on the christmas show when she does all night long oh yeah that's incredible that is amazing that's gotta go in the playlist but she was she was given saturday nights and she was given sunday nights for the longest time to entertain the nation which in retrospect just seems staggering well she was to itv and bbc as well because bbc really wanted her as well she was what working class women were she was the representative of the working class woman she's put in a very 70s situation in this

song isn't she you can feel the whiff of the pampas grass her mates blokes coming on to her could be uh morris gibb who knows and and she's saying oh come on you soft lads you don't know what you've got yeah just an inconceivable scenario i mean this this world that she came out of and went back to it's not even you know it's like people tend to lump old light entertainment all in together which is not not appropriate at all there's a top end of light entertainment where you would see really really talented and proficient people doing stuff they'd been doing for 40 years to the point where they were really fucking good at it and you might not like it you might not like it you might not like that sort of dancing or singing or that sort of humor but those people were really

good and then there's like this bottom end which it sort of slowly started to morph into through the 70s and by the 80s that was british light entertainment and it began with people like Cilla, all those shows like, you know, It's Lulu, It's Tarbuck, It's John Reginald Christie, It's Dr. Martin's A-P-O-C-A-L-Y-P-S-E Apocalypse. That one is to empty the puffs. But, you know, the only good thing that we ever got from that quarter, the only thing of any value, is that clip of Bobby Davro in the stocks. Oh, man. And they never even broadcast that. I've not seen that.

Oh, mate. You've not seen it? Okay, I'll arrange for you to have it shortly. You could go on the playlist. I love that clip. But this is, I mean, it's Briscoe. Yes, very much so. But it's not Briscoe

like the real thing. It's not even Briscoe like the Nolans. No. It's Briscoe like Dance With Me by Reginald Bozencake. Yes.

And it's, in that it is just someone saying, all right, is this how you make a disco record, isn't it? Right, a four on the floor and then it goes do-do-do-do-do. And then very shortly afterwards saying, all right, is this how you make a disco record? A four on the floor and then it goes... And then very shortly afterwards saying, okay, that'll do.

And it shouldn't really be normalised like this because if people like Black were limited in their careers to just murdering standards and show tunes at the night out Birmingham, or Chewbacca's in Portsmouth. And if that was it, if all they ever were was like, and now we're here with a beautiful number called Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear Every Time You're Near?

Here she is. None of this would matter. You could ignore it. here she is none of this would matter you could ignore it um but when her musical deposits upon humanity are put in the center of the room like this then suddenly exhausting as it is you have to give a shit about it even if you don't and with this audience of young people who are all smiles, like it's okay, it's Scylla. It's just a laugh. Well, it fucking isn't.

Yeah, she might give us some chocolate at the end. Yeah, I wish someone would shove a lump of chocolate in her mouth. Yeah. Or something they could convincingly claim they thought was chocolate. Grow up, Taylor. Oh, my God. Oh, no. Dear, I can't believe I'm giggling at that but no the thing is she is she's in a sense

always beyond critical analysis because because really you know even when back in the 60s when she's doing backtrack numbers you can't really judge Scylla in terms of how she interprets a song or how she puts the song across she doesn't put songs across no there's this disconnect between her and whatever she's singing it's more like i open my mouth and sound comes out she's beyond critical analysis in that in that sense she's just in astonishingly mediocre she's astonishingly competent so she would cover as a nightclub singer she is a singer i guess but in terms of her interpretations of songs there is no interpretation here the songs i don't think she likes music much so i think really she sees it as a purely a vehicular

entity in her right to stardom as it were so yeah it's kind of beyond analysis but i think one bit of analysis i think we can all agree as in yeah it's fucking awful yeah but it's an insult though isn't it do you not mean to put this on top of the pops it's saying, yeah, it's fucking awful. Yeah. But it's an insult, though, isn't it? Do you know what I mean? To put this on Top of the Pops. It's a bit of, and it's like I was saying about James Galway. I can explain this better at 4am when I'm out of my head because I can feel it more clearly and I'm closer to the guts of it.

But, you know, in this period, music was all a lot of people had. Yes. You know, really the only, maybe music and fashion, you know. And Top of the Pops, despite the fact that everyone knew it was kind of a cheap plastic crapper armour, it was a rare source of hope. It was like fucking magic, you know, like this illogical magic being beamed directly into your shithouse

from a lit up enchanted castle in Shepherd's bush and it was like a reassurance you know that life could be more thrilling and more intriguing than anything in your street or your whole experience to date and this is just stomping on that and saying no it isn't and people really don't get this now right like look i don't want to sound like some ancient prick you know going on about what it was like in the war and you only got a walnut for christmas but it's younger people don't and can't see this right like there's these posh young twats who live in the flat above me and the other week they had a party in the middle of a pandemic because they don't give a fuck about anyone else.

And I was sat there getting slightly annoyed about the noise and I was pondering on, you know, whether to shout up, you're not in a converted millhouse on farmland three miles outside of Ascot now. You're on a council estate in Tower Hamlets, so fucking keep it down a bit. But it struck me, there wasn't any music they'd been having a party for three hours and there was no music playing just the the sound of

braying upper middle class voices and I should have been glad about that I should have been glad about the lack of bass frequencies rattling my shelves but I was fucking appalled what sort of party is this i would rather hear for three hours than but to them their own stupid voices saying absolutely fuck all is the sweetest sound around it's the only thing they need to hear. So the point is, those people don't understand this, that a party without music was once unthinkable because music was like the only thing, the only thing. And to slice off a quarter of Top of the Pops most weeks for this fucking horse diarrhea

or James Galway's fucking flute of of vd when kids were already starved and already patronized and let down by their own tiny window in the tv schedule it's like a backhander across the face for every poor kid who tuned in out of genuine desperation you know because when this is over what's next nothing and they have to fucking sit through this and look at still as decomposed face and i just even now i get angry on their behalf my behalf i was one of them i'm not as militant as you're too about this song i mean it's the's the top of the pop's orchestra doing disco again, isn't it? But they're all not that bad. Because disco is strings, and they can handle strings.

Yeah, the music's not really the issue. The issue is her. Yes. And her voice, you know. The undertow of it is not objectionable. It is her. And it's just her self-serving nature. She cannot sing anything without it sounding like that.

So, yeah, I quite like the little bumptious groove of it, but then she comes in and just shits all over it with her horrible, hateful voice, which spoils it, really. Yeah, I'm sure if Dionne Warwick had done a version of it, it would have been pretty good. Yeah. I mean, if Simon was on this episode,

I feel he'd be pointing this up as the absolute genesis of mam disco because you know this is real mam's issues isn't it yeah and he's got no chance with cilla anyway because as we all know she's totally dedicated to our bob air yeah after you'd come on to her, you'd be our Bud Dwyer. So the following week, and for every week since, Silly Boy fell to chot. She concentrated on a full-time television and cabaret career, and this would be her last Top of the Pops appearance for 15 years when she attempted a comeback with Through The Years, which helped get it to number 54. Silly boy, I don't play with you Silly boy, because you ain't free Silly boy, it's got to stop

You don't know what to do, you don't know what to do Silly boy, leave me alone Silly boy, just give up Heavy Pencil An actor of my experience, you just get run dry A podcast sitcom with Anna Crilly and Tony Gardner I played Edmund Gelder and he played Fanny Snatch The Observer called it

I'm not having any more of this. I need you to pull me off immediately. Heavy Pencil from Great Big Owl. 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. That's fantastic, don't you? That's Cilla Black there. And a lovely sound called Silly Boy.

At number 24, here's Sham69 and Angels With Dirty Faces. Hello, ma'am. Who's on top of the pubs again then, eh? Angels with dirty faces. Angels with dirty faces. Angels with dirty faces. Angels with dirty faces. Angels! Angels, but I was lying to you like the angels.

Tony continues to gush over Cilla. Oh, God, that sounds weird. And then introduces us to the next single, Angels With Dirty Faces by Sham69. We've covered Sham a time or two on Chart Music, and this, their fourth single, is the follow-up to Borstal Breakout, which failed to chart. It's the lead-off single from their second LP,

That's Life, which comes out in November, and it entered the charts two weeks ago at number 54, which merited their debut performance on Top of the Pops, which helped it move up to number 39, and this week it soared 15 places to number 24. Yeah, Tony's overcompensating there, isn't it, with his praise of Scylla? Yeah, very much so. Creep.

He's really grinning and bearing it here because, you know, as we all know, he hates punk even more than he hates reggae. In fact, in an interview with Val Marriott in the Leicester Chronicle, which he started by saying he would terminate the conversation if he was asked any questions about Tessa Wyatt and then spent the next three quarters of an hour talking about Tessa Wyatt, he finally said, I hate the punk rock music cult.

I was glad the Sex Pistols got shunned by the public there's no excuse for disgraceful behavior or scruffiness particularly by groups on television programs like top of the pops those pistols got shunned by the public that explains the complete lack of interest shown in them in the years since. Well, he just can't help being 100% Tony Blackburn, can he? And that's precisely what punks want to hear, I should imagine. We go on about how Top of the

Pops gets people like Siller in when they've got no right to be on Top of the Pops because they're not in the charts. But, you know, you've got to take your hat off to them here for getting Sham 69 in when they were only at number 54. Have we? Have we really got to take our hats off to Amir for getting Sham 69 in when they were only at number 54. Have we? Have we really got to take our hats off to... Honestly, Al,

right, with this song, honestly, I almost downed tools. I almost went on strike. Really? Not in protest or such, but I found myself watching it, and I found myself trying to like it, right, because we've done Sham 69 before. I must admit jimmy percy seems

right like a nice bloke okay whose heart is in the right place and i was trying to find ways to like this but i'm sorry guys the music shit the lyrics are shit i hate everything about it it's just it's just embarrassing to me this this song and this band to be honest with you and the weird thing is i don't think i hated them before it's chart music that's made me hate them oh no and really i think what it is is that for the longest time i've associated sham 69 with guys with their name sham 69 tip hexed on their leather jacket guys who basically have always wanted to kick my head in my whole life so yes he's going for the gusto he's sincere i guess all these things we should applaud and we should i should kind of be touched by his gaucheness but

i can't let him have his cake and eat i'll just find this fucking laughable shit i'm sorry i tried and i have tried with sham 69 but bad associations in the past have corrupted them for me a little bit to the point where i can't i can't dig the music at all you know for me if you've got fascist fans break up the band and change your name so yeah i just i think this is the moment when I watch this because I know this is thought of as one of their best songs perhaps but I just thought this you know I would have laughed at this when I was a working music critic in the 90s even if it was and I did actually with bands like Smash but um you know I'm not going to pretend to like this now I'm sure he's a nice fella but I don't like this at all I don't like anything about it please convince me otherwise taylor no no no i mean look you're supposed to look at this

and go it's the voice of disenfranchised working class youth but no this is what thick angry people had before brexit i mean i suppose you could say this is more constructed, but even that's debatable. Right, first of all, I hate the way he does that who's on top of the pops again, eh, at the start, which he did on every fucking TV appearance they ever made. It's pure shtick, right? He should learn. No, no, no, he did it two weeks ago on top of the pops.

He also did it when they appeared on So It Goes, except he didn't have a proper line. So he went, oohs on Granada TV there. What a shame he didn't turn up on Coronation Street and say that. Behind Ilderogden's sofa. But it's just, it's pure shtick. He should learn. TV eats your material material you can only do these things once and especially when it was shit anyway if every time I was on here if when you said hello I went who's on chart music again people get really sick of it next time you're on

telly you've got to say that I'm holding you to that but it's I mean he's trying to be flippant as well when it's so obviously really is the proudest moment of his life um yes and you know that's what I liked about it he demonstrated that he knew like Mark Holman he knew that being on top of the pops meant that you were winning at life yeah and so he's got every right to i think everybody who went on top of the pops for the first time should have said hello mum guess who's on top of the pops then yeah bowie had said it at the beginning of starman would have only enhanced it in the 90s when they got big american stars to introduce the show they should have been made to do a cockney accent say hello mom guess who's on top of the pops then yeah and i mean yeah i'm

i'm in no position to scoff considering the proudest moment of my life was when the samaritans put the phone down on me um but it comes off as vaudeville that's the thing bad vaudeville and following cilla black should have given them a bit of a bump right and made them seem more wild and more explosive but in fact it kind of makes you realize how many ways in which they're like cilla black like second-rate performers with a very particular intended audience to whom they're pandering and trying to second guess and it's always hilarious to see this aggro music coming from such obvious soft lads as well like to their credit they never pretended to be hard men as individuals but you look at their fluffy clean hair their mum ironed shirts and yeah i don't know but yeah i think the same of jimmy percy as as an individual as most people do which is basically that poor bastard you know he's just another lad

who to paraphrase neil had his heart in the right place and his brain in his arse, just caught in a moment in pop history when someone like him could be catapulted into the light and just be sort of left there wriggling. And usually him seizing that opportunity to express himself and create something, despite a total lack of talent would have led to nothing worse than a few you know a few charmingly useless pop singles and a few kids

with hangovers and ringing ears on the lathe on monday morning but the nature of what punk had become and the incoherence of his aggression created a situation where this farce was the epicenter of a load of actual needless violence having having roused a particular rabble who would be better off passed out drunk and that's what happens when you fuck around with this stuff right like nihilism and and aggression and trying to redeem the irredeemable and i do feel bad for him because you can't even say oh he should have known better because he he didn't know anything he was. And he was trying his best to do something positive, right? But in the same way that he was trying his best to make a good record. And that didn't fucking work either.

So it just so happens this ended up as an excuse for a load of people to kick each other's heads in, you know, some of whom weren't even enjoying it. I don't know. I've got fond memories of this song. This was another song that electrified the playground when I was 10. Yeah, that I can believe.

I think it was the line, kids like me and you! The Yachtwood lilt of it. Which is a brilliant thing to shout across the playground. Which makes no sense at all, of course, because as a friend of the show, Phil Ramsden was saying on Facebook recently, Oh, Phil.il yeah it's surely if these angels with dirty faces are kids like me and you there's no

way that they can come from places you don't want to go because by definition they would already be in those places but i like that bit as well because i came from a place that other people didn't want to go simply because there was fuck all there. It wasn't a dangerous area. Just had a couple of pubs and a DIY store

called Big D. Yeah. So if you weren't putting a shelf up there was absolutely no reason to go where I lived. But I don't think

Jimmy Percy was singing about the lack of leisure plazas in his local community. He's obviously reached something else. But I mean, of course not. The thing is,

I think what winds me up about Jimmy Percy, something that Taylorlor hinted at it's the same thing that winds me up about steve marriott from the small faces and although he's having a go at fucking steve no no i love the small faces don't get me wrong and i like steve marriott as well but steve marriott had a slightly different background than jimmy percy obviously but there's a stage schooliness to it that there's an artful dodgeriness to it yeah it just rubs me up the wrong way and I think Jimmy Percy's got that as well yes and I am watching Sham 69 I should say from the vantage point of now I don't think I was aware of them in 78 at all what I was aware of was that increasingly those scary bone-headed cunts who scared the hell out of me and looked at me like they wanted to boot my head in you know had sham 69 tippet somewhere on the denim or tippet somewhere on

the boots yeah so it's difficult for me to dissociate it's regardless of what the band's music was about and regardless of what he's about it's weird it's like it's like you know there's bands i've never heard of that just seeing the name in a sense reminds me of that fear it's like i've never heard the angelic upstarts right right but there's a name do you know what i mean you know the kind of people who had that on their jackets and for me that's it that they are now verboten they are now part of that set of bands where the fans scared the hell out of me as a kid so yeah i don't bother investigating or really being fair on them perhaps yeah martin stevenson and the dainties no that's that wasn't yeah it's but it it's it's a bit of a conundrum in some ways because

like what can you say you can't say oh mate jim you should have stayed at home watching ski sunday you know yeah writing sandbaggers slash fiction um even though that's kind of true because on the one hand you know you can't coddle culture like that you have to let things happen and sometimes they unfold as a as a mini disaster you know the problem is that this is a country which encourages or at least used to encourage uh free expression and involvement while never sorting out its deeper problems and sometimes that throws up a mess like this or you know a more serious one on a grander scale where people who've not been given the means or the information to understand things i wouldn't want to take away the good times from anyone who was not a cunt and was genuinely thrilled to be represented by Sham69.

I mean, if they were truly inspired to do anything other than put the boot in, then hooray, hooray. But it's less than optimal. And in a way, you can blame them. Because if you're trying to express suburban working working class fury. And it was, that's, that's the key thing about Sham 69. This is not city music. This is suburban music.

You can do it like Sham or you can do it like the jam. Right. And I think if you compared the audiences of those two groups, you'd find a lot of kids from similar backgrounds, but I think you could probably split that down the middle and the ones who were thick and horrible and the ones who weren't as thick and horrible it would be an almost perfect split as to which group they followed um because i mean jam fans had a sort of like at least a sense of culture do you know what i mean even if they were horrible dickheads

whereas sham fans were almost reveling in their lack of it and you know i don't know how much of that was each band rallying the audience that suited them that was there already and how much of it was encouraged uh by their respective approaches to their work and the way they engage with the audience and you can't say jimmy percy didn't try yeah yeah to to disassociate his band from but i mean what he didn't understand is first of all he didn't have the intelligence to do that in a way that was going to work and secondly when you consciously start playing the pied piper to legions of angry frustrated uneducated kids and this is the tone you're taking you really need to be smarter than jimmy percy to pull it off he's

got a red and black plaid shirt with white braces on. He's also got a very chunky Rock Against Racism badge. And this is what would cause no end of shit for the band as time went on. Because they would play the Rock Against Racism gig a couple of months from now. You know, the big open-air one. Yeah, and the harder they tried to extricate themselves from that, the more their fans got angry about it and started more fights at their gigs. It's like rather than thinking,

oh, I don't like Sham anymore because they're anti-racist, they still went to the gigs but just got really pissed off about it. Also, someone should tell him it's rude to point if anyone wants to see the other side of jimmy percy find his appearance on tv show riverside which i think has been raised before but yeah riverside video playing side being the most early 80s tv show that there ever was that it looks like an overly clever parody of 1982 made recently yes and yeah there's percy giving it the full walking against the wind doing his theatrical mind his tragedy continues like he turns his back on the misery of sham and tries to learn a lesson from it and thinks, what can I do that is the complete opposite of the horror I've just managed to get myself out of? But it doesn't work because he can't shake the fundamental misapprehension that he has this creativity which needs to be expressed.

No, no, sorry no if it look if it was that attitude that was around at the time if anyone can do it right no if anyone could do it there'd be no point in anyone doing it it's like you don't you don't get people going on tv giving demonstrations about a fucking breathe in and out do you know because everyone can do it. Britain's got breathers. But, I mean, you say all that, but it's clear that Jimmy Percy, bless him, is putting his heart and soul into this performance when he falls onto the floor,

when he collapses onto the floor, just like James Brown. Yeah, or Bobby Davro. Yes. Am I wrong in thinking? You said Jim Bowen isn't Lionel Blair in that clip at all

I'm trying to remember I think he is yeah Cheggers is the one I remember the most because he's going oh Bobby Bobby

so the following week angels with dirty faces dropped 11 places to number 35 then soared 16 places to number 19 then went down to number 35 then up again to number 35, then soared 16 places to number 19, then went down to number 35, then up again to number 24, and then out of the top 40.

The charts, what are you like? Bouncy, bouncy. Yes. The follow-up, If The Kids Are United, got to number 9 for two weeks in August, and they close out 1978 with Oreo Paré getting to number 10 in November I quite like that one yeah I do quite like it just because it's so you know if you're gonna do that just

do have a gang of lads going we're going down the pub you might as well go all in yeah thank you Thank you. By the rivers of Babylon We'll be sat down Blackburn affects concern for the prone Jimmy Perse before laying the number one single upon us, Rivers of Babylon by Boney M. Formed in Offenbach, Biber, West Germany in 1975

by Frank Farian, a singer turned producer, Boney M consisted of Maisie Williams, a Montserrat-born Birmingham-based model who won Miss Black Beautiful a couple of years ago, Marcia Barrett, a Jamaican-born Germany via Croydon-based model who won Miss Black Beautiful a couple of years ago, Marcia Barrett, a Jamaican-born Germany via Croydon-based singer, Liz Mitchell, a Jamaican-born London race singer who represented West Germany as part of the Les Humphries singer in the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest, and Bobby Farrell, who was born in Aruba, served in the Dutch Navy and was working as a DJ in Germany, who were all put together to perform Farian's tunes on telly while he continued to have his less disco-fied career.

Their debut single, Baby Do You Wanna Bump, a disco version of Al Capone by Prince Buster, only became a hit in the Netherlands, but the follow-up Daddy Cool went to number one all over Western Europe and became their first UK hit when it got to number six in February of 1977, kicking off a run of four top ten hits in that year. This is the follow-up to Belfast, which got to number eight in December of 1977 and is a double A side with Brown Girl in the ring. This is the follow-up to Belfast, which got to number 8 in December of 1977, and is a double A-side with Brown Girl in the Ring.

It's a cover of the 1970 Roots single by the Melodians, which was best known for being part of the soundtrack of the 1972 film The Harder They Come. It was the highest new entry at number 21 a month ago, then soared 19 places to number two, then knocked Night Fever by the Bee Gees off number one, and is now at its third week at the topper most of the popper most. 1978's supposed to be the year of Travolta, but this is the one group that sold more than anybody else that year. Oh, yeah.

Boney M, symbol of free West. I mean, they really were for me. They actually gained in importance a few years after this, in 82, on my first trip to India, which I keep going on about. But it was an important trip for me. But I remember, you know, westernized kid in India, vainly searching around for symbols of the west to cling to little totems of back home and there weren't much about you know i did discover in india thumbs up cola which is

fantastic drink um what's the difference between thumbs up and coca-cola then not a lot not there's no real difference i couldn't detect much of it mean, the crucial thing was it tasted a bit like Coke. It wasn't as horribly toxic and chemically as Panda Pops, but it tasted a bit like Coke and it looked like a Coke bottle. And, you know, in a sea of Indian-ness, which I should have been appreciating, of course, it was a godsend. I also found bread one day, which I was missing toast like fuck and I found this weird bread that they sold in India I mean this is pre very westernized India in a sense not many people

have tv sets whereas now they're actually more western than us in an odd way but yeah so bread was a real revolution even though it tasted like it had been made with condensed milk and and the two albums the two western records that my family owned in in bombay were yeah lip syncs funky town 12 inch and night flight to venus by bony m wow i don't know how they'd got there i suspect because i we had we did have relatives in germany that maybe that was how they made their way over there but night flight to venus became a touchstone as a kind of symbol of free west whilst I was over in India but in 78 I mean they were massive they were everywhere to the point where you know I mean that you say it's a double a side with brown girl in the ring I remember there being a bit of confusion about that as to

which one was the a and which one was the B. And Brown Girl in the Ring I have really bad memories of because Brown Girl in the Ring invariably is a catchy nursery rhyme-y type song was sung at me as the only brown kid in the class quite often. So it's got that association with me. In fact, School and Boney Emma, they seem intimately associated in my consciousness because this song rivers of

babylon it's like a school song it's like the ink is black or kumbaya or something like that so it's inevitable that frank farian would try and discify it um and in a weird way though kind of definitive of 78 bony emma strangely dated even then they're a 60s style group really entirely put together by an impresario and this song is sort of strangely haunting lyrically a song about slavery that gets to number one it's a bit crazy i mean watching this as a kid certainly bobby would have been the main draw for for anyone watching bony m and he doesn't really get much to do in this. I would argue that a spoken word interlude over the humming bit would have improved it,

that Bobby could have done. All those Egyptians. Well, I think he could have done the parts of Psalm 137, which the lyrics of this are based on. Yeah, he could have added some of this, especially the line, happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks that would have made for a potentially more interesting performance but yeah i very much associate bony and with school with being bullied a little bit not being bullied but having a piss taken at me because brown girl

in the ring but they were massive and in a really, it's telling that they end this episode. Because what a global episode this has been. Yes. Ireland, Israel, a lot of European stuff and US stuff. You know, yes, we invented Punk the year before or a couple of years before. But this is a very globalized chart, if you like, which is going to change as we get towards the late 70s. There are some creepy facts, though, about Boney M, of course. I mean, we all know that, you know,

Bobby died on the same date and in the same city as Grigory Rasputin. Yes. Or in the same way. But there's other creepy little numerical oddities with it as well. You know, the time between Rasputin's death and Boney M's hit of the same name was 61 years how old was bobby when he died 61 and if you match each letter for rasputin and bobby and bobby farrell's numerical place in the alphabet they both total 118 think about that think about that i mean the song as neil's pointed out it's about psalm 137 and the

the exile and subsequent slavery of 10 of the 12 tribes of israel which is pretty good going for a number one record but in britain we were all right with songs about slavery they just whack them on because i remember yeah that djs DJs on the local radio station and on Radio 1 a year ago would play 96 Degrees in the Shade by Third World, which is about a Jamaican rebellion which ended in violent suppression by the British and subsequent executions. They'd just whack that on whenever it was dead on. But this is also the era where you could buy music for pleasure lps called negro

spirituals for children you know that that yeah that ancient slavery history was seen as fair game really oh man they just cashed it in on roots yes seriously because it it captured the popular imagination hadn't it there's people just sort of no subject where you can't just go, oh, people like this. Let's do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, they've toned down the lyrics of the original and they took out the overt raster references. But,

you know, all that was completely lost on me because, you know, I'm at this time where I'm still not catching lyrics

properly. And I thought it was about a picnic by the river or something. Well, yeah, you would. And one lyric that i really didn't understand was how should we sing the lord song in a strange land because i thought that was how should we sing the lord song in australia that would be tricky too i mean yes you're right bob Bobby has calmed down a bit in this one. There's not a lot he could have done. Yeah.

Is there really? No. Without somewhat detracting from the at least residual seriousness of this song. Yeah. I mean, this is your non-ores number one, isn't it? I think the non-ores have come out for this. I don't know. I have the same response when I see this now as when I saw it as a kid,

which is basically, what is this? What is this supposed to be? Because one of the best things about Boney M, from our perspective in the 21st century, is how few of the decisions made by, or rather made on their behalf, bear any resemblance at all to any decisions that would be made in the

equivalent situation today and even then nothing about them made any sense right people just accepted that what they perceived to be junk pop um especially german junk pop would be ludicrous and not properly thought through so it's like oh yeah you know but in fact it's far more interesting than that um because if you're just randomly chucking stuff out without thinking about it because you don't take your work seriously which i think is what a lot of people assume to be true here the results do not look like this even in 1978 right this weird like the choice of material painter man and king of the road songs about you know rasputin and belfast and marbarker um the choice of band members none of them particularly sexy or sold as personalities and they're not singers really so

the choice of band name we the decision to call their awkward fifth album boo noo noo noos which they did and just the the the planething inanity of songs like Hooray, Hooray, It's a Holly Holly Day. It's just, what the fuck, you know, is the bony M secret. The more what the fuck they got, the better they were, which is why this one I think is slightly underwhelming because it's probably their least weird and least interesting hit. It's unusual, but it's not baffling and it's not freaky.

It's just a catchy song which feels about a thousandth as weighty as it probably should considering its provenance. And it's difficult to dislike. I mean, people did, but i think they were probably trying quite hard yeah but equally it's pretty difficult to have any strong positive feelings towards this single it's just thinly nice you know which is fair enough but you know night flight to venus is a lot more fun so this is the spaceship bony M and they do a big countdown at the start and then blast off into space. Fucking great.

No, this is a prime example of a band who've established themselves and you get the feeling that whatever they put out next is a nailed on number one. You know what I mean? Yeah, because it's going to be competently produced and well sung. And they've got enough of a fan base that are going to jump

on it as soon as it comes out. But even as a kid, I missed, you know, I wanted Daddy Cool and Rasputin and those weird songs more than I wanted this.

Yeah. Anything else to say about this? No, weirdly, no. Yeah. No, if we had a more juicy number, if we had Rasputin or Marlborough, there would be more to say. This is a flat song.

It's a square song. It's four by four all the way, you know, and it just stays there. Yeah, and you can't really do anything to it either. I mean, the performance is four mic stands, four people standing behind them, all dressed up nicely in their bony M togs, just getting on with it.

And it's got the reek of a Christmas song to it as well, hasn't it? Yeah. It has, yeah, definitely. So Rivers of Babylon would spend two more weeks at number one before giving way to You're the One That I Want, then spent five weeks slowly sliding down the charts to number 20. But then, in late July, DJ started flipping the record

and playing Brown Girl in the Ring, which sent it back up again. And by the second week of September, it was back at number two, held off number one by Three Times a Lady by the Commodores. They fucked up there, didn't they, having two songs like this on the same slab of vinyl? Yeah, I mean, both of those separately could have been number ones, probably. Should have made them both a sides separate the singles out and give them crap b sides the following month the follow-up rasputin spent two weeks at number two held off number one by summer nights in all rivers of

babylon slash brown girl in the ring spent 40 weeks in the uk charts, 19 weeks in the top 10, and would close out the year as the biggest selling single of 1978 in the UK. By which time their third and final single of 1978, Mary's Boy Child, spent virtually the whole of December at the top of the charts. And of course, Rivers oflon received the ultimate tribute that month when it was parodied on a taste of aggro by the baron knights there's a dentist in birmingham possibly the baron knights finest moment That is number one sound there from Bernie M. Sad news, no Top of the Pops next week because of the World Cup on the soccer,

but we'll be back with you in a couple of weeks' time, so see you then. Thanks for watching. We're going to play out with Rod Stewart on Ole Ola. See you in a fortnight. Bye-bye. MUSIC PLAYS When the blue shirts run out in Argentina Our hearts will be beating like a drum And your nerves are so shattered you can't take it Automatically you reach out for the rum

Tony now resigned to the fact that he's not going to get to hug a Womble or have a bite of a banana from a lovely Lady Gibbon breaks the news that, unbelievably, there is no Top of the Pops next week due to, quote, the World Cup and the soccer. The World Cup and the soccer. Yes. This, to my estimation estimation is only the second time that a

sporting event has got in the way of top of the pops the first one july 28th 1966 for the world cup third place match between portugal and the ussr after pissing on our chips he signs off with ole ola mole braziliera by rod stewart and the 1978 scotland world cup squad we've already covered scotland in chart music number 27 and this single only the second in their 105 year career as they were very much an albums act is the follow-up to Ease Air, Ease Air, which got to number 20 in June of 1974. After four years touring Czechoslovakia, Liverpool and a gig at Wembley where their fans went a bit sham 69 on the goalposts, they signed to Reva Records, the label owned by billy gaff who teamed them up with a singer he was managing rod stewart whose last single hot legs got to number five in february

of this year stewart a vociferous supporter of scotland despite being born in london was delighted to be roped in to sing a partial cover of the valvaldo Gouveia song that was a hit in Brazil this year on the condition that he joined the squad via helicopter at their pre-World Cup camp in Dunblane and get involved in their training session for the video which was a bit rich of him considering that when members of the squad were forced to travel down to London to record their bit, Stuart wasn't there and they had to sing their bits around a cardboard cutout of Rod perched on a stool. Although there's already been an official spoiler record, Ali's Tartan Army by Andy Cameron that got to number six last month, it's crashed into the chart this week at number 25.

And as it's too late to get the band into the studio, here's a look at some credits over the studio lights while we listen to the sultry Scottish samba beat. Well, before we even get into the song, no Top of the Pops makes 10-year-old Al

Needham angry. I know it's the World Cup, but nothing should be allowed to get in the way of Top of the Pops particularly a Top of the Pops in 1978 they could have shoved it

on BBC 2 couldn't they well I'm looking at the schedule for next Thursday World Cup grandstand starts at 10 to 6 until 9 o'clock right

but you know fuck the news stick it on then or knob off Dez O'Connor afterwards because he's only got Kenny Rogers

Kelly Monteith and Larry Grayson on. Or, you know, just put it on BBC Two instead of Gardner's World. Fuck's sake. So, the single. I mean, mystery solved. That's why Scotland's doing a song with Brazilian woman in the title.

But, you know, the question remains, why are they doing a fucking Brazilian song for the Argentinian World Cup? It's all the same, isn't it? It's the same thing we were talking about when we were talking about Japanese boy. You know, that was the Far East, isn't it? Yes.

Well, this is South America, isn't it? Al, you mentioned that when the Scottish people, when the Scottish team had to record their bit, they did it around a cardboard cutout of Rod. Yes. Have you seen the photos of that yes there's something really disturbing about those photos yes because it the cutout is too real it looks like it looks like it's been cut in half in some sort of damien oman 2 type scenario it's

horrific really disturbing yeah yeah born and raised about five minutes walk from where i used to live in north london yeah though never as far as i know subjected to a tebbit cricket test yes i can forgive rod quite a lot because you have to and because that's all almost his thing in it he's the kind of bloke where he's like he's a bad boy yeah but a cheeky smile is meant to wipe the slate clean every time and the truth is up until about up until about 1974 the album smiler he was very easy to forgive but after that it does get harder and you have to be very selective he did a lot of great stuff after that but it turned into this kind of dickhead not to put too far a point on it and the bad material got worse and by 1978 i mean this is right at the end of that period

where he was still making good records on a regular basis. Yeah. You know. So by the time this one comes at you like a Graham Souness tackle, you're just not prepared to keep on forgiving him. No. And you just, you know, you are right at that point of just thinking, fucking shove it up your wiggling arse, cock nose. point of just thinking fucking shove it up your wiggling ass cock no now if you're a pop craze caledonian chances are you're not even watching this episode because the stv region are currently screening argentina here we come which was the live broadcast from hamden park where the scotland

world cup squad are currently driving around the pitch in an open top bus, waving at people who've spent 50p for the privilege of looking at Joe Jordan and the like. Do you remember anything about the 1978 World Cup? Yeah, I think it was probably the first World Cup where I did get to see some matches. Yeah, and I remember faint visions of ticker tape everywhere and some of the matches in the Archie Gemmel and some of the moments. Yeah, it was probably the first World Cup

that I was cognizant of. Certainly wasn't cognizant of the 74 one. But yeah, I'm awake. I'm watching football. I'm about five or six years old. Yeah, it's coming flooding back. And actually, you know this song? I know it's probably awful

isn't it by any reasonable metric but i don't know it's been in my head all week it's kind of catchy as football records go um yes you know yeah so i will hold against it although this is probably just frank skinner bullshitting but i remember frank skinner saying that the reason he wrote Three Lions was because of this. And I fucking hate Three Lions for all kinds of reasons. me too. It's bullshitting.

It would have been, it would have been Ali's tartan armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where he reminded us that England cannae do it because they didn't need qualifying.

Oh, wait till we get to that one. Fucking hell. I kind of like it when World Cup records take on the stereotypical racial connotations to do with the place that they're

going to to play in this tournament and I look forward to that which this one doesn't well it gets it

a bit wrong but it's all South America isn't it Tango Sambo who cares yeah it's like

if they'd done a 1974 one called Belgian Girl or it's like if someone in South America had released a single for the 1966 World Cup,

which was all like accordions and like, we are going to England. The video was shown on the STV documentary show that's going to be on a couple of nights from now called World at Their Feet. Yes. Which, oh, 60 minutes of hubris isn't it it's quite remarkable and it's the worst part of that documentary as well because that documentary

is is fucking great yes a really queasy lingering look at that old scotland right all dark and frightening you know i mean with all these old fellas with faces like butter that's been left out or you know full of reflux landscape looks like 1970s poland but more violent yes they interview all these blokes with like you know cans of tartan bitter in their fists they were spunking their life savings on a trip to Argentina. Two grand, which is about £11,500 now. Yeah. Just totally, totally confident that Scotland are going to win the World Cup.

Because there was a general feeling that Scotland had a chance. I mean, you know, Ali McLeod was banging on relentlessly that Scotland were going to win it. And, you know, this song is just as boisterous about that. But there was a feeling that Scotland were going to do all right in this one. I was really looking forward to seeing Scotland, mainly because there were three Forest players in there. You know, Archie Gamble, Kenny Burns and the sacred Robbo.

John McGovern couldn't even get in the squad, could he? No, no. It is amazing how many good players Scotland had in the 70s. Oh, yeah. In the 70s, if you had a football team and you wanted to win something, if you hadn't got any Scotland players, then don't fucking bother, mate. All the top English teams had at least three. Yeah.

Which, I mean, for anyone who doesn't know or care, in fact, Scotland crashed out in the group stage having been held to a draw by iran and thrashed by peru uh after which according to legend the llama at glasgow zoo had to be placed under 24-hour guard the fear of recrimination um these being teams that the manager had not even bothered to research. A bit of an oversight, seeing as Peru had Teofilo Cubias playing for them, who was one of the best players in the world

and proceeded to absolutely crucify them in the game. Bit of an oversight. But I think that's the thing. We're saying that Scotland had all these great players and they always, always underachieved at international level because when those players were playing

for top English teams, they had canny managers, usually Scottish canny managers, and proper organisation. And it was just a professional setup. Whereas by all accounts, the Scotland national team kind of wasn't. This whole trip to Argentina, notoriously disorganised and unprofessional.

In retrospect, the received wisdom is that everyone thought Scotland had a really good chance of winning the World Cup. That's how I remember it. And I remember everyone in England, like the same way in 1994, everyone in England pretended that they were Irish. In 1978, everyone was pretending they were Scottish. And like Lou Peter was doing stuff about, hey, let's all wish Scotland great, you know, good luck.

Yeah, they had a competition, wasn't it, for a poster or something? And it was the Loch Ness Monster. Yeah, it was the Loch Ness Monster in a tam-o-shanter. So, you know, showing that English people could see past the stereotypes. Yes. But all the Scottish people, and I've got quite a lot of Scottish mates, but they're all, like, around my age. So if they can remember this World Cup, they were kids.

So they were fully signed up to this idea that Scotland were probably going to win the World Cup. Just like they were fully signed up to the idea that Father Christmas was going to win the World Cup. Just like they were fully signed up to the idea that Father Christmas was going to come down their chimney. Yeah. I don't really know if, you know, seasoned pundits honestly thought Scotland were likely to win that World Cup. Oh, well, hold that thought. Unless, of course, you know better.

I actually have the TV Times from the following week, which has a 16-page World Cup special. The first article is, what chance Scotland? Ron Greenwood, the World Cup is one of the most open for years. And if a little fortune smiles on Scotland, they could go all the way to the final. I don't see any particular dangers in their group. I should think Scotland and Holland will qualify. Matt Busby, I don't put it

past Scotland to win the World Cup. Sticking his neck out there. Brian Clough, Scotland's chances, I hope that, I don't do a Brian Clough impression, I refuse to. Scotland's chances, I hope they're good because there are nearly 60 million people in Britain

hanging on to their performance in Argentina. It doesn't matter whether you're Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish or nationalist Chinese, everyone in Britain is going to share in their success or weep at their disappointments, if they have any. I interviewed John Robertson a few few years ago who was part of the squad played in the iran game and i said to him did you know did you and the rest of the team really think you were going to win the world cup and he said no never in a million years i just

wanted to get out the group stage yeah yeah that would have been enough yeah of course it goes without saying that tv times are pushing out every conceivable boat for this World Cup. The latest issue contains a 16 page pullout including a wall chart of course. But they've also got the team of Dave Lanning and Leslie Salisbury who are totally

on the case for Argentina 78. Obviously Dave is all about the football. His preview for a week tomorrow's match between Italy and France says, the live action on Friday between Italy and France has a red hot garlic feel about it. After all the garlic, more than a touch of haggis with soccer celebrity squares. An all Scottish list of celebrities, except forone Sassanax, Bob Monkhouse and Dickie Davis. Scottish

soccer stars Lou McCorry and Derek Johnson will be there hoping to avoid bringing anyone down in this box. But Leslie Salisbury puts the ladies at ease. Don't worry girls, not all the beefcake on the box this week

is wearing football boots. And what mere leather ball chaser can really compare with Sean Connery, Michael Caine, John Wayne, Fred Astaire, or even the lovely Benny Hill and Leslie Crowther? So we girls have the best of both worlds. Dishy soccer men to ogle, as well as the giants of entertainment to enjoy. Oh, and the recipe page this week contains haggis, which is the perfect World Cup snack for a Saturday evening in June. I'll wager. There's a bad name, the dishy soccer men.

But yeah, I mean, so, you know, we don't get to see Kenny Burns in a shirt with all ruffles up the sleeve or Gordon McQueen as Carmen Miranda. It's a fly's eye view of the lights, which is, you know, pretty much what Scotland will be seeing after they've been beaten by Peru.

Got to be pointed out, it wasn't a good World Cup for Rod because a week from today on the eve of Scotland's opening match against Peru, he was in a restaurant in Buenos Aires when a gunfight broke out. He ended up having to hide under a table. And then he was barred from getting on the plane

to Cordoba for the Peru game because he hadn't brought his passport. Oh, that's harsh. Even though he wasn't leaving the country. Fascists. But Scotland youth coach at the time, Andy Roxburgh managed to lean on

the jobs to let him on the plane after the game when Scotland lost Roxburgh was going back to Buenos Aires bumped into Rod who hugged him

and said I think it is goodbye to the World Cup Endsville and there's no record of him attending the other

two games that's terrible I mean i've looked at the footage of the iran game and i can't see rod stewart ripping his shirt off and throwing it on the ground and spitting at the team boss so you know but it well i mean you know that campaign it's all about that gem or moment in the holland game because that's an amazing goal that forest goal yeah that forest goal but I mean you know it is bizarre I mean how how much the Scotland team actually became a part of the national life in a sense because I remember Joe Jordan being in Heineken adverts and stuff yes that the whole country got to see you know so yeah and the Chrysler adverts and the Chrysler ad. But didn't Chrysler pull their sponsorship? Yes.

Halfway through the tournament because they were doing so shit. You're not living up to the copywriter's claims. There's a real spinal tap moment back at the Tebow Hotel there. Someone comes in and goes, just throws a bit of paper down the table. Chrysler drop their sponsorship. It's just gloom settling over the room. But it's got to be said that the Scotland run in the 1978 World Cup is probably

my favourite run of any team in any World Cup. I mean, I've got no affiliation to Scotland at all, but it's so upsetting that they didn't beat Holland by a couple more goals. Because you would have loved to seen how they'd have gone on in the second round. I think when they went out, that World Cup lost something.

And this was like a last hurrah as well, wasn't it? Like time was really running out for Scottish football. Partly, I think, because so many Scottish players of that generation were extraordinarily unhealthy, not just by the standards of professional athletes, nor even by the standards of ordinary men in their 20s and early 30s, just by human standards generally.

I mean, they're really big stars by that point, we're, you know, as fit as anyone. But the general footballing culture still decreed that not drinking 15 pints a night and eating deep fried oven scrapings as your pre-match meal was tantamount to performing fellatio. And this was fine in the days when match fitness just meant not actually being fat and uh you know never mind if your face looked like head cheese but by 1978 the rest of the world was was already starting to cheat by eating properly and getting enough rest and yeah by dreaming up fiendish, cowardly things called tactics. And it was already too late, wasn't it? And it was terrible because for a while,

Scotland was a small country which genuinely punched above its weight in football. You know, like Holland, you know, or like Belgium is now. Definitely. And this was the thing, because people were going, well, Holland did it the last time. Why not Scotland? Yeah, the difference between those cases, like those very different stories, And this was the thing, because people were going, well, Holland did it the last time. Why not Scotland? Yeah, the difference between those cases, like those very different stories, tells you quite a lot of things that you already knew about the contrast between a pragmatic and resourceful Benelux mentality and one which was for all its protests essentially British.

Yeah. And that was basically their undoing. Yeah, it was the arrogance of it. Like you said, hubris. I mean, they went out there nine to one to win it.

Which is crazy when you think about it. But the one good thing to say about the single is it works in one of the biggest cliches in football songs and it just passes you by.

The football whistle, because it's a samba song. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you see? And we've not even mentioned the rhyming of Ola with over there. Or Buenos Aires with fairies, or whatever it is. The best bit in that documentary, The World at Their Feet, is where they're talking to the Scotland fans

and they say to them, so why are you such a big fan of Scotland? And he says, well, they got a tartan gimmick, hadn't they? England ain't got a tartan gimmick. Why, you rap a union jacket, you look posh.

Yeah, that's stupid. It's stupid. So the following week, Olé Olá Malé Brasiliera jumped eight places to number 17. And the week after that, despite a disastrous gig in Cordoba and band member Willie Johnson

walking out due to drug problems, it soared 13 places to number four, its highest position. Why did they leave it so late to release it? Could have gone higher. After their tour of Argentina was cut short in disarray, they wouldn't release a follow-up until 1982, when they teamed up with John Gordon Sinclair and B.A. Cunterson

for We Have a Dream, which got to number five in May of 1982. Meanwhile, for his follow-up, Stewart did some more nicking off Brazilian people when Die You Think I'm Sexe, with a chorus that was a blatant nick of Taj Mahal by Jorge Ben, got to number one for a week in the beginning of December. But Stewart would reunite with the band in 1996 for the single Purple Heather, which got to number 16 in June of that year. And that, Pop Craze Youngsters, closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops.

What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks on with the police sitcom rose then it's the proto terry and june happy ever after after the nine o'clock news it's a repeat of des o'connor tonight featuring marty kane and some americans i've never heard of that was a repeat on next week des o'connor they could have put top of the pops on there for fuck's sake a late night top of the pops can you imagine you imagine what bony M would have gone up to after the watershed? After that, it's Face Values, a documentary series about the various rituals

maintained by different societies featuring Prince Charles. And they round off with Tonight, where Dennis Toohey sends us off to bed by telling us that there are enough nuclear devices in the world to provide a package of four tonnes of TNT for every living human being. Wow. Still not enough. Sleep well, children.

BBC Two takes us to the Royal Park's nurseries so we can watch 14,000 flower bulbs being planted in Gardner's World. Then we're treated to some naturalists and archaeologists dossing around Mendip in the series In Deepest Britain. At nine o'clock,

it's the midweek film, the 1938 Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy flick Sweethearts. Then it's King of the Movies, a documentary on the Hollywood director Henry King, in advance of BBC Two's upcoming seasons of his films. After late news on two, Mervyn Levy bangs on about the portrayal of Henri Matisse

by Andre Duran in Closedown. ITV eventually plunges into this week, where Jonathan Dimbleby looks at the trial of Dr. Yuri Orlov, who has just been banged up in a Soviet labour camp for founding a human rights group. Then it's the news at 10, a repeat of the cuckoo waltz. Then Robert Morley compares the 1978 Pi Colour TV Awards with gongs being lobbed out by Patrick Cargill,

Russell Harter, Mick Robertson and Nerys Hughes. And they finish up with a repeat of the Burr Reynolds cop show, Dan August. So boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Oh, lots to talk about. Ian Jury. Loads.

Thin Lizzy and Sabbathath i'll be majorly talking about all of those yeah i'm rod stewart because he mentioned football what are we buying on saturday um the aforementioned artists um in jury i think definitely um lizzie sabs and Blondie Eh Elliman Possibly Tavares And what does this episode Tell us about May Of 1978 Disco Disco

Disco Disco With Rock Fighting a rear guard action We'll fight them on the beaches With our metal And our weirdness And our shit refried punk music

But before we start getting full of ourselves towards the late 70s and into the 80s we are in essence in 78 just another pop nation and europe and us are dominating us i mean i think this is a blinding episode and i just can't believe we haven't touched upon 1978 more maybe it's because there because there's not a lot of shit to hone our critical abilities upon. Well, it's odd. The normal ratios are kind of flipped in this episode. Normally we come to an episode

and it's like, let's find the gold amidst the shit. In this it's reversed. There's the odd shit record, yeah, but mainly it's good stuff. What a time to be 10 years old. Speak for yourself. I was considerably younger. Yeah, but Taylor, 1978, you being a bit a time to be 10 years old. Speak for yourself. I was considerably younger.

Yeah, but Taylor, 1978, you being a bit too young for this sort of thing, do you think you missed out? No, because I got to be 10 years old in the 80s. It was even better. And that, Pop Craze Youngsters, is the end of this episode of Chart Music. Use your promotional flange.

www.chart-music.co.uk Facebook.com slash Chart Music Podcast. Reach out to us on Twitter at Chart Music T-O-T-P. Video playlist, bit.ly slash Chart Music Vids. Money down the G-string. Patreon.com slash chartmusicvids, money down the G-string, patreon.com slash chartmusic. Thank you ever so, Taylor Parks. That's all right.

God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. Goodbye, friends. My name's Al Needham. Panties. Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com My name's Jason Fleming. The More Than My Past podcast will see me talking to a wide range of inspiring people.

People who have confronted and overcome addiction or imprisonment or both and turn their lives around. I did mad things that was hurting myself and hurting other people. Everybody grows up in a house called normal. Heroin addiction and chaos was my normal. Some people don't understand the word moderation and I was definitely one of those people. The More Than My Past podcast. rock expert david stops rock expert david stops greetings rock crazed youngsters and welcome to the latest edition of Rock Expert David Stubbs Rock Expert David Stubbs Tonight we're going all the way back to the year of our law, 1997

When Rock Expert David Stubbs put on his thermals, turned his face towards the wind and trekked into the very heart of the Blizzard of Oz. confrontation as rock expert David Stubbs goes one on one with the Oz man, the Ozmeister the Osvaldo Odiles himself as Ozzy Osbourne finally breaks his silence about

plant based meat alternatives just think last night I dreamt that I opened a suitcase and it was full of cocaine in my house, and I was like, whoa, what's this doing here, you know? That's wishful filming. No, no, I mean, it's the last thing I would ever want to do. Well, yeah, usually that's what they say, though, isn't it?

If you dream, I'm a vegetarian, I used to have dreams about meat, because although I wasn't necessarily eating meat, it was a part of me. Did you ever eat meat? Yeah. When did you become vegetarian? About 13 years ago. You don't eat, you're vegan or? Vegetarian, especially. So,

you know, dairy. Well, we don't eat much meat in this, we eat a little bit of turkey, but that's about it. Do you know something about a turkey, which a lot of people don't know? A turkey is a relation of a vulture. It's a relative of a vulture. You look at a vulture's head and neck and look at a turkey,

you can see there's a similarity. Yeah. It's a vulture. But we eat a lot of that McCartney stuff here, it's great. Have you tried it? It's really good. There's a lot of products on the market. I get this vegetarian, there's a health shop, a good one in Beaconsfield, I get these vegetarian curries, which are great, and soya, and I've got brown rice now that you don't have to boil yourself you can put it under the microwave

it's out of a can you know anyway Rock Expert David Stubbs Rock Expert David Stubbs Rock Expert David Stubbs This episode of Rock Expert David Stubbs has been brought to you

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