Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #57 (Part 4): 11.10.1973 – A Balloon Full Of Gravy

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham bring this Golden Age episode of the Pops home, as Slade finally – and fatally – learn to spell single titles correctly, Limmie and Family Cookin’ do something that isn’t You Can Do Magic, the Top Of The Pops Orchestra earn some beer money on the side, and we get treated to one of the greatest singles of the year – for 29 seconds or so, because they’ve overrun. Sigh.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Justin. And I'm Lucy. And together we are the hosts of Plenty Questions. It's a very straightforward general knowledge quiz. We ask you 20 questions, one after the other, five second gap in between, and you shout the answers out. And then you tweet us to let us know how you got on. See if you can get 20 out of 20. No one has so far, but that's because we haven't started doing it yet. But we will. And there's also going to be some fiendish brain teasers, so join us for Plenty Questions. fiendish brain teasers, so join us for Plenty of Questions. The following podcast is a member

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What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. It's Thursday night. It's just before ten to eight. It's October the 11th, 1973. And a five-year-old me, Al Needham, is sitting round at Tony Bones' house as the Tang of Leicester still hangs thick in the air.

Ey up, you pop-craze youngsters, and welcome to the final part of episode 57 of Chart Music. Let's not fanny about. Let's see if this episode can give itself a proper kick up the arse. Come on, 1973, justify my love. Eee! Eee, what a grand song. What fun we're having.

That was Engelbert Umberdink. Thank you, Eng, and may your humple never dumple. Ooh, I've been asked by the British Board of Governors to say that it wasn't hello, Redbrick housing estate, it was goodbye, Yellowbrick Road. And now, my friend Stan. Thank you. to say that it wasn't hello, Redbrick housing estate, it was goodbye, Yellowbrick Road. And now, my friend Stan. APPLAUSE My friend Stan's got a funny old man Oh, yeah

Oh, yeah He makes him work all night Till he can do it right. Oh yeah. Everett, surrounded by some girls and a ginger lad, does the obligatory mangling of the last artist's name, apologises for the earlier joke about goodbye Yellow Brick Road and doesn't even introduce the next band by name.

But then again, he doesn't have to because it's Slade with my friend Stan. He says he's been asked by the British Board of Governors, sick. He fluffs his words there. And it wasn't Red Brick Housing Estate. It was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. And I sort of feel like he's joking but not joking. It may be just a bit of panto that he's doing there

but I would not be surprised if Robin Nash or whoever had had a word with him after the previous link. It's like, fuck off and do it properly. But yeah, he doesn't do it properly. He doesn't even mention Slade. We've handled Slade more than a few times on Chalk Music and this, their 14th UK single, is the follow-up to Squeeze Me, Please Me,

which became their second single to enter the charts at number one, staying there for three weeks in July of this year. It's the lead-off single from the forthcoming LP Old, New, Borrowed and Blue, and their first recording since the car crash that put drummer Don Powell in a coma for six days three months ago. As Is The Star Was Slayed, my friend Stan was expected to repeat the success of the last two singles and the pre-order demand was so huge that 100,000 copies had to be imported into the UK from Germany but last week it only got to number four and this week it's nipped up only two places to number two although the band have taken the still rare step of recording a promo film in

olympic studios in case pal wasn't up to television appearances here they are in the top of the pop studio there's a short interview with don Powell in the latest Melody Maker. He says he's over the worst, but he still has bats of memory loss. He's using a notebook to jot down what time he's gone to bed and what he has to do the next day. He'd totally forgotten that Jim Lee's brother had filled in for him on the dates that they missed. And he sometimes needs a stick to get about

and get in and out of the drum stall. Yeah. So, yeah, tricky, tricky time for Slade. And, you know, as we know, they've just come back from America because in the previous week's Top of the Pops, they gave out a congratulatory message from a cafe in New York before they started singing. We wish you a merry birthday and looning about. Right. I wonder because he's obviously, you know,

Don Powell's in a bad way and he obviously had to be helped to his drum kit, not just for this appearance, but to record the flipping song. And I wonder whether that's why the song isn't, you know, the kind of big roaring, stomping glam monster that we might expect from Slade. And it's crazy, isn't it?

Just how successful they were in as much as a song that only gets to number two is actually seen as a miss really from Slade. And it's crazy, isn't it? Just how successful they were in as much as a song that only gets to number two is actually seen as a miss, really, for Slade. Yes. Which is crazy because it's still selling a huge amount. But I do think that, yeah, what happened to Don Powell actually, I'm not saying it had an effect on sales,

but that's why I think this record isn't as fully, I don't know, untrammeledly unhinged as like the great Slade tunes that just come roaring at you. It does feel like they're kind of being a bit careful around Don perhaps. Here's my question about this song, My Friend Stan. Is it Slade's shark jump? Now, we can't call it a total shark jump because

Merry Christmas Everybody, Every Day and far far away was still to come which are brilliant brilliant singles but if you look at the run of massive songs before it so if I read out all of these now because I love you look what you've done take me back home mama we're all crazy now goodbye to Jane come on feel the noise and squeeze me please me oh my god it's a thrilling list just to read just to say those song titles out loud gives you a free song of adrenaline. And then this, it's a bit of a misstep, to say the least. The thing is, in this week's Melody Maker,

we learn that Slade have been working overtime trying to crack America. You mentioned it earlier, the whole thing about Noddy threatening to stick a boot up their arse if they don't stamp their feet and clap their hands. But no way were Americans going to go for a record like this um not that american success is the measure of quality obviously loads of the greatest bands ever just didn't do it over there yeah but it's the measure of being exceedingly mentored and being able to have your own plane and

everything it is and at this particular time it's clearly what mattered to their manager, Chas Chandler. Because, yeah, he's been very bullish about the whole thing, but American audiences are bemused by the sounds of things. Slade apparently went over again and tried in 1975, 76. By the time they came back,

Britain had moved on. So, in a way, fixating in that way on american success fucked their whole career yeah yeah jim lee wrote this on a piano and that maybe that um i i like the theory about don powell you know maybe not being up to one of the more raucous rock numbers but the fact that jim lee wrote it on a piano maybe that's another reason why it doesn't absolutely rock it's like it's like anglo-saxon umpah. It's a knees-up drinking song. It's knees-up Mother Brown.

Yeah. This song could not be more British. And it makes me anglophobic. It makes me hate England. I mean, which never takes much. But I'm not saying there are huge cultural differences between the West Midlands and South Wales. In fact, I would say there are a great many similarities.

But a Welsh band would never have written this. So I can see why Americans would have thought, fuck this limey shit when they hear it. Yeah. I was assuming that this was written for the American market. Seriously? Wow. I don't think so, Al. Not with the words, not with these words.

It's the sly songness. It's full of innuendo, and Americans are never really going to go for that. The phrase that keeps coming across is, and from the way you black my eye i know that you're the reason why is the constant phrase but there's a confusion about who it's being addressed to to a certain extent you know that that doesn't help it get and get across in america it's it's kind of a novelty song about rough sex in a way it actually surprises me not that it didn't get to number one but that it got to number two that it did that well um he sings it noddy with his usual gruff cheer but i spend most of this song trying to figure out who the hell it's about and who the

hell is being addressed it's too confusing you know i think it's a little bit too confusing for for an american audience perhaps yeah because it's got these supposedly risque lyrics but depending on the verse um it's stan's old man um and there's jack and there's pete and they're all pete's knackered or ill yeah yeah yeah they're all knackered or ill as a result of presumably the woman that noddy's singing to and yeah the refrain and from the way you black my eye i know that you're the reason why and from the way you fix his tie i know you're getting to him which i i don't know what's being implied there um i mean something is but it's basically my old man's a dustman and um to me it sounds more like a wurzels or a mungo jerry song than a slade song yeah yeah unless to the eyes though right funny old man man is Stan's cock.

Oh well yeah. I never thought of that. That's only just come to mind now. But when you look at them to the eyes it's still Slade in their pomp. You've got Dave Hill with his super yob guitar. Oh by the way do you know who's got the super yob guitar now? Do you know who owns it?

Oh god was it Thingy out of Madness? No, no, no, no. Go on. No. It's Marco Peroni out of Adam the Axe. Really? Yeah. Fucking hell.

Yeah, I don't know how it came to his possession, but he posted a picture of it on Instagram the other day. Yeah, Chris Foreman out of Madness. He actually commented underneath that photo. But Chrissy Boy from Madness borrowed it for the Shut Up video. Yeah. So that's the connection there. Yeah.

But yeah, visually, Slade are giving it Slade still. Yes. Noddy's still Noddy with his Victorian industrialist mutton chops. But he's calmed down a bit, hasn't he, sartorially? He looks, by Noddy's older standards, he looks quite dapper here. No mirrors on the hat, yeah. No, and he's got a pair of glasses on. Yeah, I suppose it's a bit more sensible.

And a nice waistcoat. Yeah, he looks pretty nutty. He could be in a production of Christmas Carol or something, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of that sort of Victorian gentleman look. His voice, you know, I've said this before, it's one of the great rock and roll voices. In the first Melody Maker piece about them trying to crack America, his vocals are described as like the rasp of a leather razor strop,

which I quite like. And in the second one, the Don Powell interview, noddies compared to a Black & Decker hedge trimmer. But either way, that voice, I think, is wasted on material like this. There's a bit of a coda to this, about the fact it didn't get to number one. According to Dave Kemp, who's a Slade super fan and runs a website about them,

Chaz Chandler was offered a bribe by David Cassidy's management to delay the release of My Friend Stan, so that Daydreamer by David Cassidy could have a clear run at number one. Because it was just assumed that a Slade record is going to go number one. But Chandler wouldn't budge. But obviously it turned out that Cassidy Camp needn't have worried,

because My Friend Stan didn't reach number one, and David Cassidy did. Yeah, I think the problem with the record, I think perhaps the reason it didn't get to number one, isn't necessarily a problem with the sound. Not his voice is intact. He's doing it with his usual stuff. It's the song that kind of comes across like a raised eyebrow, in a sense. It's kind of not a stance that Slade have taken before. There's humour in Slade's songs, without a doubt,

but there's a directness as well. This doesn't quite have that. It's more, Slade songs, without a doubt, but there's a directness as well. This doesn't quite have that. It's more, I don't want to say ironic, but it feels like, yeah, a big arch, kind of raised eyebrow of a song,

rather than something that's being entirely confidently delivered. And I think that might be why it didn't, yeah, get as big as the other ones. And number two,

in Slade world, is a failure at this point. Definitely. And of course it's the first single in ages that's spelt properly yeah

I think that's where they went wrong I'd thought of that yeah you're right on the cover of the song and in the advertising the end he's kind of like

mirror imaged flipped over like Simple Minds or Manic Street Preachers when they're doing that Russian business yeah not good enough Slade

no must try harder they do for their next one you know it's back to the big hits but yeah there's a bit of a misfire this there's more of a convivial atmosphere isn't there on this one they're sort of in a pit surrounded by the kids including a gaggle of women who seem to have been busting by the band because they've all got the promotional material and one of them who's festooned with my friend Stan Badgers claps a little bit too hard and topples off the platform at one point. I didn't notice that. That's amazing.

I'm going to go back and look. Yeah, you must. So the following week, my friend Stan dropped one place to number three where it stayed for two weeks. But the follow-up, Merry Christmas, everybody, right at the ship when it's head to the charts at number one in the middle of December, stay in there for five weeks. That's more like it.

And from the way you fix it, I, I see you're getting to him. You can get to him. You can get to him. You can get to him. Oh, yeah. Hello. That was Slade. Hello.

Bet you've got a fine set of udders, my dear. And now, straight from America, we have a Magnusophant group that are going to do their second in a long series of two-its, and it's Limmy and Family Cooking and their latest smash-a-rool, Dreamboat! APPLAUSE Dreamboat, dreamboat Won't you take me on a float tonight Just rock me around your river And just roll me till the morning light

We're immediately pitched into another section shoehorned in by Top of the Pops to avoid sticking to the charts. Tip for the Top, which is represented by a spinning Art Deco graphic of four women in flowing dresses holding each word on a white film case. After Everett has finished rurally harassing a blonde girl in the audience he introduces this week's entrant limmy and family cooking and dreamboat we've covered limmy shell and his big t in chart music number nine and this is the follow-up to you can do magic which got to number three only last month and is still in the charts at number 47 it's only just come out so it's not in the charts yet but it's already been reviewed in deborah thomas's tuesday scene in the mirror as a quote doobie doo clap and tambourine bouncer

as they're still in the country doing the club circuit here they are straight from a stint at blight is in farnworth to do their pieces in the studio again everett putting himself about with the ladies oh god yeah he says you've got a fine set of udders my dear to a girl next to him and she looks really sort of a bit horrified and And again, it's not okay. You know, he doesn't get, whatever his sexuality is, he doesn't get a get out for saying creepy stuff to girls. It's a bit much for Top of the Pops in 1978. I can't imagine Tony Blackburn saying that. No.

And what's most objectionable in a way, apart from the sexuality of it, it's just, it's always a bad look when TV presenters who are used to TV try and make members of the public look really uncomfortable. And that's what i that's what i get from that moment so why is this on obviously they've gone well this is going to be a hit so let's get them in and get some film in the can for future episodes they're kind of banking that it's going to be a hit and they're american so they're not going to be around in a couple of weeks time for a return performance so is it the original version of this record that we're hearing because i swear down that guitar solo that starts it all is so out of tune and i almost thought this is the bbc orchestra or

something playing it top of the pop's orchestra in full effect here i believe yeah pretty badly actually i think they have had a few points of heavy at this point and and the guitar solo that starts it is really out of tune to the point where the lead singer seems to grimace having to get through it yeah before she can start singing but as to why it's on here same problems with engelbert why is this on here we've seen that a few times haven't we when you're a new act and you have a big hit it's generally the the style that you know your next single gets somewhere in the charts so yeah well they've already had that sort of tip for the top. This is going to be a hit thing with Engelbert.

So this is, I mean, come on. Look at your chart in 1973. There's got to be something better than this or different. There's loads of decent shit in the charts at the minute. They're not here and leaving family cooking off. They're in the country. Anything to say, Simon? Requiem.

Requiem, requiem, requiem. Earned us requiem. Sorry sorry i needed to do that um back in the late 90s and early noughties i did a lot of vinyl only dj sets at things like the club night uncle bob's wedding reception and at people's real life weddings and birthday parties and such and a few friends who were regulars at these things told me that they used to play pricey bingo, right? Because my set was always quite samey and predictable.

There were certain songs I'd always play. And one of those songs was You Can Do Magic by Limmy and Family Cooking, right? Because it's a fucking tune. It's amazing. And I was on a mission to revive that song. It's capable of taking you where scottish limmy's travel agent cannot when limmy the comedian on his tv show shows the

travel agent the photo of him and his mates on a teenage holiday in millport and asks for a ticket to there meaning not the place but the moment she's unable to give it to him and it's such a poignant sketch but pop music can do that for you pop music is your ticket and you can do magic transports you to the happiest place you can think of it's one of the most uplifting records i've ever heard and spinning it on vinyl whether to a crowd or in my own living room is a total joy. However, however, this song is not You Can Do Magic. It's Dreamboat. And the review in Record Mirror calls it a distinct disappointment after You Can Do Magic and perfectly pleasant

without having the coherent drive of its forerunner. And I have to agree. And yeah, we'll sort of factor in the BBC Orchestra doing a disservice to black American artists, as they often do. But even allowing for that, it's just perfectly pleasant, but no more, I would say. It is the first blackface we've seen

outside of the chart countdown, what with the spinners being represented by Pants People. So, you know, that's not nothing. It's like someone's opened a window, at least. I never knew until researching this, by the way, that Limmy is the guy. And the woman singing is his sister, who is confusingly called Jimmy. And also that their records did almost nothing back home in the States,

and their main success was here in Britain, similar to Odyssey in that respect. Yeah. I wonder why that is. I suppose it's just one of those things. There was so much amazing soul music coming out of America at that time. Not all of it can be a hit over there,

and there's always going to be a mismatch and some bands are going to think, you know what, fuck it. Let's concentrate our efforts. I mean, there are probably American soul bands that we've never heard of who are big in Germany. Do you know what I mean? That they'll have thought, fuck it, let's just go somewhere else and charge our arm, you know.

And I think that's what went on with this lot because they stuck around in the UK for several years after, I believe. Yeah. The other thing I noticed about this performance is that, again, we have some weirdly postmodern directorial decisions. You've got cameras pointing at cameras. It's almost becoming meta, the whole thing, unless it's just a fuck-up. You can't rule out it just being a fuck-up.

So the following week, Dreamboat entered the charts at number 49, slowly meandered upward, and a month from now it got to number 31, its highest position. The follow-up, A Walking Miracle, did much better, getting to number six in May of 1974, their last dent in the UK chart. 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. My mate bought a toaster. We go through celebrities' Amazon purchase histories, so you don't have to. Keep calm and love Dom Jolly novelty key ring and fridge magnets. The G-spot.

The good vibrations, guys. Green dot laser sight rifle gun scope. I've bought that quite a lot of times. Right, OK. The sex doctor's guide to keeping it hot. Ah, interesting. Did another child come along nine months later? Yeah.

Loads of great eps up now, and new ones dropping every Monday. That's My Mate Bought a Toaster from Great Big Al. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! Hello! That was fab. Let me in on family cooking.

Ooh, hang on. I have a word with the director. Hello, is that the director? Good. Can I bring some cows next week? It's all right, they're house-trained. Ooh, these BBC people you knew. Asked to put on a show, try and get a few cows in it,

and what do they say? Something I can't repeat, I can tell you. Meanwhile, we have violins. You know, love is like a violin. Well, here's a group that's just like a violin, all varnished and covered in string. It's Eye Level by the Simon Park Orchestra. The camera pans away and swoops across a studio, alighting upon a group of confused-looking lads. We eventually discover Everett sitting at their feet

whooping. After he pretends to communicate with the director on a walkie-talkie, his spiel is cut by a graphic of the number one on a plinth with all pulsing searchlights around it. And when he comes back into shot, Everett introduces the topmost single of the week, Eye Level, by the Simon Park Orchestra. We covered Eye Level, the theme tune to the Thames TV detective serial Van der Volk, in Chart Music 17. It was composed by Jan Struckart, loosely based on a Dutch-German nursery rhyme, and was performed by an orchestra led by Simon Park, who was born in Marquette Harborough in 1946. On its original release in late 1972, it only got to number 41, but when the second series was broadcast from the end of August and became one of the top-rated TV

shows in the country, it was released again, entered the charts at number 48, then soared 34 places to number 14, and then soared all the way to number one, shoving Angel Fingers by Wizard off the summit of Mount Pop. This is his third week at the top, and here's Simon and his amazing mustard-wrong-necked band in the studio to conjure up the serene majesty of old Amsterdam. Playing it to a thoroughly bemused audience, really. I mean, you know, sort of, I'm sure only a few years from now, 73, later on in the 70s, if there was to say a TV theme tune tune what you'd have is a video that was

fundamentally clips from the tv show so that's what would have happened in this era you have to get the full freaking orchestra in um eye level's not massively objectionable it's odd that it's at number one because you usually take up for this sort of thing don't you neil well it's just it's a novelty in a sense it's odd that it's number one because I, you know, I doubt this got much radio play, did it? I'm pretty sure that the BBC did their best to play it. Radio 2 would have been all over it, surely. Oh, absolutely.

Radio 1, I'm sure, did their best to play it as infrequently as possible, apart from on the chart shows, and were quite sniffy about it, I should imagine. It's weird that the full orchestra are here playing it, but you have to have the actual performers here um it's inoffensive in a way it's another they have to get the number one on so i can't exactly call it time wasting yeah but um it's an odd thing that it gets that high without any radio support and you know i ask the question as ever with songs like this who's buying it it's your's your non-or, isn't it? Well, I guess so. But, you know, the programme's on every week. Can't they just watch it and hear this?

I don't get the thing of, yeah, needing to buy the theme tune. You can put it on a tape cassette player and walk about your local canal and pretend you're in Amsterdam. I guess so. But have you ever watched an entire episode of Van der Valk? No. Yeah, this is it, nor have I. Never. I've never watched it. In fact, I've never watched more than two minutes of it taylor has he says it's not of course taylor has

apparently there's no such thing as a simon park orchestra and this is actually our old favorites the top of the pops orchestra doing a bit of moonlighting for beer money so yeah a very rare sighting of a perennial chart music favourite and yeah they look like this sound pretty much don't they yeah it's interesting that you mentioned the audience looking bemused because we we do see a lot of the audience in this episode and they do often look bemused whether it's by Engelbert or by Kenny Everett or by something like this um by the way um those lads who the camera pans across to and he's sort of squatting at their feet they're wearing these matching jumpers i don't know if you notice this but yes two of them say

house and one says tree anyone got any idea what that was all about no i don't know what that was promoting but yeah speaking of jumpers yeah the mustard the Mustard Polo Necks are back. I bet they haven't been washed since last time. The flautist looks like Eric Sykes. They all look like Eric Sykes, let's be honest. Yes. They just do. There's one bloke, I think he's playing the flute or something,

and he's got a St Christopher on a chain. Right. But for some reason, he's got the chain tucked under his armpit what the fuck well it's like he's wearing this really long fucking dennis wheatley amulet thing and it's on a really massive long chain and he's he that's what he does when he plays his instrument so it doesn't get tangled up it's very strange yeah i've never seen van der valk I had never seen Van Der Valk So I did watch a bit for research And I'm inclined to take Taylor's view on it

It's so tame and boring Much like the theme tune I mean this theme tune Has no balls Compare it to some of the great cop show Or detective show themes of the 70s The Rockford Files Kojak, Starsky and Hutch,

The Sweeney, The Professionals. All of those tunes, super exciting. And then this, right, which could easily be the theme for Swallow, the regional detective show set in Norwich that Alan Partridge pitches to Tony Hayes. That could be the theme. But it does, like I say, weirdly weirdly match the show so you've got a detective series set in amsterdam especially 70s amsterdam which has the potential for all kinds

of sleaze and dirt and danger and edge but the show from what i can gather from skimming through didn't have that and the theme tune definitely doesn't does not there are plot lines involving snm prostitution, the Amsterdam transsexual scene, and so on, but they're much more likely, from what I could see from the episode summaries, to involve concert pianists, stonemasons, or a mouse

there on the stair with clogs on. I happened upon a scene where Van der Valk is in a jewellery shop, and a very camp proprietor says you won't find anything bent in this establishment i assure you and van der valk growls the last thing i'm looking for um and that's you know yeah um but it's quite a contrast for barry foster the actor who plays van der valk because in 1972 the year van der Waal started he was also in Hitchcock's

frenzy frenzy being arguably the wrongest of all Hitchcock's films some of which were already quite wrong um and Foster plays Rusk the rapist murderer who growls lovely lovely lovely while his victim recites psalm 91 it's pretty much the anti van der waals um so simon park did the music for crown court but as we've established he didn't write this um as you said he's written by well jack trombie the pseudonym for jan stockart um at least he was actually from amsterdam um stuck out and the title I leveled being a joke about the flat horizons of the low countries. Trombi also did the theme for Never the Twain and incidental music for Dawn of the Dead.

But that's kind of it. It's not a very glorious CV that he's got. And as you say, the tune is loosely based on those German slash Dutch nursery rhymes. I think it's Jan Hinnok in German and Katutje in Dutch from the 18th century. I actually bothered to

listen to both of those, right? And the German one, I actually found a sort of English translation sung of the German one. It's about a violin maker. He makes a small violin, which is referred to, for fuck's sake, as a fiddlekin in the english

translation i mean twee as fuck right a fiddlekin fiddlekin fuck off and um the dutch one involves a really awful dance i guess a clog dance and just nobody involved in either of them has ever had sexual intercourse it's's just... I hate the way eye-level primly prances along and everything melodically is neatly resolved. There's no melodic turbulence. It's pangloss pop.

It's music for people who think that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. And it is baffling at number one. Yeah, who is buying it? It's more baffling i would say than moldy old dough or something like that yeah it's not even like you know um key my by yeah where at least you can see the appeal of that um it's quite a beautiful piece of music even though

it's not an obvious pop hit but this right imagine if you were visiting the UK from America in October 1973. Imagine you were David Cassidy, for example. And when you go home, people ask you, what are people listening to over there? What's number one in the UK? And you have to say, well, there's this orchestra. I mean, fucking hell. Yeah.

What this track says, what it says to the viewer, right, even more than Engelbert, it says to the viewer right uh even more than engelbert it says fun time's over go home and that that's how you defelt i reckon as a child back to your toy soldiers or your secret seven books or staring at the orange homework yeah your homework or staring at the orange and brown pattern on the carpet waiting for the future to happen yeah it's insipid as fuck and and it's i think the people who got it to number one are they that segment of the pop market that we frequently come up against in chart music are you people who don't really like music or just want it to solve

a simple mathematical puzzle in a sense and you know they want it to tick that off and have a sense of completion and excitement really isn't part of what they want from music they want a sense of clarity and satisfaction if you like which of course is not kids i'd be sat at home i'd have walked out the room by now imagine being one of those kids who's you know waited for your ticket to top of the pops you get there and this is your number one you know fuck me that'd be gutting gotta watch to watch the fucking Eric Sykes band. Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah, at least it's fucking memorable.

At least you know what the tune's like after you've listened to it. What's happened to television theme tunes? Well, television theme tunes have a different job now, right? Yeah. You know when you watch a documentary now and the documentary can't just start, it has to actually say everything that's going to happen in the next hour and then go on to unpack it. It has have that five minute preamble um in a

similar way theme tunes well what are they there for now i don't remember any of the theme tunes to some of my most favorite shows at the moment you know those favorite shows being obviously high quality content like uh forged with fire and um you and things like that. I don't know what purpose theme tunes serve anymore. Because I can remember entire school trip journeys on a bus filled by kids bellowing out theme tunes note for note and word for word from the minute we left the school to the minute we actually got there. Generation Hazlehurst, yeah.

Well, a lot of TV shows don't have a theme anymore. They just do, is it called a cold open? Yeah, a cold open, yeah. Or it's just a sting. A little sting, yeah, like two seconds of it or something. Yeah. Fucking rubbish. But I'd probably prefer that to fucking eye level, I'll be honest.

Yeah, too. I mean, thank God for the skip intro possibilities of current television viewing. Imagine if the theme for The Professionals was number one, though. That'd be amazing. Yes, exactly. And that's more like it. Imagine pants people dancing to that. Or legs and co. Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. Yeah, people running around kicking

doors open. Sexy bodys. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Yeah. That's more like it. Here's a bit of alternate history. I-Level gets released the first time round, and it goes up one more place to number 40. And that's it. And that's it. Here's a bit of alternate history. I-Level gets released the first time round and it goes up one more place to number 40. And that's it? And that's it.

Yeah. Fucking hell. That means that in this month, my friend Stan and Boring Blitz by Sweet are number ones. What a better world we'd be living in. I-Level would spend one more week at the top before giving way to Cassidy McLove and his sulky songs about daydreaming and dogs.

It would go on to sell just over a million copies in the UK, becoming the second biggest single of 1973. One place above Welcome Home by Peterson Lee, one below Tie Your Yellow Ribbon by The Old Oak Tree by Tony Orlando and Dawn, and would become the second biggest selling instrumental single of all time in the UK, behind Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk. The follow-up, Hi-Fi, failed to chart, and when two LPs also failed to chart,

Pop wandered into scoring TV series and films, including Danger UXB. He was last seen on an episode of Bargain Hunt in 2017. Wow. Yes. Buying up copies of his own single like J.R. Hartley. Yes. Buying up copies of his own single like J.R. Hartley. Yes. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to leave you with a cantina tour.

We say good night. What are you looking at? We're going to say good night from top of the pops. See you next week. And I'm Adirios Lantudno-Yakidor. Goodbye! Madeiros, Lantudno, Yakida, goodbye! We cut back to a group of kids who were waiting for Everett to do his final bit, which involves him staggering towards the camera with a bandy-legged gait and introducing the final song before falling to the floor.

It's Nutbush City Limits by Ike and Tina Turner. Formed in St Louis in 1957 when Anna Mae Bullock, the then-girlfriend of saxophonist Raymond Hill of the Rhythm Kings, convinced bandleader Ike Turner to join them on stage at a bar gig, which led to the latter moving in with the former and eventually getting married in 1962. By the early 60s, they were a regular feature on the US R&B and Billboard charts but it wasn't until 1966 when they made their first appearance on the UK charts when River Deep

Mountain High which only got to number 88 in America made it to number three for two weeks in July of that year. The follow-up A Love Like Yours got to number 16 in July of that year. The follow-up, A Love Like Yours, got to number 16 in November of that year, but after a re-release of Riverdeep Mountain High got to number 33 in March of 69, they left the British charts untouched until now. This is the lead cut from the new LP of the same name, written by Tina about her hometown inennessee and it's the follow-up to work on me which failed to chart it's entered the top 40 at number 32 a month ago and this week it's at one place to number four and my introduction to the single is longer than what we actually hear because thanks to everett's pissing about they've overrun Which is gutting, because this is such a fucking great record.

This is the fucking highlight of the episode, as far as I can say. Yeah. He can't stop doing his shtick, because, yeah, he comes out with that bandy-legged walk like he's got rickets. And he does, throughout the show, he keeps emerging from backstage with a mysterious energy. Hmm. And for no apparent reason, he

signs off with, There's been no mention of anything Welsh. Who knows? But yeah. Fuck's sake. But yeah, you get 39 seconds of the song I counted. Yeah. Which is not enough. I mean, I remember first hearing this on

the Formula 30. It was one of the songs on that comp. And the fuzziness of it, the guitar solo, everything about this record is fantastic. And it's a really important point, of course, in Tina Turner's career, I think, because there's a lot of late 60s, early 70s songs about the longing for home, if you like,

trying to find a home, trying to go back home or being confused about you know where or what home means anymore for tina turner her hometown is nutbush tennessee and in a sense this could be a song about it normally you'd expect songs about home to be all i want to get back there this absolutely isn't this is all about why she doesn't want to go back there yes why she isn't there anymore. Of course, it's not known to the general public at this time, just what an abusive and volatile marriage she's in with Ike at the moment. And during these kind of years, you know, it's getting as bad as it gets with his alcoholism and his cocaine addiction.

I think this song, perhaps I'm putting too much on it, but I think it might have played a big part of her eventual self-liberation, if you like. She leaves Ike with nothing, you know. leaves ike with nothing you know all she's i'm not ike with nothing but her with nothing she's got what her buddhism and that's about it did she take on all the debts and everything i think she just to get the fuck away from him yeah and this is a song about roots about beginnings about what makes a person a person i think perhaps i'm putting too much into it but I think she had a moment of self-realisation doing the song and just thought, I'm out, in a sense. She sings it with pride.

It's her town and her roots that can't be taken away from her, even though those roots are quite narrow and regulated, as the song kind of explores. But, you know, I think she wrote it as a reminder, in a kind of sense, that before she got stage in St. Louis to sing with Ike, she was her own person shaped by her own experiences and places and that was worth remembering. And perhaps it gave her a little impetus in seeking,

you know, the fact that it was a success gave her a little impetus in striking out her own course. I was always delighted as well by the rumour, and it is just a rumour, it didn't happen, that Mark Bolan played guitar on this. But yeah, it's not the case. It's a lovely thought. I think you've got three Tina Turners, really.

You've got 60s Tina Turner, 70s Tina Turner, and 80s Tina Turner. In the 60s, she was this young, raw soul singer. In the 70s, she was this kind of strutting, untamed, sexual animal. And in the 80s, she was this jaded, older woman who wore leather

skirts in the way that middle-aged divorcees do right yeah and um and i even though i i mentioned on a recent episode our sort of christmas episode that i only really became aware of tina turner with the heaven 17 collaboration in the 80s yeah the first tina turner i ever saw I'm pretty sure was her strutting 70s self um in a television screening of the Who's Tommy and that yes that's who we get on Nutbush City Limits it's a strutting song isn't it it's made for Tina to do that that pissed pigeon-toed Charleston she does yeah yeah and the thing is Tina Turner seems all right doesn't she Whether or not you like her music, she comes over as a decent, likeable person. Yeah. However, Ike Turner famously was a terrible cunt.

And I'm not even going to say but, and I'm not going to offer extenuating circumstances. What I'm going to say is that his own backstory was grim as fuck. His father was kicked to death when ike was three for talking to a white woman then ike was molested by a 45 year old woman when he was six and by two other women before he was 12 and abuse is something that often gets paid forward and he paid it forward to tina obviously he's far, far from the only person to be violent and abusive to women and also make great music.

The mind instantly goes to Phil Spector, who was, of course, responsible for Ike and Tina Turner's greatest moment, Riverdeep Mountain High. Weird that the Americans didn't buy that, but there we go. Although Ike had very little to do with that record, of course. I mean, I could talk about river deep mountain high all day it's one of the most staggering achievements of 20th century humanity i saw tina perform it live at the o2 in the noughties and it was still phenomenal even then she did it really sort of faithfully

faithful as that puppy by the way um when i went on twitter to praise that performance alan mcgee had a pop at me have i mentioned this on a previous chart music no what's that country saying this is 13 years ago or something but yeah he had a pop at me for going about going to see a 60s nostalgia tour the juggy and twat and um and i i said i said that was a bit rich coming from the man responsible for oasis and it all comes back to oasis, doesn't it? It does. And a full-on row erupted in which he resorted to transphobia, going, why don't you get the sex change and move to Thailand? You'd like it there.

He tweeted that at me. Fucking hell. Yeah, and he went on about me wearing a dress, and then he blocked me because he couldn't handle it. And this was all because I enjoyed seeing Tina Turner do River Deep Mountain High, the mad gacked up cunt. Anyway, speaking of mad gacked up cunts, let's go back to Ike Turner.

Obviously, Ike Turner was involved in some great things. Going back to 1951, Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner's kings of rhythm. And that's considered by some to be the first rock and roll rapper. Then there's Peaches and Cream by the Ikeettes, his backing singers. Do you know that one? It's a bit of a Northern Soul classic. I love it. It's amazing.

If I may, I'd like to chuck in I Can't Believe What You Say in the mid-60s and Bold Soul Sister in about 1969. Two fucking mint singles. I can't believe they didn't get any more sexy British chart action in the 1960s. Ridiculous. Absolutely.

And there's this track called Dust My Broom, which I've read loads of books about Northern Soul, and they tend to have lists of the best Northern Soul floor fillers ever. And Dust My Broom by Ike Atina Tuno kept cropping up, highly placed on these lists. And it became a bit of a holy grail for me. When I finally heard it, through the magic of the internet,

because you couldn't find a fucking vinyl copy anywhere, I could see the fuss, even if that's mostly to do with Tina's vocal performance and Ray Charles produced it, his production. But I'm sort of like dodging the issue of Nutbush City Limits here. And I've got to part company with Neil. I don't like it.

Yeah, I've got to concede that it's quite inventive musically for a soul record of that time with the use of the clavinet and the Moog solo. And of course the wah-wah guitar. And yeah, there is that urban myth about Mark Bolan. Gloria Jones was responsible for spreading that rumour, by the way. But yeah, I mean, I've seen it debunked and Occam's Razor points to it being James Bino Lewis

of the Kings of Rhythm. I mean, we'll never know for sure, but what we do know is that the song has that oompa oompa stick it up your jumper rhythm, which I personally find... No, no, no, i'm not listening to you simon don't spoil it which which i find grating personally one problem i have with nutbush city limits is that i don't care about nutbush right and it's a general problem i have with songs

which get super local in the title the other day right with our sunday lunch i i put on um atlantic black gold 20 great soul hits by original artists and side one track two was funky nassau by beginning of the end right yes a tune well i'm glad you're proud of your town and i'm glad you had a nice time at your recording session but nassau means nothing to me or stainsby girls by chris rea right i don't understand what's exceptional about these girls to the point where you actually name the school or the town they're just a universe i remember you sticking up for ursian boys in an earlier episode of child music well look i never said i'm consistent right but stainsby girls are just a universal archetype of slightly wild

footloose teenage heartbreaker also Penny Lane by the Beatles fuck off I'm glad Penny Lane's in your heart right but you haven't given me any reason why it should be in mine right and I feel like that about Nutbush City Limits I don't get what we're meant to take from this description of a boring

slightly uptight and repressive southern town I've heard it said that you have that the line, you have to watch what you're putting down in old Nutbush, is somehow a coded reference to racism. But, you know, it flies way under the radar, if so. I went on Google Maps and I, in inverted commas, drove around Nutbush. And it didn't take long because it's barely an actual place.

It's got 259 people. It's basically just a road intersection with a gin distillery and a church. So it literally is church house, gin house. So it hasn't changed since Tina's day. By the way, I don't know about you, when she goes church house, gin house, school house, outhouse, in my mind, I always think she's gonna say outhouse shithouse every time um but yeah um the main road through nutbush is now called tina turner highway so they're

even if her song makes it sound like a really shit place and because of this thing of it being really specific to her and being her town i don't get why it's become such a standard for bands to cover. Fucking pub bands, you hear it everywhere. Maybe this is the reason why I does my editing, because you just fucking hear Nutcracker City Limits everywhere. It's not like it's about New Orleans or New York. I just think that below a certain population size, if there's a place mentioned in a song, you've probably never been there,

nor do you have any concept of what it's like. It's someone else's very specific memory. Why are you singing it like it's your own? And I also hate Proud Mary by Tina Turner for similar reasons. Why are we supposed to care about a fucking boat? Why has that become a standard? Well, it's a Creedence song, isn't it, originally?

Well, yeah, I know. But people sing the Tina Turner song. You know why this song is covered, Nutbush City Limits is covered so often often it's because it does straddle two genres in a sense it's got a kind of funk to it but it's a rock song essentially that's why you know when brian johnson auditions for acdc this is one of the songs that he covers to get that gig um and he does it pretty well apparently and gets that gets the acdc job and that's why bob seger covers it as well you know it's one of those that straddles the kind of thing for me it's the sonic confection

aspect of it it's just the fuzz i love it and i love the guitar solo in it and the chunkiness of the beat uh more than perhaps what the song is actually about so that's probably why that probably explains my liking of it a bit more but it does straddle the kind of rock and funk genres and that's why it keeps cropping up in bands doing it because they're proving something in a sense or they think that they can cross the racial tracks a little bit play that funky music wide boy yeah yeah yeah yeah obviously it's good obviously there's plenty that's good about it but i think i've just heard it too many times you know yeah i say it isn't it that's exactly it i mean we only get 30 39 seconds with a fisheye lens shot

of the crowd dancing so it's relatively painless and it's better than the simon park orchestra i'll give it that it's a little bit of a lift at the end it lifts you out of that at least so the following week not bush city limits stayed at number four before slithering downward the follow-up sweet rhode island red failed to chart and they split up in dallas in when Ike assaulted Tina again in a car, leading her to hiding in a hotel and then at assorted mates' houses before filing for divorce. Of course, she went on to make a solo comeback in the 80s and this song made another appearance in the charts when an updated re-recorded got to number 23 for two weeks in september of 1991

and that pop craze youngsters closes the book on this episode of top of the pops and closes the book on kenny everett's career on top of the pops yeah right after this episode he gave a guided tour of the studio and was interviewed by a couple of 13-year-old kids for the John Craven's Newsround spin-off show Search, which was broadcast in November. The blurb, are pop fans being exploited? And has fan mania reached a new danger point? Beth Miller and John Monaghan, both age 13, talked to top DJs about today's pop scene and discussed their findings with other children. They interviewed Tony Blackburn and Jimmy Savile.

I've looked all over for the episode. It's not on YouTube. But there is the clip, the interview clip with Kenny Everett, which shows him walking around the actual studio and showing us everything. It's massively informative. Oh, right. They ask him if Top of the Pops overdo the special effects or not, if groups are over-relying on miming.

And when he's asked about his favourite music, he says Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. And they start laughing because they think he's taking the piss. When he's asked about commercial radio, he reckons it's going to be great and will give radio one quote a kick up the beebs and when asked about what he'd do to improve top of the pops he says it should be live like ready steady go was so everyone can see the mistakes yeah he comes off as uh less mature than the 13 year old interviewers

with a slight snottiness about Pop, I mean, he did love his classical. I suspect that if he was still alive, with that and his That's Right politics, he'd undoubtedly be on Classic FM by now. Ten days after this episode, Kenny Everett commenced his career on Capital Radio and wouldn't be seen or heard of again

by anyone outside of London for another five years. Although, of course, his voice would live on in Charlie the Cat on the public information films, and as the voice of Celebrity Squares, not to mention countless adverts. He initially continued as a Sunday afternoon DJ on Capital until a drop in listenership and revenue led to him being reunited with his former Radio London co-host,

Dave Cash, and moved to the breakfast slot returning to bbc radio in october of 1981 for a saturday morning slot on radio 2 in the meantime his radio one spot and presenting gig on top of the pops was given to oh um dlt dave lee travis thanks kenny so what's on tv afterwards well bbc one pitches into mastermind then it's the first part of eastwood with attenborough where david attenborough dossers around southeast asia talking very quietly around some animals. This week is in a bat cave in Borneo the size of St Paul's Cathedral. After the nine o'clock news it's the show jumping bit of the Horse of the Year show followed by the current affair show Midweek hosted by Ludovic Kennedy and they finish off with late night news, the documentary series Cor coral world about the reefs of camoro in the indian ocean

regional news in your area and the weather bbc2 kick on with highlights from the gulf then it's part three of their dramatization of jane eyre then a one-off episode of the two ronnie's with a guest appearance by the people of pan then Then it's the Polish documentary Europa about five people born in Britain to Polish parents who went to Katowice in June to visit grandparents they'd never met before, walk about in the footsteps of their mums and dads, watch Poland spank England 2-0

and talk about which country they'll be supporting next week. And they round off the night with news extra and an examination of the world of television in real time. ITV is still running the arse end of the Columbo film, followed by the current affairs show This Week, then it's The Streets of San Francisco. Now, there's a fucking theme tune. Followed by the news at ten the film show cinema where brian

truman looks at the people who have made some of the most familiar film scores of the past few years then it's the 1962 prison escape film the break featuring tony britain robert urquhart and john junkin and they close down at half past midnight. So boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Probably Kenny Everett's unfunniness and irritation

and the kind of just dreary elements of the show more than the exciting elements in a way. For an episode from 73 and we were talking about this being a golden era, I think in terms of

the presentation, the staging, the graphics and everything else, it is a golden era in terms of the music featured less so much less so because i was a child kenny everett definitely you know did you see that mad guy running amok um i missed the meeting where you're meant to say amok um we we'd all have been doing impressions of the bits we could remember and running around doing zany faces for a day or two. But as an adult, he annoys me. Yeah, just like with the Roscoe episode, whenever the presenter is the main topic of conversation

in the top of the pops, that's a bad sign. It's not Kenny Everett's day yet. He'd get that in a few years' time when Thames bunged him in with Barry Cryer and let him get on with it. But you can't do that on top of the Pops. No, I don't think so. What are we buying on Saturday? Tina, Spinners, Quo, ELO, I think.

Yeah, Showdown by ELO for definite. Maybe Ghetto Child by Detroit Spinners. Maybe Caroline by Quo. And at a push, maybe even Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. But yeah, ELO Yellow Showdown is the one and what does this episode tell us about October of 1973 I think in terms of Top of the Pops this episode may well be a response in a way to the absolute slagging that the 500th episode got and and you know in a sense to reassure I don't know those older people who were looking

down on Top of the Pops a bit that hey you know it's not just all about mindless youthful pop well Top of the Pops should be about mindless youthful pop um exactly you know it absolutely should be a program that for me is dominated by what young people want to see on the show not anyone else and unfortunately what we see here is a kind of halfway house. A few moments of excitement where you can see the kids getting into it. A few moments of complete bemusement where the kids are like, what is this shit? It tells us that Britain's just waiting for punk rock

to give it the kick up the arse it so badly needs. No, no. I think, for me, it's the rise or the resurgence, maybe, of the teen idol. It's the hidden or the resurgence maybe of the teen idol it's the hidden force here it's waiting in the wings 1973 was the year David Bowie released Pin Ups and by

calling his album that he captured the zeitgeist because pin up culture was in the ascendant and you can feel it here even in absentia with the ghost of David Cassidy lurking behind the chart countdown and his next single waiting to usurp Slade

and you can kind of see a passing on of the baton or rather a snatching away of the baton from good natured British uglies like Slade to beautiful American angels like David Cassidy and of course Don Yosman, I mean I mean bless them but did people fancy

Dave Hill? Maybe. Noddy. Not Noddy, surely. I don't know. Mark Bolan was beautiful, and he arguably started all this, but he was just about to go off the boil. His next single, Truck on Tyke, was his first to miss the top ten since shortening the band's name to T-Rex.

So this was David Cassidy's moment. David Essex was also on the rise. The following year year we'd have the base city rollers probably taking off and you'd even have people like spark sending the girls crazy Jackie magazine was at its peak the best-selling issue ever of Jackie was a David Cassidy front cover in 1972 so it was a time of pinups and teen hysteria and a resurgence in scream ages which hadn't been seen since the beatles a decade earlier and of course we didn't need the beatles anymore because we had the electric light

and that pop craze youngsters brings us to the end of this episode all that remains now is the usual 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 cm57 vids money down the g-string patreon.com slash chart music tar very much Neil Kulkarni No worries Al God bless you Simon Price Thank you, loads of fun, cheers My name's Al Needham

and I'm still reeling from the shock that I could be presenting a podcast with Jesus Price and Buzz Kulkarni Unimaginative parents man Chart music an imaginative parents man hello my name is pete ellison this is dave crib hello and we do a podcast called friends with friends as you might have guessed from the music that's playing underneath which is a sort of lo-fi rendition of the friends theme tune for rights reasons. We get a different guest on every week on our podcast

to talk about their favourite episode of Friends. And we look through it in excruciating detail. We pick through levels of plots like no one has ever done before. So if you like Friends or just listening to people talking, which are both valid activities, do look us up on the old podcast apps and that. Friends with Friends, and we're on Twitter, at Friends WF. Bye. I love Bianca. My name's Frank Butcher.

I'm not a bit of a runner. My name's Arthur. Arthur Fowler. My name's Pooley. I love Harper. My name's Michelle. I'm their daughter. My daughter's Vicky.

And I love Jeffrey. My name's Richard. Treaty, treaty. I don't love anybody. Nobody loves me. My name is Phil. I love caffeine I'm a motor mechanic She was down at caffeine

My nose brought me chill Sharon's me lover If you don't like it I'll come round and knock ya With the ice they lose We're the EastEnders We don't give a monkey Come on down and walk it Express your only 28p All right, Draco!