Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #58 (Part 3): 23.10.1980 – Top Of The Gear

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

David Stubbs, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham look on in horror as DLT goes full-on PLP (as in Pepe Le Pew) on Elkie Brooks, while Kelly Marie feels safe with her two chaperones. More car nonsense. And Christopher Lilliput.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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tell your friends? 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 sharp music It's Thursday night. It's nearly half past seven. It's October the 23rd, 1980.

And the tang of cat shit is already hanging thick over this episode of Top of the Pops. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to part three of episode 58 of Chart Music with Taylor Parks, rock expert David Stubbs, and my good self Al Needham. Let's not fanny about, let's take you right back to the episode. In profile. Four lovely girls from Holland. Well, we've checked for a few of the cars now. We've come through the new Ford Escort, rather splendid.

We've also come past the now famous Mini Metro, which has got a dint in the top where Camera 3 fell on it a few minutes ago, but we don't care. And also the new TVR Tasman, which we're sitting on as well. But the French have to have a go as well. We have the Renault girls here with us, and I've got to say hello. What is your name? Je m'appelle Yvette.

Ah, comment ça va? Très bien, merci. Ah, bien. Mise, moi aussi. They're my lovely French, isn't it, Gord? What's your name? Dominique. Dominique.

Dominique, let me ask you a question. How do you say, what is in a kiss in French? Qu'y a-t-il dans un baiser? Not qu'y a-t-il dans un baiser, was it? Yes. Oh, that's wonderful. That's nice because that's what they have to know. What's in a kiss? Have you ever wondered just what it is? More perhaps than just a moment of bliss Tell me what's in a kiss

Four lovely girls, says Travis With his hand in his pocket, as two women in dinner jackets rolled up at the sleeve over Renault T-shirts look on. Travis tells us that he's walked past a Ford Escort and a Mini Metro that a cameraman has just put a dint in, and tells us that he's sitting on a TR7 Tasman. We don't see any of these cars. We see a bit of the door of the Tasman, but that's it.

It's all very lovely body work, and the car's not bad either. I reckon camera three and the operator knew exactly what they were doing. I reckon that sinister dent in the car is an indication of life. Oh, it must have been a fucking nightmare to do this show with all them cars there. He then directs his attention to the two women who turn out to be French, Yvette and Dominique, and goes all bilingual

on them. The thing is, just being a woman around Dave Lee Travis is an open invitation to be mauled, but being a French woman, I mean, forget about it. Why did they bother putting their clothes on when they left the house? They're keen to play

the game, though, aren't they? Well, one seems to be a bit keener than the other. The one that looks like Mrs. Peignoir in that faulty tower. Yes, she does. She's at least prepared to sort of counterfeit an element of flirtation and toss her head back in a kind of, you know, come hither way. The other one, I think, is like there's a meter running in her head back in a kind of, you know, come hither way.

The other one, I think, is like there's a meter running in her head, basically. And she just desperately wants to be out of there. It's just the creepiness of it. And that kind of – I mean, there was that story about – John Peel once told about being in Lyft, and it was him, Travis, and Kylie Minogue. And Travis just goes to her, ooh, it's Kili Miniki, you know. That's meant to kind of sugar the obnoxiousness of it.

She has to smile sweetly because that's the stage of her career. You know, that's the real insult to injury is just his hideous pattern. So yeah, Yvette and Dominique, the Renault girls, if you will. I'd rather Jacques.

They're up for playing the game, aren't they? I mean, by motor show model standards, they're massively overdressed. They've got jackets on and T-shirts and trousers. And they're nice. Dominique's fucking lovely. But they're bulletproof. Yes.

You know, this is not their first rodeo. No, no, no. They're like police horses, aren't they? They've been trained up by having loads of blokes putting rackles and fireworks in their ears. Yeah, they come fitted with a sort of psychological sneeze guard against which the LT's frothing spittle, or worse, can splatter. They don't give a shit about Travis in the same way that professionalatter they don't give a shit about travis in the same way that

professional wrestlers don't give a shit about being picked up and slammed back down on the canvas as a spectacle it's not so charming but to struggle towards a kind of forced fairness here this was a time when men with microphones on British television could not really relate to women that well. No. I got a bit of a thing for watching olden days beauty contests. Yes. Not Miss World, which is just boring and unpleasant, but the shabby stuff, the small stuff like Miss Anglia 1978. Yes, Derek Hobson shit yeah miss

atv 1980 you know which are fascinating to watch in all sorts of ways but not least the way that the host speaks to the contestants because he's standing there with his hand mic with an arm folded flat across his torso like nelson with the the microphone poking suggestively out of his fist and he does all the introductions and the smooth linking bits but then as soon as he has to interview the girls usually while they're standing there in a one-piece swimsuit kitten heels and a wristband with a number on it like what cows have in their ears when they go to market and he has to talk to them in a friendly and professional and paternal way because he's about 40 or 50 and in those days a lot of beauty contest entrants would be 16 or 17 uh it's like the nolans it was seen as perfectly fine you know yeah but he also has to communicate a certain degree of lust because he is the representative

of male viewers so you get all these girls coming out in a line and the off-screen voiceover bloke goes uh this is melanie from erdington she's 17 and her vital statistics are 34 26 34 she's training to be a vivisectionist and she says her ambition is to be unhappy happy it's all really professional i'm really distant but then when when he interviews them it's always really awkward and unsettling because she's got the swimming costume and the fixed smile and he stood one inch away from her in a tux saying like uh well i have to say you're looking wonderful i'm struggling to control myself right it always has to hint that some sort of deep sexual darkness yeah i'm sure i speak for all the fellas uh here tonight and everyone watching at home when i say that quite frankly it's a almighty struggle not to just reach out and take what i need so melanie tell me can i just touch you yeah but at least he asked

does away with all the ceremony yeah just trusts in ape power you know it's like he learned everything he knows about seduction from watching king kong yes yeah yeah it's weird with miss world i mean just what a huge thing it was in 1970 more people watched the miss world final than watch the world cup final in the uk i mean it is isn't it yeah i mean aside from fact that the World Cup final of 1970 was sexy. Yeah. He goes full-on Pepe Le Pew and asks Dominique what the next single is called in French. It's What's in a Kiss by Gilbert O'Sullivan. We've covered Ray O'Sullivan a couple of times in Chant Music

during his early 70s period of dominance when he notched up two number one singles with clear and get down however diminishing returns set in in the mid 70s and by 1977 his fifth lp southpaw failed to chart a year later he came to the realization that the publishing rights in his contract with mam records were heavily and unfairly weighted towards the label and its co-owner, Gordon Mills, who was also his manager. He immediately fired off a lawsuit, downed tools and put his career on hold. Two years later, with the court case still rumbling on, O'Sullivan has re-signed with a company who picked him up originally in 1967,

CBS, and put out this single, the follow-up to Miss My Love Today, which fell to chart in February of 1978. It's from his new LP, Off Centre. It scraped in at number 43 weeks ago, and this week it's up two places from number 29 to number 27 so yes chaps it's been five years since he was last in the charts when uh i don't love you but i think i like you got to number 14 in july of 1975 and that is a long long time in the world of pop i don't want you but i do desire you cool i thought about that in many years this is a repeat of his previous performance on top of the pumps which is something we're going to see a lot of in this episode and it involves gilbert whose hair has gone completely rod hall by this time at a piano

in a red v-neck jumper and no shirt with a hazy purple frame around him, which makes it look like you're at a Gilbert O'Sullivan concert after being clubbed in the head. I mean, fucking hell, what must Gilbert O'Sullivan's lockdown hair look like? It must be like one of them feral sheep that haven't been trimmed for years. It's so much fucking hair, it's ridiculous.

I went on a walking holiday in the Welsh mountains when I was a kid, and occasionally, when you'd get quite high up, you'd see a dead sheep that had just dropped on the spot and had been there for months. Nobody came round to clear it up or anything. for months, you know. Nobody came round to clear it up or anything. So it was like a halo of frothy curls around just this decomposing mess,

which that's what this made me think of. Yeah. In a sense, he's like a dead sheep that's been miraculously brought back to life, really, isn't he? Some sort of life. That was the hiatus that Al outlined. But Gilbert Sullivan, I mean,

he's one of those people that made songwriting look very easy, mainly because he was so fucking facile. I mean, it's just really, really awful. Although I can imagine DLT actually, maybe meeting Mrs. Paynoir of the Renault girls later on and trying out one or two of these lines. I'm your very own delicatessen, well equipped to supply your every need.

I hate that line. I hate that line. It just makes me think of a naked Gilbert draped in slices of Parma ham with a pork pie in his mouth. Yeah, because delicatessens in Britain in 1980, they weren't exactly a smorgasbord, were they? I mean, certainly not the deli section in the local co-op, which was coleslaw, coleslaw with cheese,

coleslaw with raisins in it, and bits of meat. Yeah, brown bread, potato salad. Mushrooms a la Greg. This song is like an exercise. It's like your challenge is to write a song that is too indistinct to actually like but sufficiently uh harmless and lilting that you'd be lying if you said that it caused you actual pain you know it's uh it's like a song with a ph value of zero you know it's the it's your actual spherical song it's like formally flawless and perfectly rounded and totally smooth-sided so if you try and grab it

it just slides away you know it's like a gray ball rolling down an endless corridor forever you know it's perfectly pleasant in other words yeah which is why i don't understand how anyone ever bought it because i don't see how it snags anyone's consciousness you know there's no spike protein it's there's a lot of very bland records even bad ones that sound like natural hits even you know at least with a certain demographic because they feel warm or reassuring or they've got a little annoying hook or something whereas for all the glass this record is completely inert you know and he yeah he wasn't selling records on the strength of his looks let's face it so he's got a face the shape of an old slipper

it's like pulled out from under the cupboard with a load of dust stuck to it you know it's like he's like what tommy boyd sees in the hall of mirrors and he's got a that red v-neck jumper with nothing underneath and the arms are too short as well. And we all instinctively trust men who dress like that. Every time I see a bloke with a jumper on and no shirt underneath, particularly a V-neck jumper, it's like, oh man, your pits must fucking ring. Yeah.

It's not a hygienically sound proposition. No. With Gilbert O'Sullivan at this time, it possibly represents a sense of relief that, like, punk has come and gone. You know, hurricane pistols came and went, and somehow ageing saplings like Gilbert O'Sullivan are still standing. And I think that the real ripple effect of punk on pop in particular

is actually about a year or so away. But in the meantime, in this sort of hiatus, then there's a slight void that's being filled by Gilbert Obert o'sullivan he's also one of the very few people where gilbert o'sullivan influenced records are better than gilbert o'sullivan records right like you know such as net of concern by john pantry right right and even And even Pinball by Brian Prothero. You know, these are songs in a vaguely Gilbert O style, you know, sort of bit circular and unspontaneous piano songs. But they've got a sort of life to them, which this does not.

It was like a genre he had then, really. It was like themes to imaginary sitcoms. Yeah. It's possible, of course that john pantry and brian prothero were let down by their ridiculous names and they should have changed them to rogers mchammerstein or something gershwin von gershwin um i i just don't trust gilbert o'sullivan because he still looks as he's that that shabby sort of street urchin look, he's been rocking that since he first came out.

I saw him the other week on an episode of Two G's and the Pop People. Oh, the great Two G's and the Pop People. Yeah, yeah, dubious variety show from 1972. For anyone who doesn't, it's got doogie squires second generation dancing troupe who were a sort of hooray for everything perma smiling gang of of dancers they're sort of like knitting knitted sweaters and they act out orchestral versions of light pop hits with a sort of ultra mainstream love and peace vibe you know

like a creepy east german version of the woodstock nation you know and gilbert yeah was one of the guests um it's 1972 and he's got his stupid giant jocks and the geord's cap on and is is a is a affected simpleton persona you know and fuck off you know oh and on the on the very same episode I think none other than Dave Lee Travis yes singing or intoning a rock and roll medley the eternal standby of the desperate non-singer while inventing adam and the ants yes he comes out in a pirate isn't it yeah he's got a braided old-fashioned sort of military stroke pirate jacket on and a giant red indian headdress nurse a new royal family a wild nobility adam and the pilchards or as my mate said when he saw it, um, heap, big piece of shit.

But that's where it all began. That's the young Stuart Goddard sat at home going, hmm. Possibly. He may even have found out about pirates somewhere else, but no, I'm prepared to entertain that theory, definitely. Pirates in big chief headdress? I don't think so. Well, true, true.

Oh, yes, true yes true true fair enough That juxtaposition yeah yeah Fair do's fair do's He made a comeback album didn't he Gilbert O'Sullivan I think about 15 years ago I think I had to review it I remember very little about it except it was It was exceptionally

Oh you actually listened to it this time Bitter and scabrous Oh yeah yeah well, well, once through, you know, I'll give her most of it anyway. But it was very bitter, scabrous stuff. I don't know, he was really kind of, you know, unleashing some bile there. Maybe it's some sort of,

you know, the memory of all the sort of shit he went through in the late 70s. But, you know, in terms of biliousness, it made Never Mind the Bollocks sound like, you know, What's in a Kiss? I must hear it. Were you still angry with that dog that went AWOL on Tom's people? Bad dog. Fucking bitch.

My abiding memory of this song is one Saturday in October, the local hospital radio did an outside broadcast in Broadmarsh Centre. Me and my mate Neil Matthew matthews who used to hang around there pretending to be mods and pissing about with the electronic chess sets in the big co-op we were called up to do an on the spot round table and this is the only single i can remember that came up i wish i could remember what the other ones were i probably said it wasn't mod enough or just said, Dunno, sir. But it was weird being asked to have an opinion on this.

Yeah. Well, I know the feeling. It's like saying, what do you think of that leaf over there on the floor? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But it's proof that even though it is the 80s, you know, the 70s are still hanging around. But it's also proof that the era of the singer-songwriter is on the wane. He's just been called up to do a bit and he's gone.

It makes no difference. Yeah. You could have put anything in that spot. Yeah, this does feel a bit like Indiana Jones when that door is coming down, just reaching through to grab his hat at the last minute. So the following week, What's in a kiss left eight places to number 19 its highest position the follow-up i love it but failed to chart in november of this year and he never troubled the top 40 again however in 1982 he finally won his

court case with his old label and manager when it was disclosed that out of the £14.5 million his recordings had earned between 1970 and 1978, he had only received half a million before tax. After Mills launched an appeal, the case was finally settled in the mid-80s with O'Sullivan retaining his copyrights and master tapes and a settlement for nearly £2 million, by which time O'Sullivan had downed tools again, vowing not to sign with any label unless he had complete control, finally resurfacing in 1989 to get to number 70 with So What in March of that year. Very principled man.

Yeah, yeah. Gotta give him that. But he did kill hip-hop. Tell me what's in a kiss Tell me what's in a kiss Tell me what's in a kiss Ooh Ooh

Hey, worth it in a kiss? That was Gilberto Sullivan. Some very kissable ladies round here at Top of the Pots That have been sent in by the director, Mr Hull To drive me bananas There is one young lady who you can hear in the background You're going to see in the foreground One of my faves

And it's the lovely Elkie Brooks From Mancunia Here we go Hello Elkie Hi Dave Listen, we all reckon on Radio 1 That your record, your current record Is about the best you've ever made.

How do you feel about it? Yes, I feel it's getting to where I want to be. It's quite soulful. You look tired to me, are you really? Yes, well, I don't look that bad, do I? You don't look bad, you just look tired. You look as if you've done a breakfast show for two years, like me. Well, I have been working quite hard. I'm rehearsing for my new tour that's coming up. I've got a smashing band and lots of nice gear. All right.

Well, listen, it's only a quick, quick kissy-poo, but we wish you all the best, Elkie. Thanks for joining us today. Here's another young lady that's doing very well currently. She's had one number one already. It is Kelly Marie. APPLAUSE MUSIC PLAYS We cut back to Travis standing next to a blue car while four sulky women mauling about in the background. For a change, Travis directs his attention to them,

saying that they've been sent as a gift by Michael Hurl to drive him bananas. Then he introduces another lady who happens to be one of his faves, Elkie Brooks. Yeah. On this occasion, Elkie Brooks with all her... Yes. Yes. It's an uncomfortable bit of television.

It is. Wanting to hurl like Michael. After giving her a hairy kiss, he immediately snakes his hand around her waist and pulls her in tight as he tells her that everyone at radio one thinks her latest single dance away is her best work yet she replies that she's getting to where she wants to be while her general demeanor implies that she wants to be the fuck away from Travis. This is just... Oh, where do we begin with this?

Well, you've got some very kissable young ladies sitting to drive me absolutely bananas. Oh, yeah. And you've got the woman in the overalls, particularly up front. She looks like polystyrene or something like that. It's been Shanghai for this. They just look at him with contempt. He turns around to look at them, there's they're all motor show women yeah they're kind of like wearing crop tops or a talbot t-shirt yeah they're not impressed are they imprisoned in a dlt dungeon i mean considering he's been kind enough to

compliment them yeah yeah they don't really show any reaction at all. But, I mean, poor Elkie Brooks, on the other hand, certainly does show a reaction to Dave Lee Travis's intentions. I mean, she's so unsettled, she forgets to talk in her real accent and sounds like she's from Birmingham. I don't know what that's all about. Yes, what was that about? Maybe she's trying to disguise her location in case he tries to follow her. her location in case he tries to follow her it's really noticeable that she doesn't make eye contact for more than a second with dave just once and you see it and i freeze framed it and you see

elkie brooks looking up at davely travis and he's smirking down at her with a kind of lascivious look on his face it's like he was around her house delivering something she popped into the kitchen to plunge the sink and when she walked back into the front room he'd stripped naked and reclined on her couch that's the kind of smile that he's given and And after that, she doesn't look back at him. She looks all around the studio. She looks anywhere, just not at him. And so he goes in to kiss her, and he ends up kissing her on the forehead like the Pope

because she won't turn her face up to him. And then she spends the rest of their little chat staring in completely the opposite direction like restrained by the arm around her back resting on her hip um she doesn't even say thank you when he says to her you look tired which is a bit rude i thought and by the time he helps himself to another kiss also on the hair you are thinking this is really uncomfortable why doesn't he realize yeah i mean you can see her physically sort of jolting but the whole point he does realize this is an exercise in control and it's the thing that is so nauseating about DLT. He's not some young kid who doesn't know how to behave around women.

He's not some bloke who's gone off the rails from booze or drugs or mental breakdown and he's lost his moral compass. This is just who he is. It's all completely conscious and deliberate. You can see the calm confidence and self-assurance and self-awareness. It's not that he doesn't realise that a lot of these women don't like it. It's that he doesn't care whether they like it or not. Their feelings are irrelevant. If a lady is turned on by his mauling, then fantastic.

If they feel awkward and embarrassed and harassed yeah too bad and he's fine doing it in front of the cameras as well because he doesn't care if people see and he's using the logic of the stage hypnotist right you speak to a stage hypnotist people play along with it yes because they're up on the stage, they're in the spotlight, and they feel immense pressure not to spoil the show. Yes. So it looks like the hypnosis is working. Or in this case, it looks like they're enjoying Dave Lee Travis's attentions, or at least they don't mind.

Well, no, in this particular case, of course, it doesn't look like that. It looks like she fucking hates the cunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, she's got a bit more power, hasn't she? I mean, she's Elkie Brooks. Exactly. She's not a Renault girl. I mean, you know, she's got a bit more clout in the business.

But yeah, as far as he's concerned, she's supposed to play the game. Yeah. And if she doesn't, well, why not? Yeah, I'm more important than you. And, you know, he's not going to suspend the game, like I say, of something as trifling as a woman's feelings. Yeah. But I just hate that thing, a quick kissy-poo again,

and her every sinew is straining and saying, get your fucking, hairy, disgusting, groping, baboon paws off me, you disgusting, slobbering twat. And, like, you know, the idea that kissy-poo is supposed to, again, is supposed to sweeten the deal in some way, it's's it's i mean in travis's mind it's hey look at me in the crazy world of pop look at my great friends oh you look how intimate we are together and yeah and all that kind of stuff i mean he wasn't doing that with gladys knight was there no no no the pips would have had something to say about that exactly yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, people like that, they only do it when, like, yeah,

the other fellas aren't around. Yeah, yeah. If she'd have brought in a backing band, which to my mind will always be known as all her looks, then, yeah, I can't see this happening. Certainly wouldn't. But with Travis, you watch where the hand goes for different people. He's got a system going on.

Someone like Gladys Knight, who he respects, it's on the shoulder. Someone from the audience, you know, it's round the arms. Someone like Elkie Brooks and someone else in a bit, right round the hips. Really intimate. As you know, I used to work on a porn TV station

doing my own show and everything. And I was involved on set with loads of models. And I never did that. I wouldn't even think of doing that. I was always aware that just because they're doing what they're doing, that's all the more reason for me not to grope them and grab them. But it got to the point where I had to do this scene where I actually had to grab someone's bare tits.

And it took 10 minutes for me to do this scene where i actually had to grab someone's bare tits and it took 10 minutes for me to do it because i was just there going do we have to do that is is there something i could do is there a camera trick can you just angle the camera so it looks like i'm doing and she didn't give a toss she was like no of course i've worked with her before loads of times we got on really well she's just like look just do it i don't mind all right are you sure and it got to the point where after 10 minutes the director had to come out the booth walk down grab my hands and put them on her tits because i was dead against it because he was like no this ain't right mate and i wasn't the only one everyone treated them with respect and they loved filming with us you know they'd be sitting there

having a laugh and everything and then all of a sudden their faces would just drop and you'd say you all right and they said oh yeah well i've got to go now i've got to go off now and do a sunday sport road show in fucking essex yeah it'd be like oh yeah that that gallantry not industry standard no you know i was thinking we were talking earlier on about status quo and their wanking circle, you know, their sort of group bonding sessions and the kind of esprit de corps I think it created in them. And also I think that it made them, I think that it probably contributed heavily towards their sort of sense of ease with their own masculinity.

You know, I think it probably had quite an apostrophe effect, you know, in some respects. And I just wonder, suppose the late 70s, early 80s, top of the pops roster of DJs, suppose they'd had group wanking sessions. I think that it would have taken the edge, you know, of a lot of the kind of awfulness that would see you. You just, you know, go on, Pete, don't be shy.

Come on, Peter. In there, yeah, Jimmy. You know, just get them all in a little circle, a nice group wank, you know yeah come on come on pete don't be shy come on peter in there yeah jimmy yeah yeah just get them all in a little circle a nice little group wank you know perhaps on a weekly basis and i just think that um pop history could have been yeah could have been different well it would have livened up the road shows wouldn't yeah yeah well you know yeah yeah i don't know that you can disengage the grabbiness from just the basic personality of these people because with DLT it's the same way that he uses his bulk and his loud mouth and his complete lack of embarrassment and shame to muscle his way to the center of attention in every scenario, despite having literally nothing to offer. He uses those same things in the same way against women.

It's a perfect or a perfectly horrible illustration of how those two traditional British male characteristics intertwine, right? Like the life and soul would would be alpha male blustering jollity with an undercurrent of bullying and menace and the pseudo jovial sexual help yourself to which the recipient's consent is irrelevant is's both defining traits of men with nothing to offer the world except their own entitlement. You know, they've got no other method of getting what they feel is theirs,

be it attention or, you know, a touch of something soft. They've got no other way of doing it except to be an awful overbearing cunt and just trust that no one dares to stop them it's a power move isn't it this is travis going i'm the star you're the guest i don't care who you are you're female come here kissy poo i mean in a way the most insulting thing is that he dresses it up as an act, or he half-dresses it up as an act. Yeah, we're all in this together. But it makes her look bad.

You know, she's Elkie fucking Brooks. She's this hard-bitten, bluesy woman, you know, the air of Janis Joplin. Janis Joplin would have stood for that, mate. Yeah. Fucking hell. Got a bottle of Southern comfort over the head. Yeah. Near hell. They've got a bottle of Southern Comfort over the head. Yeah. Near the bollocks, at least.

But he sets himself up. It's like he's Cosmo Smallpiece, you know? He's like the grubby, gropey sex pest who grimaces and gurns and acts like he's overheating, you know? And we're meant to just not notice. But he's the sex pest who wins. Right. He's the sex pest who you shouldn't feel sorry for,

you should be envious of. Right, exactly. Yeah, this is why there are no jokes in this act. It's just him. The real message is, relax, love. It's only a bit of fun, although actually I mean it. And by the way, don't forget I'm much bigger and stronger than you are. And still, you're meant to find it charming.

Yeah. And this is helping her sell her record, supposedly. Yeah. I always, well, I'm brought it out of sympathy. Travis then points out that she looks tired and then says, it looks as if you've been working the breakfast show for two years like me. He's proper negging there, isn't he?

Absolutely, yeah. Thank you, Sarah, for introducing that word to my vocabulary. I mean, again, you know, the second time, you know, that's all he seems to have to say to these people is, you know, how tired they look or don't look, whatever. I imagine that she might be feeling actually pretty chipper and sprightly, but just a second in his company would have like reduced it to instant total exhaustion she responds by pointing out that she's been working her tits off and has

had to drag herself away from rehearsing with her new band to come here to be insulted and mauled by you you frizzy cunt if you think we're over-erring it here, I advise you to go and look at it. And then go on Google and type in Dave Lee Travis Lindsay DePaul. Oh. And then go to the image section. You know what I'm referring to there, don't you? Yes. Oh, no, no. And I'm not even sure.

Go on, do it now, David. Okay, come on then. Do it now. All right, let's call it up. So Dave Lee Travis Lindsay DePaul images. come on then. Do it now. All right. Let's call it up. So deeply Travis, Lindsay, deep pool images. Oh,

fuck me. Rigid. Oh, that's. Oh, oh my God. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you for that. Travis gets one more slobbery kissing before introducing the next act kelly marie with loving just for fun we've already covered the former jacqueline mckinnon in chart music 15 when she was on the way to taking feels like i'm in love to number one in september of this year and this is the follow-up. Like the previous single, this is a re-release from 1978, presumably rushed out to cash in on the success of the previous song which is still in the charts. This week it dropped seven places from number 27 to number 34. It entered the chart at number 70 last week and this week it soared 33 places to number

37 and here she is in the studio with her mates Pinker and Tony. So yeah the obligatory free pass for the surprise number one single and as is the want of this sort of song it pretty much feels like I'm in love

a bit more. Yeah. It's better though I think i think yeah yeah less catchy but not as annoying despite having basically the same rhythm track and depth charge sound effects but it's it's not awful although it is one of those records which chanced upon its better qualities while scrabbling around indiscriminately for any kind of novelty or gimmick you know but that's okay because nothing that's even vaguely interesting can be completely useless and this is vaguely interesting and therefore not completely useless but its best features are the things that you'd be most likely to laugh at you know i mean it's like electro disco made on wind-up equipment you know built out of copper wire

baker light it's like the whole thing is so budget no i bet those boystown backing dancers are straight it was all they could afford and the and the song sort of crashes backwards and forwards bizarrely between schlager and aria like a drunk bloke who keeps walking into a room that he's forgotten he's just walked out of and it's really haphazard and glued together but it's all these things are what make it not complete shit do you know what i mean it's like a lot of british tat it's rough and ready and the cold scottish wind howling through the bones of this is what gives it some character you know okay it's the kind of record that you might listen to twice and then sling onto the roof of bargain booze but you know that's better that's better than a lot of what we hear

on this program tonight it's not it's not the worst thing i mean singing why she actually reminds me of like you know when hilda ogden used to um burst into song yes twitter away as she was like dusting or whatever but actually a lot of these vocal tricks and tropes are quite similar to tina marie really or it's a sort of slightly inferior british tina marie it's odd that tina marie is herself actually in the charts around this time as well she looks odd because she doesn't look odd do you know what i mean it's one of those it's that jarring thing where someone who could be your auntie or your dinner lady just seems to have walked straight into top of the pops and up onto the stage and nobody stopped her you know what i mean and she

she just gets through the whole song and they just stand there and let her do it yeah um and that's good and bad and it's it's good because in its way that's as weird and confusing and hilarious as a full-on freak performer um and it's bad because not only does she look like an ordinary person by gum she sounds like an ordinary person yeah i mean this and another single that's going to appear on this episode really marks the absolute arse end of disco as we know it doesn't it? Yeah disco is now kind of purely mums and gay music

do you know what I mean? It's like everybody else has kind of left the nightclub Just imagine this disco where it's just loads of lads in satin shorts and no tops just grinding away on the dance floor and all the mums sitting around going, oh, I don't care what he is as long as he's up here.

Yeah, this is a lot more relaxing than when DLT was in earlier. Yes. But this is, on the one hand, this is one of the gayest records you'll ever hear. But on the other hand, the problem with it is it's not gay enough. Yes. Or it's not gay enough yes or it's not it's not intensely gay it's like i like a lot of really gay music like gay dance music even though i don't dance and i'm not gay but i love it

for i just had to say that in case any ladies are listening you know you like other people dancing and being gay for you though don't you taylor yeah i i love that music for its audacity and hilarity and just the sheer greased up gumption of it you know like it's proper stuff like i'm so hot for you by bobby o you know one of my favorite and and like trashy joke stuff like Soccer Practice by Johnny McGovern. No relation as far as I know. That sounds brilliant. Oh, you'd love it, yeah. I am making a point of not listening to that

because it could not live up to what I think it sounds like. It sort of does. Oh. But a lot of it is not good music, man. You know, not any more than this is, but it's great. But the point is, that stuff is meant to reek of amyl nitrate and used lube, you know. Whereas this, it smells like the inside of a garden centre. Iron broom.

Yeah, or a room where someone's just finished a plate of beans on toast you know and i i really like the the brassy bollocksy britishness of it but as with so many things and so many people that's also precisely what's holding it back it's all blackpool and flashing slot machines and a paper cone of chips you know with droplets of vinegar falling out the tip of the cone because you have to put too much vinegar on to cover up the fact that the chips taste a bit like swede um it's a song you you would win on a grabbing claw machine if such a thing were possible. And it's okay, but you wouldn't want to live there. It's almost like something like Britain at this point

does things to music that at one point were very other. So disco was like very much transatlantic, studio 54 or whatever. But by this point, you know, it's like Britain has kind of encroached on it, reclaimed it and uh garden centers now flourish across the top of it and uh you know a bit like the kind of weeds that now occupy detroit or whatever eventually britain sort of takes over and eats these things

alive and paves over them yeah the performance is essentially um the boy's town gang in negative isn't it yeah i mean i think that negative thing is distinctly what those white gloves are about, which is very dubious. And it's only a couple of years since seeing a black and white minstrel show was eventually binned. So I suppose that's all, you know, considered fair game at the time. You could make a case for this being the first attempts of high energy to stand upright, if you will. You could. And it sort of is. could and it sort of is

yeah it sort of is medium energy, moderate energy But then you know that's a bit like when Sarah Brightman claimed to be a pioneer of electronic pop music because of you know the Starship Truth if you did claim that on a documentary

Yeah and Liquid Gold. Yes Liquid Gold they made a very similar claim. They regard themselves as pretty much on a par, perhaps in a sense, with New Order, well, preceding New Order, really.

Paving the way for the Aphex Twin. Unbelievable, this is the second and last in-studio performance in this episode. Bar Legs and Co.

from here on in, it's non-stop videos and repeat performances. For fuck's sake, those poor kids. Imagine having to wait six months to actually be in the top of the repeat performances. For fuck's sake, those poor kids. Imagine having to wait six months to actually be in the top of the pop studio. When you get there, there's some old blokes with long hair

and waistcoats. This and some cars. And those twats in the 4B2 t-shirts, gurning about, making a nuisance of the summer. Disappointing. Yeah. You've got to feel for them kids yeah yeah yeah did you guys see top of the pots being filmed yeah i i got to stand next to a lance here

the thing about this clip the end is the best bit i mean in several ways but they cue in the fake applause and the camera pan away from the stage just a fraction too late, which is always really awkward on a record that fades out. Yes. Because you're left with the performers still desperately mugging and frugging as the music dies away to silence. Yeah. And all the kids still just staring blankly at the stage. It's like they're on a small boat

that's slowly sinking under the water, still doing the Charleston with a plastered-on smile as they slowly vanish. And it gets a bit awkward here, but luckily someone swings into action just in time, just before you get that that horrible silence and they're put out of their misery and the dancers can go home to their wives and children and uh kelly can go off and feed a airbrushed two-dimensional dog

so the following week loving just for fun soared 16 places to number 21, but the week after that, it dropped to number 22 and then nosedived out of the charts. The follow-up, Hot Love, got to number 22 in March of 1981, but she would never trouble the top 40 again. But Pinky and Tonya would go on to do some robot dancing for Kim Wilde when she did Cambodia in 1981, and their usual capering about whenever Hazel Dean was on top of the pops in 1984. Fucking hell, man, they went straight from Kelly Marie to Hazel Dean.

That don't seem right. The want-away dance troupe. And Dance Away by Elkie Brooks failed to chart. Poor fucking Elkie. She's the one, she's the one, she's the one, she's the one, she's the one. Five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, I'm Chris England, and I'm here to tell you about the Fun Factory podcast, available now on Great Big Owl.

Each time, I will be reading a couple of chapters of my novel, The Fun Factory, a historical comedy about the history of comedy. So it will kind of be like a free audiobook, which you can listen to at the gym, or jogging, or at your desk while pretending to do your job, or on the train, without the embarrassment of people seeing you actually reading a book like some kind of swat. That's Kelly Marie with Loving Just For Fun,

and that was absolutely bursting at the seams with vitality, that record. Good stuff. Right, I peeled myself off the Lancia Delta and the beautiful ladies down there, wheeled my way past one of the final cars, the sunbeam top that we have on show in our little, little studio here, and brought myself to the situation where I can say to you, now let's have a look at the bottom half of the top 30.

They are like this. Down to 30, one day I'll fly away from Randy Crawford. Earth, Wind & Fire's excellent Let Me Talk, up to number 29. At 28, I Need Your Loving from Tina Marie. Gilbert O'Sullivan, What's In A Kiss is moving up to 27. Still at 26, Army Dreamers from Kate Bush and Gillan with Trouble drops to this week's 25. Up from 36 to 24, Shawadi Wadi and the Specials with their international jet set at 23.

22 is Three Little Birds from Bob Marley and Change Searching drops to 21. And up from 24 to number 20, it's Air Supply with an excellent record called All Out of Love. I want you to come back and carry me home All out of love. Travis, now finally with some actual kids, tells us that he's just peeled himself off a Lancia Delta and the beautiful lady's standing there. Oh, and I toldbot sunbeam. We don't see any of this. What are the floor managers thinking at the minute?

They've had to have all these fucking cars in the way. They can't get a decent shot of them because there's people there. It's a fucking nightmare. And Travis might as well be saying, oh, I've just seen Elvis on a unicorn just then. I reckon it's a sort of power struggle. I think that there's something going on behind the scenes. In particular thing, I think with Travis,

when he describes the Kelly Marie thing as bursting at the seams with vitality, which doesn't mean anything. It's just like sentences emerging from his mouth out of any sort of vetting process. There was a documentary that I watched the other day about Samuel Beckett, which is really, really good. And it was very lucid. And it said about Samuel Beckett, he'll admit to only four certainties,

that he has been born, is living, will die, and for reasons unknown and unknowable, cannot keep silence. And I think that sums up fucking Dave Lee Travis right there, actually. Yeah, and also when he says, bursting at the seams, there's a bit of a smirk there as he says, vitality. Is this DLT being smirky about the gay lads? On top of the fucking pops? Who does he think built this thing?

Also, there's that starry-eyed girl behind him she's already seen too much yes finally he remembers he's doing an actual music show and plunges into the charts from number 30 to number 20 bit of a disappointing crop of pictures this week isn't it it? They've actually made some effort, it appears. Disappointingly competent. There's Tina Maria, as Travis calls her. They've got a very unfortunate photo

of her. She looks really thick. It's sexy, Al. Oh, sorry, yeah. Sultra. And for Change, who are in the charts researching, they've gone for a silhouette of seven people covered by the American flag which is a bit odd

as they're actually a French Italian producer and some session singers I think they were trying to keep their identity on the down low at the moment the disco residents

yeah there's a real sense of like here's the show you could have had itis about some of these rundowns I mean you know Randy Crawford

Change is searching Bob Marley the specials Tina Marie marie yeah we get fucking gilbert sullivan and his delicatessen yes he finally alights on all out of love by air supply formed in the dressing rooms of the palais theater in melbourne in 1975 by three cast members in the theatre's production of Jesus Christ Superstar, Air Supply were picked up by CBS Australia a year later and their debut single Love and Other Bruisers got to number six in the Australian charts at the end of the year. A year later they supported Rod Stewart in his tour of Australia and he was so taken by them he invited them to support him in North America.

But their appeal in their home country was on the wane, with five flop singles on the bounce, and they were dropped by CBS. However, in the spring of 1979, they were picked up by local label Big Time Records, released their fourth LP, Life Support, and the lead single from it, Lost in Love, got them back in the Aussie charts. And when guitarist and songwriter Graham Russell was on

a flying visit to his hometown of Nottingham, he discovered that his label had licensed the single to Arista Records in America and it was rising up the billboard charts, eventually getting to number 3 over there. They immediately jumped ship to Arista and put out the LP Lost in Love. This is the second release from that LP and their first mock on the UK charts. It entered the top 40 at number 31 a fortnight ago, then jumped 7 places to number 24 and this week it's up four places to number 20 and here's the video great what can you say about air supply well i'll start the bidding with shaking chicago yeah oh yeah oh you know this is their peoria aren't they all? Carbondale. This is Kenosha, Wisconsin. Not even that, Waukegan.

Yeah. I mean, of course, David Travis introduces it as an excellent record, which, as usual, the DJ editorialising signifies that it's AOR bilge, that kids won't like. Immediately makes it suspect. The fact that the video looks remarkably similar to the one for If You Leave Me Now doesn't help, does it? It's a smaller stage.

There's a blue wash background instead of magenta, but the vibe is, hey, hey, who's this remind you of, eh? Yeah. Let's start with the baby elephant in the room. The lead singer is tiny. Yes. Yes. It's the first thing you notice about this video and it's kind of the last thing you notice about this video and no one takes more delight in mocking a very short

man than a fairly short man so let me say i took one look at this bloke with his bounteous dark curls and his little button features, all four foot six of him, and all I could think was Christopher Lilliput. Oh, very good. Knowing full well that this was both the best joke I've ever thought of and the most hopelessly niche gag since my last one that demands knowledge of at least two unconnected things that nobody knows or gives a shit about charming the kissable young ladies with uh all my all my cracks about Patrick Malahide and pre-war foreign secretaries. But it turns out that he's actually called Russell

after the sound in the long grass that lets his bandmates know he's approaching. But it wouldn't be so easy to laugh if it weren't for the fact that for most of this video, he's filmed from a very high camera angle, looking down. And I know this is a cinematic technique that's used to imply dejection and defeat,

as in the lyric of the song. But it just looks like the director handed the camera to wee Jimmy Cranky. And this is the angle that resulted. Do you think, I mean, I suppose, I don't know, perhaps an attempt to offset his shortness in some ways. Because right up there, we're all pretty short, really. But they put him next to Graham Russell,

who looks like the world's lankiest guitarist. I mean, this bloke, the lead singer. I mean, if the old sailor had been in Goodfellas, he would look just like the lead singer of Air Supply in this video, wouldn't he? Yeah. I'm a joke to you, am I? Well, I'm a very successful joke, actually.

I think we would have to go home and get our fucking shine box. For him to stand on but it has had a sort of long afterlife oh yeah all I could really think about when I was listening to it was just I don't know five in the morning on the Great Western Road

in a minicab and I don't know half FM or whatever that perpetual graveyard of stuff like this that's probably got decades left in it. I bet Simon's played this on his minicab FM thing Yeah, definitely but the sheer frictionless sort of blandness of it

I find it hard to conjure words, images impressions of any kind really It's the sound of impotence isn't it? Yes implied in the title of course yeah graham russell as i mentioned is another son of nottingham the cradle of pop he's he's from arnold where i go off and do my shopping because he's got some decent supermarkets and a big wilco and a nice

market and uh you know i don't want to bang on about nottingham all the time but one of the great things about nottingham and one of the things that could have been better about Nottingham, is that not only do we have an Arnold, but we also have a place called Kimberley. And for years, I have campaigned to get some other districts to rename themselves Willis and Mr Drummond, so we could be the first different strokes themed city in the world. No one's with me on this one, man.

It upsets me. Yeah. I mean, instead of the road signs that say Arnold, just have Arnold's face. That would be fucking brilliant, wouldn't it? Yeah. No. You're a voice in the wilderness. Yeah.

In an interview in 1980, Graham Russell revealed that if Lost in Love had died on its arse, he would have left the band and returned to England to chase his dream about writing a rock musical about the Sheriff of Nottingham. Can you imagine? In case you don't know, there actually is a Sheriff of Nottingham that get elected every year, which is fucking brilliant. It's like Detroit electing someone toham they get elected every year which is fucking brilliant yeah it's like detroit electing someone to be robocop every year but sadly it's it's a boring civic role they just go around opening things my other brilliant idea to make nottingham less mediocre is carry on having a sheriff of nottingham but make him or her make them evil yeah so yeah dispatching to guy gizmon

to torch villages yeah yeah they still go to garden fakes and jumble cells but they knock over tables and yeah throw cakes about heels basically you know they make stupid laws which their henchmen enforce and every morning they appear on the balcony of the council house and just shout at people and coat them down and then when their yearly terms up they're on the balcony of the council house and just shout at people and coat them down and then when their yearly terms up they're on the balcony halfway through a tirade then all of a sudden they get a like a stuntman arrow in the chest yes and they fall off the balcony onto some mattresses and the whole city has a piss up for the whole day and then the next day a new one comes in and it starts all over again.

How fucking brilliant would that be? Yeah, yeah. I could do a whole podcast about how I would make Nottingham brilliant. Just need a fox in a hat. I could do a whole episode on pulling down Nottingham Castle because it's not a proper castle because the original one got burned down and then it got burned down again. And then they just went oh

fuck this let's not do a castle let's just do a fucking art museum pull that down replace it with a massive plastic castle gray school yeah how brilliant would that be the first thing you see when you come in on the train is this massive plastic castle gray school and it fired huge polystyrene boulders at random at people while they're going about the business. What fun that would be. It would. This is town planning taken to another level.

I'm very impressed. Wouldn't look any more unwelcoming than a lot of Nottingham already does. Yeah. Well, the first thing you see in Nottingham now is it used to be Nottingham Castle on the rock, which looked all right, but no, they decided in the 90s to build a tax office. Looks like it's got guard towers and everything.

It's fucking horrible. And the other thing you see as you come into Nottingham from the south, I don't know if it's still there now, but it used to be this massive piece of graffiti which just said, suck your mum. Anything else to say about air supply? Yeah, loads. Couldn't this bloke smash a glass with his voice

on the late, late breakfast show? Am I the only one who remembers this? I'm sure it was him. Edmunds had him on to demonstrate that he could hit a high note and smash a glass with his voice. I don't think he could smash a glass by just dropping it on the floor at the height of him.

But surely that's one of the worst skills to have. Like if you could crash a passenger jet by blinking your eyes. It's really remarkable, but very unwelcome and not something that anyone would ever want you to demonstrate, except Edmonds. He sat there rubbing his tiny little hands together and blaming the passengers for their negative attitude. Ella Fitzgerald did it for the Memrix adverts, but that was for an advert. Yeah.

I don't know if she'd do it in actual concerts. Yeah, just if a waiter had been displeasing. Imagine if you had to go to one of her concerts and everything, you automatically got handed plastic beakers, like during England games, during the World Cup. Yeah, it was just a precaution. Right, hang on a minute. That Nottingham bloke, is he the big tall one?

Yes. I almost feel as bad for him, because him and Shorty are a couple, aren't they? They're like the John and Paul of this band. Yes. I almost feel as bad for him because him and Shorty are a couple, aren't they? They're like the John and Paul of this band. Yes. Or the Yogi and Boo Boo. Yeah. They're forced to stand next to each other

despite the fact that they make each other look ridiculous, both with their clashing physiques and with their joint responsibility for the group air supply. Yeah. Simon and Garfunkel in reverse, isn't it? Yeah. physiques and with their joint responsibility for the group air supply yeah simon agar funke in reverse isn't it but to be honest the bloke that i really feel sorry for in this band is that poor sod on third guitar in a seven piece band standing right at the back and i don't know whether to pity him for his peripheral role in a peripheral pop

group or envy him for what surely must be a really easy life standing there swaying and strumming inaudibly and he still gets to go on tour you know and I wonder if he was happy and I

tried researching him because he really caught my imagination but i couldn't because officially what's his name i don't know because officially air supply research there no it's because officially air supply were a five-piece group at this point or a six-piece group depending on where you get your information. But I can't find any record of this cunt's existence at all. Oh, do you think he just snuck in? Like that bloke who turned up

in the Man United line-up before games. Yeah, yeah. Could be. I think he might be a g-g-g-g-ghost that nobody spotted until they played the video back later. We might be onto something here, Taylor. I'm not sure they're saying

we'd have got away with it if it hadn't been for that damn Taylor Parks. He might be an optical illusion. Like a lenticular cloud formation or earth light. That's about it, isn't it?

I mean, the most, I really did, the most interesting thing that I could find out about Air Supply is that at one time or another, in this band's needlessly prolonged existence, members have included both Mike Nesmith's son and John LeMessurier and Hattie Jakes' son. No! Also later a member of the Womble.

Fucking hell! And something more interesting than that is the fact that Barry Davis, the football commentator, was an almost qualified dentist. What? Which is the only thing worse than a dentist. But as soon as you know that, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? In the same way that Jonathan Miller is so obviously a doctor,

Barry Davis, so obviously a dentist. Look in his mouth, just look in his mouth. Good old Air Supply. If I'd have been a 1980 music critic with all the kind of wit of a 1980 music critic, I'd have probably conclude my review with something like,

it is ironic that Air Supply, whose name denotes something so essential, should have produced a record that is so inessential. I think it's time they were cut off. Yes, yes, quite. Thank you. Yes, excellent. Or sexual Air Supply, as Patrick Troughton calls it. That's an in-joke for the loser masses. More for them later. So the following week, All Out of Love soared nine places to number 11,

but would get no further. But the follow-up, Every Woman in the World, failed to chart, and they never troubled the top 40 again. But the Yanks couldn't get enough of them as they racked up eight top five singles in america including a number one with the one that you love in 1981 and graham russell and russell hitchcock became standing presenters on solid gold the u.s version of top of the pops throughout the early 80 80s when usual presenter Andy Gibb was unavailable which was very often due to the latter's love

of the old pub dust. The same that I once said I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone

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I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not alone I'm not off at the moment because I'm very closely confined with a lot of ladies. I'm not complaining, mind you. Have you seen this one here? Look at this. This is an explosion in a paint factory. That's what we've got to put up with at the top of the pot. I think it's also as good a time as any now

to have a look at the rest of the charts from 19 to number 11. Cut from 37 to 19. Adam and the Ants with Dog Eat Dog. And dropping to 18, Killer on the Loose, Thin Lizzy. Lynx, You're L line comes down 2 to 17 and down to 16 amigo black slate bad manners with special brew move up 10 places to 15 and down to 14 it's master blaster from stevie wonder coffee Chart music. Great fake owl.com Travis, back in the studio, stands amongst a forest of lady kids with only one lad managing to get into shot.

He looks a bit like a young gangler, Gary Davis. After picking on one girl in a white top with splodges of colour across it, he pivots to the chart rundown from number 19 to number 11 and then throws us into Army Dreamers by Kate Bush. A virtuoso display of negging from DLT, the PUA. He describes this girl's colourful top as, it's like an explosion in a paint factory. Good one. It's a shame she hadn't just had a haircut then he could have said she'd had a fight with a lawnmower it's dlt nothing if not

a true original um okay now i did by this point just based solely on this evening, his karma is now so bad that he risks being reincarnated as Paul Burnett. Or worse, reincarnated as himself, an unemployable sex offender. We've covered Catherine Bush in Chart Music's 4 and 7, and this is a follow-up to Babushka, who's got to number 5 in August of this year. It's the third cut from her third LP, Never Forever, which went straight into the LP chart at number 1 late last month, the first solo LP by a British woman to get to number 1 over here, and the first non-compilation LP by any woman to get to number 1 in the UK LP charts. It's entered the charts of

Fortnite to go at number 33, then jumped up seven places to number 26, but this week it stayed where it was. But as Kate Bush doesn't do Top of the Pops appearances anymore, here's a video featuring Action Kate with the gripping vocal cords she's not done top of the pops or made a studio appearance on top of the pop since wow she's always flung them a video or left it to legs and co which is a bit strange when you consider that she's been happy to appear on things like revolver saturday night at the mill and all manner of foreign pop shows. She did Top Pop in Germany a week ago, dressed as Mrs. Mop. And there's an incredible performance of her

doing Them Heavy People on Japanese television in 1978. Have you seen that? No. Oh, fucking hell. It's amazing. Video playlist, everyone. I wonder what it could have been about Top of the Pops that didn't appeal to the lovely

Kate Bush come on I'll give the lady the basic respect of using her full name once again maybe she just was going to do it, fucking hell, David Lee Travis cobbled this together the afternoon before I don't know

I think generally I always got the impression with Kate Bush that she preferred to kind of do presentations, set pieces, balletic things, whatever, that the theatre was all part of the Gesamtkunstwerk, as it were, of Kate Bush. Yeah. But I remember when she was all going off the ball a bit in the mid-90s, she did do Top of the Pops and went on and just sang

with a couple of other singers, and it all looked a bit sort of lacking in a dimension another waltz time single to add to your pile taylor so it is yeah i never even noticed um i'm still slightly guilty about liking kate bush less than her talent deserves right i like a lot of her music most of hounds of love is astonishingly good a lot of the dreaming you know but i just i can't usually make it through a whole lp which i try from time to time because it's one of the very few ways i have left to experience new things and there are examples musically of pennies finally dropping after 15 or 20 years of not quite getting it so may happen one day but what always holds me back is that just that nagging thought especially with their early stuff of isn't this a bit like if Toya had been really talented and a really good singer?

I'm sort of joking, but I'm sort of joking. But what is for real is it's got that irritating hippie theatre group edge to it, which really puts me off. That wide-eyed, grim-faced mime artist thing, which I just can't take take seriously whether it's being done by a genius or an imbecile and within the very limited terms of pop music there probably is a case for calling kate bush a genius if you accept that there's maybe i don't know 50 people that you'd put in this class whatever you you want to call it, genuine originals, where their creativity seems to come

from somewhere incomprehensible inside themselves. And it doesn't just involve moving blocks around until you've made a pattern that you can call your own, which is what most pop songwriting is, right? It's within rock and pop music, there's a certain number of these people exist and everyone else is just having a go you know and i don't think anyone could listen to running up that hill and argue that kate belongs with the house martins and graham n, rather than with Prince and Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder and Mark Hollis.

Even though anyone who's ever heard Laura Nero, e.g. the breakdown section of Captain for Dark Mornings, understands that everything has roots. And yet, still, this record and video here it sort of highlights a lot of what i don't really like about kate bush it's some quite nice music some really terrible lyrics and a whole lot of pissing about a whole lot i mean i don't mind the terrible lyrics when it's a song about nothing but the more serious the topic the bigger the problem becomes and there's a critique about nothing. But the more serious the topic, the bigger the problem becomes. And there's a critique of militarism.

This is up there with that child staring at the mushroom cloud with Y written in capital letters. And this hilarious video, which I don't think is meant to be remotely hilarious. And the best thing about it is the fact that it makes you laugh um but the worst thing about it is kate bush claiming apparently sincerely that it's fantastic and one of the most artistically satisfying things she ever did i mean i'm guessing that in that she's even including her amusing monty python style death at the end

which is only lacking a sound effect of her going she flies up in the air falls backwards with her feet shooting upwards i suppose a little bit like taylor first of all i think that hounds of love is an absolute pinnacle but with a lot of her other stuff, and I suppose her early stuff as well, she is somebody that perhaps more admire than like. You know, at the time, I mean, she was obviously very, very disconcerting. I do think that she introduced a sort of new mode of femininity into pop music, definitely.

And a lot of it was to do with it just being a bit too much, just singing a little bit too high, just being a little bit too wide-eyed, just being a little bit too histrionic. It was sort of the sum of all these kind of slight excesses, that maniacal gleam and that sort of sense of madness or whatever. And I think that there is obviously that kind of rather drama school type sort of thing, which is, oh, God, you know, which can be a bit embarrassing if you look at it with a particularly sceptical eye, and especially in hindsight as well. But I think that was her value,

just a combination of slight excesses. I'm also interested in Kate Bush in that I always think that she's almost something like Victoria Wood or something like that, who didn't really belong to the sort of alternative comedy world, whatever. She was pre that, really. And so is Kate Bush,'t really belong to the sort of alternative comedy world, whatever. She was pre that, really. And so is Kate Bush, really.

They represent the sort of midpoint between post-punk and Pebble Mill in some way. Also, she's been transplanted from 1971 in a lot of ways as well, but not in a bad way, but just, you know, you get the impression she got an awful lot of records on the Harvest label. Oh, yeah. I mean, she springs from the world of hippie dump, but she actually kind of makes it in 78, 79, when people are sort of, there's a lot of quirkiness about or whatever.

And so she is and she isn't post-punk, I suppose, is what I'm saying. But, I mean, hugely inspirational, indisputably inspirational and exciting to not much young women fans, but young women artists. Yeah. And in fairness to her, her own talent is working against her because if the Dickies had made this record or Modern Romance, you'd think, blimey, this is good. But it's Kate Bush, so it's just a sketch you know it's not really

a single but it's also not so much not a single that that becomes a plus point like oh superman or something it's just it's just a pretty sound you know it's all right it's a bit underwhelming although i do like the fact that it's only two minutes long which takes a bit of guts you know sometimes people in pop groups think that releasing a two minute single it's like giving short weight you know what i mean we can't do that i remember when the the smiths put out william it was really nothing which is probably their best single and it's two minutes long and the b side was one minute 50 and people were up in arms about it like they'd paid for eight plums and only got seven you know didn't seem to occur to them that that's how long the song is and the

reason it stops after two minutes is that it's finished i mean they'd rather have a record like going underground which peaks after two minutes and then doesn't know quite what to do with itself so it just sort of lumbers around for another minute doing nothing until it can punch out on the factory clock you know without having to come in a minute early tomorrow morning you know i think kate bush has got more of an aerial view of her own work and is better at making structural decisions with a bit more confidence I like her better with less of the moon calf affectations and just

more authentic lunacy in the actual music which I think is what's lacking I'm going to disagree with you I think this is the highlight of this episode of Top of the Pops because once again as would happen many times in the 80s, Kate Bush just ghosts in and just punctures all the balloons

and the enforced jollity and just dominates an episode of Top of the Pops. This is the highlight for me, this song. An anti-war song that isn't about war, that people automatically assume was about Northern Ireland when it wasn't because she's singing it in an Irish accent. It's one of those rare periods in the 80s where you could do an anti-war song and not have the piss taken out of you or have it banned. She went to great lengths to explain that it wasn't even about war. Well, she said the song was meant to cover areas like

Germany, especially with the kids who get killed in manoeuvres, not even in action. Well, she said, the song was meant to cover areas like Germany, especially with the kids who get killed in manoeuvres, not even in action. It doesn't get brought out much, but it happens a lot. I'm not slagging off the army. It's just so sad that there are kids who have no O-levels and nothing to do, but become soldiers,

and it's not really what they want. That's what frightens me. So this lad, he's, I don't know, dropped a shell on his foot or something as you say yeah he's very kind of delicate subject matter it's it's not militantly pacifist more just rather haunting or whatever and i think there is a sort of slight question mark again in the nature of like accompanying all of that sort of subtlety and delicacy with this particular video but um but even then I mean, you know, again, you know, that manicness, you know, that sort of glowering visual thing that she does is, you know,

it's all prime Bush, as it were. Yeah. I don't reckon much to her squad. I can't see, I wouldn't want to be in the trenches with them. But Kate Bush, fucking hell. When I watched this video, there's that shot near the end where she's just running at the camera screaming. And I automatically feared for the young Neil Kulkarni. He must have absolutely shat himself looking at this.

I mean, fucking hell, just her opening her eyes had set him off. Her actually running at him, that's... I mean, she was scary, but not in an intimidating way, if that makes sense. That was always an impression that I got. There's a sort of wildness and there's a creativity there's an audacity about kate bush and her decision making and the subject matter and and what have you i mean it's a brilliant point that taylor makes about you know is she just a really good toyah but um yeah i mean there's just you know that all of the all of the key elements are there, really,

you know, with Kate Bush, and they're just not there. They're conspicuously absent from Toria, and all you've got is just this performative punkitude and, you know, ambition, really. And you don't get that feeling with Kate Bush. You do feel a sense that she is absolutely compelled to do what she does. Oh, yeah, there's no connection on a personal level. There's no similarity on a personal level

between Kate Bush and Toya. That's for damn sure. So the following week, Army Dreamers soared 10 places to number 16, its highest position. The follow-up, December Will Be Magic Again, got to number 25 in December of this year and it would be another five years before she set foot in the top of the pop studio when she did Running Up That Hill in August of 1985. And Army Dreamers would resurface in 1990

when the BBC's blacklist of 67 singles not to be played during the Gulf War was uncovered by the New Statesman and Channel 4 and Army Dreamers was on it along with Billy Don't Be A Hero by Paper Lace. Oh no. Bang Bang by B.A. Cunterson.

Flash and Kill A Queen by Queen. Have a guess which special single was banned. God. I don't know. Ghost Town. What? Ghost Town.

Gimme Hope, Joanna and Living on the Front Line by Eddie Grant. I Don't Like Mondays by Boomtown Rats. I Don't Want to Be a Hero by Johnny Hates Jazz. Have a guess which Spandau Ballet single was on that list. To cut a long story short, Work Till You're Muscle Bound. I'll Fly For You. Right.

I'm On Fire by Bruce Springsteen. Oh, that's just... Sailing by Rod Stewart. Right. Which Duran Duran single? Planet Earth I mean A View to a Kill

Ah of course yeah And Midnight at the Oasis By Maria Mulder Fucking hell I mean you can kind of understand Massive Attack Perhaps having to sort of change temporarily to Massive But bloody hell Midnight at the Oasis I remember killing an Arab I mean, you can kind of understand Massive Attack, perhaps having to sort of change temporarily to Massive, but bloody hell, Midnight at the Oasis.

I know. Yeah, I remember killing an Arab by the cure. Yeah. Dropped from all those daytime playlists that that spindly post-punk record was. Yeah, Simon Bates of army dreamers. Oh, what a waste of all them army dreamers. Army dreamers. Army dreamers.

All right, and PolPop Crazed youngsters, I reckon that this is as good a time as any to bring this episode to a close, so we're going to sign off and compel you to join us tomorrow for the final part of Chart Music 58, Attack of the Living Gnasher Badge. I'm Al Needham, they're Taylor Parks and David Stubbs, and like a tramp in the night, we are begging for you

to stay pop crazed sharp music 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.