Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #62 (Pt 3): 3.11.1977 – WHOO! HEY!

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

David Stubbs and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for further larks and japery in a classic slice of Jubilee-era Pops. The Barron Knights advance the theory that Irish people are stupid and homosexuals are amusing. Freddie Mercury pretends to be a bottle of Irish liqueur and encourages middle-class kids to rummage through their Dad’s golf bag. Legs and Co play Sexy Lady Croquet. And Status Quo get in Alan Partridge’s Wife on the bass… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roger, it's Brian. Look, I know this sounds a little far-fetched, but I want you to meet me every night between October the 21st to December the 18th at 7.30 p.m. at a place called the Menier Chocolate Factory in London Bridge. Some days at 3 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. people are going to watch us,

a bit like a zoo or whatever, and I'll give you a cut. If you do want to find out more, look at the internet. Manyachocolatefactory.com. Speak soon. Bye. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words.

What do you like to listen to? Um, chart music. Chart music. Hey! Up you pub-craze youngsters and welcome to part three of episode 62 of Chart Music. I'm Al Needham,

they're Taylor Parks and David Stubbs, and we are midway through a comprehensive snuffle around the pissy denim crotch of November the 3rd, 1977. Let's not fuck about, let's rejoin the episode in progress. Punk rock! To send a message, we declare World Contact Day. The Carpenters and Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. We liked that one, didn't we?

Yes. You bet we did. Hey, a bigger bunch of loonies you'll never likely to meet. The Baron Ice, a new entry at 23. Live it up. We cut back to Powell, suddenly flanked by two women. With the camera pulled back to reveal he's tucked his T-shirt into his jeans because it's the 70s and everybody is still thin.

I think Stan Bowles was the only person in Britain in the 70s who went about with his shirt unturned. Can't think of anyone else. With his free hand delicately holding the mic lead, but unfortunately over his crotch, as he asks a girl in a flat cap if she liked that. She did. over his crotch as he asks a girl in a flat cap if she liked that she did he then says hey a bigger bunch of loonies you're never likely to meet well having been a warden at broadmoor secure unit for

11 years i can confirm this those loonies the baron knight he throws us into the direction of live in trouble by the baron knights or live it up as he thinks it's called oh no yeah oh fuck me yeah yeah and then he picks it up at the end and goes oh that was live in trouble because someone's obviously told him he got the title wrong yeah he's thinking of the other comedy genius of the era russ abba isn't it we're actually dealing with live in trouble by the baron knights we dealt with the baron knights in chart music number 34 and this single the follow-up to the frank spencer song which failed to chart in 1974 marked their return to the charts for the first time since an olympic record got to number 35 in November of 1968. After nine years of non-chart action while they tried to be a proper band with their own songs,

they went back to taking a sideways look at the hits of the day and debuted this medley at a club in Ten Bear on the night that Elvis died, which led to a deal with Epic. It entered the charts last week at number 42, 10 bear on the night that Elvis died, which led to a deal with Epic. It's entered the charts last week at number 42. This week it soared 19 places to number 23. And here they are in the studio for their first top of the pops performance since they played here come the bees in October of 1967, 10 years and one month ago fucking out and 10 years and one month was a

fucking eon in pop terms of the 70s don't you think oh yeah yeah absolutely yeah but that it's just that horrible it doesn't even say you know peter powell it doesn't it doesn't even say you get a bigger bunch of loonies you're never likely to meet. You actually yearn for the sort of wild and elevated dryness and aphoristic wit of Noel Edmonds at this point. You genuinely do. Actually, I found myself hankering for Noel. Good Lord. I know.

I mean, it's that bad. So where do we start with this? Let's get the look out of the way, because as always, the Baron Knights have come dressed as the supporting cast of oh no it's selwyn frog it's a dinner dance haven't they red velvet hunting jackets over white walls viennetta shirts with massive condor collars fuck me they are huge if there was such a thing as air conditioning in the 1970s if someone had turned that on in the studio they're going to be smashed against the back wall aren't they absolutely yeah yeah no it's it's um

i mean i just can't really believe it's a bit like watching seinfeld recently and it's just like because i lived through all of this at the time and didn't think anything that was untoward about the way they dress and then it's like 20 30 years only thing fucking hell i mean how did we kind of you know how did we kind of how did we manage to keep our focus on anything at all other than these appalling mullets and trainers and stuff like that or in this case yeah these you know ghastly colors and what have you yeah they look like john pert we just regenerated but something went horribly wrong yes yes so the song or songs if you will they're putting down a marker for future years

this is the baron knights we're going to see on top of the pops every year round about this time for the next three years or so doing funny versions of the pop favorites yeah they start off with a pop at the old sailor with an interpretation of you make me feel like dancing which got to number two in November of 1976. And then they move on to Float On by The Floaters, which of course got to number one in August of this year. First things first, there's a missing tune in there, isn't there? Do you know what it is, David?

No. I do. Long ago. Outside a chip shop in Walthamstow, stood a young rocker named Greasy Joe. Oh. Put on his helmet and said, let's go. Oh.

He was keen. He drove down the high street like Barry Sheen. Doing his best to look very mean. Oh, my goodness. Until he saw Anne on a new machine. Angelo by the Brotherhood of Man which also got to number one in August before Elvis died

while he was having a shit and ruined everything and that's the fucking best tune of the whole thing there is a version on YouTube where they do Angelo and it's like it's sort of edited into this clip but it fades in and out and they're wearing different colored smoking jackets in it so really so i think it's an edit of two

performances i'm assuming uh they did this on top of the pops twice because why wouldn't you ask these heroes back again i'm that's that's weird because i do remember taping this at the time you know of my little kind of mono cassette recorder and, you know, somewhat uncritically, you know, I included this in selection, but I don't remember that Angelo bit, I must admit. They passed the bloody tower at a hundred miles an hour. Yeah, I used to love it, yeah.

That went down a treat on the playground, that song did. Probably, well, the least appalling of the bunch. You know, it's about as good as it gets according to their own lights. My tailor took my pants in, but he left in all the pins. Yes, yeah. The general conceit is that the old tailor is such a high-pitched voice because he's got tailor's pins jabbing into his testicles. Yeah.

Then there's Float on. Oh, fucking hell. I mean, I was just sitting there and praying that they just didn't do it in blackface, because it was blackface central, wasn't it? They didn't just sort of come on. But then I suppose that's the thing with the medley. I think if it hadn't been a medley, then I think that cork would have been kind of smeared right across, you know.

But never mind, you know, there's a little bit of mycophobic comedy instead. Hooray, my name's Michael. Yes. And of course, we have the homophobia. Cancer. And I can't stand girls if anyone touches that drummer i'll scratch their eyes out yeah standard 70s fair isn't it irish people are stupid and homosexuals are amusing it's it's it's just sad you know like people

you can't say anything these days yeah well when you could this is the shit that people said yes exactly yeah when you stop being able to say that stuff people had to kind of think a bit like come up with something different that was maybe a bit funny david your alicia would she be au fait with the idea of the irish joke no no and this is the thing completely gone hasn't it yeah yeah yeah i mean it's a whole thing with a lot of you know contemporary comment and that is that you know it's not the young people that would like to laugh but they know that they shouldn't you know it's nothing like that at all they're just absolutely left blank by it's just like what is this you know this is this is appalling you know and you know

there is a generational gap i think there are people that you know with something obvious like the whole faulty towers things that would man well or whatever i mean i'm a generation that actually does still think it's you know it's funny but you wouldn't do that nowadays whereas i think nowadays i think what are you doing this is horrible you know this bears no relation to reality yeah yeah nowadays that section of this record would go uh hello hello hello i'm michael i'm passionate romantic and oppressed by you that'd work is it the thing one thing you can say for the barren nights is that they can at least come up with parody songs where the supposedly humorous words do fit the meter of the original and actually scan which is apparently harder than you'd think considering that most song

parodies you hear have the flow of an early Manic Street Preachers record. You know what I mean? So you've got to give them credit for that. And the other thing you can say for them is they do make the grumbleweeds look like a bunch of awful cunts. But then so do the grumbleweeds. The main problem is that all the time they've spent on that stuff is not matched by the time they've spent on that stuff is not matched by the time they've

spent on the actual jokes because it's like float on is probably the most easily parodiable song in history and that's the best they can come up with right there's a gag that isn't a gag an anti-irish gag that also isn't really a gag and then then a homophobic gag at a playground level with, again, no actual gag in it. But it's this idea that people with no real sense of humour have from spitting image to whimsical indie comedians that something which would not raise a titter if you said it or wrote it down suddenly becomes hilarious if you put it in a song whereas in fact

the truth is pretty much the opposite of that you know like there's half decent jokes that just die of embarrassment when you set them to music you know you can only make a funny song work if the humor is very very dry and you know the baron nightshade or whatever else you want to say about it it's at least damp and it's such a grim face audience as grim face i've ever seen on top of the pot you know barely raise a titter they all look like they're waiting for a coach to take them to doncaster or something yeah yeah there's a brilliant bit in the... During their amusing reworking of You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, just as Pete Langford, who is the small, curly one... One who looks like the drunken baker.

Yeah, or the runt of the litter that also produced Keith Harris and Bend Over. Just as he sings, He took my pants in, pants in just the other day there's a spectacular display of silent disapproval from this rather sour-faced girl in the crowd who rolls her eyes like a cartoon dog and looks around her mate with a stinky expression of bored contempt although she's still shifting from foot to foot to the throbbing beat of the barren Although, she's still shifting from foot to foot to the throbbing beat of the barren nights while she does it.

I think they used to turn the hoses on the audience if they stopped. I mean, that's, yes, yes. Yes, that's bizarre. I think they're having to sway along to it. But it's a shame because how many songs or song fragments which begin, my trousers get people talking,

aren't great. This is the only one it's like you're saying earlier on you know you know that the jokes shit they're just sort of like placeholder jokes isn't it okay just have that then so we think of something good and they never do yeah it's it's um i mean you can't blame the audience but just generally with the audience i suppose it's not just this program but the entire era that I suppose they can't have them guffawing away. I mean, there were probably people who could find the country that would actually laugh to this stuff

and give out full, proper, cannibal Benny laughs, but they can't be done. Everything has to be kind of lukewarm, the response. It's almost like some sort of BBC protocol that doesn't allow for people to get really, really excited. I mean, fucking hell, it was the mid-'70s. People were getting enormously excited, but everyone, it's almost like perhaps the audience

is specifically selected, a bit like a jury. Have you ever heard of David Bowie? No? Okay, good, you're in. They're actually selected on the basis of not having much interest in pop music, just so they don't get too excited and bubble over the top in terms of what's considered acceptable on top of the pops.

And that's what Peter Powell is. It's a one-man enthusiasm machine. And he's having to sort of generate it all alone which mean makes him look even more of a kind of sort of pitiable specimen yeah it's a shame with the baronites they were quite well regarded as a pop comedy group in the 60s when they first came roaring out of late and buzzard doing parodies of the hits of the day and those records aren't funny either but no i think in those days people would just respond to the competence of the parody more than anything else right and their laughter was just a show of appreciation for that like it's like delighted chuckles at the novelty of it

rather than actual belly laughs at the idea of what would happen if Mick Jagger had to work in an office, or the Dave Clark Five join the army, which is what those songs are about. And that's the other thing. Those records weren't really piss takes, because they were obviously fans of all these groups. They were the only cabaret act at the time who were young enough to be into the Beatles and the Stones

and bother to replicate. But the only band to ever support the Beatles and the Stones, the Baron Knights. Is that true? I can believe it. Yeah. Yeah. But people would hear that and appreciate it and just laugh like a reflex. It's weird how...

Can you imagine if the Baron Knights did Altamont? Fucking hell. All those old angels would go, oh, let's put our knives away and have a good chuckle. So that they'd be too busy rolling in the aisles to administer any kind of, you know,

impromptu execution. Yeah. Wow. God, there's a whole parallel turn of history there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That would have cheered the whole day up a lot, you know? We'd still be in the 60s now if that had happened. Yeah. Yes. The dark heart of the 60s would have been kept

at bay yes yeah good old-fashioned cabaret chuckles yeah and plays on words but by the time you get to their late 70s chart renaissance the that novel is gone you know and they are just a bunch of competent old hacks and this is the first run out for their new formula but they use the same formula on all these singles they have like a triptych of hit song parodies linked by a bit of uh self-penned boogie which sets up each section in the in the style of a cabaret comic saying wouldn't it it be funny if Tommy Cooper met Larry Grayson? And then they just repeated it. Which probably happened loads of times in the BBC bar.

Yeah, yeah. So they did a taste of aggro, never mind the presents, the not un-racist food for thought um if you know that one um she's only really worth hearing it or we're still watching the video just to imagine what kind of reception that would get on twitter these days now we've asked the question before about the baron knights if if they're doing three cover versions on a single, how are they getting paid? The usual answer is, obviously, they slip out one of their own songs on the B-side. But in this case, they've given us more of the same on the other side.

So there's a cover of D-I-V-O-R-C-E, which is about a dog shitting up a tree instead of pissing against it. Oh, the bluer stuff, yeah. Yeah. A pretty straight cover of Loving You where the drunken baker goes on a killing spree amongst the wildlife. And a cover of Lucille involving what can only be described as bummerball. Yeah, his girlfriend, they go to a fancy dress party and she's come dressed up as a cow

and then she drops something and oh hilarity ensues you see you say that and you think there's no way that cannot be hilarious so it's only pete langford the drunken baker who's getting any money out of this single because he's the one who writes the linking devices but the baronites don't give a fuck because their bread and butter is the cabaret circuit and by this point they could well be the busiest cabaret act in the uk i read an interview round about this time in the stage where it had got to the point where they're begging their management to give them a few days off before christmas so they can play golf they've just completed a triumphant three night

stand at the talk of the west in st ag. They've got a full week at the night out in Birmingham coming up. And this performance, and the one of Fortnite from now, is essentially going to ensure that they'll be booked up right into 1979 and beyond, leaving the rocking berries, the black abbots,

and the grumble weeds choking on their dust. Oh, good creation. The main problem with theonites is they're easier to take the piss out of than the the things they're taking the piss out of yeah it's not that you have to be super cool to be a piss taker but it has to come from some sort of anger or irreverence or contempt or or joy or something vital you know not just the automatic chuckle response of a bunch of rancid professionals you know who don't feel anything ever you know we certainly don't get that kind of dead reaction on the single there's a lots of laughter and that someone goes ah when they do float on uh

and they sound suspiciously like the members of the barren knights reacting to their own song creating that chicken in a basket atmosphere yeah well all of those it sounds like the seeds roar and alive you know all of these records they're not yeah yeah yeah they that effect is quite familiar and of course the other thing about the baron knights here you just couldn't have a baron knights today because back then everybody knew these songs yes absolutely you know so when the baron knights pitched up and said oh you know let's have a bit of a laugh with this song everyone in that audience which would be dad's age would immediately know i mean it's it's a bit like you don't have impressionists anymore

because nobody knows who the fuck anybody is anymore. It's just like, you know, you can't say, do you, Gareth Williamson? You know, it's like, it's not going to work, is it? Who's that standing over there by the nibbles table? Oh, it's PewDiePie. But, I mean, it would get worse for the barren night. After the hits dried, they did two Christmas TV specials.

But here's the thing. They were on Channel 4. I know! Oh, my God. Like, in 1982 and 1983. Lenin bombing a Rastafarian era Channel 4. Yeah, there they were. Like, sandwiched in between Brent Community Action Theatre theaters salute to enva hodger and uh advice on that would

be a lesbian after the nuclear war suddenly you got these glistening hams with their shortling mock rock um doing songs about how factory workers are lazy and overpaid. Yeah. A version of Bohemian Rhapsody about how his mum's really fat, you know. It wasn't the usual Channel 4 fare. Oh, and they threw in their version of Lucky Number by Lena Lovitch, which is about being chased by a sheep. Oh, fucking hell. And, yeah, one of these specials did even include that hilarious video for food for thought which nowadays some

uptight stick in the mud lefties would try to say was racist no doubt the sheer british shitness of these programs is really something to behold you know would he have that little shit triangle in the corner during a brown triangle it's like a shot on video tv cabaret shows with they got little sketches filmed in a fucking field presumably just outside blast off buzzard so they could sleep in their own piss stained beds that night and there's a bit like they're on stage and and lovable anvil face duke de mond does a big mor ballad and he gives it the big intro right like hey well we've had a bit of fun tonight but this is where we take things a little more seriously so obviously being a veteran viewer a fine british club comedy of the golden

age i was expecting something wacky to happen to undercut it right but no it really is just and this is me but in this case it's and this is me a cunt um and that's your christmas you know have a nice 1983 you know fucking hell i say unplug the telly put on the zx spectrum and have a game of emlyn hughes cunt soccer no that'd be 1982 1983 would be emlyn hughes cunt soccer 2 that was the sequel it got his just he had new graphics or the shaky game of course yeah just because the 70s ended in the five-year diary doesn't have to mean they have to end for real no a perma 70ma-seventies. So, the following week, Live in Trouble jumped nine places to number 14, and a week later it got to number seven,

its highest position. The follow-up, Back in Trouble Again, which covered Bohemian Rhapsody, Telephone Man and Space Auditor, failed to chart in January of 1978, but they repeated the trick to greater success with A Taste of Agro, which got to number three in December of 1978, and Nevermind the Presence, which got to number 17 in December of 1979.

Yeah, saddest of all, if you type their name into Google or YouTube these days, you get as far as Barron, and they're only the second suggestion that pops up. Yeah, after Barron Trump, who I believe was named after them. Yeah. If you ask me, they've only got themselves to blame. Come on, come on. Float on, float on.

Life in Trouble. Terrific. What a nice bunch of lads. The Baronites. Can you spin like that? Oh, not bad, not bad. Hey, we are the champions. Queen.

I've paid my dues. Time after time I've done my sentence But committed no crime We cut back to Powell with two more women Both with proto-Tricia Yates hairdos He then asks the girl on his left In a baggy pink roll neck that looks a bit

foreskinular if she can spin like one of the barren knights did and they both do so. He then says hey because he's Peter Powell and introduces We Are The Champions by Queen. We've covered Queen many a time and oft on chart music and this their ninth, is the follow-up to Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, which got to number 17 in July of this year. It's also the lead-off single from their new LP, News of the World, which came out last week. It entered the charts at number 30 a fortnight ago, then soared 17 places to number 13 13 and this week it's up seven places

to number six as the band are getting ready to kick off their 1977 world tour in america here's the video which was shot at the new london theater in front of specially invited queen fan club members who were also treated to a dress rehearsal of the tour. So, chaps, here we are. Top of the Pops, another Queen video because it would be another five years before they deign to appear on the Top of the Pops stage. And the excuse has always been that since Bohemian Rhapsody,

they've refused to mime on the show as it would compromise their integrity. But I believe there's another reason. I direct you and the pop craze youngsters to the book entitled Top of the Pops, Mishaps, Miming and Music by Ian Gittins and the following quote from, well, I'll leave you to decide who it is. I introduced Queen doing Seven Seas of Rye, and they were a very important band,

but I was in one of my moods. As soon as they started miming, I put on a janitor's coat, got a brush, jumped on stage, and started sweeping up behind them. Brian May was doing a big guitar solo, so I picked up the brush like a guitar

And walked towards him And we soloed together That had never been done before With a group like Queen Would you care to guess who that was? I don't know Has he got a beard? No

You're getting warmer Somebody who needless to say Always had the last laugh definitely it's Travis yeah yeah it's a bit ungrateful of Queen not to appreciate his comic contribution I mean putting aside the reason that that had never

been done to Queen because it was their first fucking single and in the two separate performances that are available on YouTube I can't see the cunt anywhere so I don't know if he was lying or not, but you can imagine that it happened. Or maybe it was a dress rehearsal or something like that, and he leaves out that key detail.

But is it any wonder they don't want to get involved with Top of the Pops, if that palaver's going on? I can understand. I mean, people aren't really talking about video at this stage, but I think there's a desire that artists perhaps just protect their own concept, and not have it kind of compromised by the kind of naffness of appearing on stage on top of the pops where there's all kinds of factors out of your control yeah i mean kate bush i mean she did appear on top of the pops

i think in a sort of late latter stage of her career you know where we know with just a couple of dancers and it looked hideously kind of budgetary compared with set pieces that she'd put together before right from the beginning, really. Yeah, I understand that. I understand that on their part. I mean, Queen, generally, always had kind of mixed feelings about them, in a sense. I mean, on the one hand, you know,

my friend Andrew Muller once described them as gale-force rubbish, and I get an element of that, really. And I think, I mean, for one thing, the thing I hate to the point it physically hurts is Brian May's guitar. That horrible tuning sounds like he's torturing badger's genitals. Plucking pubes. Horrible stuff. Mercury, I find, you know, absolutely preposterous,

but then that's the sort of sense of unabashed star. I mean, that's kind of key to the whole thing, really, that wonderful rampant shamelessness. I mean, I do love that story in Danny Baker's, going to see on a sieve, I think it is, you know, when he worked in a record really that wonderful rampant shamelessness i mean i do love that story um in danny baker's going to see on a sieve i think it is you know just when he worked in a record shop and this was very early on just before queen broke and freddie mercury comes in you know with

a couple of the other gigs from tween in tow and he gives them you know their debut album to put on and the you know there was no geezer who owns the shop he just plays a couple of minutes of just rubbish gives it back to them you know freddie murk is obviously absolutely indignant at this kind of snap judgment he goes out in front of the shop and he just shouts at people in the precincts on the street whatever attention all shoppers do not shop in this retail outlet the owner knows not at all what he's talking about not one wit you know something like attention all shoppers i mean i absolutely love that and this is that early era mark one year ofpers i mean i absolutely love that and this is that early era mark one year of queen i mean look at this absolutely preposterous outfit he's

wearing this kind of black and white right down to the navel thing and there's been you put me fame and fortune if it goes with it you know that kind of rick as a young one like a two-toned yeah yeah definitely you just imagine him doing a mind-routing to Ghost, that would be brilliant. Absolutely. But it's that 70s era of Queen, pre-Freddie Mercury presumably getting exposed to the sort of late 70s New York gay scene or whatever, because this is kind of preposterously effete, anti-man Freddie Mercury.

And then in the 80s, he comes back as this macho moustache. It's fist-fucker Freddie back in the early 80s he comes back as this macho mustache you know it's it's fist fucker freddy back in the in the early 80s there's an absolute transformation there are two freddy mercuries out there fisty mercury and the only other thing i think is is i just wonder how cynical artists are or premeditative when they call the song something like we are the champions knowing the kind of future royalties or whatever they'll engender through being used in sports shows or whatever, and triumphalist events of that kind of nature. I mean, you know, can you imagine that? We are the runners-up. It's like with Spandau Ballet, you know. And I'm sure that the first draft, it was just like, bronze, ooh, always good. You know what? We can go better

than this. Okay, yeah. Silver. No, no, even better. Ooh, yeah thompson's not gonna pole vault in slow motion to that bronze not bad in the grand scheme of things i mean my first reaction to this song which still lingers today is a sense of outrage that when i heard it for the first time and it wasn't a cover of the theme tune to the tv show the same name you know, the video didn't consist of the band investing shorts doing a Fonz double thumbs up, and then running about on an obstacle course before Ron Pickering turns up and shouts, away you go, and the band all jump into a swimming pool.

Really upsetting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Taylor? Well, Queen, my question to you is, but what if you weren't the champions? Think on. Good point. Well made. So I sit here and this song plays, but I can't hear it.

It's like the judder of the fridge or the, you know, the constant pings on my phone from The Athletic. It's there, but it's only a rustle in the corner of the consciousness you know not because it's understated you understand or insufficiently demonstrative but because it's been repeated to the point where it can be ignored well perhaps where it can only be ignored right a lot of the time the key to fully appreciating older music is to hear it as though for the first time but obviously in this case that's impossible it's like thinking is the funeral march a good song i don't know i mean you hear it so often and usually not on a

happy day it's impossible to tell you your critical response from your instinctive flinch, you know. But let's have a go. So this record uses some quite appealing musical tricks, but in the service of a song with a fairly nauseating tone. And although you're clearly not meant to take it 100% seriously, you are expected to respond with genuine awe, which is an expectation I never appreciate that much, you know. And, I mean, if you set yourself up the way Queen do in this period,

with this much flash and pomp, I want to see you howling into the face of God. You know, not this shit. Because, in a way, it's remarkable how unexpectedly relatively boring queen really are once you've heard a couple of tunes it's just the vocal histrionics and that very small room guitar sound thousands spent on increasingly sophisticated studios to make it sound like he's played in a wardrobe um and that's it and beyond that they're they're just about the scale and spectacle and a version of camp that isn't too unmanageable to sell and you get a little bit of what led zeppelin give you

and a little bit of what sparks give you but all in the form of astronaut food. You know, you don't have to chew it or heat it up with your brain. It's easy to get down, but it's not necessarily satisfying. And it really pains me to sound so much like a kind of script-following music critic there, but that's the worst thing about Queen. They only deal in the obvious, and they bring out the obvious in you you know and it's never a good time when a group are this hard to think about and then thinking about them produces so little you can really spend a long time pondering on queen and still not really have that much to say and it's not because they can found critical thought or you know they change the rules as they

go along man or anything that you know they change the rules as they go along man or anything that you know any good reason why a group can be hard to think or write about it's because they take up so much space and then when you pierce the outer shell it's just the same all the way through there's nothing happening in queen music after a certain point there's musical movement and action but it doesn't really do anything except parade up and down you know yeah it's not that it's terrible i mean i like a few queen tracks i like the b side of this record in fact we will yeah that's probably my favorite yeah it's also been heard in too many other contexts but when you actually listen to it it's very compact and direct and intense and weird and

it's sort of a bit close up and uncomfortable like freddy's right up in your face you know and it just sounds like pure undiluted wrongness you know whereas this is like one part wrongness to 700 million billion parts the atlantic ocean the irony is that for a band that were all about scale they're actually better the smaller and nastier and weirder and more stripped down and and and spiteful and perverted they sound you know and the further the music shifts and bloats to this non-human scale you know like giant doric columnated pump for the sake of it the easier it is to ignore even when the lead singer's dressed as a bottle of sheridan's it's just so easy to just just let it wash over you you know yeah and we will rock you put another minute

on that you've got a fucking massive hit single. But big fuck up by Queen there. Yeah, but I like it. And that's the late 70s version of rock on, isn't it? Yeah, but I like that. I like the fact that it's so short and it just finishes. And you're like, what, was that it? And so you have to play it again. True.

It's strange with Queen, yet somehow, and I can't really quite put my finger on it. I mean, it's really all about Freddie Mercury, you know, whatever essence or quality there is in Queen it's about him this unabashedness he was the only person that grasped live aid and he just had you know there's a certain kind of quality that i don't it might be illusory it might not actually have anything admirable it's not even something i necessarily particularly appreciate but i i'm just swayed by the idea that there is really really something about Freddie Mercury.

One question that hardly gets asked about Queen, probably because it's such a fucking stupid question, but I was watching this and I thought, how much of the Mercury tongue is in the Mercury cheek here? Queen's lyrics are never seen as the important thing about them. But here, he's laying it on with a fucking trowel, isn't he? Oh, you know you've given me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it i thank you all but i did it i've suffered for my art yeah well i would say it's 50 50 i would say having this plate and eating it yeah yeah well it's but it's but it's that's the camp aesthetic isn't it that you find something

utterly ridiculous and you undermine it but at the the same time, it is actually great. You do also think it's great. I think it's the same here. He's serious and he's also taking the piss. He didn't really do interviews as such, did he? I mean, he kept it like Prince. He kept his cards close to his chest. So I think perhaps in order to sort of maintain that kind of having your cake

and eating it, because if he spoke too much, if he became too discursive, then he might give the game away people kept asking him when he was going to get married the problem with queen is is that the other glamorous person is stuck behind some drums yeah i mean the thing about queen that from about 1975 onwards they were always there i can't remember anyone in my school at the time being massively into queen and for that reason i've always had it in my head that there were a bit of a middle class band you know queen of the band that the posh grubs on the nicest state found an entry point with and i've always wondered why i thought that and it hit me while i was watching this

freddie mercury's half a mic stand isn't it which he used right from the beginning of queen's career and i realized that at the time while i was using the warming pan that was on the wall as a base there'd be other lads of a higher class using their dad's golf clubs as a freddie mercury mic substitute probably the driver i haven't played golf for fucking decades but you know if i picked a driver out of my golf bag, there's one fist going up in the air. You know what I mean? See, what interests me here is that decades ago you played golf.

I know, yes, I was just thinking that, yeah. You don't mean crazy golf. I'm just thinking you're plus fours there all of a sudden and you're a little kind of... No, no, no, no, no. Back in the 90s, me and my mates were well into PGA Tour golf on the Mega Drive. Oh, I see. And he inspired us to have a go.

And it was fucking mint. Have a bit of a walk, have loads of spliffs, crack someone to fucker with a stick, pretend to be Freddie Mercury. Fucking mint way to spend an afternoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not quite the Arnold Palmer spirit there, but yeah. No, no, not really, no. So where were we queen the old course yeah yeah yeah news of the world was framed then and now as queen going back to

basics even though you wouldn't fucking know it from this single and as everyone knows they recorded it at wessex studios directly next door to the sex pistols who were putting together never mind the bollocks and as you can imagine chaps much larks ensued johnny rotten was dearest to crawl on all fours into queen's studio right up to freddie mercury who was playing piano and say hello freddie and uh you know quite possibly thank him for pulling out of that interview on the today show with bill previous november yeah apparently johnny rotten and brian may got on really well and of course we all know about mercury calling sid vicious simon ferocious but very little has been said about sid's side of the story so allow me to quote an interview

with john tobin on radio one's rock on show which came out round about this time when he noticed the interview was drinking out of a Queen mug. Is that a Queen mug? I saw Freddie Mercury in the flesh. Pictures just can't convey how revolting that bloke is. He's absolutely hideous. He's like an old Turk. He's got a great blue shadow that comes up to under his eyes, and this disgusting voice.

He warbles away like oh the ballet is rather good this season he's absolutely awful i've never met anyone like him so there we go he's like an old turk yes yes i think that some of sydney's attitudes were a touch on reconstructed uh definitely um very much so yes very much so pakistani brethren i think came in for the rough side of his tongue ah fuck sid vicious the cunt anything else to say yeah i hate the way that people talk about queen especially americans like they've somehow ghosted into this canon of unimpeachably brilliant classic rock that everybody loves right like there's the beatles and jimmy hendrix the stones and fucking queen you know it's been forgotten it's not even forgotten it's been overwritten

that while they existed queen were a horrible joke You know, anyone who was alive just in the 80s just remembers them hanging around Montreux with their vests and moustaches, you know, eating and drinking the money they'd made in South Africa. I mean, certainly that was all they were associated with by that point. They were the people who like dire straits and go west, you know. They were like pure stadium stodge. And I'm all for re-evaluation but there's nothing much to re-evaluate really they were a competent rock band who put on a show but i'm not going to be gaslit into thinking they were genius when it's obviously like 10 or 15 good tracks and the rest is wallpaper paste you know yeah i've never listened to a queen album and never will no yeah the only one you can get through is sheer heart attack which is not

right that bad but generally i think a lot of people just can't separate scale from skill and it's you know i mean there's no offense to queen even because 10 or 15 tracks is more than most people manage right definitely there's a lot of other groups who managed it, and people don't talk about them as though they invented oral sex, you know. But I guess the terrible truth for people like us is that rock history is now in the hands of American kids on YouTube who react to it with no grasp of context. You know, it's like...

Phil Collins. Wow, who is Annie Len lennox what a voice and and queen are sufficiently obvious to pass that test you know and worse i don't think the thing that endures in that context is you know the humor and the spectacular absurdity of freddy's performance or any of the good stuff. It's just the crushing weight of everything, you know, which modern people respond to because at least it's something that their deadened hearts can feel, you know. Not just the weight, but the windiness of it all as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's what makes sense to 21st century people. No time for losers. Like, share, subscribe. So the following week, We Are The Champions stayed at number six, but the week after that, it began the first of three weeks at number two,

held off the summit of Mount Pop by this week's number one a mull of kentire by wings the follow-up spread your wings would only get to number 34 in march of 1978 but in 2011 a team of researchers at goldsmiths university who were studying the sound waves of hit records deemed We Are The Champions the catchiest song ever putting it above the likes of YMCA by the Village People and the final Countdown by Europe even though Goldsmiths doesn't

actually have a science department so I wipe an Alsatian's arsehole with what they have to say. Yes. 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. Hi, I'm Scott Hancock and I host From Queer to Eternity, a new podcast exploring what it means to be queer. We have conversations like this.

I look at younger generations and go, you can just Google this stuff. The fact that the only mention of queerness was don't get AIDS. If I'd been marrying a girl, that would not have happened. Maybe we can find a universality that we weren't aware of before.

That's why this podcast is so great, because actually, I guess we just don't speak of this stuff, and yet it's part of our fabric. From Queer to Eternity, available to listen to now from the Great Big Owl Company. At number six, Queen, and we are the champions, best thing since Bohemian Rhapsody.

And now, a little bit of beauty on top of the props. Dorothy Moore and I Believe You. This is Nix & Co. dancing to that song. I believe you When you say that you will reach into the sky And steal a star so you could put it on my finger We go straight into a hoopy wipe effect While Powell, off camera, essentially tells us

That everything Queen have done since Bohemian Rhapsody Into We Are The Champions has been cat shit before telling us that it's time for a little bit of beauty as Legs & Co prepare to emote to I Believe You by Dorothy Moore. Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1946, Dorothy Moore was the lead singer of The Poppies, a girl group who were the original backing singers for Irma, Thomas and Freddie Fender

before branching out on their own and having minor hits in the mid-60s with Lullaby of Love and He's Ready After going solo in the late 60s working with assorted labels she finally hit the jackpot when her cover of Misty Blue a country song originally recorded by Wilma Burgess in 1966,

languished in the vaults of Malarco Records for three years before shooting up to number three in the Billboard charts and getting to number five over here in August of 1976. This is the follow-up to her cover of the 1961 Billy Walker song Funny How Time Slips Away, and was written by Don and Dick Adrissi, a duo in the Alessi mould who were having minor success at the time in America.

It's also the lead-off cut from her new LP, Dorothy Moore. It nipped into the top 40 a fortnight ago at number 38, and this week it's risen five places from number 26 to number 21 and as she's in america and there isn't a video here come legs and co for a flounce about well chaps last episode we discussed big tank chess and here's flick colbert playing sexy lady croquet i love at this point legs and co are being kept well away from the audience right they're often pre-recorded in an empty studio earlier in the day it's like otherwise they think it'd be like that scene in apocalypse now where they fly in the playmates of the year

doesn't bear thinking about despite the fact that for this one, they've been dressed in ankle-length green leggings underneath a loose dress. But the dress is off the shoulder, and they've all got silver chokers and Valkyrie-style silver bicep bracelets. It's... Yeah, a runner's been sent down to a sorry shopping shepherd's bush, haven't they, for material.

Well, it looks like their top half is attending a banquet in a castle where bearded men stare meaningfully at them across the table with one eyebrow raised and their bottom half is pushing a push chair around wandsworth park holding a caramel latte it's i mean impressive multitasking but it's not the most coherent image you know no but there's not the most coherent image, you know. No. But there's not that much to love or hate about this particular routine, apart from Jill's painfully sincere expression at the start as she interprets the line, you will reach into the sky by pretending to reach into the sky.

I mean, I suspect that this is one of the less considered and less well-rehearsed legs and co-routines. Yeah. Maybe put together in a bit of a hurry. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of them standard ones where they just walk about. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of aimless swanning about. And also quite a few of those moments where one of them realises they're slightly off their mark and does a little hurried high-heeled trot to speed up a bit and get back in line once seen never unseen yeah well you know that fixed radiant smile just gets a little bit grittier just for that one second uh yeah but i like that i like when there's a tear in the fabric like that you know and you can peer through this semi-erotic reverie and uh get a glimpse of them you know two days earlier in a long room in a

concrete building in acton you know nine o'clock in the morning in november yeah the one of them's drinking a box of just juice through a straw you know just in 1977 oh no no no kellogg's rise and shine taylor yeah yeah with still little bits of grit at the bottom yeah i think just juice was of the future but you can imagine the scene can't you come on jill really reach up into the sky love come on rosie rosie stop moving your head like a goose all the time they're running through the familiar tropes aren't they in this particular routine i i agree i suspect this one was a bit of a rush job. But then again, I mean, you've got to think my granddad again. You know, this is basically there to kind of lower his heart rate after Freddie Mercury because it's not like in Seven Days Jankers

he's thinking, you know, he wants his arse dipped in aniseed and pursued across rough terrain by famished bulldogs. You know, he's bloody great girl of a man, dressed like that, giving me feelings. No, no, I mean, he didn't say that, you know what I mean? That's, you know, he was very exercised. He was always very exercised by these glam boys, these glam men. And I think that, unfortunately, I think that, you know, the idea that, like, pants, people, legs and co.

would kind of up the kind of heart rate, I think it would have lowered his, you know, really. And I think that was the idea, this kind of balm, really. Because, you know, it's... A soothing balm. Yeah. I mean, it's the usual unerotic gyrations, really. I mean, Taylor said semi-erotic.

I'd go all the way to unerotic. I mean, and I think that's, you know, again, it's deliberate. It's setting a cap on anything too intense. You know, that's kind of mandatory, really, at BBC. Yeah, because the record's about making love. Well, yes, absolutely. well yes absolutely and i mean you know and i can't account for all tastes but to me they're very anti-masturbatory legs and co and pans people i mean unless you get off on a woman wagging a finger at a dog or something like that well no round about this time legs and co are doing a sex this time they're not i mean with the sorry material

thing that the overall impression is if nia's indigene nia jeevan did a fashion show and then realized that there aren't enough asian models in the uk so they've had to make do with legs and co it's a nice enough song you know it's the sort of thing that patty boo layered knockout on the two ronnie's but it's not what i want at the age of nine and it's certainly not what the dads want no no well i mean it's okay and it's we always complain that there's a particular kind of uh smooth pop soul record from especially from the 70s that sounds absolutely fine and is clearly more enjoyable than than live in trouble by the baron but it doesn't really touch the sides and it's almost undiscussable because there's no particular significance to it and there's nothing

hanging off it or sticking out the sides of it to grab hold of you know what i mean it's just a reasonably nice record and uh an acceptable soundtrack to tony blackburn's cum face and mighty chest beating roar as he issues forth in the tessa white's eye um a little sooner than expected but he had no choice because he suddenly remembered the next song on the tape was the wombling song and uh took the least worst option but But the thing about this record, I'm unimpressed by the lyric, I believe you when you say you'll fill my body with your soul and love will grow into a brown-eyed little girl

who looks like we do. Even now, even in the 70s, they're having to take that route, the brown-eyed handsome man route. But of all the things that one might have been asked to believe in the 1970s surely this is the one that requires the least credulity right it's not exactly the enfield poltergeist is it like so you're saying oh what if we have sex and i get pregnant we might have a kid that looks like we do yeah well you know it's like saying i believe you

when you say if you lob a bottle of milk off the multi-story car park it will not survive the fall and milk will go everywhere so i'm glad it's good to have your trust you know so i much prefer the line i'd live in a cave if you wanted to, because it makes me think of Dorothy Moore and her boyfriend living like the hair bear bunch. Yes. Or smiling lovingly at each other while absolutely plastered in bat guano. Stay at home every night, never quarrel or fight. Oh, we don't even bite.

But I'm sure that records like this aren't even made as additions to the kind of the great soul canon or anything like that they are purely about the programming they exist because there's a need you know doing a program up top of the pops for the you know let's just calm down a little bit you know and uh we can't have like the nipply rectors buzzcocks and the sniveling shits all in sequence, you know, we're going to have a little bit of respite. And I think it really just functions as respite, no more. I think that's why there was commercial demand for records like this. Really, what should have happened is a nice little film clip of Dorothy Moore sort of flouncing around a garden, you know,

holding roses to her face and all this kind of stuff, leaving Legs & Co to do Orgasm Addict, dressed up as tissue boxes or something. Yeah. Anything else to say about this? I noticed there was an interview with her in this week's Record Mirror. Oh, yes.

Also featuring an on-the-road piece with The Jam in Dachau. Oh, God, we didn't even mention that. Yeah. Yeah, their tour manager is very fond of leaning out the window at passers-by shouting, we won the war. Yeah, they're great.

Yeah. Witty stuff. But, yeah, there was an article on Dorothy Moore, which was headlined, Dorothy's more than just a thick hick. That's all I know about Dorothy Moore. You'd like to hope so, yeah. Apart from Misty Blue. That's all I know.

She's more than just a thick hick and she believes her boyfriend when he tells her where babies come from low bars to get over but still both definite positives you know and i you know i suppose this record is too on balance you know it's all right yeah it'll do so the following week i believe you dropped two places to number 23 but rallied the week after to number 20 its highest position but it would be the last dent that dorothy moore put into the uk charts a year later i believe you was covered as a single by car Carpenters. The Carpenters. But it only got to number 68 on the Billboard chart and wasn't even released over here. Overwhelming.

I've made up my mind for a lifetime. I believe you. I believe you I believe you I'm so in love Dorothy Moore and I Believe You. That's beautiful. And Lexi Coe, they dance so beautifully.

And now, well, what have we got? It's Status Quo and rocking all over the world. This is at number five. Hello, blue eyes. Hi. Hi, hi. Let's get down to this one. Yeah.

Let's get down to this one. Yeah. We cut back to Pow with two more women. They're obviously being let in two by two, just like at Santa's Grotto. These two look almost new wave compliant with shorter hair and blank expressions. After telling us that Legs & Co dance so beautifully, he introduces the next single. But when it starts, it sounds like he's been instructed by the gallery to chat up the women.

So he says, hello, blue eyes, hi, hi, let's get down to this one. Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, by this point, this middle section of the episode, Peter Powell's links get really creepy. It's like suddenly this tender softness creeps in, right? It's like, he's going, they dance so beautifully. It's like he's doing one of those afternoon TV ads,

you know, for a donkey sanctuary. Yes. Up to 15% of your donation will reach miguel or someone like him won't you please give and you think thank god for a change of pace but then no because just the way he says the title of this record makes me want to crawl back into the womb you know anyone's womb i don't care just but it's like yeah that little squeak at the end when he goes yeah fucking piglet oh with these violet elizabeth curls it's like you need to pick up the seat of the pants that little stinker i strongly believed he's being egged on by the gallery to be a bit

more alpha yeah yeah he's standing with women but his free hand is still clinging on to that mic he's not being snaked around anyone's waist or shoulders or anything like that and it's like oh this isn't right you've got to dip your bread in mate it's top of the pops this is what you do yeah but he's the only person in the studio operating at that energy level you know that's the weird thing about it yes because actually the thing you know when you're edmunds isn't in travels or whatever you know they are and baits you know they are actually in keeping with that slightly kind of lukewarm level of enthusiasm. But, you know, he's truly trying to sort of G things up,

even in his appallingly white-trousered way. This one happens to be Rockin' All Over The World by Status Quo. We've covered the overlords of heads-down, no-nonsense group masturbation a few times on Chart Music. And this single, a cover of the 1975 John Fogarty single which failed to chart in the UK, is their first new release of 1977 and the follow-up to Wild Side of Life, which got to number nine for two weeks in January of this year.

It's also the lead-off cut from their ninth LP of the same name, which comes out next week. But all is not well in the Quo camp. After hiring Pip Williams, the former guitarist of Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, who arranged a fluty bit in Kung Fu Fighting, the Ramadan number one of 1974, as their new producer.

And while Rick Parfitt really likes a touch of class he's added to the production, Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster think their new album is, quote, poxy. The single entered the charts a month ago at number 32, then soared 15 places to number 17. And since then, it's Stolfele and Nimble picked its way up the side of Mount Pop and this week it's nipped up one place to number five. As the band are currently making their way to Cork to begin their 99 date rocking all over the world tour which shamefully fails to take in Africa, North America, south america central america asia and

both poles we've been treated to a clip from the video so boys here we are again again again again why don't we do it again yeah i mean a song like this to me it's it's hard in terms of like discourse it kind of you just terms of, like, discourse, you just sort of slide off it like a kind of grease plank of wood or something like that. I mean, it's not something that can... It's just a fact of life, a song like this. It's not so much a kind of artefact, really. Yeah.

And it's tricky to find things, you know, to say about it, in a sense, because it's... Well, let's find those things. Oh, yes. Don't worry. I was absolutely shocked when I found out this was a cover because it is the most quo song ever if you fed a strip of denim into a computer and waited for the spools at the top to spin about this is a song that would be spat out the other end yes it is it is essence of quo yes eau de quo eau de quo. Eau de quo.

Fucking hell. That's what denim should have been. Yeah, definitely. The advert for eau de quo would be a denim shirt opened up and a woman's hand sneaking up and then being slapped away so the bloke could have a polish at the end. For men who don't have to try and so they don't. Yes. This record, although, as far as I know,

it was not where quotidians, or whatever their fans call themselves, lost their faith, is certainly the point where an objective listener can tell that Status Quo are no longer accelerating remorselessly towards some kind of greasy, high-speed motorway wipeout an entry in a rocker valhalla yeah they're going through the quotients very much yeah well worse than that they're losing

speed they're losing momentum they're and they're drifting into this motoric mosaic you know dressed up in unlaundered denim but with freshly washed hair this sort of sounds like paper plane or down down or on eyes records in the same way that a man in a gorilla suit sort of looks like a gorilla but if you watch them fight over a banana you'll soon see the difference and it's the same here and but the fault is not with the song if you listen to john fogarty's original the logic is is different he made sense of this song right okay if you go and listen to the other single from that john fogarty lp uh which is called almost saturday night which is one of edwin collins's favorite singles and i love it too um and then after that you listen to his version of this it all falls into place right if you can stomach the sort of shit kicking down home

plaid shirt feel of it which not everyone can you understand that this song is just a sort of less musical version of almost saturday night it's like a straight shot of moonshine right it's really it's pure pop in a way john fogarty is kind of hairy and he's like woody from cheers you know and he's got bits in but he's good stuff as a basic roughness and attack and simplicity which is totally joyous and wide open you know but then you listen to this after listening to that and the first thing you notice is the vacuum-packed laboratory conditions sterility of this record you know so obviously quo are equally gritty and astute in their presentation but yeah there's the the sound of their records from now on is is edgeless and yeah automated it's that repetition which is never hypnotic they sound

like a huge expanse of formica stretching off into infinity you know i guess that's what what francis and alan found poxy and i i have to agree with them i mean it's not really so much rocking it's trucking really and it's not so much that they're going all over the world or even around the world they're just going around in these circles these kind of decaying loops really and it's interesting that you know because obviously you know people like no i've been doing the whole motoric thing, but there are edges, there's like peripheral details or whatever, there's a sense of like impetus, there's a sense of like the paradox of being stasis and momentum

and all that kind of stuff going on there. And this is just... Yeah, I mean, there's repetition and there's repetition, put it that way. This is B-road motoric, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Far and far and far after b46 they've left just enough bits of straw in it to trick you into thinking that it's organic and soily you know and it's got an odor of piss you know but really you can see where all this is

heading and the flatness and the the weariness and the sort of sodden thump of this record are status quo's new direction yes i mean you compare it to the jam right like the spindly early jam that we saw here and you know in the broadest possible sense they're playing the same kind of music it's rock and roll it's simple guitar yeah but what else you say about the jam they are free of stodge and they're full of fresh air and ideas and movement and we can sit here in the justifiably cynical 21st century and giggle about the the hyperactive incoherent optimism and idealistic energy of the young jam you know but then or now who would choose this who would choose the zonked out silent toe tapping of this record over the the speedy three-hour conversation over one cup of coffee in the local caf that is

the modern world you know even if most of what's being said in that conversation is a little bit silly you know that's not the point one of them is at least obnoxiously alive you know and the other one moves like a zombie i mean there's only an 11 year age gap between francis rossi and paul weller but it might as well be Forte. Yeah, in lots of ways. Like I say, it's tricky. I mean, it's almost aspiring to this kind of down-the-line-ness.

Does exactly what it says on the tin. It's just the straight stuff. No rules. Straight down the line. There's that sort of pretentiousness in a sense about it. But it's not really those things. I mean, there are other people like Motorhead. Make them sound well-freely you know you can be much much straighter than status quo suicide the same year ghost rider that is getting right down to the absolute electric

wire of things you know but that's you know that there are certain kind of straightnesses they're a bit too much yeah i think the really upsetting song is they go on about rocking all over the world but they don't even talk about the world. No, no. It's just that they like it. They're rocking all over their world. Yeah, I mean, for fuck's sake, why don't you add a few world music sound effects in? Why don't you have a bit where there's some Chinese-y music,

and then some nose flute from the Andes? Yeah, yeah. A picaresque tour of the Americas and the Orient, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, add in the ambient sound of a Persian market. Yes. I always think we should do that on this podcast. Yes.

I mean, like, you know, rather than, like, the sound of low-flying police helicopters and kids screaming at each other out on the estate, you know. Yeah, and the cunt across the road doing his fucking soaring again. Honestly, man, he's there all the time. He's sawing up planks of wood. And he never uses them for anything. He hasn't built one shack yet across the road.

What's he using them for? He's just being a fucking annoyance. Well, I see it. That's a metaphor for status quo, isn't it? That he's produced a series of planks of wood to no particular end. Yes, well played, David. yes well played a little too neat so anyway the video that we get you know it's your bog standard band pretending to play live promo that we were kind of getting used to by 1977 but with one major difference because you know you're looking at it and there appears to be very little sight of the recently deceased Alan Lancaster,

because, you know, he's relocated to Australia at this time, and clearly he couldn't be asked to drag himself around the world for this. So what have they done, chaps? Did you not notice this? Not on the first viewing. No. No. It is a dummy, isn't it?

Yes. They've replaced him with a dummy in an Alan Partridge's wife style and fashion. It moves as well, man. It's proper animatronic. The BBC clearly didn't approve of that, did they? Because the only time we see him on this episode of Top of the Pops is when they do a sweep round the back of the stage. And we just see his electronic ass going left and right like he's he's had a hip replacement and

he's jogging on the spot and the first time i saw it it's like something fishy about this yeah and then i checked it and yes they have a proper proto-animatronic horror and you see him in the full video looks like they've gone around the back of fucking madam two swords and they've lobbed out a jason king dummy and yeah they're using it and he's there with a bass and his fret hand is forming a v sign which could well be construed as a message from status quo to their missing bassist well you described him as the recently deceased alan lancaster you the recently deceased Alan Lancaster. You mean recently deceased as of the time of this recording, of course.

Yes, yes. Being the recently deceased Alan Lancaster at the time, that at least would have been a good excuse. Yeah. It would have been a little grotesque. It would be like, just is. But the great quo conspiracy theory is that Alan is dead. Yes.

But if they'd had any sort of modicum of wit or conceptual sense, they'd have had animatronic models for all of them and bunged that out. And it would have been in keeping. Yeah, well, maybe Rossi ought to think about that now. Just as a footnote, I saw a thing the other day. It was an article from an old music paper from 1968 about the supposed rock and roll revival of 1968, which seemed to be mostly just Lady Madonna,

as far as I could make out. Apparently there's all these bands playing 50s-type rock and roll. And so in this article, you've got all these musicians, like The Move and stuff, hailing the revival of a 50s influence sound you know and then the last paragraph in it says but one pop star who's hoping it won't return is status quo's rick parfit quote i hope rock doesn't come back since the days of rock pop has progressed so much as a musical art form and it would be very retrogressive to return to such an old sound.

We should be looking for new sounds instead, unquote. But he's a voice in the wilderness, concludes the cheerfully unnamed writer. How delightful. A man of his word. Yes, a matchstick man talking there. So the following week, rocking all over the world hauled itself up to number four and a week later it would commence a three-week stint in the number three slot rossi and lancaster's disillusion with the lp ensured that no further cuts would be taken

from the album meaning there was a nigh year-long wait for the follow-up again and again which got to number 13 in september of 1978 in the summer of 1985 of course quo were invited by bob geldof to be the opening act at live aid specifically because he wanted rocking all over the world to be the first song played that day and three years after that they put out a version called running all over the world as a tie-in with sport aid 88 which got to number 17 for two weeks in august of that year god status quo inspiring the youth to run away from there in circles all right pop craze youngsters that's your quota for this episode but if you want to ram your head further into the bucket of 1977 don't forget we have a video playlist, which is absolutely rammo this episode. Everything we watch, everything we talk about, and every little tangent we go on. Get your arse

over to bit.ly, that's B-I-T dot L-Y slash C-M-62 vids, and gorge yourself on a nice big hunk of 77. Anyway, on behalf of David Stubbs and Taylor Parks, I'm Al Needham and you are doing as you're told and staying pop crazed. Chart music. GreatBigOour.com All of television history is contained within the box of delights. It was happening in front of us. Incredible.

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