Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - 63 (Pt 4): 28.12.1972 – Thank God For Belgian World In Action

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Neil Kulkarni, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham gleefully rip into the final part of their exhumation of the last TOTP episode of 1972, and it’s banger after banger after banger. The Osmonds begin their journey on the Highway to whatever Mormons think is Hell! Chuck Berry tempts the youth into mutual masturbation in Coventry, while Rolf Harris tries to distract them! Michael Jackson and his family steal in near the end to drop the performance of the night! We drool over T Rex for ages! And there’s Ringo! HAPPY 1973, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Um... Chart music. Chart music. It's Thursday evening. It's December the 28th, 1972. It's... I'm not sure because we didn't have clocks in 1972. We may do with the sun. But this episode of Top of the Pops is astonishing. Hey up, you pop-crazed youngsters.

This is Al Needham introducing you to the final part of Chart Music 63. Let's not fanny about a minute longer. Let us get stuck into this episode. Agro! And from the peace of Nielsen to the power of the Osmonds. And from the peace of Nielsen to the power of the Osmonds. There's a message spoken in the air Come from crazy horses riding everywhere

After a quick flash of some abstract art for some reason, we crossfade out of Nielsen into the next single, which means we don't get thwacked across the face by the Menkel-Cinthi intro. So, yeah, cheers for that, Harry, you cunt. Edmunds putting on that voice again tells us we're going from the peace of Nielsen to the power of the Osmonds with Crazy Horses. Yeah, the peace of Nielsen.

It shows how closely Noel was listening to that suicide ballad. Yeah. Ah, peaceful. He must have been distracted by Pan's people, because he enjoyed that bit. If he had three hands, he would have applauded. We covered Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken and Donnie in chart music number three, and this, taken from their fourth LP of the same name,

is the UK follow-up to Down by the Lazy River, which got to number 40 for two weeks in April. It only got to number 14 in America in October, but on the back of the success of Donnie's solo career, it entered the chart in November at number 27, then soared 20 places to number seven and went all the way to number two and here's another chance to see their studio performance which was recorded when they were over here on their first uk tour and that tour chaps fucking hell a landmark event of the

70s i I believe. I mean, not only did they arrive at Heathrow on the same day as the Jackson 5, who were doing the Raw Variety Show, but both bands stayed in the same fucking hotel. Which is insane. Terrible planning. It must have been fucking sheer hysteria around that place. Yeah.

Also, in that hotel on the same night, in a bad fucking scheduling move, the four tops who were doing their UK tour, the poor bastards, man. I could just see Levi Stubbs in a thick toweling dressing gown standing at the window, holding a West Clocks timepiece and shouting, for fuck's sake, keep the fucking noise down. One room with en ensuite bathroom of gloom and of course one of the great things about that uh arrival at heathrow was uh chinny chap were

watching it on the tv news and one of them said oh my god it's a teenage rampage. And the other one said, good title for a song. Was that in the Chitty Chat biopic or did that really happen? Article in the Daily Mirror a day later. Weenie Rampage stops a pop visit. Fear of a weenie bopper riot has forced a top store to cancel an appearance by American pop stars the Osman Brothers. The group were due to spend an hour today

signing records and meeting fans at the Swan and Edgar store in London's West End. But the visit was called off after fans many of them girls aged 11 or 12 besieged the hotel where they're staying. Extra police were called in when weenie boppers, some armed with knives,

and one with a sledgehammer, stormed the Churchill Hotel on Portman Square. Yesterday, Swan and Edgar decided not to risk the trouble from fans. A spokesman for the store said we were advised by the police to cancel the appearance even today we had almost 200 osman fans in the store six were hysterical and had to be calmed down the police at the hotel they eventually arrested eight girls all of whom were under 13 after a plate glass window at the hotel they eventually arrested eight girls all of whom were under 13 after a plate glass window at the hotel was pushed through so yeah blind very busy day at that i'm wondering about

that early 70s definition of calmed down as well the thing is that kind of hysteria if it was just about say puppy love you could kind of think oh that's a bit ridiculous but if it's about crazy horses it's totally understandable definitely this is a fucking ridiculous but if it's about crazy horses it's totally understandable definitely this is a fucking tune isn't it let's put it right out here this is fucking amazing this record i've always thought this record's me and i think it's basically because it's so fucking metal that's why don't take my word for it ask ozzy osbourne yes you know when donny was on um dancing with the stars and kelly osbourne was in the finals with him ozzy comes right up to donny and says i just want you to know that crazy horses is one of my favorite rock and roll songs of all time at that

pub where uh gary glitter was played there was a barmaid there who was young and Crazy Horses came on and she says oh I know who's done this it's Little Ozzy Osmond isn't it in a way it is though isn't it I'd love to see Little Ozzy Osmond yeah it really is and don't just take Ozzy's word for it you know what about Led Zeppelin

you know Led Zeppelin invite the Osmonds on stage to sing stairway to heaven at earl's court because they love crazy horses so much and they invite backstage and john bonham even brings his son jason to an osmonds concert and brings him backstage wow believe simon lebon who who also asked the osmonds to tour with your anulator because crazy horses is one of his favourite records or beyond all that ask Saddam Hussein because when the military caught Saddam Hussein

they discovered he had a complete collection of Osman's records including Crazy Horses who could resist this record I can imagine Saddam doing the fucking mud rocker in front of that massive mural he had at his swimming pool of the wings

of love yeah this thing the crazy host is eating a bounty and swigging a glass of jolly walker black well you know what else saddam hussein was into but bringing it back to christmas and all quality street oh really yeah when george galloway interviewed him about 20 years ago first thing saddam did was break out a big tin of Quality Street and shake it at him and say, oh, pick every one you want, mate. That's nice, isn't it? Even the green ones.

I'd have thought he'd have been sweet enough already. All the fun of the Shia, as they say in Iraq. I'm just dead proud as well that this is the one that really starts flying up the British chart. Yes. I'm not saying it's a very rocky chart that we're looking at or a rocky year, but we're into a bit of that. It's more successful in the UK than it is in America, this tune.

It's not glam, of course, but, you know, there's a very guitar sort of heavy vibe to an awful lot of the pop songs going on in 72. And this is just a fucking sensational, smoking hot record. And what an introduction. Fuck yeah, one of the best introductions to a single ever yeah which if you did it now it would get no radio play because people would say no that's so that introduction is too too aggressive and startling it's the fucking osmonds yeah it's so bizarre that this record exists yes i mean you can see pretty much how it might have happened right like how a fundamentally quite crap act with mostly crap

songs could think all right let's do a stomper with a gimmick and go all out on the production. And through a combination of basic competence, the high standards of studio recording at the time, and a huge bestowal of trier's luck, come out with something like this. Because this is largely an Osman creation. I mean, it's written and co-produced by members of the group, already forgotten which ones, because they're like the indistinguishable bridges of Amsterdam.

Jay and Meryl. Okay, right. And it's also, sorry, co-produced by Michael Lloyd from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. That's right, yeah. Yeah. But the real thrill of this is that it should never have happened. No.

You know what I mean? It's like they really did blow a dart out of their arse and hit the bullseye and i love that because it's like an expensive version of those 60s garage records or something or yeah those one-off punk singles like i got rabies by johnny and the lubes which is amazing record, but it's the only thing they ever did that you'll ever care about. You know what I mean? And there's a lovely purity to that. But the difference is I got rabies by Johnny and the lubes is also the only thing Johnny and the lubes ever did.

You will ever hear about like, it's not set against this weird background of, you know, lube mania. Whereas the, this weird background of, you know, lube mania, whereas the contrast between the volcanic hysteria of this record and the overall cultural and musical bromide of the Osmonds, it just, it's an extra thrill.

It gives it that little extra something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again. What a fucking head fuck this must have been for a 15-year-old head, hearing this amazing sound coming out of his little sister's bedroom and thinking, oh, God, is this Hawkwind or Sabbath or something? It's like, oh, no, it's that band you hate. And if that little sister had the album as well,

he's going to hear Hold Her Tight, which is their version of Immigrant Song, really. It's a fucking amazing tune. The Osmonds on the choir were skill. They really were. It's like hearing Welcome to the Terror Dome and finding out it's been made by Bross. Must have been

gutting for that lad. The thing is, as well, this performance is fucking awesome. I think it's really, really good. It's great, on this song anyway, that they gave the lead vocal to Jay, because I always love a singing drummer and his more sort of low voice, guttural voice totally suits the sound. And in this performance, the fact he's doing his vocal live

means that he gets kind of breathless and sweaty and it really, really amps up the feel. And of course, there's that lovely daft waddle thing they do with their legs. Chicken dance. That's the one. It makes you feel strangely like, yes, you're witnessing a rock show, but also, I don't know, it's part rodeo and part monster truck rally. Well, it's just strange.

But what a bolt from the blue it is, this record. As you can imagine, this was an absolute banger at the Scottum Thursday Dinner Time Disco. When I saw the osmonds perform it for the first time i was shocked that they weren't cherokees i thought they were native americans who were in a rock band right right because it sounds like a little electronic powwow you know the drums are proper you know tribal yeah the opening bit isn't as if it's just an organ but they rigged it up in the studio and surrounded it with loads of amps and um it was so loud that they had to play the organ from inside the gallery of the studio you couldn't be in the fucking same room

as that when they played it it was too loud and ear splitting wow proper spinal tap and really hats off to them because of course you know up this point, they'd been a boy band, and all of their songs were chosen for them by the record company. They earned this kind of slight bit of autonomy with that success, but good on them for using that success to just basically freak the fuck out and play this immensely heavy song. Yeah. Although not for the last time in this episode,

I'm not quite 100% sure what we're actually listening to here. I think, I mean, it's live vocals. I think over a bad mix of the backing track, which is a bit of a shame. It's hard to tell for sure, but whatever, it's a bad move because the magic of this record is precariously balanced. This is not like the Stones shambling on stage and making a mess and it still sort of sounds great and is exciting like crazy horses is a mini miracle

they can't really afford to play loose with it so it survives here but what we actually hear hasn't got the oomph for the record like that whinnying organ is absurdly low in the mix. Yeah, yeah. No apparent reason. Which is the whole fucking point of the record. Exactly. The point of the record is the way it rears up out of the mix at you with its nostrils flaring, you know what I mean?

Bearing its ugly yellow teeth in your face and giving you colic and potomac fever. Stealing your apple right out of your hand and as soon as you mix that down you've already taken 50% away from this record so it's a bit of a shame

you're better off listening to the record than watching this. But no, while it's here it's more than welcome. Oh yeah because the undertow is fucking immense and the undertow cannot be denied. It's just this amazing smoking hot beat. You know, much like much of this episode actually, and I'm sure it's not just my ears going wrong,

fuck me, it's a bassy episode. It's got a good low end to it, a lot of these songs, and that really comes across there. Donny pushed to the back. It's a definite power move, isn't it, by Jay and Meryl to let the young one know his place. But then again, he gets to fuck about with the organ and do that slidey thing, which is amazing.

I used to do that on a table. They all look so much happier as well. They all look like they're enjoying it. I mean, they're not all great at rocking out, but they all look so much more comfortable. And even though Donnie, yeah, has been shoved to the side a little bit, They're not all great at rocking out, but they all look so much more comfortable. And even though Donnie, yeah, has been shoved to the side a little bit,

he looks genuinely properly happy. Like he's enjoying this music. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he's on a good record for probably the first time. I mean, Neil, from what you're saying, do you like those weird later Osman records? Oh, no, no. For me, the cutoff point is the crazy horses album and and i do yeah you're right taylor the next one what's the concept album call from 73

the plan the plan is an amazing record but after that yeah it all falls apart but see i i think the plan is more amazing in theory than in practice that's my problem no yeah with the plan i know you're right i am probably the thing is with the plan and with crazy horses the album at times you kind of am i really digging this or am i just amazed that it's the osmonds yeah do you know what i mean and and if this was coming from a more conventional rock band would i just think oh this is mediocre but i will always stand up for crazy horses and hold her tight hold her tight it's a fucking amazing osman song the plan has definite moments of intrigue i cannot find it's a vowed kind of

concept about mormonism much in it just seems like a set of songs but as a sort of bit of ear candy it what it reminds me of is turtles battle of the bands a little bit it's got a similar sound um to that record. So I do enjoy that one. I do enjoy Crazy Horses. But Crazy Horses, the album, fuck me. Don't bother with anything else apart from the first track on each side. First track on side one, I think, is Crazy Horses.

First track on side two, Hold Her Tight. That's all you need. If they'd have released that as a double A, that would go down as one of the greatest singles of the 70s. I don't know that song. Oh, Hold Her Tight is amazing. As far as I'm aware, with the Osmonds,

this song is their primary achievement. Their third greatest achievement is One Bad Apple, which is an actual Jackson 5 cast-off and still better than all but one of the Osmonds records that I've ever heard. And their second greatest achievement is partially inspiring The Osmonds by Denim, which is the loveliest song about the British 70s

with precisely the right balance of humour and seriousness of a sort, and which should probably be in the collection of every chart music listener. And I don't think there is a fourth greatest achievement unless this song you're talking about is as great as you say because

I'll hold it tight it is. It's funny you mentioned denim though Taylor I was thinking of denim you know when we were talking about Chiquitit that sound that Chiquitit do on that is a real denim thing isn't it? Yeah I was thinking because I was thinking about, I met Lawrence at a denim once or twice,

when he was staying around, and I was talking to him once, and he was talking about the sound of the denim album, and he said, yeah, I realised that all my life, I wondered why my records didn't sound like my favourite records that I'd liked as a kid, and I realised it's because they didn't put any reverb on these records. They were all really dry. So that's how he did the Denim album.

And I said, Lawrence, all those felt records, like the defining characteristic of those records is they're all absolutely swamped in reverb. And he goes, yeah, quite ironic, really. Yeah, but this song, man, fucking hell. The one thing that's missing from this performance that would ramp it up even more is if little Jimmy was there with his top off,

dancing like Stacia. That would have just put the fucking tin lid on everything. But yeah, we spoke earlier and we raised the question, was it just Donny that got the girls screaming or was there anything in the other Osmonds?

And I contend there was. Well, they all looked like him. Yeah. I mean, if you fancy Donny, you're probably going to fancy the other Osmond. But the run of shows

in 1974, looking back on it as I did for this episode, I mean, fucking hell. They could do anything and they'd get screamed at. They do their barbershop routine from the Andy Williams show, screams. They have a bit of a country hoedown, screams. They talk about their wives, screams.

They could have done anything, man, and they would have just been screamed at. Yeah, because they've got that appeal that actually pushes, I think, beyond sexuality or anything else. The hysteria just gets fixated on the band. Yeah. And it's kind of like, I don't think all the people scream that and think what they want to do to the Osmonds or with the Osmonds necessarily. They just become the focus.

Yeah. And, you know, because they're perfect when your world isn't, it's going to have that effect. And it is down to them being American. You know, these girls are reacting to the Osmonds in the same way that their aunties reacted to the GIs during the war. You know, they just came from a better place. They were better dressed than the local lads

and the mormonism i think does send the message that you know these aren't they're not going to try and fill you up they're going to be true they're going to be gentlemen you know yeah yeah and they might already be married but they could still marry you as well yeah as i said in a previous chart means that they should have held a mass mormon wedding ceremony on the last gig of their tour they're offering this little house on the prairie lifestyle yeah yeah you know british kids living in this scabby ass of a country yeah so crazy horse has spent three weeks at number two, held off its rightful place at the top by the next single we're going to hear.

The follow-up, Going Home, got to number four in August of 1973, but they eventually got to number one a year later with Love Me For A Reason. Crazy Horses would make two appearances in the UK charts in the 90s when a remix by Utah Saints got to number 50 in September of 1995 and its use in a Virgin Atlantic advert got the original to number 34 in June of 1999. Crazy horses Crazy horses Isn't that a great sound? That's from the Osmonds Crazy Horses. Before we have another great sound, I want to introduce you to somebody you know so well,

Rolf Harris. Hello, Rolf. Get a nice Christmas? Super. I don't know how to sort of put this, but, you know, it's lovely to have you here, but what are you doing here? That's lovely, isn't it? What happened?

Johnny Stewart rang up and said, I'm playing your favourite record, and I said, marvellous, you've got to get some new pictures, though, for that. And he said, well, why don't you come and draw them? So that's the plot. That's what I'm doing. I got myself into it. It just so happens you've got the everything set up over there.

I've got to relate it to myself, if that's all right with you. Lovely. OK, then. And here's the record from Chuck Berry, My Ding-a-ling. When I was a wee little boy My grandmother bought me a cute little toy Silver bells hanging on a string She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling Tony, all alone in his festive bubble, tells us that that was a great sound

and we're going to hear another great sound in a bit. But before that, he wants to introduce us to someone we know so well. Rolf fucking Harris. What the fuck are you doing here, says Tony in so many words. Rolf tells us that Johnny Stewart rang him up and said they were playing his favourite song, with Rolf countering that they'd need some new pictures to go with it and Stewart offering him the job.

It so happens you've got the everything set up over there, says Tony, as expertly as usual. Before Rolf cuts him off and Tony introduces My Ding-a-ling by Chuck Berry. My God, things have taken a strange turn. Yeah, well, Tony has ever done his job with the calm assurance of a man who's just leant forward to flush a toilet and his glasses have slipped off and fallen in.

Rolf just has that expressionless psychopath effect, you know, the fake smile. It's been so long since the wiggling big toe of Rolf's career disappeared under the water. It's easy to forget just how little he actually brought to the table. I'm part of a fucking stylophone. He's worthless. He has nothing to offer.

But he's friendly, which is all you want as a kid. But I remember being impressed by his artwork as a child or at least his speed in creating it but fuck me he's no tony hart born in st louis in 1926 chuck barrett is chuck fucking barrett although he was one of the most influential artists of the rock and roll era on the youth of Britain, his UK chart career was patchy at best, scoring only two top 10 singles in the 60s with Let It Rock and No Particular Place To Go. However, he re-signed to Chess Records in 1970 and underwent a renaissance on the back of the rock and roll revival boom and spent a lot of time in the UK in 1972, playing a 60-date tour,

playing the set of the day at the Rock and Roll Festival at Wembley Stadium in August and recording the LP The London Chuck Berry Sessions for Chess. Side two of that LP was to be given over to a live recording, which turned out to be a portion of his set at the Lanchester Arts Festival at the Locarno in Coventry on February the 3rd of this year, sandwiched between Slade and Pink Floyd. And as an encore, and while he was running overtime as usual and thousands of heads were outside banging on the doors to see Pink Floyd, he gave an 11-minute encore of this single, a cover of the

song based on the folk song Little Brown Jug, which was first recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952, which was covered by The Beez as Ting-a-ling in 1954, and covered as My Tambourine by Barry himself in 1968. When the LP came out in June, a bone-down version of this was put out as the league cut and with next to no airplay eventually snuck into the chart at number 38 in the last week of October, becoming his first hit in the UK since Promised Land got to number 26 for two weeks in February of 1965. When it jumped up 15 places the following week, the BBC put it on top of the pops. Luckily, they already had footage to go, as they filmed an appearance on the BBC Two show Sounds on Saturday at the BBC Television Theatre in the spring, and put it out in July,

cutting his performance of this song from transmission. When the clip was aired, My Dinger Link soared 17 places to number six, then jumped four places to number two, was repeated on Top of the Pops again, and in the last week of November, it scared scared off clear by gilbert o sullivan to get to number one but by this time a certain 62 year old woman from nanita had noticed and she opened up a new front in her war with the bbc article in the daily mirror from november the 28th Article in the Daily Mirror from November the 28th. Ding dong ding-a-ling. Mrs Whitehouse in row with BBC over that top of the pop song. A campaign to have the number one pop hit My Ding-a-ling,

banned from BBC TV and radio shows, has been started by Mrs Mary Whitehouse. She claims that it is meant to encourage masturbation. She has written to Sir John Eden, Minister of Telecommunications, asking him to stop the Chuck Berry record being broadcast. In her letter, she quotes from the song, I like to play with my ding-a-ling

and most of all with your ding-a-ling. Not even there, dog. And she says there is no doubt that such lines are intended to encourage mutual masturbation. Mrs Whitehouse, Secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, spoke yesterday of a film screened on last week's Top of the Pops

of US rock star Beret singing the controversial song. She said, Some young people in the studio were obviously embarrassed and clearly didn't want to join in the singing. Technicians were told to spotlight them, however, and thus they were forced to participate. This was a technique more in keeping with fascism in a totalitarian state than in Britain.

It is a scandal that the BBC should allow itself to be used as a vehicle for mass child molestation in this way. Fucking hell. Who can forget that chilling scene in Triumph of the Will when Hitler stands at a podium and screams, Mein Dingalingen! Mein Dingalingen! You will play with Mein Dingalingen!

The following week, with the world watching on in anticipation, Top of the Pops dared to play the single again. And once more, the Daily Mirror was there to report babies playing with bells helped to cool down the ding-dong row

over that song last night. The baby pictures were screened on the Top of the pop's TV show while Chuck Berry's song My Ding-a-ling was played. The show's producers, banned from using a clip of the star, rang the changers with another idea. The pan's people dancing girls' tinkled bells attached to their wrists while they gyrated in brief costumes.

Wisely electing not to play the song on baby Jesus' birthday to avoid the unsavoury sight of the nation's children violently masturbating over Action Man's face. But unable to leave one of the biggest selling singles of the year out completely,

the BBC appeared to have struck upon a compromise with a very special guest. I mean, before we get stuck into Rolf, what a fucking palaver over this song, man. Yeah, it's so typical that of all the reasons you could find to censure Chuck Berry, Mary's main problem is that he said ding-a-ling. She was a kid-a-minster person for a while, Mary Whitehouse. You must be proud. Yeah, she wasn't a friend of mine or anything.

Actually, she lived in a place called Far Forest, which sounds quite magical. Like she lived in the turret of a raven black castle with bats flying out of the cross-shaped windows. But it's actually a quite genteel village just outside Kidderminster where she lived at this time, in fact, 1972. Right. Just safely nestled in the triangular homeland

of the old-school British reactionary far right you know Enoch Power Peter Griffith yeah yeah Mary Whitehouse Wolverhampton Smethwick Kidderminster which is not so much where I came from as where I left um and I can't really afford London these days and whenever I moan about that someone always says would you ever move back up to where you came from and I say I'd rather be flatmates with Ronnie Pickering She could have adopted you Taylor fucking hell

Imagine Yeah well I mean of course all of what Whitehouse did did the job for Chuck because it kept the record prominent. Definitely, yeah. When Sir Charles Curran, DG of the BBC, writes back to Whitehouse, he does wonder, and I quote, whether the record would have remained in a high position in the charts for such a long time without the publicity yes attendant upon the publication of your comments which is a really good point you know far from cleaning up society as she intended to do

yeah she was kind of instrumental in bringing about these scenarios for herself yeah and she'd left it a bit too late hadn't she really when the song's already at number one yeah yeah completely clearly she wasn't listening to tom brown on on Sunday afternoon with a notebook in hand. But, you know, also I didn't really get what the problem is with mutual masturbation. It seems one of the most anodyne sexual activities, really. It's not going to cause any problems as such. I don't know if you want it on top of the pops on a Thursday night

when you're having a late tea. Hey, look, Mary Whitehouse resigned as a teacher to devote her energies to the Women of Britain Clean clean up tv campaign that's inspirational to me i would love to resign as a teacher but um you know not not to do anything like this and in a sense you know of course she's just doing an old game it goes all the way back to plato the idea that artistic expression can conflict with a well-ordered society but jesus christ choose your targets um this record i mean why is it by the way with this episode that uh whenever coventry gets involved something strange starts fucking happening yes it's really odd but i mean you know 72 i mean

granted it didn't get played on the radio but we've had judge dread big six in the charts yeah he was fuming well quite look why hasn't mary white i said anything about him but he's just not right he must be sat at home now just watching this going fucking hell that could be me rolf could be doing content to me but that's a filthy record that was in the charts yes so why are top of the pops doing this then chaps well i mean this is not the most insightful observation um i think you'll agree but by illustrating it so uh rolf is of course murdering the joke such as it is i mean this is probably the single worst song in the world for a quick sketch artist to illustrate um i mean you know excuse the

obviousness of what i'm about to say and a joke stops being funny when you explain it even the rip snorting uh show-stopping laffarama of my ding-a-ling but the way this thing works is he says a which is something very innocent but because of how it's worded you can't help but picture b which is rude um so accompanying that song with a series of illustrations of a gumming up your mind's eye and blocking the path of a joke is effectively comic sabotage. And slightly fascinating in its illustration of the block-headed philistinism of people in positions of influence in the media, even during its golden age. And what interests me is, is Rolf so utterly stupid that he can't see that?

Or is he just completely fine with any degree of professional humiliation so long as it involves free entry into a room full of prey um you know is he just sniffing around the watering hole for a baby gazelle with a limp you know i don't know he's so fuck off back to animal hospital go and cuddle a hedgehog in a towel. Or wash down an elephant with a broom. Because he loves animals, Rob. He's got the scars to prove it. He's not going to sue over that, is he?

No, I think that had a negative effect on my reputation. Yeah, right. I mean, he's no stranger to the top of the pops of course he was a recording artist of sorts throughout the 60s linked up with George Martin in 1962 it was the best stuff he ever did those records

it's not that long ago that he was the Christmas number one in 1969 with two little boys at number one for six weeks and the last number one of the 60s that's how the 60s bowed out and by this point he's still a bbc regular he's just finished the final series of the saturday evening variety thing the rolf harris show and has nipped into the studio while he's in the building

recording his week-long run as a storyteller on play school so yeah that's why he's there and also apart from explaining the joke i contend he's also in here to cover up the bits in the film where the ss put their jackboots on people's throats for not being indoctrinated into masturbation she does have a real problem with it later on in the decade i think she writes to the Bishop of Suffolk in 79, saying will you state publicly and quite specifically whether you are endorsing the practices of mutual masturbation common among some homosexuals, and whether you

expect the church to do the same, and whether you see such practices as the will of God. Clearly it's a bit of a, no pun intended, a hot button issue for her. What did he do to inspire that? I have no idea you gotta check your bible neil is it you know every sperm is sacred and all that spill your seed on the ground it's not yeah it does not go down well of course of course i mean that the

full length clip of the performance is uh it's out there on youtube and it is a masterpiece of innuendo while he's introducing it chuck gives everyone the finger and nobody in the audience gets it because you know the people of 1972 in britain still use two fingers because they're not traitorous cunts and there's hints in what he says about lesbianism and sexuality as well when he says and all of that is fine yeah mary wouldn't have got that no bit under her radar i guess he does a series of cartoons which obviously have been pre-done to some extent just so he can finish them off so we see rolf in a pram rolf as a school boy rolf falling off a wall uh rolf underwater avoiding a crocodile and at the end santa's holding a sign that reads happy 1973

what a shame he didn't turn the last one around to reveal what he was actually drawing was a rolf aroo masturbating over mary whitehouse and massing up her best hat do you think he is essentially there as as a distraction from the content of the record? Yeah, that's what I think. Because it is close to Christmas. I mean, it's not Christmas, but yeah, that would just add more grist to her mill, wouldn't it? If in any way it was kind of associated

with this sort of period of the year. But yeah, I mean, what a strange thing for a pretty fucking awful record. Yeah. Well, this is it. Not only does Rolf detract from the joke for the people who are offended, he also detracts from having to watch Chuck Berry

doing this. Yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, you watch this, he's come a long way since Maybelline in the same way that Covid's come a long way since we could all have fun everybody knows that Chuck Berry is one of the greatest right but I think not everyone really

personally knows it and they should right if you listen to a decent pressing of Chuck Berry's 50s and very early 60s stuff i.e. not a CD from a petrol station or one of those 80s albums of old hits where some tracks may have been re-recorded by the original artist i.e. the drummer and four blokes he met at Faith in Recovery and it's just you hear it and it's

impossible not to feel it if you've ever enjoyed any form of rock and roll music it's just you hear it and it's impossible not to feel it, if you've ever enjoyed any form of rock and roll music it's impossible not to love, in the same way that it's impossible not to find Laurel and Hardy hilarious if you've ever laughed at anything, ever because it's that thing

stripped down to the root and throbbing with the thrill of creation and the thrill of the now and the sheer delight of being there and doing it you know i mean even then chuck was notorious for being a little bit money-minded um by the 70s he was mostly just touring around showing up at the venue demanding payment before the show and then going on with a local pickup band a lot of the time. They were often just local kids because there wasn't a rock band in the world

who couldn't play Chuck Berry songs. And it was just down to luck and the mercurial moods of an often not very nice man, whether you got the blindingly brilliant rock and roll show that he could still do or someone playing johnny be good like he was slinging his 90th bin bag of the day onto the back of the dustbin line he was ruthlessly mercenary um like throughout his career to be honest with you but i mean i remember him appearing on aspel and company in about 1987 and he was there to promote his autobiography i'll never forget michael asphalt just sort of genially says to him so i understand you'll be playing johnny be good for us tonight

and chuck berry goes no for second class money you get a second class song and he goes on to play memphis tennessee instead I mean, it is sad in a way, seeing this. I know it's, you know, whereas I had immense civic pride with the Lieutenant Pigeon connection, less so here. I mean, what Taylor's just said really matches up a lot, actually. I found the Coventry Evening Telegraph review of that performance of Dingaling. And the music journalist, or whoever it was for the Coventry Evening Telegraph back then, he said, I thought it was for the Coffee Evening Telegraph back then,

he said, I thought it was easily the worst thing he's ever done. It seems rather sad after all the great rock classics with those sly, perceptive lyrics he's recorded over the years that the song which really establishes him should be this rather dubious rehashed nursery rhyme. And I think that's right. this rather dubious rehashed nursery rhyme. And I think that's right. But there's a lot of myths about that night,

both in Coventry and kind of outside of Coventry, about what happened. I mean, Chuck Berry himself in his autobiography, he claims that there were 35,000 people in the crowd. And, you know, the Locarno Ballroom, or I mean, Locarno Ballroom,, of course, my school in a way, because it became Central Library in Coventry, certainly won't fit 35,000 people.

It does take him about 20 minutes to teach the crowd the song. And that is the main trouble with this song. I fucking hate crowd participation, let alone hearing it or seeing it, all sort of based around innuendo um my band accidentally supported a christian rock band once that started doing crowd participation and then nearly cringed myself inside out um i want you to worship my christ alized they came out in the fucking crowd and started doing acapella shit it was horrible but um for the coventry gig i mean it's interesting who's playing with him on this you know you've got half

the average white band yeah you've got who are not on the single because it's just him yeah yeah and i think on that night as well the bass player is nick potter who actually played with van de graaff generator oddly enough and the whole thing's recorded on the Pi mobile unit and I would recommend if you're going to listen to the London Sessions LP there is that fantastic bit at the end of Johnny Be Good

where I do feel a bit of civic pride just hearing cov people go mental and hearing a cov guy on the mic trying to get him to shut up he's like look there's about000 people outside waiting for the Pink Floyd. We don't have a Floyd concert if we don't clear the place. It's as simple as that. This is the management.

And then another bloke comes on, just going, hold it, kids, hold it. If you're quiet for 30 seconds, I'll tell you what's happened. 30 seconds is all I ask, and I'll explain it all. And of course they don't. They just keep rattling on. Another odd factor about this recording, by the way, is that one of the engineers on the sound, or part of the production crew for the gig,

was Graham Lewis from Wire. He was at Lanchester Poly at the time at the time, doing a sound production course. And he meets Chuck Berry years later and tells him, yeah, I was there in Coventry when you recorded that. And all Chuck Berry said to him,

I think, was, thank God it wasn't Croydon, which is a strangely cryptic message. But yeah. It's odd. I mean, the Coff Evening Telegraph,

every now and then, they do put out the call, were you on this record? Yeah. You know, were you on this record? Yeah. You know, were you there that night? So it's entered this thing whereby in Cough, I think an awful lot of people claimed they were there and they certainly weren't.

What you say about the audience participation, though, it's like in the same way that recording My Dingaling is an extension of this financial cynicism. Yeah. It's like the interactive element here is sort of a way to make up for the loss of vitality you know it's like but it and it feels a little bit calculating and insincere you know like he's reaching out to the audience but only to say pull my finger because it's like a magic spell chuck berry's music it's like most yeah fundamentalist

rock and roll it's barely even music at all and i mean that in a complimentary way right it's based on a deep understanding of several styles of music but in itself it's just rhythm and drive and power and wit which when it works is magnificent and pure but when it doesn't there's nothing to fall back on because the performance is everything right like a chuck berry song performed with no pizzazz is like in a cardboard box with nothing in it you know and on this record it's like he's trying to replace that missing energy and invention and newness with sort of cheap panto laughs you know which is maybe better than replacing it with nothing or maybe it isn't it's like to use a chuck berry appropriate analogy it's like if suddenly your car

can only do 30 miles an hour so you try to distract everyone from that with a honk if you're horny bumper sticker. You know what I mean? But what I do like about this period of Chuck Berry is that it's the period where he looks most like my nan. My nan was a white lady, but she really did facially look quite a lot like the middle aged Chuck Berry I don't know if it was the moustache

or the duck walk or the video camera she set up in her toilet but no she genuinely did have the bone structure of Chuck Berry you only see it when Chuck gets a bit older but this clip has always

creeped me out a little bit for that reason. He's got an amazing shirt on, hasn't he? Yeah, he always cuts a dash, Chuck. And those early singles, as Taylor says, they're elemental biblical texts in rock and roll. No Stones, no Beatles, no Beach Boys without those records. And the return of rock and roll, if you like, or 50s rock and roll in 72 is a big important part

of an awful lot of the things we're looking at. I mean, bear in mind, you know, this is number one for four weeks in November and December. And the last number one album of the year, in this country anyway, is, yeah, various artists, 25 rocking and rolling greats. All this stuff is coming back, you know. Yeah, I mean, he was the star turn

of that big Wembley Stadium gig. Him and Bill Hayley were the stars, simply because they were the only two who were actually from the 50s who understood that they were playing to a load of 30-year-old Ted's who wanted everything to sound exactly

as it should. Little Richard was doing his early 70s stuff. He got booed off. Gary Glitter and The Move were never going to cut it. Screaming Lord Such, he did his usual stuff but during the daytime so it wasn't as scary

as usual. And Billy Fury and all that lot pitched up and so did a few others. But yeah, Chuck Berry just went oh, is this what you want? Oh, this is what you'll have then, as long as I get me money up front. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And with this, he's just fucking about, and his record company's decided to put it out, and all of a sudden he's got a massive hit, so. Yeah, he's only number one. Yeah, that's insane, isn't it? Yeah. It is, and it's kind of sad. I mean, it's not sad for Chuck.

I mean, I hope this isn't what people remember, that's all. Well, it proved not to be. Yeah. Not from the sort of people who write letters that go, when oh when will the so-called BBC understand that decent people have had just about enough of this torrent of bad language and sexual smut? Or sincerely, Mr and Mrs B.I.rs big tits 69 knob end penis town i mean she went on to say that um she'd had reports from her mates in the national fucking nosy cunt association the young children were were actually getting their penises out and shaking them about while singing this song.

And I can't remember doing that myself, but I knew exactly what the song was about, and I fucking loved it. Yeah. I always thought I was a really nice, advanced young lad. But then my favourite auntie, the last conversation we had before she died, she said,

Oh, Al, you were my favourite favorite nephew you were such a dirty little bastard you'd come down my house and you'd tell me dirty jokes really filthy jokes that i don't think you understood what they meant and every time you said one before you said it you'd give me this look of warning and point to me and say, don't you laugh at this, Aunty Chris, because if you do, you'll fall on your fan air. This is a four-year-old child saying this. So, yeah, I blame Chuck Berry for everything in my life.

Yeah, do you think it starts here, Al, with this record? Yeah, it does. It does. So, my ding-a-ling would spend four weeks at number one, just failing to become the Christmas number one of 1972, when it was pipped at the post by long-haired lover from Liverpool, by little homunculus Osman. The follow-up, a live version of Reeling and rocking would get to number 18 in february of 1973 his last tinkle of the charty bell and mary whitehouse spent most of december in america

on a three-week trip to study their teller paid for by her gullible acolytes and would spend much of her time there trying to get Chuck Berry to debate her on a chat show about why he wants to make British kids mash their genitals. Sadly, he declined, but like Alice Cooper, sent her a bunch of flowers, thanking her for helping to keep the song at number one for so long. And when she returned to Britain, she started the National Viewers and Listeners Association Award

for broadcasters and programmes who weren't encouraging the kids to murder or fiddle with each other, which was won this year by Cliff Richard. It was also awarded in 1987 to Frank Boff for services to broadcasting. And in 1977 to... I think I can guess. Jimmy Savile for Jim'll Fix It. One more time now.

My day, my day. Oh, my. Slow down now. Slow down now. I want to play with my jingling. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. It's fabulous.

Thank you very much. I wish I could draw like that. That is absolutely sensational. Back we go to music with the fabulous Michael Jackson. APPLAUSE Rolf steps away from the easel to rejoin Tone, He rocks in the tree top all day long. Happy and marvellous singing his song. Rolf steps away from the easel to rejoin Tony, who tells him he wishes he could draw like that.

And it was absolutely sensational. Rolf, looking a bit pissed off, gives his one finger wave, almost the same one that Tony used to get from Barbara Windsor. Conjuring up a nightmare vision of what may have occurred in the dressing room beforehand before he walks off, leaving Tony to introduce Rockin' Robin by Michael Jackson. We've covered the bad king of pop loads on Chart Music, and this is the year that, like Don Don Air he was spun off from his band and given the opportunity to kickstart a solo career and this is his second single as a Jackson

One. It's the follow-up to Got To Be There which got to number five in March and is a cover of the 1958 Bobby Day single that got to number 29 in November of that year. It entered the chart at number 43 in May, then hopped 10 places to 33, then bopped up 11 places to 22, then soared 12 places to number 10, and two weeks later it got to number 3, its highest position.

weeks later it got to number three its highest position unbelievably the clip that tony introduces has never been seen before it was recorded the previous month when the jackson five were in the uk for the royal variety show and recorded at the same time as they were in to record performances of ben and looking through the windows So never seen before but fucking hell one of the landmark appearances on top of the pubs I believe. I'm sorry Bowie but to me and my compatriots in the Rudy guys this is our Starman moment.

It's fucking brilliant. I must say in an episode stuffed with weirdo sex offenders it's nice to see an innocent young face. But yeah, man, how cool are the Jackson 5 here? Oh, they look amazing. They're cool in a way that no other boy band has ever been.

Sort of genuine idiosyncrasy between the members. A true star in their midst. Diamond tight, loose and cool. Able to manage with everything. I mean, it's just odd that they're there though, isn't it? Because it's a solo tune. They're on the record. I mean, this's just odd that they're there though, isn't it? Because it's a solo tune. It's, they're on the record.

I mean, this is why you could ask the pop quiz question, what similarity does this have with Maggie Mae? Another solo record where the faces came on, you know, and played it.

Obviously, the best Jackson's record this year is Looking Through the Windows, but this is a delight. Yeah, because I've always been confused whether this was

a Michael Jackson single or a Jackson 5 single, and this complicates matters considerably. Because it almost sounds like they're playing on it, the guitar part and everything else. Yes. Yeah, they're there, yeah. But I'm pretty sure it is a solo Michael Jackson thing,

isn't it? The record is a solo Michael Jackson thing. Again, this is one of those ones where it's not completely clear what we're actually listening to. Because I was thinking, when this comes on, at this one of those ones where it's not completely clear what we're actually listening to. Because I was thinking, when this comes on, at this point of the show, it's kind of necessary to have something here with a lively rhythm track,

which I suppose is sort of a euphemism for black. Because as fantastic as this episode is, it's very much not brought to you by johnson products company makers of ultra sheen afro sheen and ultra sheen cosmetics it's a very white pop dominated episode where even roberta flack is singing a ewan mccall ballad and a double dose of the osmonds pushes those levels of whiteness up to the point where you need to wear eye protection and that's okay but it's just after this many slight variations on the shuffle beat a motown rhythm section is going to sound even more exquisite than it really is except i think that

what we're listening to here is a hybrid i think this may be a certain giant cartoon dog just about rising to the occasion. Yes! This is not the record. It sounds not much like the record at all. No. Which is good because it's credited to a different artist. And the greatest compliment I can pay is that

for about 10 seconds I wasn't sure whether this is a drummer that the Jacksons brought with them or whether it's the top of the pops orchestra drummer and i think that says a little bit less about how funky the drumming is here and a little bit more about how simple this song is but i think it's the top of the pops orchestra drum partly because towards the end he's getting a bit splashy and hitting a bit bluntly in a way that you would not hear from any drummer associated with the Motown organization.

Even some guy they contracted for foreign tours. Right. So it's either the, the worst ever performance by a Motown affiliated drummer or the best ever performance by a top of the pops. Yeah. And I think it's the latter because if you listen, not especially closely to their live performance of this,

which they did on the Royal Variety performance with their regular drummer, this isn't that guy. That guy is hot as shit, right? This guy, no, it survives. It survives. That's what you can say. Yeah, but the Top of the Pulse Orchestra, you know, as we've seen before,

you know, when they did I Don't Know Why I Love You by Stevie Wonder, that was the top of the Pulse Orchestra. And they just about hung in there. Yeah. Well, it depends, it depends, doesn't it? I think it was a bit later, after a few changes in personnel,

where the bear took hold. Yeah, but I think it works because Rockin' robin like the original is one of those really primitive r&b records which is just like this basic slamming swing you know like a loping sort of finger clicking wallet there's no proper bass on it at all it's just this big thumping beat and it's easy to play and you have to make it work with energy and and personality you know and this arrangement is a little bit updated and it's got the more sort of fluid 70s bass on it and everything but it's still it's really there as a vehicle for personality in this case little

michael's uh vocal personality and so you're barely conscious of anything else, you know, as long as it doesn't go out of time or out of tune. Really, all you're listening to is Michael showing out, you know, for better or for worse, mostly for better. Oh, it's an outstanding performance. Yeah. Yeah, he's amazing. And the TOTP Orchestra, yeah, they're not as deft as the Thump Brothers, of course.

No. But all you need is that Thump and Michael's lovely face and their amazing outfits. And, yeah, it's tremendously exciting, especially after what's come before. And Tito's guitar solo. Yeah. Almost the best bit because he's really clicky and trebly and horrible,

like on a 50s record yeah and he slightly fucks it up at one point which makes it more exciting and in fact every time i've ever heard tito playing guitar live it's always sounded great like really lean and attacking and he's like he's not like a virtuoso or anything but he's got a really fantastic feel to his guitar playing i mean one thing that never gets mentioned about michael jackson at this time he was he was the first black male that teenage girls in britain were allowed to scream at i mean over in america jermaine's being pushed as the as the heartthrob right but over here the triumvirate of teeny lust was always Donny Osmond, David Cassaday and Michael Jackson.

I mean, yeah, okay, in Music Star and Mirabelle and all that lot, he was more portrayed as a lovable teddy bear kind of thing. Yeah. He seemed like a really big deal. I mean, it is a big deal. And also, one has to bear in mind, you know, Taylor mentioned it's quite a white episode in a sense, but one of the things that came out of my conversation with Dennis

Bavell, actually that I mentioned earlier was that when he used to watch things like the Jackson five on, on top of the pots, it's so fucking important. If you're a black kid, you know, seeing those people and you know,

it's not like you can go back into school the next day and say, stop being a racist. The Jackson five on top of the pots last night, but it's something, you know, it's not like you can go back into school the next day and say, stop being a racist. The Jackson 5 were on top of the pops last night. But it's something, you know, it's a little thing. It's something. And, yeah, these appearances would have been massively important to the black community in this country. It's not only something for the kids to aspire to, if you like, but just look, look at this fucking band. And then, you know, especially if you're going to compare them to the Osmonds you know what i mean yeah they are a cut above i know the osmonds are doing crazy

horses on this but in terms of performance in terms of confidence and joy that where the osmonds can sometimes feel a little forced the jacksons never seem like that they seem like totally natural fluid brilliant performers i mean as a matter of fact a month ago pie records put out a single by the 11 year old rachel brennick under the name weenie bopper entitled david donnie and michael right who brightens up my bedroom wall who looks at me when i sleep at night who do I think of when I go to school each day? David, Donner and Michael. We love you all. When boys phone me up and ask me for a date,

I know it's just no good. They've asked me much too late. I stay inside my room. My radio turned on loud. Because David, Donner, michael we love you all i bet mary whitehouse was thinking about kicking off but you know what having these heartthrobs is keeping the young girls away from the scabby youths on their estate who want to finger them behind the chip shop this should be commended for that yeah it's the performance of this song is better to me than the record i'm not that into those early solo michael jackson records really like even this

song i mean oh come on i want to be where you are that's a fucking tune mate yeah it's not that none of them are any good i just think sandwiched in between jackson five and like his latest stuff like you know off the wall and and so on it's just I don't know as I can't get as this too much of it is too sloppy you know or too throw away um even you know even this I mean this song which is I think about Robin Thicke if I'm not entirely mistaken I mean who else could it be about? Robin Day. Oh, yeah, yeah, it could be. I don't know, I'll have to look it up.

But I think the thing about this as well is this particular December, the existence of anything that reminds me of a thing called Christmas is a bit frustrating and annoying, you know. But yeah, this performance of this, to me, is the best version of this that i've ever heard except for the version on the royal variety performance which is better yeah it could

have been robin asquith a highlight in a show studded with highlights it's ridiculous it just gets better and better this episode yeah and the good bits they make you forget the bad bits yeah nielsen's been banished from my mind by about this time. Yeah, you're happily watching the Jackson 5 with your cock waving in the air. Yes. So the follow-up, a cover of Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine, got to number eight for three weeks in September, and he'd rammed off the year with Ben getting to number seven three weeks ago.

Unlike Donnie, Michael was then folded back into the Jackson 5 and although he recorded an album's worth of solo material in 1973, it was quietly scrapped and then allegedly lost by Motown by the time the band had moved to Epic in 1975, which meant his solo career was put on hold for seven years when he roared back with Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, which got to number three in October of 1979. And five years after that, Motown conveniently found those 1973 recordings and put them out on the LP Farewell My Summer Love,

the title track of which getting to number seven in June of 1984. And Weenie Bopper went on to be the original singer on I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper until she was taken off the record for Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip, may have been on Video Killed the Radio Star and was a backing singer on Pink Floyd's tours of the late 80s under the name Rachel Fiore. Don't know why she changed her name. A big hit in the early 50s for Bobby Day,

and there we have the Jackson family getting it together. From one bopper sensation to another, this is T-Rex and Metal Guru. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE to another. This is T-Rex and Metal Guru. Edmund getting down with the kids tells us that that was a cover version and tells us that we're going from one bopper sensation to another

as he introduces Metal Guru by T-Rex. Formed from the ashes of Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1970, T-Rex binned off the bongos and acoustic guitars, and went electric to the disgust of their old hippie audience, and to the absolute delight of the pop craze youngsters. They immediately made their mark with Ride A White Swan which got to number two in January of 71, immediately followed it up with Hot Love which got to number one a mere two months later and featured a performance on Top Of The Pops where Chalita Secunda, the wife of the band's manager, selected that a bit of glitter on his cheeks would go nicely with his new satiny rig out,

marking the official birth of glam. Since then, it's been nothing but number ones and number twos for the band, and this, the second cut from their LP The Slider, which was recorded in Paris, Copenhagen and Los Angeles, which was recorded in Paris, Copenhagen and Los Angeles is the follow-up to Telegram Sam which got to number one for two weeks in February. It smashed into the charts at number nine in the first week of May and a week later it banished the foul stench of Amazing Grace

by the pipes and drums of the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and here they are again in a special recording for this episode. I do believe they recorded it on the same day as they did Telegram Sam for the Christmas Top of the Pops. Right. In the vital second to last slot, you'll notice, which is traditionally the place where the number one single resides. And it seems right that this is here, because if anyone has single-handedly dragged pop music

away from the Dave Deed creepy twat and cunts of the 60s and placed it squarely in the 70s, it's this man right here, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the thing. And we have to, you know, it's telling that you say this man and you don't say T-Rex. You know, for me, rock and pop is's the thing. And we have to, you know, it's telling that you say this man and you don't say T-Rex.

You know, for me, rock and pop is about the music is about collaboration. And I'm always kind of wary of foregrounding individuals, you know, much as with Bowie. The collaborators are important in Mark Bolan's case. Visconti's really important. But I do give Mark Bolan full credit for making himself a pop star, for turning electric. And he's probably, you know I love the Stones, and they'll always be my favourite band. Mark is probably the single figure individual I love the most in the entire history of British pop.

You've written some lovely articles about him now. Well, I mean, I was talking with Taylor the other day online about how neither of us have been asked to write about the Beatles. And, you know, I was so glad when the Quietus asked me to write about T-Rex because he's so important to me, Mark. He's the pop star whose death upsets me the most because I can't help thinking of what he might have done. The first thing that grabbed me with Mark Bolin wasn't his music in a way.

It was, I remember my older sister, so much comes through my older sister. She had a friend called Nathan and he had this coat whose entire lining had been transformed into a robbing kind of receptacle. And he used to go around shoplifting. And I remember he came to our house once after a trip to cov hmv uh in about 83 i think it was that'd have been about 10 or 11 and he carefully lifted this kind of record from this this mega pocket in this coat and i just remember holding it in my hand and staring and staring and staring at the cover until the image on it kind of danced with light uh it seemed full

of possibility and that record you know even before i'd heard a lick of the music was electric warrior by t-rex and i was i was hooked from that moment just looking at it i didn't get to hear that record straight away the thing that first hooked me musically into mark was one of those double lp compilations that came out in the 80s. It was a Mark Bowler one with a white sleeve. I remember it very distinctly. I mean, really on the radio and on sort of archive shows and stuff like that, Get It On was pretty much the only Mark

you heard anywhere at that time. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on that compilation in terms of, you know, Side of Gold, Easy Action and the singles. But beyond the delight of discovering that music he was properly inspirational at that time in my life as somebody trying to play guitar he taught me in a way that no other guitarist i was listening to at the time was you can play get it on you can play 20th century boy really quite easily because Mark took inspiration from what we might call simple music in a sense Metal Guru is quite a simple song it's got about three four chords in it but what a big fucking

walloping slab of wonder this record is remain it probably remains one of my favorite T-Rex singles yeah it's a song that's all chorus it's he and Visconti's most wall of sound production. But as ever with Mark, it's full of those little details that always, for me, lift him a bit apart, lift him a bit beyond. But I better shut up because I could talk about Mark all night. He's so, so important to me. Yeah, this is my favourite T-Rex single. It's a toss-up between this and Solid Gold, Easy Action.

And the fact we've never spoken about t-rex before i think this was one of the main reasons why i went for this right when i watched it it's like oh my god we've got to cover this and then when this happens like right okay that's it yeah completely i don't know this record it's just irresistible i mean there is not a better intro phrase than oh whoa yeah the way that Mark does it at the beginning. It just launches you into this thing. The performance on this episode is actually a mess and Mark seems a bit out of it.

The band seem a bit pissed. It's got a kind of fag end of the Christmas party feel to it. It doesn't matter because you can still hear the record and the record's amazing. This is a victory lap, isn't it? Yeah, that's probably why he's been at the champers. It's so clear on the coke and the record's amazing. This is a victory lap, isn't it? Yeah, that's probably why he's been at the Shampers. It's so clear. And the Coke and the fry-up.

But some committed miming of the Congas, though, is such an important part of this record. Good to see everyone taking their responsibilities seriously. I missed this for my birthday number one by a couple of weeks. A friend of mine got it. I got Amazing Grace by the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, appropriately enough. But yeah, even with Mark a little bit too loose, as I dare to say he is here,

you still get that same particular energy from this performance, which is so different from Slade or Gary Glitter or any of T-Rex's peers, because there's no wink, there's no grin, there's no pantomime dame moves. There's nothing to suggest that this is a laugh or even to acknowledge that there's anything

recreational happening here so in his head this is all deadly serious and dragons really do exist which of course is what makes it work the way it does it's an entire enchanted castle held up by the imagination you know but his conviction is so strong and so appealing that you're totally confident walking up the stairs, you know. If somebody says, hang on, this whole group is just a few ancient rock and roll riffs repeated endlessly over a basic boogie beat with like an old Sid Barrett impersonator off his head

chanting ludicrous rhymes over the top well you can't say that they're factually wrong but you can wonder how they get out of bed every day on what is after all just a little round rock spinning pointlessly in empty space full of jabbering hairless monkeys I mean mean, it's one way of looking at it, but you've got something missing if that's all you can see. It's, oh, you know, sex is just two or three people bumping against each other, right? And what's the big deal with a sunset?

I mean, my word, I'm a cynical man in my old age, but if I ever end up like that, I'll save the rest of the world the pain of putting up with me. You look at Mark's eyes sparkling drunkenly in the studio lights here. I mean, he can barely stay upright in this clip. And still, right there is a physical representation of all the valid reasons to stay alive. The thing about Mark Bolan is, if you came up to me and said, well, look, here's this pop star that's coming on soon, right?

He's really influenced by Tolkien. He goes around thinking he's summer. He claims to be the most important poet of his generation. He ponces about big style and girls really like him. I think, well, fuck off with that. Why do I need that in my life? And if the person had said, well, no, it's Mark Bol be like oh fucking yes put him on now everything wrong and pretentious about pop you could sum up with mark bolan but if you think that then you're not looking at pop right

yeah and also everything that's shameless and mercenary about pop in a sense i mean that was what was weird for me in 83 you know getting into this artist and then you know inevitably at the time you'd go to the locarno slash the library you'd have to read books about these people because there wasn't anything in the contemporary magazines and most of what i was reading about mark boland in most rock literature if you like or the rock textbooks conformed to that kind of lingering perception of him in the press towards the mid 70s as kind of somewhat shameless. A chaser of mass appeal, like that's a bad thing. Like that shouldn't be the point when it so clearly

nearly always should be, you know. And the books and the pop encyclopedias that was pretty much all I had to go on in order to flesh out my listening, they had him down basically as a fly-by-night and a kind of flash in the pan, whose demise and disappearance were a kind of inevitable result of his limitations um and you know bowie roxy pioneers bowling kind of

a bit of a cut above mud perhaps but not by much yeah he's always been seen as the celerity bowies mozart isn't it totally which i would massively disagree i mean I mean, look, it's not a competition. I do prefer Mark to David. But I also found the narrative, once I read further and deeper, of how Mark had that Judas moment that you mentioned, you know. I found that moment when he went electric, when Peel disdained him, you know, when he appears at the Wheelie Festival just outside Clacton with the faces and status quo in August 71, and he gets booed off. Well, he gets booed because he comes on and says hello you might have seen me on top of the pot summer star i mean he gives a good quote there's no denying it mark he he he really does

he pisses off exactly the right people but i found all of that tremendously exciting and and i mean as soon as he starts appealing to teenage girls that section of the audience that's basically responsible for so much of pop history but so disdained and seen as an instant sign of creative bankruptcy by rock critics that i i just think the critics got mark so wrong yeah and when my sister finally borrowed electric warrior and i got to listen to it it was one of my first lessons if you, in how deceitful the canon can be in a way and reductive and wrong it can be. I mean, look, if you're a kid and you drop the needle on Mambo Sun or Ripoff or Motivate or anything like that,

or if we're talking about The Slider and you start listening to stuff like Buick, McCain and Chariot, Chiggle, that's going to hook you. This is a guy, he's natural, he's weird, he's beyond artifice and his music is just intensely intensely pleasurable and that's the key thing in this period in particular i do think in this early 70s period of increasing kind of wooliness and ponderousness for progressive sounds it is revolutionary what he does um an attempt to in a sense simplify or distill things. Much like Sabbath World. I mean, not comparable, but much like Sabbath World

or Modern Lovers or the New York Dolls. These are the interesting people, the little Richard freaks in the early 70s who don't just put on a pair of brothel creepers or do the kind of Happy Days type shit. They bring back the weirdness of 50s and old music. That's the crucial thing with mark i think you know all of his inspirations throughout any interview you read with mark boland he's going to disdain everyone who's contemporary and white you know he's going to slag off slade he's going to slag off bowie

he's going to he's going to talk about black music almost exclusively because all he listened to is black music old r&b and blues and rock and roll and stuff. But whereas a lot of white musicians at the time were taking those old forms and playing them at a billion miles an hour to prove their virtuosity, Mark just innately understood the weirdness of that music, the kookiness. And he populated those kind of forms with his own shape and style. That's why I come back to the guitar playing thing. The delight you have as a young player when you can genuinely play like your heroes, when you can play like Mark.

And it is easy to play like Mark. He's such an important teacher in that regard. He is a bit of a mess in this performance. And the official version, I guess, for even those people who like Mark and T-Rex is that he starts losing it pretty soon. You know, this is his king year. But I don't know think of the

singles that are about to come you know groover 20th century boys solid gold easy action it's difficult to see it as a moment where he falls off things are going to start falling apart for him personally soon you know his marriage breaks down next year he treats his band really shoddily and tony visconti really shoddily And that doesn't help his sense of isolation and paranoia. You can see how big his ego is getting that year. I mean, there's a brilliant quote from him in 72 when he's asked about, you know, the supposed feud with David Bowie. And he says, I don't consider David to be even remotely near big enough to give me any competition. You know, he says it's quite a long quote,

but I'm going to read it because I think it's revealing. At the time the feud story hit England, my records were number one and they stayed number one while David's never came near. I don't think that David has anywhere near the charisma or balls that I have or Alice has or Donny Osmond has got. David's not going to make it in any sort of way. The papers try and manufacture a lot of things.

They try to do something with Slade. Slade's just a jive little group who are quite sweet and bang about a lot. They're very valid for what they do, but I don't think anyone can seriously compare them to me. Whether you think I'm good or bad, I'm still the best-selling poet in England. I don't think anyone enslaved can write four words. And I don't mean to be condescending. They're nice people.

Bowie just doesn't have that sort of quality that I do. I always have. Rod Stewart has it in his own mad way. Elton John has it. Mick Jagger has it. Michael Jackson has that quality. David Bowie doesn't, I'm sorry to say. Right now, I'm the biggest selling poet in England.

I hope to be even bigger. I mean, those kind of arrogant quotes are going to piss people off. And of course, it's setting himself up for the overwhelming narrative later on in the decade to be in a sense that David won that feud. Yeah. He might as well have finished that quote with the phrase, and I will never, ever get my comeuppance. Yes.

Yeah, he's setting himself up for huge hubris. But I would actually argue that in terms of apprehending and absorbing contemporary black pop, the moves that David, Bowie and Roxy make sort of by about 75, they lag behind what Mark's about to do with Tanks and with the Zinc Alloy albums I think those albums are fantastic and this is the thing for me he never made a bad record that run from 70 to 77 isn't really spoken about like that I mean I'm a fan boy I'll even argue the toss for

Bolan's Zip Gun and Futuristic Dragon and things like that things that are commonly seen as sad documents of a demise but I still get a lot of delight from them. I think he stayed hungry till the end and he was making amazing music all the way through to the end. Well, no, I agree that he didn't make a bad record. I think he made a less good record. Yeah. I don't think he made a bad one. And I think, in fact, you can hear in this

the beginning of what was going to begin with Tanks, of that sort of sludging up of T-Rex, right, which made them less good, but it didn't make them not good, you know? I mean, this song is blatantly half-finished, which is something that I sort of like about it. But that slackness can happen when very narcissistic people become successful because the drive for success that they had which made them

try so hard because it was necessary for them to succeed which was necessary for their psychological survival um when they get what they want can sort of go a bit yeah and they can just find themselves you know like hey you know everything i I do is great because I'm so fascinating. And, yeah, I mean, the whole purpose of this song is to be incredibly repetitive. But you can sort of feel that lack of a bridge or a middle eight and the sort of swollen confidence just to listen to that lovely, sighing and hysterical circular melody and just think, well, there it is.

There's the song. That's all we need. know pasta champagne um but i mean to be honest i don't care and the only thing that annoys me about that is the fact that it means there's a subsequent shortage of lyrics because the more words in a boland song the better as far as i'm concerned i mean of course he wasn't any kind of poet as he idiotically believed himself to be because nothing he ever wrote has got any actual meaning or weight to it of any kind. But he was a fabulous writer,

just purely in terms of creating streams of words which were cliche-free and flowed directly from this very singular imagination. People scoff at nonsense, but there's nonsense, and then there's nonsense, right? Like the lyrics of Mark Bolan, like the more elevated artistic and disturbed lyrics of his hero, Sid Barrett, are nonsense,

but they're a completely different proposition to, for example, the lyrics of Noel Gallagher. Yeah, yeah. And it's not because they've been worked on harder and it's not because they mean more. They probably mean less, if anything. But it's the difference between, on the one hand, writing that transports and disorientates you

and stimulates your mind with surprises and illogical angles and unusual thought and on the other hand just just mental incontinence just dripping from a fundamentally ordinary brain you know it's like i'd said this in the past like defending monty python it's like the difference between surrealism and the kind of shit that the kids call lol random like one of them is potent and the other one is inert because like anyone can write down the first thing that comes into their head and get across between a nursery rhyme a shopping list and just a rerun of other people's cliches, like, you know, Gallagher style.

Whereas it's the definition of talent to look inside your head and immediately see something a little bit more unusual than that. And obviously a lot of it is in the delivery, because let's face it, if Mark Bolan had sung Slowly Walking Down the Hall

Faster Than a Cannonball, it would sound visionary, right? And if Oan had sung slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball it would sound visionary and if Oasis had sung I have never ever kissed a car before it's like a door we'd all just snort appropriately enough but the thing is

even when Mark Bolan has got no inspiration and the song is just a riff and the words obviously don't seem to have come, you still end up with something like Space Boss, a song which I love, even though it mostly just goes, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you now the Space Boss? And if I had a load of money,

I would patent one of those plastic boxes that goes under the bed like for storage and down the side of a wardrobe or something and call it the space boss whenever i used to look at the tv listings a few years ago there was always a show on which i never saw called cake boss and it always gave me that earworm okay boss but in a way what mark does with his lyrics if they were all just kind of nonsensical mashups of science fiction and 50s imagery they wouldn't work occasionally he does reach your heart in a deep deep way my youngest sophia looks like mark bowling she's got long curly hair and she looks mark bowling and we were listening to space ball ricochet in the car,

which is one of the great songs off Slider. And of course there's that line, me and my Les Paul, even though I'm small, I enjoy living anyway. It's a beautiful line, man, and it touches her. The way she looks at Mark is really quite amusing, actually. I catch her sometimes just looking at pictures of him. And, you know, clearly in love.

Slight maybe narcissism because she does look a bit like him but um you know he does get you in the heart and and he's probably the rock death in a way that upsets me the most his death in 77 is for me the most upsetting rock bereavement of all time next to kind of jimmy i think not just because of the horrible random tragedy of the nature of his death but because like jimmy i still get the sense even after dandy in the underworld which i think is probably his worst record you get the sense that there's a man who's got still got a lot to offer and so much more to give and just as it's heartbreaking thinking of what jimmy might have done in the 70s i feel robbed in a sense even if it was was going to be disastrous mark in the late 70s early 80s when so much of what was going on in uk pop music was so clearly

made by his devotees and that goes all the way from i don't know pete shelly to simon lebon you know when he finally gets starts getting taken seriously as one of british pop music's most important figures he's not there and and i do wonder what he would have done with the changing technology of 80s pop oh he would so have made a synth out oh without a doubt and probably he would have ended up i don't know propping up the sofa on on pebble mill with gloria honeyford or something but i wish i could have seen it you know every morning when i drop my sophia at school, I say the same thing. Have a good day.

Try your best. Make us proud. Keep a little mark in your heart. And she says, keep a little mark in your heart. But if I send one message out to the pot-crazed youngsters, I think everyone should keep a little mark in your heart. And if you've got Mark down, I don't know, it's just a singles artist, or, you know, don't. Get those albums, all of those albums and dig in

because there's so much wonder in there. 1972 really was Mark Bolinger, wasn't it? He did the gig at the Empire Pool, which the NME splashed all over the front page saying, full report on the incredible concert that changed the face of British rock. He danced, he pranced, danced,anced danced strutted screamed seemed unquestioned lord of them all this was mark boland at wembley on saturday love him or love him the truth was plain to see boland's time had come and then they've got a photo of ringo star who was making

the film about mark boland which is in the cinema this week just staring on, looking awestruck and more importantly being surrounded by people who don't give the slightest fuck that there's a beagle in front of them. Yeah, but I mean what should happen of course is

that Mark's success should mean that he's accepted by that kind of tier of rock royalty a little bit. But he's not. You know, and quite the other day, oddly enough, on Facebook, I saw a photo of Mark Bolan with Robert Plant. And I thought, that ain't right. That can't be real. And it is shopped.

When I dug into it, it was shopped. Because Led Zeppelin aren't going to hang around with Mark Bolan. Mark Bolan's appearing in Jackie magazine. And he starts in this period anyway, 72, 73, certainly to pick up a lot of snotiness from the music press about pretty much everything he does, precisely because he started appealing to teenage girls. So, yeah, he is kind of kept out of that tier, if you like. Have you got a favourite Mark Bolan line?

I think mine is probably from Raw Ramp. I mean, almost all of raw ramp you know i was like a baby i got metal knees oh yeah lady your lips are the most baby your mouth is like a ghost woman i love your chest baby i'm crazy about your breasts you think you're, but girl, you ain't nothing but a raw ramp. Or that amazing non sequitur from The Slider. I have always, always grown my own before. Yeah. All schools are strange.

No, no, no, wait, wait, wait. My favourite one. no no no wait wait wait my favorite one the actual transition moment between the tolkien woodland bollocks i mean i like a lot of transverse rex but it is tolkien woodland bollocks and pop art absurdism which is at the end of sun eye on the first t-rex album um the last lines of which let me see if i can remember them off the top of my head tree wizard the pure tongue the digger of holes swan king the elf lord the eater of souls live on the black the rider of stars tyrannosaurus re, the eater of cars. Oh, man. He could do anything. It's like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, that last line.

It's like, it reminds me of when I used to take LSD, and sometimes me and my friends would get pen and paper out and write for an hour or so, and then do readings for each other with everyone in hysterics on acid, laughing at each other's unfathomable blank verse. And when you see that writing the next day, it's just gibberish, but it's not banal gibberish

because it's gibberish from peculiar places that you don't quite recognise, parts of your mind you don't usually use. The only line I can ever remember from that was, we think of broil, toilet twats, retractable outlet crabs, which is basically a less terse sleep of a lot of lyrics. But I'd take it over Don't Look Back in Anger, you know what I mean, or the 20th century book of English verse.

I mean, it's a talent to be able to do that at will. And if you can mix that talent with immense personal charisma and absolutely zero self-consciousness, and you take those skills to the one art form that really appreciates them, it's astonishing what you can do in terms of miraculous achievements although you know he made so much great music when i think about sort of his charm you know for five minutes he makes you not mind cilla black yes when they do you know that that is testament to the power of the man. And one thing, I mean, when I was a kid, T-Rex isn't in my life.

All I can remember of T-Rex, I was convinced that they had witches in their band. Those backing singers who were male, who were just keen and howl. And it was terrifying. I expected to turn on top of the pops. And you want me to have a lieutenant pigeon in me there with her major, keen and howling if there

weren't witches there were definitely some hags on this record oh definitely definitely so metal guru would spend four weeks at number one eventually giving way to vincent by don mcclain the follow-up children of the revolution got to number two for three weeks in september and october held off the top by mama we're all crazy now by slade and how can i be sure by david cassadare and they round off the year with solid gold easy action as the christmas number three getting to number two on the first week of 1973 oh that's a banger. Oh, absolutely. What a fucking record. Hey, hey, hey. Evening. Guess everybody, you know.

That's T-Rex and Metal Guru. And that's it, we've run right out of time. A reminder that next week, Top of the Pops at a different time. It's 6.45. Anyway, best wishes for the new year from everyone here. Tell you what, we'll play Back Off Boogaloo by Ringo Starr. Thanks very much indeed for watching. And we'll see you next week for another edition of...

Top of the Bars. Oh! We cut back to Blackburn and Edmonds reunited once more as Beardo Kunt, who has nicked that red nose off his mate and is proudly wearing it, sticks his face in between them. They remind us that next week's Top of the Pops is on at 6.45. Thank us for watching and throw us into the final single of the night, Back Off Boogaloo by Ringo Starr. Born in Liverpool in 1940, Ringo Starr was the drummer in The Beatles, a band who teamed up with Tony Sheridan for a cover of My Bonnet, which got to number 48 in June of 1963. After achieving success with Sentimental Journey, a covers LP which got to number seven in April of 1970, he was encouraged to have a go at something a bit more modern by

his old bandmate George Harrison and his debut single It Don't Come Easy got to number four for three weeks in May of 1971. This is the follow-up again co-written with harrison and originally offered to sell a black and heavily influenced by someone ringo was working on a film with at the time mark bolan it entered the charts at number 18 in april and scaled its way upward getting to number two for two weeks at the end of that month getting wedged behind the scottish bagpipe cunts and here it is being played while you know the audience has a bit of a rave up with lots of balloons and all sorts yeah so yeah here we go it is your beacles bit and it is really weird having the Beatles in there because they seem

so far away and distant from this angle it's a weird older person's choice to close the show with but three sort of decent solo singles from Ringo in three years it don't come easy, this one

and Photograph and I've now talked about all three of them on Chart Music like a Ringo Starr super fan a ringologist if you will you know when he said no more fan mail no more letters peace and love that was because of me

but look I mean none of those singles are as good as the Beatles but they're all as good as anything Ringo ever sang with the Beatles possibly better so he at least progressed you know and it's interesting to see this right after T-Rex because it is

post T-Rex in every sense and yeah he was good mates with Bolan and all that and it's genuinely quite weird to hear an older and more broadly well known musician copying a bit of t-rex and writing lyrics like you think you're a groove standing there in your wallpaper shoes um i mean the whole thing it's like the words and music of t-rex strained through the brain of a non-songwriter

and then through the beard of ringo yeah and and slowed down almost to stationary with five crates of brandy you know and it could be a lot worse it's better than most of what john lennon was doing around this time oh yeah you know the man who put the fist in pacifist out of his face in new york thinking that abby hoffman and and David Peel were the vanguard of the fucking revolution. And although this song was secretly co-written with George Harrison, like almost all the songs ever credited to Ringo were, it's better than anything George Harrison was doing at the time or ever would again.

And, you know, it relied very heavily on the general likability and an unthreatening charm of ringo star but so does everything he ever did with the exception of the drumming which stands up by itself so i say let him have it you know in the good way yeah i mean you could you could say that ringo has won 1972 out of all the b-clubs i mean lennon's done some time in new york city and his only single of the year has been war is over which is currently at number four paul mccartney's busy forming wings and getting his records banned and harrison has just shot his bolt hasn't he the thing

is ringo was always really likable and perhaps at this time you know two years after the beatles split and with george john and paul being all serious basically um it's the sheer sort of fun aspect of what he does that's appealing and this record's dead good um it really does sound like a track is is 10 for a good buddy Mark Bowler might have made albeit missing uh Mark's guitar but but the drums and the feel of it the role of it it's fantastic and crucially of course uh this gives us a chance to capture it with all the friends we've made watching this episode uh in the audience balloons we all hate them i'm slightly annoyed that no blokes in this audience did either the pregnancy joke or the i have tits joke um It should really happen with balloons, but you know.

My Diana Rigg-alike former crush doesn't look quite as good, but I was massively intrigued by the conversation between Uber Mum, who we've already established before, and Tony. Tony and her have a very intriguing conversation. I couldn't lip-read it properly, but I'd love to know what they say to each other. No, they're very familiar with each other to the point where for a second I wondered if this was actually Mrs Blackburn Senior. But then she

threw him a look which immediately made me think, ah right, that's not his mum. God bless her she thought he was dishy. Perhaps they shared a small sherry afterwards. Slipped off their slip-on shoes. It's possible.

So has everyone seen Get Back, the in-bed-with-Chris-Needham-that-thinks-it's-summer? Yes! Or did the thought of listening to seven hours of men talking to each other about old music make you want to throw up? I thought the best bit was where ringo goes up to mick jagger's room and punched him in the face and said i'm not even the best drummer in the beatles or maybe i'm mixing up two apocryphal tales there but still print the legend no look i thought it

was fascinating but of course i did you know except for the fact that it's all got a fucking instagram filter on it thanks for that peter jackson it's like the amount of processing they've done on the picture it looks like it looks like they're a bunch of 22 year old rich girls in white bikinis doing handstands on a beach in dubai i was expecting george to turn around with like an animal nose and muzzle on his face. Although he actually looks worse than that when he shows up at Apple in a... Looking like a young Frank Muir, basically. Or at least one of the Murets.

He's got triangular hair, moustache and a dickie bow like a country doctor. You know what I mean? He should have got together with the sorceress from Lieutenant Pigeon and told us what ozostomia means. Did you watch it all in one go, Taylor? Or did you watch it in chunks? No, even I didn't watch it all in one go.

I watched each of the three parts in one go. Right. Because I was thinking of, yeah, setting myself the test of just getting through it all in one day. But I suspect myself the test of just getting through it all in one day but i suspect by the end of it i'll be antagonized more than enjoying it so maybe i should divvy it up but yeah i can't wait to see it yeah even in three parts you miss stuff because there's just so much babble it just you don't catch it no i'm i'm avoiding it i haven't finished

squid game yet so you know it's the beardles it's the period of their career that I'm least interested in yeah if it had been about the making of Revolver or Sgt Pepper or even the White Album I'd have been all over it

but no yeah I must admit at the end I was thinking I wish that they'd thought wait a minute I completely forgot we did a film like this about all our other albums as well.

That would have been great. I must admit that hearing people bang on about it on Facebook has given me some serious fucking Star Wars vibes. God has stayed my hand on many an occasion. From me just flicking on the all caps button and just saying, shut up about the fucking Beatles. No way. I will not. I know. I know i know i know i'll tell you what what it what this film proves yet again about ringo other than the fact that he was permanently hung over is that he was a genuinely relaxing person to be around because he had so few hang-ups as opposed to the other three like the theme

running through the whole thing is that despite their relationship heading for the rocks john and paul's incredible closeness is obvious in every scene from the way they always speak to each other naturally and unselfconsciously even if they'reing, in a way that neither of them ever speaks to George, who's always on the outside, even when he's onside with one of them in a disagreement with the other. Nobody ever speaks to him in that way. And nobody's comfortable with him

because they can tell he's got the hump and also because they can tell he's trying to assert himself more within the group. And Lennon and McCartney both know he's not as smart or talented as they are even though the songs he wrote in 1969 are as good as the songs they wrote in 1969 which is the only

time that ever happened but the awkwardness comes from that it's the inability of George to break into a stagnant but incredibly deep alliance between two people who love him but they know that he's not an equal. And the point is, with Ringo, that's just not an issue.

Like, Ringo knows that they're smarter and more talented than he is. They know that they're more smart and talented than he is. But none of them care. It's not relevant to their relationship at all. I mean, people always play that game of, oh, if the B-Clclass had kept going throughout the 70s what would their albums be and you know this would be automatically be lumped on because it was a hit but you just think if george harrison had turned up with this is it is a song for ringo the other

two would go oh it's all right mate we've got it covered yeah maybe beyond the period detail of it i think what's probably going to break my heart the most when I do watch it is it's evocation of an era in which you could just make music for a living that to me is miraculous that they have nothing else to do you know that to me is

amazing, in an era now in which virtually everyone making music has to have a day job and has to have all the rest. And, you know, you can't survive doing it. To be able to just do that and that being your life, that's miraculous. So I do, yeah, desperately want to see it. I'm pencilling it in for Boxing Day, I think.

I'm going to stick with the On The Buses trilogy. No, because I know I'll just be looking at and just shouting at paul mccartney just saying just fucking walk away and have a decent start to your solo career mate i'll tell you what right i don't know i was watching the rooftop concert bit at the end and i don't know is this just me being unfairly prejudiced against the police many of whom are very committed public servants who do an extremely difficult job in extremely difficult circumstances or was anyone else surprised that when

they finally got onto the roof while the Beatles were performing they didn't just immediately run over to Billy Preston and bundle him to the floor is this your Fender Rhodes Sonny? You saved up for it did you? That's a nice coat you're wearing.

But I tell you what, all through the rooftop concert as well, I was thinking, that's a lot of weight on that roof. Are you absolutely sure about this? How amazing would it have been if halfway through, they'd all just gone through the roof? Don't let me. Ah! That would have been the greatest end to a career ever.

Right? No pop history would just have ended there. Nobody could have topped it. Wish that happened when you two did it. So the follow-up photograph got to number eight in November of 1973. Then your 16 got to number four for two non-consecutive weeks in March of 1974. And then Ringo went off to the pub with Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon for the rest of the 70s. And that, my dears, closes the book on this astonishing episode of Top of the Pops.

Nine months after this episode was broadcast, Jonny Stewart signed off as producer of Top of the Pops after 498 episodes, passing the reins over to Robin Nash, the producer of The Basil Brush Show and Cracker Jack. Stewart moved on to assorted music shows such as One More Time, Talk of the Town and In Concert, and finished his career in 1980 as the director of Cheggers Plays Pop, passing away in 2005 at the age of 87. In June of 1973, Edmonds took over from Blackburn as the host of The Breakfast Show, with Tony being demoted to the Simon Bates slot. According to an interview with David Hamilton, quote, There is a tape of a handover between Noel and Tony that is so frosty, you can see the icicles in the studio

yeah and not too long after that noel for a jpe decided to play a single that tony had done with tessa wyatt under an assumed name and let the cat out of the bag and then oh yeah that daggers were drawn after that i bet apparently blackburn gave him a right bollocking and that that was it that was friendship over what a lot changing of the guard i think chart music owes alistair johnny stewart a tip of the hat for for creating a fucking amazing episode here definitely um and instigating some things in Top of the Pops that would be so important in its imperial phase. So what's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One immediately piles into Sykes,

where Eric buys a transport calf and punts it up to the dismay of the clientele, which includes Fred Quilly Bent Jockey. So he and Hattie Jakes make it all chatty again. Then Cliff Mitchellmore shows you some more places to go on holiday that your mum and dad can't afford or won't go to because it's all foreign muck in holiday 73. After the nine o'clock news Robert Wagner and David McCallum try to nick off from cold hits and then Tom Jones arses about in Gstaad and has a snowball fight with Dusty

Springfield in his own show and they round off the night with a documentary film, The Life and Times of Miguel de Cervantes then it's the weather then regional news in your area and then they shut down at 10 to midnight. Now you see if this was really

the golden age of the BBC as we've been, as it's been sold to us, it would have been, on BBC One at 7.45, the big film Gunnar Björnstrand stars in Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light. A priest wrestles with his conscience and his doubts

about the existence of God with hilarious consequences. That's the big film, Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, 7.45 on BBC One. I mean, what is fucking Christmas without that film? BBC Two tells the story of the making of Lily Marlaine in their European magazine show Europa. Then it's part 14 of the dramatisation of War and Peace.

Only six more episodes to go. Still time to catch up then horizon compares the canals of britain with their european counterparts and concludes that once again we're fucking cat shit after news on two it's the canadian tv movie the mad trapper about a real-life manhunt conducted by the Mounties in the 30s and they sign off with Georgia Brown in concert closing down at midnight. ITV eventually get round to Nearest and Dearest where one of Eli Pledge's mates crashes round and tries to cop off with his sister Hilda Baker leading to everyone at the pickling factory to assume that she must be an incredible shag and all the men folks start chasing her then it's this week

news at 10 Clive James banging on about his films of the year in cinema gardening today with Bob Price and Cyril Fletcher and they finish off with the 1964 Dirk Bogard spy comedy, Hot Enough for June. So, boys, what are we talking about over our rally choppers in the street tomorrow? Definitely, Mark. Definitely Crazy Horses. Jackson 5 probably enslaved, but mainly Alice, I think. Or what a nice man that Rolf Harris is.

Realistically, I think most kids would have been talking about the fact that some old man did a song about playing with his dick. Despite the fact that this is actually one of the least interesting things that happened in this episode. What are we buying with our new record tokens on Saturday? Well, pretty much all of them. Let me rephrase that. What are we not buying with new record tokens on Saturday? Well, pretty much all of them. Let me rephrase that. What are we not buying with our record tokens on Saturday?

Nielsen and Donny. Yeah, I'm just buying 1972. I'd have that for Christmas this year if I could. But I think someone's already got me a never-ending global pandemic. So maybe next year. Yeah, all of it. Even the rubbish, I don't care and what does this episode tell us about 1972 that it was fucking skilled yes and mint yeah the basically

that it was just as we imagine it from programs like top of the pops the amazing pop records old world strangeness and sex offenders everywhere you look, you know. Britain was like a dry stool wrapped in gold leaf, wrapped in decomposing fish skin, wrapped in a sequined green jacket. It's not all great, but there's a lot of layers to explore. And on that note, we come to the end of this episode of Chart Music. All I need to do now is the usual promotional flange.

www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music podcast Reach out to us on Twitter at chart music t-o-t-p money down the g-string patreon.com slash chart music thank you very much taylor parks goodbye god bless you neil culcane it's been a pleasure my name's al needham you might have heard me on chart music I'm a star. Chart music. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's.

It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Mm, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Mm. Who brightens up my bedroom wall? Who looks at me when I sleep at night who do I think of when I go to

school each day David David Donnie Donnie Michael we love you all and I just can't stop dreaming about you, can't stop thinking about you, can't stop talking about you now.

Yes, we love you all. Yes, we love you all David, I think of you every night Donny, each day I'm at school You are on my mind Michael, I hope someday we'll be able to meet Perhaps that day won't be so far away. In association with the British Market Research Bureau

and compiled by the Pop Craze Patreons, Search Bureau and compiled by the Pop Craze Patreons we present the Chart Music Top Forte of 2021. In at number forte AB Robinson. Number 39

The Dishy Soccer Men. Number 38 The Bad Wolves. Number 37, Chip Pan's People. And this year's number 36, Backing Arse. In at number 35, Sex Vagrancy. Number 34, Spiteful armoured bollock.

The number 33 act of the year, 15 hicklers. Number 32, Quentin and the Axeman. And number 31, staircase of cock. Into the top 30 and at 30, beards of complacency. Number 29, panties. Number 28, Friar David. panties number 28 friar david in at number 27 tyler the xxx privately educated and at number 26 oven ready women the number 25 act of the year d Dave D, Creepy Twat and Cunt. Number 24, Saxon Finder General.

Number 23, James Galway's Flute VD. And at number 21, Skin He-heady. Into the top 20 and at number 20, Tandoori Elephant. Number 19, the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys of Quality Street. Number 18, a tip for next year, the popular orange vegetable.

Number 17, the Continuity Westlife. Number 16, the Cuppatino Kid. In at number 15, Shocks, Piss, Fire. Number 14, Fucks Biz. This year's number 13, Jawwaddy Waddy. Number 12, Romo Cop.

And at number 11, The sound of the summer of 2021, Nolan Tentacle Porn. It's time for the Child Music Top 10. And at number 10, Concerned Mother of Exeter he's made it all the way to number 9 this year Mario Cunt

in at number 8 C-Fax Data Blast number 7 Taylor Parks 20 Romantic Moments and at number 6 Jeff Sex 20 romantic moments. And at number six, Jeff Sex.

Into the top five and at five, Jesus Price. Number four, here comes Jizzle. Number three, Bomber Dog. Number two, Bomber Dog.

Number two, rock expert David Stubbs, which means number one in your heart, number one in your charts. It could only be the bent cunts who aren't fucking real. That was the Chart Music Top 40 of 2021. My name's Al Needham, and on behalf of everyone at Chart Music, I'd just like to say, fuck off, 2021!

You were shit, and we are skill!