Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #64 (Pt 4): 26.4.84 – Metal Mickey Dropping His Guts

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

Neil Kulkarni, Simon Price and Al Needham bring this episode of Top Of The Pops to a close by blanching at the sight of Julio Iglesias practically caressing Willie Nelson’s beer gut, scratch their heads at Echo and the Bunnymen channelling the spirit of Spinal Tap, witnessing the Flying Pickets performing in front of a massive Guess Who board, and attempting to get a handle on Lionel Richie and his massive clay head…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 28 minutes to 8. It's the 26th of April, 1984. And this episode of Top of the Pops is laden with the thick and choking musk of real dad's issues. Divorce pop, crumpety nostalgia, Pigeon Street reggae and wind cheaters. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the denouement of Chart Music 64.

I'm Al Needham and I'm standing firm with Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni so come on, let's saddle up and ride this ponet into the final furlong of this episode of Top of the Pops. Giddy up!

And I reckon that that one could be number one next week. You remember that Julio Iglesias guy? He's teamed up with another guy by the name of Willie Nelson. They've come up with this one, and it's called To All The Girls I've Loved Before. To All The Girls I've Loved Before We cut back to Janice flanked by another woman in a hoopy vest dress and some bloke who still feels it's acceptable to dress up like your man in tight fit in 1984.

With a smattering of actual real life kids at the back, one of whom is clearly arsing about and demanding our attention by jumping about and that she asks us to recall the dark days of late 1981 and prepares us for to all the girls i've loved before by willie nelson and julio iglesias born in abbott texas in 1933 willie n Nelson began his musical career at the age of 13, playing guitar in bars and dance halls so he could avoid picking cotton on his school holidays. After joining the Air Force in 1950 and then being cashed out due to a bad back nine months later, he landed a job as a disc jockey with a view to financing his own recordings, but they were all rejected by local

record labels. After a DJ stint at Washington State, a nightclub residency in Colorado, and another DJ gig in Waco, he moved to Houston and divided his time selling Bibles and encyclopedias by day and doing club gigs at night whilst working as a jobbing songwriter on the side. Convinced his future lay in the latter profession, he moved to Nashville in 1960. Once there, he started knocking about with the cast and crew of the Grand Ole Opry and was linked up with a touring band called the Cherokee Cowboys. And a year later, he'd written Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away for Billy Walker and Crazy for Patsy Cline. After signing to RCA as a solo artist in

1964 he became a regular fixture in the Billboard country chart in the latter half of the decade including getting to number 13 in March of 1968 with a cover of Bring Me Sunshine, the Morecambe and Wise theme. But it wouldn't be until 1982 that he made any kind of dent on the British chart when his cover of Elvis' Always On My Mind got to number 49 in July of that year. A year later, while Nelson was in London on tour, his third wife heard a singer on the radio she'd never heard of before and told him that it'd be nice if he did a duet with him. That singer turned out to be Julio Iglesias,

the son of a Franco-supporting gynaecologist and former Real Madrid B-team goalie, whose cover of Begin the Begin got to number one for a week in December of 1981. After getting his manager to get in touch with him, and still unaware that he was actually one of the biggest selling artists in the world at the time, they met up in Los Angeles and got on like a house on fire. Albert Hammond was roped in to produce, and he suggested this song, which was written by himself and Hal David,

with Frank Sinatra in mind, which ended up on Hammond's 1975 LP, 99 Miles From L.A. Although it's Nelson who's done all the legwork, or his missus in any case, it turns out to be the lead-off single from Iglesias' new LP, 111 Bell Air Place, a concerted effort by CBS to put the Spanish lad over in America, as it also features collaborations with Diana Ross and the Beach Boys.

And it goes without saying that it's been played to death in this country by Terry Wogan. It came out in mid-March and took five weeks to get into the top 40. And this week, the needle has barely moved as it's only gone up one place from number 36 to number 35. But the BBC are clearly obliged to do something for the oldens this week. So here's a video of a concert performance and chaps, the average age of the talent pool in this episode has been jacked up considerably. I'm really proud that it only got to number 17 here, you know,

because it feels like a much bigger hit than it was because, yeah, it was on the radio all the fucking time. It was getting to that bit of the 80s where we were being forced to um bow down to american stuff yeah or not and it's good that there was still a bit of rebellion in this that we wouldn't do that but yeah um to all the girls i've loved before who've traveled in and out my door um does that make it the first billboard top five hit about pegging i don't know so willie nelson right he's he's dressed like he's on american pickers or something he's got yeah he's in fucking pigtails and a headband you won't believe what barrel the peril looks like today it's bad he's got he's got these brown trainers that look like those kind of unbranded

ones you might get in a market yes and he's got a T-shirt of his own name in the shape of Texas, which is, it's not cool. It's not cool. No. On the back, it says Willie 83. A lot of people think that's the year. It's actually millimetres. But we see him side on, I think, before he's joined by Julio.

And because he's side on on he looks two-dimensional he looks exactly like his king of the hill caricature yes seen that the episode of king of the hill have you seen that i think i have it's oh man i'm a huge king of the hill fan and it's this one where it begins with hank um dreaming about hanging out with willie nelson and it's got um willie saying to hank and it is willie nelson voicing it he's going you know hank i always wanted to sell propane and propane accessories like you do but then this music thing came up and got in the way then they play golf together and then hank introduces his guitar betsy to willie nelson's guitar trigger the the irony is that um Nelson would be more likely to befriend Dale Gribble

because of Willie Nelson's 9-11 truther tendencies. Because, yeah, he expressed his doubts, didn't he, regarding the attacks. And he couldn't believe that buildings could just collapse due to the planes. You know, he instead thought it was an implosion. He said this on Larry King and later to Alex Jones. Bill O'Reilly on Fox called Willie Nelson the pinhead because of that. And also a creep, not for that, but for glamorising drug use. Because, of course, he probably did as much for the legalisation of marijuana as Bob Marley did.

But let's remember that Bill O'Reilly's a cunt. Well, of course he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't be stressed enough. Oh, look, Willie Nelson's basically a good guy when you add it all up. You know, the sort of his positives and negatives, I think he's in profit. Oh, definitely, yeah.

He's a good guy. You know, he's a supporter of LGBT, you know, and stuff like that. He released a track, Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other. For a country artist, that's something to value yeah but there's yeah he's alternative that that's another thing that happens in that king of the hill episode actually right bobby the idiot child goes i like willie nelson he's got long hair he's

alternative and hank goes now you take that back he goes i followed that man from country western to country to adult contemporary and that's as far as I'm going. I love that. It's one of those weird American TV performances, isn't it? The other one, obviously, around this time was Kenny and Dolly, where it's filmed on an American TV show, and you've got that weird picture quality, for a start, of it being American TV.

Is it Grand Ole Opry opry maybe that it's from maybe i i i watched a full length clip on youtube and it starts with an audience shot of the women all look like farrah fawcett and the men have all got cowboy hats and yeah it does look very opry the strangest thing i mean it's strange enough already that you've got this guy willie nelson you know the way he looks he looks, he's got an odd look. But then Julio Iglesias was... And, like, to be fair, Iglesias is at least dressed up. You know, he was...

He's got his dinner jacket on, hasn't he? He was born in a dinner jacket. He'll probably die in a dinner jacket, you know. So there's that weirdness, and that's exacerbated by these two worlds colliding. Yes. But it's also weird how they're singing it at each other like yes really tenderly and dare i say it sexily he's singing in

that usual lidded eye style which makes it look like he's getting a nosh while he's singing he is yeah he's really smoldering at willie yes um there's a strange moment where uh he leans forward and pats willie on the stomach and then a little bit later he slowly looks willie up and down his eyes end up on nelson's crotch you're looking awful good in those jeans yeah it's a strange combination really this very stoner renegade with this international sex symbol um but they're both of a sort of similar age in a sense that you can almost imagine them dressed as soldiers in world war ii singing this song what are we watching here we're watching a pop song we that deserves to be on top of the pops clearly not no we're watching a business decision yes i mean you know

that seems to be what's coming across ig Iglesias is practically unknown in the States. He's played some gigs in LA, mainly playing to the Hispanic community, obviously. He's selling out. They've gone down well in 83. We've had by now, of course, Islands in the Stream and We Got Tonight and things like that.

By now, Nashville is becoming this place that isn't just a kind of music town. It's a tourist destination. It's the center of a global fandom for this stuff that records like to all the girls further mopped up but to be honest with you as you know usual thing as soon as i saw this i was like um i want to leave my notes completely blank because if i was being honest i'll be out the fucking room yes this is mumbane this is not for me you know this is not a song that should be sung as a duet, really,

because, you know, it just comes off as two old bastards bragging on about all the times they got their end away. And, you know, by the end of it, you expect to see them humping away like the fat blokes on French and Saunders, don't you? I've had some fun, Amy. It is really reflective of what's happening to country music at this time. If the 70s was a time when country sought crossover with rock,

then 80s is where it seeks crossover with the pop. So it makes sense in all kinds of business ways. But yeah, it drives me from the room. You know, as well as targeting the Spanish or Hispanic market, Iglesias also tried to sort of paint himself as having Jewish identity. He said that he's Jewish from the waist up. I mean, in order to establish the veracity of that, I suppose we'd have to ask some of the girls he's loved before.

The lyrics to this song, this whole business of addressing your exes, for a start, it's something that your current missus is never gonna know so it's weird it's weird that it has this status as a kind of romantic ballad and you know personally i think these things are best left unsaid but if i was going to talk to all my exes probably it would just be one word sorry yeah you know but i would imagine it certainly i don't know about willie nelson but certainly in the case of julio Iglesias, all the girls he's loved before, I mean, that's a lot of letter writing. That's a lot of doors he's got to knock on.

You know, if he's doing the 12-step, it's 12-step, isn't it? He's making amends. That's a record that's going to be too big for anyone's turntable. Exactly. Never mind the Bob Marley box set. You're going to have to play it on a fucking merry-go-round. Yeah. I mean, it's basically, it would be a WhatsApp group now,

a really big WhatsApp group, because basically Iglesias has seen a lot of Fanny, right? More even than his dad. And that's saying something, because Julio Sr. was a gynaecologist. There's one fact everyone knows about Julio Iglesias, which is that he was a goalkeeper. There's basically him, Pope John Paul II,

and Albert Camus are the three famous former goalkeepers. I don't know what to do with that, except we just have to... I know you've acknowledged it already, but I just had to get it in there. The thing is, you'd think he'd be quite well-travelled, certainly with living in the States and his football activities and all of that, just touring everywhere. He doesn't sing English very well, does he? He apparently went to one of those

shonky english language schools in cambridge for three months you know those words those words it's basically a house but it says like the cambridge school of english or something like that on on the on the door yeah brighton's full of those by the way um so but yeah and i i wonder surely you can pronounce english lyrics better than you are doing. And then I thought, well, maybe that's a commercial decision itself. Maybe he's just keeping his really strong Madrid, his Castilian accent to make it exotic and sexy. I don't know. I don't get the lyrics to this song at all.

And like Simon, I question why it was written. Because if you're writing a song to all your exes, you're letting them win the breakup. Yes. You know what I mean? You cannot let that happen. I don't get that at all.

You're letting them win. Yeah. You know, I know there are no winners in breakups. I mean, if the song was called To All The Girls I've Loved Before, fuck off.

Then you could understand it a bit more. Maybe it should have been Julio Iglesias and 8A's. Yeah. To All The Girls I've Loved Before, I faked every orgasm. I don't know. Something, I don't know.

It's a bit like, do you know that bit in I'm Alan Partridge where he's been having it off with his secretary, but then he dumps her and he actually basically addresses her on the radio show that night and you see her in the back of a taxi and he goes I thank her for that

stolen afternoon but it had to end and it's basically like that so you know obviously we've established that Willie Nelson is on the side of the angels and all that and there's lots of evidence for that but I'm not so sure about Iglesias, right? Because, right, for a start, he's a supporter of PP,

which in Spain is the neo-Francoist Partido Popular, which, you know, you've got to have concerns about that. But there's this weird incident where he tried to do a Johnny Cash. Do you know about this? He sang in a prison in Chile. Oh, really? Yeah, this is 1975, so we're talking about High Pinochet time.

Yeah, he sang in Valparaiso prison in Chile. It's a really strange decision, but it went really badly wrong, because you know when Johnny Cash played San Quentin or whatever, and the prisoners welcomed him as one of their own? Yeah.

And he did have some kind of prison heritage himself, even though it's been talked up a bit. He didn't really spend that long inside. But anyway, Johnny Cash was convincingly a man of the people and on the side of the prisoners. Iglesias didn't really manage to convince the audience shall we say and he blew it before he even started singing he gets up on this little stage which basically look more than a couple of wooden pallets right in a corridor and uh before he's even sung anything he says apparently

i'm a free man but actually i'm a prisoner of my commitments of singing here and there of hotels and planes my fans do not leave me in peace i understand you very well i bring you a fraternal hug and hope you recover your freedom as soon as possible oh mate yes i've got this and i've got a credit hang on this is a men's prison he's singing at yes it is oh no it's a men's chili and wentworth that would have gone down a lot better yeah maybe if maybe if it was Holloway. Yeah, exactly. But credit where it's due, I'm quoting this next chunk from Dr Katia Czornik from The Guardian in 2014.

But here's a report of what happened. The singer's words did not go down well. The political prisoners, because obviously there are lots of political prisoners, were offended. He was laughing at us, Vidal claims, whoever Vidal was, I can't remember, one of the political prisoners. We began yelling in unison, you son of a bitch!

And we called him worse things than that. There was a surprised expression on Iglesias' face. He looked this way and that, clearly disconcerted. Rezoles, another prisoner, adds, Iglesias asked, you up there, why are you so angry? Someone explained to him that his rowdy detractors were political prisoners. Then the manager announced that Iglesias was leaving and he left without singing a single song.

Two years after... Didn't even begin the begin. He didn't begin the begin, no. And here's a coda to this. Two years after the Valparaiso episode, Iglesias released an album containing the song Soy un Trujan, Soy un Señor, I am a knave, I am a sir. The Pinochet regime kept secret detention and torture centre

at 3037 Iran Street in Santiago. One of its nicknames was the discotheque because detainees have testified to hearing this iglesias track and other select songs at the center torturers would play them non-stop at ear-splitting volume to drown out the sound of their victims screams oh my yeah yeah so yeah um a strange history uh that iglesias has in political terms to say the the least. To say the least. I mean, it's no mitigation, but I do recall in 2015, he did an interview with a Barcelona newspaper where he said he would never, ever play a Donald Trump casino ever again.

Fair play. All right. And I've got the quote. It was after Donald Trump came out with a load of anti-immigrant comments, as usual, and when he was a presidential hopeful. And the Iglesias quote is, I've sung many times in his casinos, but I't do it again he seems to be an asshole um he thinks he can fix the world forgetting what immigrants have done for his country he is a clown and my apologies to clowns so maybe he's softened a little bit but that still doesn't make him not right winged you know i mean

he's kind of sticking up for sticking up for hispanic population but uh yeah that's disturbing no it is kind of strange that iglesias is hooked up with albert hammond who's vag he's kind of sticking up for Hispanic population. But yeah, that's disturbing. It is kind of strange that Iglesias is hooked up with Albert Hammond, who's vaguely a kind of hippie-ish counterculture figure, I guess. Because, yeah, as you mentioned, the album was, you know, Hammond was involved in that. The previous single was a cover of The Air That I Breathe with the Beach Boys, which was also written by Hammond. of the air that i breathe um with the beach boys which was also written by hammond and there were there were five albert hammond songs in total on um 1100 bel-air place which was his actual address

by the way it's a bit weird giving out your home address as an album title yeah so basically the success of this song and of the album was paying a couple years later for the expensive swiss education of the guitarist from the strokes so. So the following week, to all the girls I've loved before, jumped 11 places to number 24, and a week later it got to number 17, its highest position. In America, it went all the way to number 5 and sparked a colonial variant of Julio Mania, with five of his LPs being in the Billboard LP chart at the same time.

Nelson never bothered the UK chart again, but Iglesias would have one more top 40 hit in 1988 when he teamed up with Stevie Wonder and took My Love to number five in June of that year. And Nelson and Iglesias would reunite this year to do a cover of Al Martino's Spanish Eyes, but it failed to chart. Good. We dedicate this song to all the guests we've loved.

Oh, oh, oh All right. Shaw, Hand in Glove. 35, To All the Girls I've Loved Before, Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson. 34 is Lucky Star by Madonna. This week's 33, Dr. Mabuse and Propaganda. 32, PYT from Michael Jackson. Jocelyn Brown's at 31 with Somebody Else's Guy. At 30, Silver, Echo and the Bunnymen.

Relax at 29 for Frankie Goes to Hollywood. At 28, It's a Miracle by Culture Club. This week's 27, Raining Men by the Weather Girls. And Shannon at 26 with Give Me Tonight. Right, it's 22 minutes to win on top of the Pops.

Let's go back to number 30 and over there to Echo and the Bunnymen and Silva. Bates, with a black member of City Farm in a Marge Simpson-style necklace, absolutely draped around his neck, while a lad in a white top with complicated fastenings pretends not to notice says, no that's what I call slutshare and leads

us into the first third of the top 40 and chaps, as is the style in 1984 chart pictures, they're you know, they're competent I don't know, I think I was quite excited by some of them just because they represented my cultural values. So, for example, at number 38,

there's a shadowy picture of the Cocteau Twins with Pearlie Dew Drops Drops, and I would have been really glad that that record was in there and just seeing that kind of music press photography in there, I guess, at 4 AD. Oh, if only Zoo would dance to that oh yeah with balloons and then you've got um sandy shore with the smiths and i really like that photo because she's kind of the photo makes them look like server land flaked by avon vela and blake

from blake seven um yeah you've got um madonna with two people who are not Madonna which I think is interesting they're presenting her in the early days as sort of part of some kind of little group or collective there's another woman there as well isn't there another woman yeah good to see Jocelyn Brown in there in your face Gavin Martin and propaganda

propaganda yeah good to see that propaganda yeah they've had to make do with using a record cover for Shannon and the Cocteau Twins, but, you know. That Shannon track, Give Me Tonight, fucking brilliant. And, yeah, Jocelyn Brown as well. Even Madonna, lucky star.

There was some great kind of dance pop coming out of America at that time and making it into the UK charts, really was. Dancy Reagan, yeah. I mean, I liked the bit when he looks at his watch, Bates. Yes. And he goes back to 30 because he checks his big, chunky watch. And you can bet that watch. Yeah, he goes, it's 22 minutes to eight.

Yeah. I reckon that watch is a Seiko. Yeah. With calculated facility. Maybe so. It's Seiko with a kind of Ford Mondeo of watches or something. Yeah. Is that it?

Right. Is Seiko the kind of Ford Mondeo of watches or something? Yeah. Is that it? Right. He then points firmly at the stage and introduces Silver by Echo and the Bunnymen. Formed in Liverpool in 1978 by Ian McCulloch, who'd just been sacked from a shallow madness by lead singer Julian Cope before they mutated into the Teardrop Explodes,

Echo and the Bunnymen consisted of McCulloch, Will Sargent, Les Pattinson and a drum machine. They played their first gig in Erics in November of that year in support to Teardrop Explodes, playing just one song but for 20 minutes. In 1979 they signed to Zoo Records and put out the single The Pictures on My Wall, which got to number 24 on the independent singles chart. Naturally, a peel session was inevitable, and after they took on Pete De Freitas as a real-life human drummer, they signed a deal with Corova Records, an offshoot of WEA. They also played their first ever gig in London in support of Madness and Bad Manners at the Electric Ballroom. They lasted two songs.

I'm surprised it went that long, man. The Nutty Crazed Youngsters wouldn't have appreciated this, I feel. A year later, they made their first dent on the singles chart when Rescue got to number 62 in May of 1980, and they became a regular-ish fixture on the singles chart when Rescue got to number 62 in May of 1980 and they became a regular-ish fixture on the charts and even scored two top 10 hits. This is the follow-up to The Killing Moon which got to number nine in February of this year. It's the second cut from their fourth LP Ocean Rain which comes out next week and already has a promotional campaign on the go where McCulloch claims it's the greatest album ever made it's entered the chart last week at

number 32 and this week it's nudged up two places to number 30 and here they are in the studio surprisingly chaps and probably deliberately they've not given this to janice but then again she's probably just charged off and piled down the front she liked her echo and the bunny men she did she loved them a lot of people i love loved them yeah and i still don't get it i mean who knows why a band from a large uh northwestern city who trade in gobby arrogance and play music massively in hot to the 60s might rub me up the wrong way but i'll give it a go for me the big bands i was meant to like in this period bunny men new order you too they had this thing of being yeah proper and big and i mean a couple of songs i liked maybe but crucially visually they didn't grab me at all and oddly enough pop got me sonically but for rock to work with me in a way these big proper

bands they had to grab me visually i never really fancied mac and i was i was intrigued by say the look of frankie the look of the cure so i went kind of that way these bands seem drab to me at the time but i'm willing to accept that you know that shallow teenager that i was has maybe grown up a bit so i came to this performance uh for chart music thinking maybe this is the one that will convince me and win me round but but midway through a guitar solo that was so fucking listen to the flower people i was part expecting the bass player to mouth we love you you know yes yes i just thought you know i got those vibes yeah i just thought you know what fuck this i don't get the adulation because it hurt which hurts me because people i love like my wife who loved the bunny man chris roberts one of my favorite writers loves the bunny man

you know even the cameramen here clearly love the bunny man that the main one seems to be attempting some sort of upskirt maneuvers on that throughout this clip but no it leaves me cold and by the time he's what's he singing at the end um la la la chuck us in the chips or whatever no sorry it's not i'm waiting to be convinced by the Bunnymen with their big, big sound and their 60s retrograde pop. But no, it leaves me cold. I'm sorry. Because this is the first time Echo and the Bunnymen have actually appeared on the top of the pops that we've covered. But they've already been given moderately minuscule shrift on chart music.

So, you know, it was about time we covered them. Simon, come on. Yeah, you're probably expecting me to come back and trash everything that neil said but i'm in agreement with quite a lot of it despite being you know um somebody who makes part of my living from running an alternative 80s club night um spellbound tickets still available um yeah um i'm i'm more of a bunny man skeptic than you might think um for a lot of the same reasons and a few more one thing i do disagree with neil about is mac visually i think he is beautiful oh he's beautiful yeah yeah but not interesting to me he's very pretty there's no yeah and he's he's got great hair a hairdo that was emulated with varying degrees of success by everyone from me to richie edwards up in the

valleys to loads of kids all over the uk yeah yeah i think you have to be lucky enough to be born with very straight hair to carry it off because you've got naturally wavy hair you're fucked you just look like a farmer if you get it right and his lips of course he's got lips like salvador dali's sofa and yeah just a very pretty face. The face that launched a thousand grey raincoats. You know, I've probably bought a raincoat off the back of that. But that's one of the problems with the Bunnymen to begin with is everything is too styled.

If you look at them on this Top of the Pop stage, they all look too perfect. You've got that teardrop shaped 12 string guitar that will sergeant's got you've got that gretch looking bass that les pattinson plays yeah they've all including peter freitas on the drums got perfect hair whether it's a bird's bowl cut or a sort of 50s quiff they just look immaculate and very tasteful and even though i i realized earlier on in this episode i praised the smiths for how cool they look in so many ways um everything the smiths are is everything the bunny men are not and i i can't not juxtapose those two bands and find the bunny men wanting

so for a start their lyrics were always shit right they were always embarrassing. Neil's mate, Bieber Koff, wrote of them in the NME that their lyrics were tired juxtapositions of mysterious buzzwords, nonsense and banality. And I would 100% agree with that. I mean, this song, for example, and I know we're coming off the back of, not long ago, the reflex,

but even so, half the lyrics of Silver are t-t-t-t-tips and la-la-la-la-la. Yes. Right? Which did sound like t-t-t-tits to a 16-year-old boy, which would have, you know, that would have killed some time in the playground. But this is exactly the thing.

The sort of people, the sort of studenty types, the sort of, as me and my mate Andrew, who was the other member of the Mary Bren brennel boys murder would have called them long coated trendies right who followed the bunny men right they would have thought that the bunny men's lyrics were really deep and meaningful and profound whereas what duran wrote was superficial froth i don't think there's any difference between them to be honest i think it's exactly the same thing um in fact maybe possibly a little bit more thought went into duran's lyrics i don't think there's any difference between them to be honest i think it's exactly the same thing um in fact maybe possibly a little bit more thought went into duran's lyrics i don't know to me the bunny men's lyrics always smacked off written on a kind of cocaine or speed come down

in the studio when you've only got half an hour left before uh you've got to pay another grand to hire the room written on the back of an envelope written on the back of an envelope will this do and this was basically confirmed by an interview I read the other day from this period, Bunnyman interviewed by Max Bell in The Face, where he notes that Mac scribbles out lyrics on old envelopes, literally writes lyrics on the back of an envelope. And you look at this song, Swung from a chandelier, my planet sweet on a silver salver, Bailed out my worst fears, because man has to be his own saviour.

What the fuck? That's meaningless bollocks. Do you know what though, Pricey? Sorry to interrupt, but what it reminds me of is that Noel Gallagher game of half-smart lyrics that an idiot would think are smart that are just fucking lazy and hack together phrases. Yeah, sorry to interrupt. Well, that's something that the Bunnymen have in common with Oasis and it's no coincidence that once Oasis were the biggest band in Britain,

they gave the Bunnymen a bit of a leg up for their comeback in the 90s because they are both the sort of bands who would say, oh, we prefer people to come up with their own meanings to the lyrics. When challenged on what these songs mean, they'd say, oh, no, we don't like to talk about that just now. Everybody's got their own meaning and they're all equally valid, man. And I would think, fuck off. No, you wrote this.

It means something. What does it mean? Tell us what it means. Yeah. Fucking tell us. Right. And that's why they were, to me, everything that the Smiths weren't

and they were nothing that the Smiths were. So there was actually, around this time, in fact, very close to this time, April 1984, there was a front cover of Number One magazine where they brought McCulloch and Morrissey together. Yes, they did, yes. And I was really offended that that even existed. I was fucking, just because of everything I've just said,

the way they billed it was, Ian McCulloch of Echo and the Bunnymen and Morrissey of the Smiths are the enigmas of rock. As frontmen, spokesmen and lyricists of the most popular cult bands in Britain, of rock. As frontmen, spokesmen, and lyricists of the most popular cult bands in Britain, the pair must have more than their vertical hair in common. And then it goes on to try and find common ground.

But as a reader and a fan of the Smiths, I'm thinking, no, no, you have no fucking right to be there. One thing that comes across in that number one magazine piece is McCulloch's attitude to his own lyrics, because he describes his lyrics as phrases in common use put together in an evocative way i like cliches and bits of conversation so that's it he's just chucking stuff together just cliches together you know all that stuff i

hate all that stuff on you know cellar tape and knives and cutting the mustard and all that kind of bollocks on their on their other songs themen, to me, were exactly the slags I was talking about when I played this song. They really were, right? They were just fucking charlatans. They were frauds to me. They really were. And in the rest of the interview, they do find common ground.

They go on to slag off disco and to slag off synthesizers and stuff like that. And then, inevitably, the arrogance comes to the fore. And, you know, he then, Mac, this is, starts to try and make excuses for this stuff. You know, he says, when I say I'm a genius or I'm the son of God, it was only supposed to be funny. I said those things as a way of taking control of boring interviews.

But this is something that people always praised McCulloch for. They praised him for being gobby and mouthy and lippy. Oh, yeah, he was he was mack the mouth wasn't he around about this time yeah but but beyond having a notable mouth literally i don't really get it he never said anything of any worth you mentioned this thing of the greatest album ever made yeah supposedly he said that as a joke to rob dickens at warner but dickens went with it but that does pretty much sum up the Bunnymen. They were, in so many ways, all mouth and no trousers.

They just didn't have anything to back it up. What they did have to back it up is a magnificent sound. The sound, I thought, was wonderful of their records. It's huge. It's got this sweeping grandeur to it. And a lot of the credit for that, of course, has to go on this record, on the Ocean Rain album, to Gil Norton, who later worked wonders with the Pixies, of course.

And also to the perhaps less celebrated Henri Lusto, who was a French producer, also a violinist, so he knew his way around the string section. He'd been around since the 60s in France because they recorded this in studio de dam in paris which was um the previous year it's where the cure had recorded the love cats right and lusto had worked on records by nana muscuri and johnny aliday and people like that and uh you know he would have been involved uh in these sessions in sort of

manhandling and coordinating the 35 piece orchestra which is why ocean rain does sound so huge but in terms of bunny men singles i mean as the title suggests silver it's very much second place on the podium its appearance on top of the pops i think is is a two minute imposition of a set of cultural values it's a two minute window of uh we're all into this indie stuff aren't we if you're into indie here's your thing this is your two minutes of indie have two minutes of indie is our band yeah yeah exactly but the song i mean don't get me wrong um there's some buddy men stuff i love you mentioned the killing moon came before that what an incredible record that is the killing moon um i'd also also heap the same amount of praise on The Cutter.

And I've got a lot of time for some of those other sort of Imperial Phase singles like Back of Love and Never Stop, particularly the discotheque non-stop version, where it's called the 12-inch version of that. It's interesting that they put a picture of the Royal Albert Hall on a record sleeve, and also they played a gig at the Royal Albert Hall, because that in itself was a statement of intent, and the symbolism of that, of course, is grandeur.

It wasn't normal at that point for little Scouse indie bands to play the Royal Albert Hall. They wanted everyone to know how big they were, and I get that. I mean, we've talked before about the Jesus and Mary chain being the first indie band to talk themselves up huge, which the Stone Rosers would go on to do and then Oasis. But this is where it begins, isn't it? With Echo and the Bunnymen.

Or with Ian McCulloch in any case. I guess it probably does. I mean, Morrissey certainly talked himself up. But I think, you know, he did have the chops and the Smiths had the chops to back it up, really. I really believe that. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't sit at home and play the Bunnymen.

Of course I did. I was shifting into that kind of music. I was shifting into indie music. And if you're into that kind of stuff at that time, apart from listening to the Janice Long show on the radio or Annie Nightingale on a Sunday, if you wanted a fix of that stuff, there weren't many lps you could stick on and their great hits album songs to learn and sing which i think came out in 86 was one of a handful of compilations by

bands of that type along with once upon a time by susan the banshees and standing on the beach by the cure um and i guess you had um things like hat full of hollow by the smiths so yeah sometimes if i wanted a break from listening to bands who i actually loved i'd stick on the bunny men because you know it's it sounds good and it's it's that kind of thing and yeah like neil i know loads of people who i love and respect who love and respect the bunny men i'm even good mates with dave balfe from the teardrop explodes who was their manager and all that kind of stuff and was involved in them in a big way so um i'm never going to completely cut them off but i do think that the bunny men are not gods to follow they are false prophets i did

not worship them i mean at my school very minuscule amount of people were into echo and the bunny man and they were always from the nice estate who were going on to do their A-levels. It was made pretty clear early on that this was not for me. But yeah, Killing Moon's a fucking tune. It is, but I could only ever... I mean, I mentioned the Cocteau Twins in the chart rundown. I could only ever love them as sound. Because the Cocteau Twins, at least the Cocteau Twins' lyrics,

didn't purport to be anything other than babble. Yeah. Gibberish. But Bunnymen tried to have it both ways. They wrote their lyrics on the back of an envelope with that kind of Scott Walker croon that he would put on. They tried to imbue those bad lyrics

with some kind of import that they just could not carry, I think. The thing that does my head in is that they were a big enough band in the 80s and it confuses me that Ian McCulloch isn't treated with the same love and respect nowadays as as people like Nick Cave who who got nowhere near to the chart success that Echo and the Bunnymen had well when whenever the Bunnymen come back and play live those gigs are massive sellouts and they played a Godiva festival in

Coventry a couple of years ago which my wife dragged me to um and they went down a storm and I have to say that they can still do it without a doubt. Without a doubt. But for me, they are kind of always, they're the tape that gets put on in the fifth form centre a few years down the line whilst my tape is torn out because it ain't proper music. I just wanted to play the cult electric,

but they wanted the bunny man. Fuck them. So the following week, Silver stayed at number 30 and slid down the charts while Ocean Rain entered the LP chart at number four, its highest position. They righted the ship with their follow-up, Seven Seas, which got to number 16 in July and remained an intermittent chart presence until 1988 when McCulloch left the band a year later sadly defratus was killed in a motorbike accident and the remainder of the band struggled

on until they split up in 1993 echo and the bunny men without in mcculloch's that ain't right there's a lot of that in the late 80s early 90ss, like bands like The Stranglers and The Undertones. Of course, yes. Struggling on with the wrong, even Iron Maiden struggling on with the wrong lead singer. Yeah, and one thing you have to say for Ian McCullough, maybe the reason he was such a big gob and putting himself about in the music press

was an attempt to not be known as Echo. Like Mick Hucknall was known as Simpler to certain thick people. So, so you know hats off to him for that 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. Max from The Bunnyman has just told me to tell you that he is the greatest thing that ever lived. So I won't. Thank you. An Armour Armour, Robert De Niro's waiting at 23 One Love, People Get Ready, Bob Marley and the Wailers this week at 22 And Thieves Like Us, New Order, a chart entry at 21 Automatic, The Pointer Sisters at 20 The Caterpillar, The Cure at 19 Nick Kershaw, Dancing Girls, up to 18 SOS Band, Just Be Good To Me at 17 At 16, Nelson Mandela, the special AKA band.

And the Bluebells, I'm Falling, up to 15. At 14, Woodbees, Pray Like Aretha Franklin, Squitty Ballitty. The Flying Pickets, When You're Young at 13. Ain't Nobody, Rufus and Chaka Khan at 12. And at number 11, it's Blamonge and Don't Tell Me. And let's go back to number 13, to the lads who are standing over there, it's the Flying Pickets, When You're Young. APPLAUSE There's magic everywhere when you're young and in love. Janice informs us that Ian McCulloch has been going about thinking his summer backstage

before throwing us back into the charts. Again, not a lot to talk about, although I did notice that Janice is following BBC guidelines and calling the special aka single nelson mandela omitting the free yeah and calls them the special aka band which yes yeah fucking mac from the bunny men though mac from the bunny men just told me to tell you he's the greatest thing that ever lived so i won't i mean good for her but that doesn't that just fucking back up everything we've been saying about him yeah jesus but then again she snaps off the title of the next single presumably as a dig at the age of the band it's when you're young and in love by the flying pickets we've covered the

flying pickets twice on chart music after they unexpectedly landed the Christmas number one of 1983 and stayed at the top for five weeks with their cover of Only You. This is the follow-up and the lead-off single from their forthcoming debut studio LP Lost Boys which comes out at the end of July. It's the cover of the 1964 single which Van McCoy wrote fory and the romantics but better known for the version by the marvelettes which went to number 13 in july of 1967 it entered the chart at number 30 last week and this week it soared 24 places to number 13 and here they are in the studio i mean we know the rules by now chaps you know when someone gets a surprise number one Four places to number 13. And here they are in the studio. I mean, we know the rules by now, chaps.

You know, when someone gets a surprise number one, the follow-up usually gets a free pass into the charts. But in this case, and by that chart showing, a very popular single. And, you know, it looks like they're going to be around for a bit, this lot. Yeah, it's done all right. I mean, personally, if we're talkingish band doing unusual covers of motown songs in the late 70s early 80s i'm more of a flying lizards man than a flying picket

but i broadly thought these guys were okay i would have been wishing them well much in the same way as i was sort of wishing bell and devotions well uh without actively liking them if you know what i mean mainly because of their commitment to socialism, obviously. I mean, some of them had actually been flying pickets in the minor strikes of 72 and 74. That's right. They actually picketed Drax Power Station in the 84, 85 minor strike. Right.

Much to the dismay of Virgin Records. And I found a personal file with Red Stripe, who's the bald one. Yes. You know, the Uncle Fester and Eyeliner one. Yeah, yeah. I found this in an old Smash Hits, hosted by Brian McCloskey on his Like Punk Never Happened archive.

Hello, Brian. Hello, Brian. And Red Stripe talks about going up to Snaith near Ghoul on Humberside to take part in a picket that year in 84. He had connections up there because he went to Hull Uni. And this sent me on a bit of a red stripe rabbit hole, not least because I've realised how much I now look like him. Yeah.

Give or take, you know, a couple of spikes and three stone. So, yeah, it turns out he's from Manchester. He's a former PE teacher called Dave Gittins. But he spent loads of his time in Brisbane on the punk scene there. Really? Yeah, and he took part in civil rights protests in Queensland, which I guess is a protest on behalf of Aboriginal people. And then when he got back to the UK,

he was actually involved in Lesbians and Gay Support the Minors, as depicted in the wonderful film pride yes um and he actually put welsh minors up in his house and everyone should watch pride by the way i'm sure you agree just brilliant yeah of course the the other bands who actually went to picket lines around this time the redskins yes i mean imagine that right imagine them being at the same protest imagine you've got the flying pickets and the Redskins huddled around a brazier and, like, hashing out an a cappella version of Keep On Keeping On, you know? Ba-da-da-da-ha!

You know, Christine trying to persuade the Flying Pickets to do Kick Over the Statues or something like that on Wogan or Parkinson or Pebble Mill. The idea in the Flying Pickets as to give away Mark's tea towels on Saturday Superstore. Oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe. But, yeah, do you know what? It's true what you were saying about following up a number one hit

because with this song, When You're Young and in Love, you can see the thinking. They're hoping lightning will strike twice, you know, because they're only you had been a Christmas number one. And it did okay, didn't it? You know, it got to number seven. But I think there was a sense of, yeah, we get it now, about their whole stick, you know, because Der Only You had been a Christmas number one, and it did okay, didn't it? You know, got to number seven, but I think there was a sense of, yeah, we get it now, about their whole stick, you know?

Because they're not a pop group. They don't feel like a pop group. They feel like a cabaret turn. Which is pretty much what they were. It is what they are, yeah, and because of that, there's always going to be a sense of okay, you've had your fun, now move along, and they were like a busted flush, OK, you've had your fun, now move along.

And they were like a busted flush really after this. Because that is where they came from, that cabaret world. The first that most people would have seen of them, I guess, was on Jasper Carrot's show, Carrots Live in 82. And by 1983, Granada had given them their own TV special. And if you look at a lot of their early TV performances, they are very much playing it for laughs, right? There's a version of You've Lost That Loving Feeling on that Carrot's Lip episode, where one of them provides percussion

by popping his finger out of his mouth, like, you know, like that. Yeah, yeah. Patsy Kenseth, bird's eye, I think. Yes, exactly. Patsy Kenseth, bird's eye, yeah. And the studio audience falls about laughing, you know. And they're dances and they do to do ron ron and one of them keeps shrieking like that you know it's like what and then on the granada special which i actually

watched by the way 97 views zero comments oh man it becomes um abundantly clear that they are first and foremost a comedy turn. They have their own songs, and those songs are about being in a band or being too skint to buy nice clothes. They do a bit where they recreate the sound of a tropical thunderstorm using their mouths. It's all very gimmicky. They do the jazz standard Summertime,

but they make it to be about smoking spliffs and all that, right? Right. So, you know, it's just a bit barren nights, I suppose. Now, I love vocal harmony groups. I love doo-wop. Yeah. But I like it done sincerely. And the Flying Pickets are at their best for me when they're being sincere.

On that Granada special, they do Bill Withers' Lean On Me with the actor Debbie Bishop out of Linda LaPlante's Widows as a guest. And it's really moving, actually. But I think that whiff of novelty was always going to hinder the Flying Pickets' career as a recording act. That and the fact that they couldn't complete their tour in 84, 85 because the police wouldn't let them enter Nottinghamshire. Royal Ink grassed them up. Scab!

And every time they went to Yorkshire, they got beaten up by coppers. The appeal about Only You was, you know, a modern song being done in a traditional style. And, you know, bringing a bit of nuance and shade to it. But this time they've gone a bit more traditional and old school. Yeah, and I don't like it all of a sudden. I mean, it's weird because I liked Only You.

I mean, perhaps that was just residual just because I love that song in its original iteration. But, you know, yeah, this one, when this comes on, I mean, yes, I watched it for the purposes of chart music. Of course, I was thinking of being in the kitchen asking my mum if there's any Wotsits going because I'd have left the room. Bizarrely, it sort of reminds me of fucking Caravan of Love two years down the line,

which I hated in this period, you know? And it also reminds me, actually, speaking of their many television appearances, of course, their appearance on Live at Her Majesty's on Sunday the 15th of April, 1984, the show that Tommy Cooper died on. Oh, yes. Oh, my God.

Yeah, and they were on the second half, as I recall. And I remember we could all tell something oh my i remember watching that yeah yeah so watching them sort of uh you know japing around with dustin g and les dennis i've got that memory as well and i also of course keep thinking of the marvel x version which is amazing which is amazing which sounds young and sounds fresh and sounds believing i think that's the crucial thing yeah put in the hands of old fellas

yeah that puts this song in another place it's kind of like old guys reminiscing but almost as if they're watching some young lovers

which is like oh god it's like bloody Julio and Willie Nelson isn't it it is fucking old people banging on about

how they used to get their end away this is it and they've had their one song it's not good man not good I mean I love I love the ink spots and stuff like that People banging on about how they used to get their end away. This is it. And they've had their one song. It's not good, man. Not good.

I mean, I love Doo-Wop. I love the ink spots and stuff like that. But just in general, I hate most a cappella stuff because it always seems so pleased with itself. This kind of smuggery inherent in it of, you know, look, we don't hide behind instruments and we don't hide behind effects, even though there's lots of effects on this record in terms of the vocal production. And there's this kind of look at our raw talent

aspect to it i really don't like and this kind of you know isn't it clever what we're doing in general at this time i hated soft music you know slow soft music i started hating ub40 at this time because their drums started to sound so fucking weak. This doesn't even have drums. And it's just way too soft for me then and now. It's got no edges and no joy. It's just this softness like cotton wool. It really stinks of calamine lotion, this record. So yeah, not into it. I would have left the room.

This really is a textbook example of horses for courses. A load of lads standing about being all solemn and singing soulful. That works perfectly at christmas time but it's april man we've had easter we want to kick on with summer we want a bit more life and excitement yeah red stripes very animated in this performance compared to only you but the problem is as sarah pointed out when we covered them last he really should be sat at the back and away from the rest of the group playing chess. Very Bergman style.

But there they are, standing in front of a set that looks like a giant Guess Who board, which has been tipped on its side. As we've said, this is a very old person's episode of Top of the Pops. We want a bit of zest, and we're not getting it. Yeah, and the novelty's run out. You're right at

christmas this is fine but um yeah at this point it's just it's just not what we want at all yeah i mean they are just stood there ankle deep in dry ice i mean they they might as well not be wearing shoes i bet there's some brothel creeper action going on beneath that smoke definitely uh maybe the odd winkle picker um or there's this phenomenal pair of silver dr martin's in the case of red stripe uh i saw him wearing them on the granada thing um there is actually a video for this they could have shown um very cheaply made i don't know if you've seen it it's got roughly the same level of production values as something like emu's all-life pink windmill show um around that era um but in the video um the band are all in beds in a hospital ward um but through the power of

acapella singing they they float out of their beds and they start flying across the night sky like like raymond briggs's snowman um and then they all get chased around by a doctor and a nurse. It's a bit carry-on. And then it all ends up in a big pillow fight. And the weirdest thing of all, the big reveal at the end is that it's been taking place in a hospital for sick children, Great Ormond Street, as if, you know, we're made to somehow believe the five pickets are children.

Jesus. But, yeah, it's very true what you said about i mean right for a start with with the song um it's the first time i would have heard this song i wasn't aware of of the whole history of it you know written by van mccoy ruby the romantics bigger hit for the marvelettes in 67 despite my love of motown because it didn't crop up on any of the compilations i yeah yeah because it's the marvelettes that were so fucking criminally underrated. Yeah, they were screwed really, weren't they? If you read up on them.

I'll Keep On Holding On is a fucking tune, mate. Yeah. And My Baby Must Be A Magician. Fucking hell, that's a great one. Yes. And yeah, it's now, when you're young and loved, it's now one of my absolute favorite motown songs the orchestration on the marvel x version is utterly magical and yeah like you say neil um the marvel

x were young i mean they were singing in the present tense they were 22 years old um and the song does take on a different meaning when it's a bunch of middle-aged men doing acapella. It becomes a song of nostalgia, of looking back to a time when they were young and in love. And without the music, without those euphoric crescendos of the Motown version, it's a bit flat. What I'm saying is, it's the same old song, but with a different meaning with the music gone. Yes, well played. The main vocalist this time is Brian Hibbard, the one with the sideburns and the gold army jacket. Yeah.

He's, again, this is the old kind of mortality maths thing. He's only 37 when this is done. Oh, no. Just like Sandy Shaw. Sandy Shaw. Same age as Sandy Shaw, but fuck me, he looks a lot older. Yeah. And again, you know, same age as Mutia from The Sugar Babes,

Nadine and Nicola from Girls Aloud, Bruno Mars, Carly Rae Jepsen. But yeah, God, he looks older. Tell, and again, you know, same age as Mutia from the Sugar Babes, Nadine and Nicola from Girls Aloud, Bruno Mars, Carly Rae Jepsen. But yeah, God, he looks older. Tell you what, right, if he was a footballer, he'd be a candidate for that amazing Twitter account at 80s Aging. Have you seen that? It's the one which... It tweets photos of

footballers from the old days who looked 50 when they were 29. To be fair to Brian Hrian hibbard he'd been a steel worker in ebba vale and uh you know i've got family members to whom that applies that is a tough paper round as they say but i really don't mind them being here they they've introduced me to a wonderful song and while they haven't exactly done it justice, they haven't murdered it either, I would say. It's an interlude of sweetness, I would say, this performance. Yeah.

What happens to them next, though? I mean, I'm sure you're going to come on to this, but just what I said about them being cabaret and showbiz does check out when you look at the afterlife of Flying Piggots because Hibbard went on to be an actor at Colnation Street, Pobble O'Cum, Twin Town, Emmerdale. David Brett, who was the one who was the main vocalist on Only You, I think I'm right in saying,

went on to be in a Harry Potter film. Red Stripe, he just went back to a normal life and a normal job as a bread delivery driver. Wow. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. One of my mates is a bread delivery driver. No. But just imagine... Agent Courtney records imagine right opening the door and seeing red stripe there handing you a pallet of crusty cobs with a big french stick on his shoulder like a sickle

yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah so the following week when you Young and In Love jumped six places to number seven, where it stayed for two weeks, its highest position. But they decided to go with one of their own songs so close for the follow-up, and it only got to number 88 in July. Oof. Yeah. They attempted to go back to basics for their next single, a cover of Who's That girl by the eurythmics

but it only got to number 71 in december and when they put out a cover of only the lonely in april of 1985 it only got to number 79 and they warmed their hands upon the brazier of the charts for the last time they did a cover of the eurythmics, Who's That Girl? Yes. I'm going to seek that out. Yeah, that's what they should have done. It's almost like a reverse BEF, isn't it? They should have done an entire album of 80s electronic hits

in an a cappella style. That would have been interesting. You would have listened to that at least once. Yeah, they couldn't resist the Mikey Arwood, though, could they? You know, and Here's Me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh dear. That's what B-sides are for, lads.

Yeah, they're still going, but it's a bit of a Triggers Broom situation or Ship of Theseus. Sugar blokes. You know, they're still going. No original members. You'd be pretty pissed off if you bought a ticket and it's just six randoms.

We ought to form the band called Sugar Blokes, man. Yeah, and then one by one replace ourselves with people from the NME. Yes. Young and in love. Young and in love. Young and in love. Flying Pickets, when you're young and in love. If you can remember the Marvelettes version of that,

you can watch Kenny Everett afterwards. Charts, ten. At number ten, it's orchestral manoeuvres in the dark locomotion. This week's number nine, people are people, Depeche Mode. And eight, Gladys All Over from Captain Sensible. Number seven, When You Say You Love Somebody in the Heart by Kool and the Gang. Shaking Stevens at six, A Love Worth Waiting For.

At number five, The Reflex, Duran Duran. At four, You Take Me Up, The Thompson Twins. This week's number three, I Want to Break Free by Queen. At number two, Phil Collins, Against All Odds. And this week's number one, the sixth week for lionel richie and hello listen up everybody tony billy boy has been in prison for 25 years he's only been out for three days the last time you were a free man the brooklyn dodgers were still the brooklyn dodgers and eisenhower was your president laura amanda's intrigued with billy boy Billy Boy, ask Amanda for a date.

Hey, Amanda, I've just come out of prison. Do you want to see him too? You never forget your drama training, dear. We cut back to Bates and Janice, unencumbered by the kids in front of the video screen. Bates tells us that if you remember the Marvelettes version of that, then Kenny Everett is on next. What the fuck is he going on about now?

No idea. Like Kenny Everett's X-rated or something. Yes, it's for the oldens. And that's bullshit, because Kenny Everett on after Top of the Pops is perfect scheduling, isn't it? Yeah, it's totally for kids, isn't it? Even in 1984, when he calmed down a bit after his move to the BBC,

Janice, no-nonsense as always, says, charts! Ten! And whips us into the final quarter of the hit parade, culminating in this week's topmost of the popermost, Hello by Lionel Richie. Janice gets to the top ten countdown

and there are quite a few kind of new wave post-punk things in there. You've got OMD, Depeche Mode, Captain Sensible, Duran Duran, even the Thompson twins who I hate. But then you get to the top three and suddenly it's Queen, Collins, Richie and yeah, you're feeling the cold hand of death on your shoulder, aren't you? We covered Lionel Richie in Chart Music 56, when All Night Long was given an airing on the 1983 Christmas Day episode, while Running With The Night was camped out as the Christmas number 41,

and would eventually get to number 9 this January. This is the follow-up, and the third cut from the LP Can't Slow Down, which got to number 1 on the album chart last November and crept back up to the top earlier this month. It entered the charts at number 25 in the second week of March, then soared 20 places to number five and bedded in at number one the week after, dispatching 99 red balloons by nana this is its sixth week at number one and has kept its reigning men by the weather girls a love worth waiting for by comrade shake

air you take me up by the thompson twins and against all odds by phil collins at bay and here for the six week running is the full length full-length, five-and-a-half-minute version of the video, which was directed by Bob Girardi, who did Beat It for Michael Jackson and Love is a Battlefield for Pat Benatar. Fucking hell, chaps, where do we start with this? Song or video? Well, it's difficult disentangling the two. In a sense, this is one of those songs that's both made and destroyed by the video. Yes.

At the beginning, we've seen an example of the movie trailer that thinks it's a pop video. Now we've got the flip side, which is the music video that thinks it's a fucking film. Or thinks it's an episode of fame. I mean, it's difficult. Oh, God, yes. It's difficult now to imagine the song in isolation from the video you know even before i started making notes for chart music and i realized hello by lionel richie was on this i was thinking about my favorite line from the song which is actually it's mr reynolds there's something going on in the sculpture class i

think you should check it out that's like my favorite line and that's what was stuck in my head let's try and get the song out of the way because you're not because it's cat shit because you know if you're gonna have to be made to listen to an 80s ballad it might as well be this one there's a lot worse knocking round don't you think in terms of the kind of song it is which i was never into anyway these kind of big ballads no but it's an effective song yeah yeah it's quite a dark melodramatic song um about obsession yeah so obviously you know before watching this i thought right stop the video and remind yourself of the record and try and listen to it in isolation and of course you

know it's a brooding obsessive melodramatic haunted dark and tragic record but of course i keep seeing the clay head the record itself has no narrative it's a kind of trapped moment of longing very akin lyrically to the kind of small cramped voyeuristic space inhabited by the protagonist of something like just my imagination but the video gives it yeah this mini episode of fame feel that even as a kid, I could, yeah, see and laugh at as sort of immensely, immensely kitschy. Oh, yeah. I mean, this was kitschy right from day one, wasn't it? Oh, without a doubt.

And if you're our age, you don't even have to hear the fucking song. We could all gather together and someone could just hold up a photo of the bust of Lionel Richie. Yeah, yeah. Everyone could just look at it for five minutes and go oh yeah absolutely my problem with this song was the chords right i didn't

understand them it has anything up to 11 chords in it depending on which transcription you believe good lord including e suspended fourth a minor ninth and f major seventh the chorus features a neapolitan chord b flat and for those who The chorus features a Neapolitan chord, B flat and for those who don't know, a Neapolitan chord is a chord made from chocolate strawberry and vanilla juice. That's too many chords.

And the first dozen times you hear it you can't even pick out a melody because it's all so muted. It progresses in sad coloured mocking shadows to quote Paul Weller. What it's like imagine muted. It progresses in sad-coloured mocking shadows, to quote Paul Weller. Yes. What it's like, imagine you're in a garden, right,

and there's a washing line with a pale grey bed sheet hanging off it, and you run towards that bed sheet and your face goes into it. And as you push through it, there's another washing line and your face hits another pale grey bed sheet and then another and another and you end up looking like René Magritte's The Lovers. And that kind of progression,

it owes more to the European classical tradition than to any American R&B tradition. Or at least it owes something to musical theatre, I think, to Sondheim or to Hamlisch. That bit where it's, Are you somewhere feeling lonely or is someone loving you? That melodic passage, that tentative way it climbs up the scale, two steps forward, one step back. Do you know what I mean? There's something else

we covered like this. It might've been Love on the Rocks by Neil Diamond or something like that. Love on the Rocks or something like that. I don't know. But in its composition, Hello is not a soul record in any meaningful sense. That's probably why I didn't like that, I don't know. But in its composition, Hello is not a soul record in any meaningful sense. No, God no. That's probably why I didn't like it, I think. Yeah, yeah. There are some songs with that kind of chord structure that I've grown to love as I've matured,

like One Day I'll Fly Away by Randy Crawford. But I've never got there with Hello, I've got to say. I mean, look, for Lionel, I think ever since 1978, he'd been attempting to rewrite Three Times a Lady at some point. And, you know, this, in an era of kind of things like Endless Love, is probably his most successful attempt. The thing is, with most of those soul ballads, they rely on the singer singing to the listener directly. And they tend to be performance vids. But this video is so totally different.

It dramatizes and colonizes the song completely. So the video becomes everything and it's still yeah i mean let's face it this is a massive safeguarding issue turned into a video oh god you know it's still creepy as fuck from the moment he starts with the line i've been alone with you inside my mind onwards um it's it's lovers yeah massively unprofessional safeguarding issue. It's stalking ultimately. Yeah, where is American Ofsted? Exactly. So the video then.

The basic, I mean, I don't even know why I'm bothering to explain it to anyone because anyone listening to chart music knows it's shot for shot. First of all, I mean, making fun of this video is shooting fish in a barrel. It's stealing candy from a baby. It's kicking a stick away from a cripple. It's a piece of piss, is what I'm saying. It's almost hack to do it. Do you know what I mean?

But we've got to do it. We've got to do it, haven't we? We have. Because it is objectively fucking hilarious. We didn't shy away from Renny and Renato. We're not going to shy away from this, man. Exactly. First of all, it's quite surprising surprising after six fucking weeks at number one

that we're getting the extent yes with the acting bit of the stuff yeah yeah completely this is what happens when you get rid of legs and co in it you've got to show the fucking video all the time oh god yeah so you know um i think possibly uh they didn't show the full length video every week but no it just so happens that this week they did. So we find out that Lionel's a drama teacher at some sort of fame-type school for the arts. Yeah, the sort of American school that a scabby British cunt could only gawp at in jealous awe.

It's very Breakfast Club, isn't it? We don't see him straddling a chair, but we know he is a chair straddler because he's doing that on the cover of Can't Slow Down. He is, yeah. Yeah, he is, of course. He gets two of the class on the cover of can't slow down he gets two of the class to improvise the scene yeah listen up everybody tony billy boy's been in prison for 25 years he's only been out for three days last time you were free man the brooklyn dodgers were still

the brooklyn dodgers and eisenhower was your president doesn't say the obvious first thing which was why were you in prison for 20 years then? Are you a murderer? And he's got that cool energy, yeah, that kind of cool trendy teacher energy. Yeah, a nice big flowing coat with the sleeves rolled up as well, man. Of course, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost a success coat.

They're paid drama teachers a decent whack in America, don't they? I'm missing a trick teaching in London, I tell you. So then tells a student called Laura that she has to play Billy Boy's love interest of course fans of A Clockwork Orange would be expecting Billy Boy to basically look like Zodiac Mindwalk but

how art thou thou globby buckle of cheap stinking chip oil come and get one in the yarbles if you have any yarbles you eunuch jelly thou yeah right that would be wise if he'd been in prison for 25 years then they start improvising Yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you unicelly thou. Yeah, right. That'd be wise if he'd been in prison for 25 years.

Then they start improvising. And while they're improvising, Lionel starts fucking singing. Yes. Like he's not in the room and they can't hear. And that's only the first of so many weird moments. Right, let's clear this up right now. So both of you are further education teachers, aren't you? Yeah, higher education teachers. Oh, higher education teachers.

Sorry. Sorry, sir. So by the law of averages, one or two of your students must be right little cunts. Oh, yeah. They give you chelp all the time. They don't respect your authority. They refuse to conform. Yeah.

Have you not considered starting a lecture and then just drifting off to the side and just behind them while they're doing their work or whatever and just starting to go, I've been alone with you inside my mind. I am thinking of it now, yeah, mate. I'd shut the cunts off. I may well use that.

I've got a right cunt in a seminar. That's worth a thousand board rubbers to the edge, surely. So we start singing and then just before the first chorus, we get the big reveal that she's blind. And this is where shit gets controversial, obviously, because the actress is not blind. She was 26-year-old Laura Carrington, who went on to play Dr Simone Ravel Hardy on General Hospital

and made history as part of TV's first black and white interracial couple, by the way. And, of course, she was fully sighted. And you wouldn't do that now, I don't think. The American Foundation for the Blind have campaigned on this sort of thing. And, obviously, cinema history is littered with examples of sighted actors playing blind characters. So you've got everything from Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman

to Stephen Lang in that horror film Don't Breathe. But it's been compared to Blackface. And you can see the point, because basically what it comes down to is if blind actors can't get blind roles, because they're all being done by sighted actors, what roles are they going to get? Yeah, no fair dues. And that choice would have been made by Bob Giraldi, the director.

Oh, he wouldn't have given it a second thought. Well, exactly. But as you mentioned, he'd previously directed Michael Jackson's Beat It, and he was handpicked for that job after directing an advert where an elderly blind couple throw a blockbuster. Right. Right? So the warning signs were there.

He was obsessed with blinding i mean he he later directed a stevie wonder video what he should have done there right was get stevie to play a fully sighted person just to fuck with everyone right but the thing is laura carrington hello isn't even the maddest casting choice that giraldi made he directed as you mentioned pat benatar's love is a battlefield where benatar plays a troubled teenager who fights with her parents and runs away from home benatar was 13 at the time but uh oh god anyway yeah so yeah we see laura wandering around the corridors having lunch doing some ballet and importantly doing some clay modeling importantly but then yeah then lionel phones her up and this is where lionel really oversteps the mark we see her reading braille in bed yeah yeah

and he calls her he's wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders just like paul hogan was doing at the time you know that very aussie rules look that was current because oh yeah very much so as i mentioned, I watched that Granada special with the Flying Pickets. The YouTube version of that preserves the ad break and in the ad break, there is Paul Hogan

in a cut-off shirt putting a cocktail stick with some fruit on it on top of a pint of Fosters. That's right, yes. And he calls her and he doesn't say anything at first. No.

Like a heavy breather. Yeah. Like a heavy breather. The big old fucking freak. Yeah, yeah. Then he starts singing at her, right? And either way, silent or singing, I'm calling the police at that point.

Yeah, yeah, too bloody right. She's well happy though, isn't she? No, she's happy about it. That's the fatal moment. You know, her response at that point is key. It's the emotional hinge of the video in a way. And the fact that she smiles at this dirty old man ringing her is fatal.

Lionel Rich is nice, man. He's a teacher who's in a position of responsibility. The thing is, Giraldi, just to point out, he doesn't seem like the most sensitive person, let's put it that way. I read something where Lionel had actually said to him, you know, firstly, that the story about a blind woman had no connection to the song. And Giraldi just replied, you're not creating the story I am. But the one I really liked was that Giraldi added that

Lionel didn't think that the bus looked like him. Yes. Until Giraldi pointed out that the girl making it was supposed to be blind. I mean... That's a fair point. That is a fair point. point well is it a fair point not the most sensitive director i don't think but the thing is like you say there are huge ethical

dimensions to this i mean i'm a teacher i'm a teacher neil's a teacher we all know that dating your students is a no-go area it's a line you do not cross even if it's legal it's unethical it's a conflict of interest there was a girl at my uni who was shagging one of the french lecturers at ucl and we all knew that's why she got a grade it was a massive scandal so basically mr reynolds is getting the sack if he pursues this any further isn't it but yeah then a guy comes into lion's classroom and says the immortal line mr reynolds there's something going on in sculpture class i think you should check it out and that's when he's thinking there's going to be a clay yeah yeah yeah you would man but that's when we find

out that laura carrington is part of an elite triumvirate there's emmanuel santos there's cecilia jiminez and there's laura's Laura Carrington, right? Emmanuel Santos is the sculptor who created the bust of Cristiano Ronaldo for Madeira Airport when it was renamed Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport, which was so bad that it became a worldwide meme and was taken away and put in storage. And Santos responded to criticism by saying, even Jesus did not please everyone.

And Cecilia Jimenez is the amateur painter who restored the eke homo fresco of Jesus in a church in Zaragoza in Spain and made him look like a monkey. Yes. And then you've got Laura Carrington, who somehow, somehow made Lionel Richie look even more chinny and prognathic than he already is.

You know? Yeah. And I've often wondered... It's very good, though. I think Lionel wanted him to look a bit more like Jimi Hendrix. Well, he probably wanted it to be a flattering version, yeah. Because apparently he was a bit obsessed. Apparently he'd go up to people and go, don't you think i look like jimmy hendrix a bit oh my god look i i think it

looks faintly neanderthal doesn't it it's i'm not saying it's racist like my my passport photo is so terroristy it's racist basically this isn't quite that bad but um yeah uh what a moment though what a moment yeah i feel about i've often wondered because you know it is a notoriously bad video i've wondered how it affected everybody involved in it and i've often wondered whether lionel is haunted or scarred by hello apparently the phrase hello is it me you're looking for follows him everywhere even prince charles said it to him apparently oh god but he's got a sense of humour about it. He's, I mean, maybe he's protesting too much.

Do you know what I mean? Like people do sometimes. They kind of own it. But he's sung it on helium on German TV to, like, you know, to subtract credibility from the love song. Like Steve Coogan's IRA spokesperson on the day. Yes. Hello, it's a legitimate love song

and uh and he's done it on tonight with jimmy fallon with his actual head on a wooden plinth oh well fallon sings it wow does that head still exist that's the question i'm coming to that and lionel's even reenacted it on a doritos advert with chance the Rapper where he remoulds the clay head as a sort of hybrid of himself and Chance with a baseball hat. So you could even say Lionel's gone beyond having a sense of humour about it. He's now fucking milking it, to be honest.

But yeah, I wondered if it affected his co-star or the director in their later life. After the video came out, apparently, Laura Carrington went to quite a few Lionel Richie concerts in various cities, and people would recognise her and treat her as if she was really blind. Oh, no!

Which I kind of... I suppose is understandable, really. And, yeah, as for Giraldi, despite making what was voted by viewers of The Box as the worst video ever made, Bob Giraldi did have a, you know, he's had a fairly successful career. He's directed a few films. One of the National Lampoon franchise was by him

and a highly acclaimed independent film called Dinner Rush. But he runs loads of restaurants now in New York. And I did wonder if you get your dinner free, if you can sculpt your mashed potato into a convincing facsimile of Lionel Richie's head. You know, like in Close Encounters, but Lionel instead of a mountain. But yeah, apparently, straight after the video wrapped, Lionel destroyed the head because he hated it. No!

Yeah, yeah. And of course, it would be priceless now. It would just be the ultimate kind of piece of rock memorabilia. Oh, God, yeah. And of course, it would be priceless now. It would just be... It would be the ultimate kind of piece of rock memorabilia. Oh, God, yeah. The only missed trick here, I guess, is wouldn't it have been wonderful if in a sort of Ray Harryhausen-style moment the head had started singing?

Yes. That would be fucking awesome. Like the video for Rick Petit. Yeah, exactly. Oh, God. Oh, God. But it's the first time that someone's given Lionel Richie head on a video on top of the post.

Well done. Who's buying this? Well... And who's buying it by week six of it being at number fucking one? Yeah, that is crazy, isn't it? I've never understood that. I mean, because an awful lot of people would have had the album, to be honest with you.

Exactly. It's an album that's only got eight songs on it, and this is the last song on it, which obviously nothing could come after this. But 10 million sold. I don't know who's buying this still in week six. It's the fucking dads again, isn't it? They bought Against All Odds, met and feel a bit sorry for them, Sen, and now they're seeing the flip side of dad dads again isn't it they bought against all odds met and feel a bit sorry for them sen and now they're seeing the flip side of dad divorce isn't it all that all that young

crumpet just gagging for it yeah but that's not what the song is about that's the thing it well that's what they get from the video absolutely it's so intimately connected with its video and i can't even think of another example where the video and the song are so connected in this fashion that you cannot imagine one without the other the thing is with this well i'm glad it exists i'm still glad yes i'm glad it's that i don't need to watch it again like you said al it's instant recall with this stuff um it can play in your head whenever you want it to be there so the following week hello was stood down from the number one spot to make way for the Reflex. I think that's why Top of the Pops decided to show the full version. The encore presentation, if you will.

Even though it was at number one for six weeks, it would only finish the year as the seventh biggest selling single of 1984. One below Last Christmas by Wham and one above agadu by black lace the follow-up stuck on you got to number 12 in july and can't slow down went on to sell 20 million copies worldwide and win the grammy for best album and lino was reunited with a copy of his massive scary head last decade in an advert for American Idol. Apparently, Simon, you can buy your own copy, but the website of the company that made it wants you to contact them for a price. So, you know, it's not going to be affordable.

And that's a shame because I think one of those would look absolutely skilled by your turntable when you're doing your minicab FM sets. Every home should have one. Yeah, it'd be great, wouldn't it? I'll tell you what, Pricey. I'll get my little sofa on it, because if she can do Eddie, she can do Lionel, surely.

Yeah, just do Eddie with a wet look. Yeah. Amazing. Even better, Simon, if they did masks of the Lionel Richie bust. That would be fucking great, wouldn't it? That's your Halloween costume sorted out, isn't it? Yeah.

You just put the song on and then you just nip out and tap people on the shoulder. Hello? Is that me you're looking for? I love you. Mr. Reynolds? Excuse me,

but there's something going on in the sculpture class. I think you ought to check it out. I've wanted you to see it so many times. But I finally think it's done. Tell me what you think of it. Oh, it's wonderful. This is how I see you. I see you. Bob Durrell is ready for the final Richard on with hello

and next week Mike Reid hello to Motherwell Football Club we shall leave you with the Pointer Sisters and Automatic bye bye good night we rejoin Bates and Janice amongst the throng of youths.

Bates gives the video director of Hello a credit, but calls the artist Lionel Richard. Imagine Cliff Richard with a wet look and a moustache. Or even Keith Richards with a wet look and a moustache. Before warning us that Mike Reid is presenting next week, Janice says hello to Motherwell Football Club. Not sure why, but they're currently bottom of the Scottish Premier League. So they could do with a bit of a boost.

I can help you there. I looked into this. I wondered which member of the Motherwell squad of 1984 would have written to Janice asking for a shout out. Now, I don't think it was the teenage Tom Boyd or the teenage Gary McAllister who was in the squad. I don't think it was the exotic Icelandic import

Johannes Edvaldsen. I reckon it was the goalkeeper Hugh Sproat. Do you remember this guy? Ooh, that rings a very faint bell. If you collected Panini stickers in the late 70s, early 80s, you would have come across Hugh Sprokes. He was quite eye-catching.

He became a bit of a cult hero, even at my school in Wales, because of his look. Really? By this time, in 84, he's in his last season at Motherwell. And he was definitely a candidate for that 80s-aging Twitter account because he had a sensible grey centre parting and a bushy moustache at the age of only 31. He basically, by the time he's 84,

he's looking more like Renato from Rene Renato. But I remember him a little bit before this. I remember him as the punk footballer. He had short, spiky red hair. Because everybody knows that in Scottish terms, Pat Nevins, your post-punk footballer. Yeah, yes. But Hugh Sprote was the punk footballer.

He had short, spiky red hair. This is when he was playing for Air United. And he turned up in Shoot magazine in 1977, revealing that he was such a fan of punk rock that he regularly wore earrings shaped like razor blades. Wow. One of these razor blades was green, the other blue, in a nod to the old firm, right?

And this was quite... Just having these tastes was quite rare at the time, because most footballers were... Definitely. They were into, like, George Benson. That was always a cliche, wasn't it? Or maybe a little bit later on, Phil Collins. So, I mean, it would make sense,

if his musical tastes developed through into post-punk and new wave that Hugh Sprout would be a Janice Long listener. That's my theory anyway. Definitely not, dear. And it's a good one, Simon. And on just a bit more about Hugh Sprout, right? He was voted Motherwell's all-time cult hero

in a BBC poll. And the more you find out about him, the more you understand why. Because, right, he wasn't in the Scotland squad for Argentina 1978, the World Cup, but he flew there to see them, did Hugh Sproul, on a one-way ticket. He didn't even have a return ticket.

He hitchhiked all the way through South America and North America after the tournament to get home via Canada. I reckon you'd need balls of steel to hitchhike through South America in 1977. You need balls of steel now. But Hugh Sproat clearly did have balls of steel, right? Because when Air United or Motherwell or whoever played against Celtic,

he would wear a blue shirt. And when they played against Rangers, he'd wear a green shirt. That is some next-level trolling there. So, yeah, I reckon it was Hugh Sprote. What a shame Sprote and Nevin and Pierce never had a sort of jam session or something. Yeah. Sadly, we can't ask Janice

what the reason was behind this, but if Hugh Sprote is out there, maybe he can confirm or deny. Just before one of the youths pushes Bates onto Janice in a, ah, my mate fancies you sort of a way, and they both end up sprawled over the railings. They sign off with Automatic by the Pointer Sisters. We covered Ruth June and Anita Pointer in Chart Music 20

when they failed to get their cover of Everybody Is A Star into the top 40 in February of 1979. Since then, they managed to get their follow-up Fire to number 34 for two weeks and then kicked it up a gear when Slow Hand got to number 10 in September of 1981. In 1983, they put out the LP Breakout, but the lead-off single from it, The Down Tempo I Need You, failed to chart on both sides of the Atlantic. However, this track was picked up on by American Radio and Clubs and played to death, forcing their label's hand and making them rush it out. It immediately soared to number 5 on the Billboard chart and was put out over here last month taking three weeks to get to number 38 last week but this week it soared 18 places to number 20 so here's a bit

of the video and a lot of zoo wankers i mean this song is fucking skill i love this and i can't believe the record company didn't make it the lead- single i mean that it's just i know didn't it but i remember yeah i remember hearing this on the radio sort of well before i knew who it was by and being initially like really confused about the lead voice about yes male is it female you know yeah ruth's vocals really key to what makes this so amazing and it's still a startling thing, this record. It's their best, I think, since How Long Bet You Got A Chick On The Side, which is one of their most amazing tracks. This is all there with it.

Great video as well. And another thing is, here's another dagger of advice for the kids. Ruth Pointer has just become a grandma at the age of 38. So we've got grannies on top of the pops now. A granny at 38. But who gives a fuck? Because this is the absolute highlight of the episode, to my mind. Yeah.

Little known fact, they're known as the bird dog sisters in the States, arranging their bodies in a straight line to indicate the presence of a partridge or a grouse. Yeah. No, they had a really strange career trajectory, the Pointer Sisters, didn't they? Because their Indian summer of their career was more fruitful than the original heyday.

It's not just that they were a 70s act who adapted incredibly well to the 80s. They were a nostalgia act even in the 70s. There's a New York Times live review of a Pointer Sisters gig I found from 1973 in which they're described as doing Cab Calloway style scat singing dressed up in 1940s clothes and

their support band is actually Louis Jordan and his Timpani Five so they were just touring around doing this kind of jazz scat stuff Beck Midler style well oh my god funny you should mention that because I also found an album review, Ian MacDonald in the NME reviewing their debut album,

and that's also from 1973, saying, though not as histrionic as Bette Midler can be, the pointers are in the same suspect rock cabaret category, and I can't say that they have any positive meaning for our music beyond their own dazzling voices and beautiful legs. Still, let's give them a chance to prove themselves oh christ in mcdonald there the thing with the pointer sisters though they could turn their hand to anything i mean it's the fact they're so adaptable from doing that kind of old style vaudeville stuff to country and western to rock to soul it meant they were

very well placed to be the kind of r&b soul act who could take on board the new synth bass sound of the post-disco era they would just like take to it like a duck to water i mean they they wrote a country song called fairy tale which won them a grammy and um and elvis covered it and they were yeah yeah and they were the first black group to play grand old opry right yeah? Yeah. Their experience in Nashville wasn't entirely positive. There was a private after-party following their performance. When they arrived, they were taken around the back of the house and left to sit in the kitchen

because the person who answered the door thought they were the hired help. Oh, man. Fuck me, yeah. That's not a rare thing. I mean, we talked earlier about Count Baze and I read the other day that in 1974, the suite were playing America, and they were in the same

hotel as Count Basie, and Count Basie went up to your man Brian Connolly and said, oh, boys, you know, nice to meet you. I heard you did a really good show last night, and Brian Connolly said, fucking never mind that. Help us get our stuff into the van. Oh, God, yeah. But they had a very

eventful 70s and this is kind of before most of us in this country had even heard of them they were having this crazy time in the states at least two of them had recurring drug issues and if a member missed a show a statement would be put out saying they were suffering nervous and physical exhaustion which was like one of the euphemisms in those days and the thing is if you look at this top the pops that we're watching if you had to pick pick any act on this TLTP who would be secret smack heads, I'm saying the Pointer Sisters would be at the bottom of the list. But there we go. Who's at the top?

Flying Pickets. I don't know. I mean, I don't actually, let's be serious, it's Andy Rourke from The Smiths, isn't it? But I don't want to play amateur psychology here, but I'm going to anyway, right? I suspect religion really fucked them up, the Porter sisters, because I saw an interview with Ruth, the deep voice lad,

and she's the eldest, and she talks about how her father was a pastor and that meant she was always under scrutiny around town by everyone in case she did anything that wasn't respectable. Something that was ungodly. And ungodly, in their eyes, included such things as wearing lipstick, right? And if you indulged in such sins as wearing lipstick, your destiny was the devil and spending all eternity in a pit of hell fire, you know. And the only path to salvation was to repent from wearing lipstick and allow jesus to mend your ways so i mean she tried to distance herself from all that yeah she got

older and perhaps being let off the leash from that without your parents and the church and the local congregation watching over you when you're in a successful musical group i mean it's a recipe for disaster if you haven't already tasted those pleasures when you're a teenager you know you're going to go crazy aren't you and they did some serious living like you say by the time we get this song

Ruth is 38 she's a grandmother she'd been married five times I mean that's going so fucking hell yeah yeah their life was crazy

they partied really hard in the 70s they hung around with Richard Pryor and Muhammad Ali oh right yeah and then the excitement

was obviously all a bit much for Bonnie Pointer because she left either it was all a bit much or it went to her head because I think she thought she was all that she was about to lose control and she thinks she didn't like it exactly and she didn't do very well as a solo act

she must have been so pissed off because no sooner does she go solo than the Pointer Sisters start having hits like their cover of Bruce Springsteen's Fire in 79, which I love, by the way, and Slow Hand in 81, which I also love. And then you've got this really imperial phase with Jump, and I'm So Excited, and Neutron Dance, and this song. What I like about Automatic here, on top of the pops, is the video,

because it looks like it's filmed in a kind of automatic video booth um very reminiscent of a famous scene in fame where leroy does a dance behind a screen and all these you know these usual mad asian wedding video effects start happening also reminiscent oddly enough of chikuni youth's madonna cover into the groove later on when sonic youth went a bit mad but we don't really get enough of the video because we get so much of the audience here. Oh, man, man, man. Or do we get the audience? That's the thing. Well, we cut between

the video, which is a bog standard, shove the group in front of the camera and let them get on with it sort of thing, with phasing effects. Very early 70s, Top of the Pops phasing effects as well yeah yeah yeah it's that kind of vibrating ready brett glow yeah around them yeah and we get cuts back to the studio filled with writhing figures but sadly as always um city farm get precedence farm

it's horrible it's a horrible picture of the dynamic going on in that studio because we get a line of these these city farm cunts doing their shit striding but perhaps more upsettingly a line of girls behind them trying to copy it yes oh it breaks your fucking heart it does break my heart as if that's dancing you know it's like watching two little girls pretending to be the kardashians your heart sinks man it's terrible. And City Farm are doing C&A fashion show moves, aren't they? Well, if I can identify one thing

in this episode about Zoo that really pisses me off, beyond their idiotic expressions of enjoying the music, if anyone looks like that enjoying music, I just want to slap them. But it's their fucking arms. They're the arms of someone who's

never really been on a proper dance floor you try pulling that shit on a proper dance floor you're gonna hit people and you're gonna piss people off yeah so yeah it's very very vexing not only that they're doing it and then the camera frequently cuts them but the horrible sight like you say of people trying to emulate this this is not dancing this is not no one or two the male members of the audience try on with members of City Farm, which is amusing. They make their presence felt at the end, the lads.

I don't know if you spotted this, but there's a girl, probably an audience member, well, if my theory's correct, definitely an audience member rather than a City Farm wanker, who really looks like Susan Tully from Grange Hill and, more importantly, from BBC One's New Soap EastEnders.

Indeed. Soon-to-be New Soap EastEnders. Yeah, yeah. And I do wonder if she snuck over from the Albert Square set. Very, very possible. I tried having a, you know, I haven't seen her on a bigger screen, but, yeah, she looked like her, that's all. Yeah.

So, Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Pohan pointer sisters soul acts of the 70s and earlier had a really bad time during the disco age but fucking completely au fait with the new synthy scene and just fucking producing gold shitting out gold they are that's a good point i bet the pointer sisters did try disco i've not heard it but i bet there bet there's some amazing 12s out there that I don't know about. But yeah, they didn't have hits in that era, you're absolutely right. And this song, it's not written by a sole songwriter, it's written by

Mark Goldberg, who has many credits, mostly Middle of the Road and adult-oriented rock. He'd written for people like Andrew Gold and Linda Ronstadt and Peter Frampton. So yeah, even though this is kind of what you would call a post-disco record, it was coming from that sort of middle-of-the-road side of things. And, oh, this guy, the weirdest credit, many years later,

is Nova Cane for the Soul by Eels. Really? Right, right. Yeah, bizarre. But, yeah, this record, it is all about Ruth, the contralto with a deep voice. And, yeah neil's absolutely right i mean i don't think we talk enough about what a strange thing her voice is it reminds me of this story about share um when share brought out a single called i love ringo

when she was really young um it got banned from the radio because her voice was so deep that djs thought it was a man and in a way um it's Ruth's voice that is the song's hook as much as the keyboard motif, which is the more, you know. The Pointer Sisters in this era, they are, even though they're from a past era, they are really emblematic of the high 80s. It's the sound

of success and hard work, isn't it? It's the sound of people in leg warmers doing aerobics and driving DeLoreans. It's very John Hughes movie. This isers doing aerobics and driving DeLoreans. It's very John Hughes movie. This is very Hollywood. I was actually going to say, it sounds like it ought to be in Beverly Hills Cop 2 or something. And I checked, it's actually in Beverly Hills Cop 2. It's also in Miami Vice Series 1, Episode 4, Calderon's Demise. And it's a scene in which Crockett and Tubbs are meeting a drug dealer in a club. Didn't that pretty much happen every episode? I don't know.

And there's another episode called Calderon's Return where I'm so excited by the Pointer Sisters as playing in a club. So they're very Miami Vice. Automatic is also on the Grand Theft Auto Vice City soundtrack on the Fever 105 radio station. There's a bit, see I'm not a video games guy, so you probably know this already, but there's a bit where you can walk into a bar and the village people not the pointer sisters are performing it

yes and you can go and shoot them all dead if you want but you've got to be careful of the construction worker because if you get too close he'll kick your head in i don't mind automatic i'm not so much into jump or i'm so excited that kind of fatuous facile reaganite pop yeah but with with all those songs the weird thing is how state of the art the pointer sisters became around this time considering what a veteran act they already were i i know you i know you guys think it's skill and min i could never love automatic but i can really admire it it's really got something yeah i love it man i mean my favorite bit is the middle eight because it it sounds like you know when you go to Skegness on your holiday and you're in an amusement arcade

and every now and again all the one armed bandits would just go off at the same time that's exactly what it sounds like it's fucking brilliant this song is this is the summer song of 1984 to my mind yeah it's very evocative of that time definitely do you know the Pointer Sisters, not only have they got a star on the Walk of Fame

in Hollywood, there's a Pointer Sisters day in Oakland, California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the 1st of September. That day you'll always remember. Oakland was dishing out a lot of days to pop stars around then. They gave Sheila E a day 28th of February, which is

a shitty day to have in the northern hemisphere at least it wasn't the 29th of february i suppose yeah really shit only every four years yeah but when they have days it's just that day it's not every year oh really yeah oh that's bollocks isn't it yeah i know i think we should provide i think every first of september should be point of sisters day guys just take a load of heroin and sing in a deep voice. I mean, speaking of Oakland, August the 25th is Digital Underground Day. Quite right, too. Oh, nice. So that's a day where, yeah, you can do the Humpty Hump, I guess.

Well, you can do what you like. With a plastic nose on, yeah. Like Mr. Potato Head. So the following week, Automatic soared 15 places to number five, and a fortnight later spent two weeks at number two, held off its rightful place on the summit of Mount Pop by The Reflex. The follow-up, Jump, got to number six for two weeks in June, and they would round off 1984 with a re-release of I Need You

getting to number 25 in September, and I'm I Need You getting to number 25 in September and I'm so excited getting to number 11 in November. On May the 26th 1984 a month to the day of this episode being broadcast the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack on Britain which led to the country having a population of 4 to 11 million people living under medieval conditions by 1994 according to the documentary threats as that country had decided to put the reflex at number one over automatic that week britain fucking deserved it if you ask me any country that thinks the reflex is better than this can't live and that pop craze youngsters brings us to the end of this episode of top of the pops what's on telly afterwards well bbc one kicks on with a compilation of the kenny everett television

show followed by we got it made the American sitcom about two bachelors who employ a beautiful blonde maid and was absolute cat shit. After the news, it's part four of Missing From Home, the drama series where Judy Lowe's husband drops off the radar, but she gains a new spirit of confidence and independence, which is nice.

There's a big argument about strikes and nuclear missiles in question time then mike cocker pricks about on a dead expensive computer in the technology show electronic office before they close down at a quarter to midnight bbc2 ducks out of the snooker to let sir lawrence gowring wang on about masochia in Three Painters, then Tony Sopa flags up a link between hamburgers and the destruction of the rainforests, and then wonders why some animals like shoving it in in springtime in the wildlife show Nature. After half an hour of Mike Harding in Belfast, the documentary series 40 Minutes gives us the point of view of an alien who has come down to earth for a nose

about before going back to the snooker for a bit then it's news night more snooker and then an hour of open university before knocking it on the air at 1am itv is half an hour into the made for tv film agatha christie's sparkling cyanide starring anthony Andrews. Then Alastair Burnett and Dennis Tewa examine the link between MPs and political lobbyists in TVI. Afternoons at 10 and regional news in your area. It's a repeat of Shelley, a repeat of the Channel 4 documentary series The Spanish Civil War,

New Heart, Night Thoughts with Richard Causton, and they turn it in at half past midnight. Channel 4 eventually gets round to the sea, a documentary about people stranded or disappearing in the middle of the Pacific, including an interview with an old sailor, not the old sailor, who ended up on a raft after his ship was torpedoed, and describe him that by a month in,

the survivors were so dehydrated they had to pull strings of urine out of their own penises. Oh, my God. Yeah, I remember watching this after Top of the Pops and that memory has stayed with me to this day. That was far more memorable than anything in this episode of Top of the Pops. If Simon Bates had done that, then... Bert and Saul travel back in time

in Soap. Then it's the final part of Caught in a Free State, the drama series about German spies. Then it's the Tony Randall sitcom Love, Sydney and they finish off with Isolation, a sketch for someone, a collection of poems.

Then it's the television opera series Perfect Lives and Ian Breakwell's Continuous Diary closing down at 20 past midnight so boys I know it's Easter holidays but what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow?

There's lots of stuff to kind of moan and laugh about and maybe I'd have been talking about who that milf was on stage with the Smiths. But to be honest, it'd be Duran. I think all the talk would be about Duran. For better or worse, they were the sort of biggest thing on here. And you judged them according to the singles and kind of whether it worked or not. So I think all the talk would be about Duran, to be honest.

Tell you what I'm thinking about now, knowing what we know now, I'm trying to imagine what it must have looked like when Lionel Richie, in a fit of rage, destroyed the clay effigy of himself. And I do wonder

if Bob Giraldi's cameras were still rolling when it happened. Yes. That would be the greatest bit of lost and found footage known to humanity. I mean, fuck the Beatles and get back, really. How would he have

done it? Just put a fist in it or baseball bat or thrown it off a building or... I mean, was it hollow? He'd have just torn at it and thrown cloths, you know, around like a shit-flinging gibbon. It'd have just been crazy with it.

But at the time, I definitely remember that if I was talking about anything from this performance, it would have been Sandy Shaw. It would have been, who's that old woman rolling around on the floor with a smith? Imagine being 37. Oh, God. What are we buying on Saturday? If I'm honest, Duran and Pointers. I'm buying Sandy Shaw and pointers i'm buying sandy shaw and the smiths um along with

all the other smiths records i bought at spillers in cardiff but not straight away it would have to wait till summer when i doing a bit of money at butlins um handing over my cash with my fingers still whiffing of cockles and muscles alive but um the boy with the prawns in his tray exactly well done uh yeah i bought reflex by not for myself but for my mum um as a birthday present because weirdly she liked it even though it wasn't her usual kind of music at all i just don't know why she just latched on to that song um in reality though it was one of those things where i bought it for her but i played it loads more than she did and i basically co-opted it into my own collection. Of course you did. It's how I know what the B-side sounds like.

Did she write her name on it, though? No. And what does this episode tell us about April 1984? What it tells us is they'll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air and tell you that you're 80, but brother, you won't care. You'll be shooting up

on anything. tomorrow's never there beware the savage lure of 1984 no no what it tells us is what it tells us is this right the oldies are coming right band-aid and live aid may still just be a twinkle in geldof's eye but already the chart is full of 37 year olds the oldies are taking over yeah we were told to worry about big brother but it's massive dad exactly right and and and this episode sends out a wake-up call and what it's saying is let's get together to fight this oldie armageddon yes yeah yeah that's definitely what comes across new pot by now is dead the old guards returning also american dominance very soon um the underground is kind of becoming behemoths these big bands like echo and the bunny men the charts are still

home to oddity here and there but top of the pops is increasingly not going to be left out a chance and like pricey says those you know those our band moments oh it's one of our bands uh they're going to get very rare indeed very very soon mean, this episode was intended as partly a tribute to Janice Long, but we haven't really said that much about her simply because she's just doing her fucking job. Yeah, she is. She knows what she's there for and she gets on with it and she does it. But oddly enough, the pop that we see on this episode of Top of the Pops

is precisely why a lot of us were listening to janice late on you know late in the evening to find out what was actually going on rather than what this episode of top of the pops presents to us yeah yeah she's just great and really likable she doesn't try too hard to impose her personality or to crack jokes or anything like that um but she's just a really warm presence on there particularly contrasted with the sort of partridge isms of baits yes and that pop craze youngsters brings this episode of chart music to a close usual promotional flange www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music reach out to us on Twitter at ChartMusic, T-O-T-P. Money down the G-string, patreon.com slash chartmusic. Neil Substack. Oh, yeah, neilk.substack.com.

Please let me live the pipe dream. And it's just an innocent pipe dream, not a crack pipe dream of being a writer again. neilk.substack.com. Please subscribe. Thank you very much, Simon Price. Ah, cheers. You're welcome. God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. No worries, Chuck.

My name's Al Needham and let me end by saying I love you. I love you. Shark music. The American Music Awards brought to you by Kraft, which brings you good food and good food ideas. And McDonald's. It's a good time for the great taste of McDonald's.

What a night. What a night. What a night. What a night. What a night it has been. I'm telling you, I am floored all the way around. When I said the word outrageous at the beginning, I had no idea it was going to be outrageous. I'm telling you.

Let me say this to you. Tonight, we have a very special way of saying goodbye. Although 1984 has been a great, great year for the music business, in the rest of the world they've been faced with problems of freedom, of hunger, and of peace. And tonight, I want to take this opportunity to ask all of you now to feel all the other people of the world who are in trouble right now tonight so i think that since we have since we have so many beautiful people watching tonight i want you to know that the world's in trouble and there are people that are crying out for your help and i thought i'd take this opportunity right now tonight

to use the words of paul mccartney and John Lennon when I say, let it be. When we find ourselves in times of trouble, that's the time for you and me. To join with all the people. Let it be. For if we come together. Can the world be safe and free. Free from war and hunger. Let it be

let it be let it be let it be let it be free from war and hunger let it be and when the broken hearted people

Living in the world