Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #9 - April 11th 1974: She’s A WILF

Episode Date: August 17, 2017

The ninth episode of the podcast which asks: were England’s international failures of the 1970s caused by an insistence on playing football on beaches in massive flares and stack heels while pretending to be Marvin Gaye? This episode, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, sees us making another Sam Tyler-like voyage to Spangleland in an attempt to see if 1974 could keep up the quality levels of the year before, or if it was already lurching into the hell of 1975. What we discover is a Bizarro-world in which Noel Edmonds stands out as a bouffanted, proto-Medallion Man object of genuine teenage lust amongst the sullen, lank-haired youth.   Musicwise, we see ‘new’ bands taking wing (Mud, in their Glam-Ted Vishnu phase), older bands calming themselves down (Slade, doing a ballad) or on their way out (Mungo Jerry, we’re looking at you), and people absolutely losing their shit over The Wombles. Pans People cause your Dad’s tea to slide right off his lap as they don the flounciest, bounciest nighties ever, Bill Haley is unearthed and put on display, the Terry Jacks Deathwatch drags on for another week, and history is made as Abba yomp all the way from Brighton to Shepherds Bush to begin their glacial reign over the Seventies. Al Needham is joined by Simon Price and David Stubbs to discuss all of this, as well as rubbish funeral songs, supporting a football team that looks like your favourite mug, BBC Families v ITV Families, believing that pop songs are actually news bulletins, and the Celtic ritual of Crisp Sacrifice. And all the swearing you could possibly want. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hey up you pop crazy youngsters and welcome to the latest edition of Chart Music the podcast that examines the droppings left behind by the hit parade. I'm your host, Al Needham, and as always, I'm joined by two people who are cow-heavy and bursting with musical knowledge. First up, and back on the term sofa for the first time in ages, it's David Stubbs. Hello, David. How do you do? And also in attendance is my man, Simon hey up Simon glad to have you back sir

alright glad to be back as always right no fanning about this episode you know the drill by now we take one episode of Top of the Pops from back in the day and break it down to its very last compound this week we're going all the way back to April the 11th 1974

now then there's a bit of reasoning behind this because in previous episodes we've gone back to April the 11th 1974. Now then there's a bit of reasoning behind this because in previous episodes we've gone back to 1973 and we liked it didn't we? Yeah it was the world was still young. Yeah then we went back to 1975 and to be honest we thought

it stank of unwashed cock didn't we? Yeah the world had got old. Bag of shite. So this episode is a look at the bit in the middle to see if the rot is already setting in in pop land. 1974, where were we, chaps? Well, I was at school. I was just finishing junior school.

I was captain of the football team, top of the class, you know. Wish I could be like David Stubbs. That's exactly it. i was just about to break into that very song yeah um um yeah he was so gay and fancy free weren't you david i absolutely was yeah yeah i really was i just wish you know i could have sort of continued you know with that kind of level of prestige and sort of universal adoration you know smartest boy in the village etc etc um but yeah but you know still top of the pops highlight of the week as ever um and i think you know i was building a sort of rudimentary sense

of sort of discernment um but that really was based about pace really i thought slow songs were rubbish fast songs were great excellent that's a good good marker when you're that age i think yeah yeah you you've got no time to be slow have you it's all about velocity youth and velocity and yeah but being weighed down by soggy flares yes yeah

soggy flares yeah we'll get on to them in a bit Simon me and you were around about the same age I was five when this episode came out how old were you

five six I was six yeah and I think about a year previous to this my parents got divorced. So, yeah, it's get the sad music from the X Factor out now while I'm telling you this bit.

So me and my mum at this point were living in a tiny one-bedroom flat in Barry, South Wales, not far from a Druid circle where about 10 years later I would sacrifice a packet of beef crisps on a stone because I didn't want to hurt any actual animals. And yeah, it was a tiny flat. My mum slept on the sofa. I had this little box bedroom on the wall of which I had a poster of racing cars that said Grand Prix. But because I was a child and didn't understand French

I thought it said Grand Prix oh like that that Golov Grangel who was on the Saturday TV show that was on it'll be all right all right every time they repeated it but my main fun at this time I wasn't um switched on to pop music yet as as David was um I was I guess getting into football but mainly I was into riding my bicycle which is a purple rally budgie. Good skills. Down the lanes in the streets behind my street where me and my mates would build ramps out of brick and planks in the manner of Evel Knievel, who was pretty much at the top of his game at that time. Of course. And, you know, because health and safety did not exist as a concept.

You could just, you know, you could ride down these lanes that were full of broken glass and dog shit and build ramps. And it was, no one really cared. Just kids were left to their own devices. And I kind of miss that, really. It's as swallows in amazon's childhood without the swallows or the amazons really there was there was no amazon um and there was no swallowing simon we've got to rewind a little bit how do you sacrifice a packet of beef crisps

well obviously you lay it on the flat stone in the druid's circle and you stab it with a swiss army knife i mean how how would you do it while while chanting words of welsh that you've somehow picked up i do love the idea of chris being involved in rebellion because i've got a mate who grew up in a muslim family and when he was about 14 or 15 him and his mates uh their idea of being rebellious was standing on street corners openly eating packets of smoky bacon crisps. Well, this is what you're going to understand, that, you know, most meat-flavoured crisps don't have any meat in them. So, as a conscientious vegetarian, as I was by my teens because of Morrissey and the Smiths and all of that.

Yeah. The exception being, of course, pork scratchings. Pork scratchings, yeah, sure. And Bovril. Pork scratchings pork scratchings yeah sure and bovril crisps you could need I think it was a friend of mine once found a packet of pork scratchings one of them had a pig's nipple on them oh lovely

so I think you're pretty conscious that that's not kind of chemical definitely but you know I can't help it it's in the blood I'm a Celtic man, you know. I've got that kind of Merlin-like mysticism swirling through my veins, and I was just compelled to take a packet of golden wonder and, you know, vent all my kind of unearthly mystical passions upon it

on that stone and leave it just a pile of crumbs. It's admirable, I have to say, because to be honest, in 1974, crisps were everything. And I just lived for crisps. My first holiday that year was in Triada Bay in North Wales in this kind of hideous, Frankenstein-ious pile there with just a single TV room. Absolutely, but I saved up more my pocket money every week.

My main calculation was how many packets of crisps I'd be able to afford every day in between games of football. It was, that was it, you know, it was crisps were everything. So I think your sacrifice is truly to be admired.

And everything is crisps. Exactly, yeah. That's it, that's how that song, yeah, that song would have truly spoken to my heart. Yes.

By this time, I was discovering both football and pop music. My team at the time was QPR for two reasons. Number one, Stan Bowles. I really liked him. I really wanted him to be my uncle. But the main reason was that their shirt was the same as my favourite mug.

And that's how you decide upon a team when none of your family's interested in football and you're that age. I went through a QPR phase as well. It's really hard to get a QPR replica shirt. So my mum got me one that was about five sizes too big and it had really long sleeves. So when I wore it, I looked like basically Johnny Rotten.

I think I went through Leeds United, QPR, Southampton before settling on Liverpool because that's what kids are like. They just flip back and forth particularly if you don't come from a town that has its own team so you're not being taken

to the game every week you know so basically football to you is match of the day so your affections are quite fickle I think at that time Yeah I was much more

promiscuous I settled eventually on being an Arsenal fan but at that point I would have like happily supported Sunderland because they beat Leeds my main thing was

I hated Leeds I was brought up in Leeds and I felt that I really belonged in the South. I'd been born in London, been brought up to this kind of, you know, the ghastly county of Yorkshire. And it was pretty grim at the time, that's to be said, in all kinds of ways. I mean, you just look at the footage now, and it's just absolutely, you know, there's a sort of toxicity about it that David Pease eventually kind of mined.

But, yeah, in 1974, Leeds, of course, were just about to win the championship actually although around about april they did falter that gave him a bit of holy they lost a couple games but they were just about to uh endure a procession to the uh to the division one title at that point so that was a little cloud in my life at that point you know about 10 minutes ago when i said we're not going to piss about this episode well that's that's how that's how we roll yeah I mean music wise I was I was well into it uh it was a it was you know it was a thing in my life um mainly because um at my school I was at infant school at the time and every Thursday afternoon

every Thursday dinner time we'd have uh we'd have a school disco every week and you'd pay half a P to get in and I was in a gang I was the only white kid in the gang and we called ourselves the Rudy guys and we'd stand and we'd dance to every song doing

the Rudy guy dance which was a bit of a stylistics, one foot to foot kind of shuffle looking really cool. But I was the only one who didn't have an Afro, unfortunately, but you know, nevermind. I kind of worked my way around it. And then at the end, they play Blockbuster and Leader of the Gang. And then you just couldn't be a Rudy guy anymore. You just had to run around and skid on the floor and fucking these years flares up and everything. So yeah of the pops was a really big deal april 1974 i was 11 going on 12 i don't think i've probably met a single black person in my life there's there were no rudy boys in barrick

and elm i can tell you there weren't any barry either yeah thursday nights i was aware of top of the pops and my dad refused point blank to watch it as i've as i've mentioned before so once again for this episode if i did watch it i'd have to go around to tony bones's mom's house to watch to watch it which was which was great so i'd be probably be sitting there with a packet of crisps taking in the spangly popness that was about to uh which we're about to talk about. So what was in the news this week? Wow. The House Judiciary Committee has voted to force President Nixon to turn over tapes in the Watergate investigation. Golda Meir has just resigned as Prime Minister of Israel. The USSR have insisted that Rudolf Hess serves out his life term at Spandau Prison. Over in America, Hank Aaron has just broken Babe Ruth's home run record.

And three Atletico Madrid players have been sent off the night before in a European Cup quarterfinal against Celtic. And there was a proper good punch up at the end. Oh, I've seen that on YouTube. Yeah, yeah, it's well worth checking out. It was basically the Argentina team, wasn't it, and the different guys. Surely you mean it brings the game into disrepute

and it's the sort of thing that none of us want to see. I think the word that came to mind was cynical. Indeed, yes. On the cover of the NME this week is Joni Mitchell because she was in London playing three nights. On the cover of the tv times because there's no smash hits obviously on the cover of the tv times is noel gordon and des o'connor oh what a combination why didn't they record some tunes it was for the tv times award which two of

them used to win year upon year the number one lp is the singles 1969 to 1973 by The Carpenters. Over in America, the number one single is Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede. And the number one LP is Banned on the Run by Wings. Wow. That's about the first or second album I ever bought, actually. Really? Yeah. The first one was Manfred Mann's greatest hits because it was on sale at the mysteriously low price of 65 pence in Tesco's wow and then got banned on the run yeah so natural just played it to death I remember a

year later someone brought it to school on the last day of term before we broke up for Christmas because you could play your records and that and we didn't even bother taking the record out of the sleeve we just spent all afternoon looking at the cover at the the famous people on it thinking what are they doing there so what else was on telly this day well bbc one has already shown the double deckers international show jumping from hickstead jack and aurea blue peter nationwide and tomorrow's world you know just your standard bbc fair for a thursday. BBC Two, on the other hand, started with Play School at 11 o'clock and then it switched off until 20 to 7. At the moment, they're screening a debate programme called Argument and asking the question,

does humanism have anything to offer? Jesus Christ. ITV, on the other hand, has already broadcast Indoor League, The Flintstones and 45 the ITV pop program hosted by Kid Jensen

and the guest stars this week have been Alvin Stardust Slade and Hurricane Smith they're one hour into the film Fantastic Voyage

with Raquel Welsh which means I've definitely got to fuck off to Tony Bones' house if I want to watch this episode of Top of the Pops Indoor Leagueid you must remember that very well being a faux

yorkshireman oh absolutely yes yes the um uh yeah the um they used to have i can't remember who did the commentary it might have been keith maplin or something like that but they'd have a very sort of like very kind of flowery kind of approach to it you know they'd talk about you know the bar of the bar billiards table and stuff like that. And there were various, yeah, shove apony and all these kinds of things. Yes. And they used to have a Yorkshire dartboard as well,

which seemed impossibly exotic at the time. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, what was Indoor League? Just explain to the younger viewers. Maybe I'm not thinking of the same thing. I'm just thinking of like basically what were glorified pub games that were just elevated to the ground.

Yes, that's exactly what it was. Presented by Fred Truman. Yeah, yes, that's right, yeah. And, yeah, they've given the kind of spurious stages of sport. Well, I suppose, you know, if snooker's going to be

kind of considered a sport, it's, you know, it's a short hop really to shove apony or whatever. And, yeah, I mean, this was, it was something to do it was something to watch and it was something to put on the telly once it in the afternoon yeah when there wasn't any crown court all of this is a mystery to me right because uh

i i grew up in a bbc household and that's really how it was in the 70s that you know quite quite a lot of families um particularly if they had pretensions to middle class status, didn't like having ITV on in the house. And my mum, my mum, bless her, even though we had no money, we were completely skint, my mum was a bit of a hyacinth bouquet. She loved turning up to, or dragging me to church on a Sunday morning with my hair neatly combed and parted and my shoes polished so that we could look respectable in front of the people from the nice end of town

and all of that. And I think not having ITV on in the house was part of that, really. So things like Magpie or Tiswas, I rarely saw. All these things which I never saw on the buses no wonder he turned to crisp sacrifice well absolutely you know i mean golden wonder had it come in imagine all the pent-up rage in me you know not not being able to partake in the kind of

trashy brightly colored pleasures but all these lift off with a she or however you say it never saw that um yeah never saw that uh never never saw magpie never well maybe once or twice saw magpie used to sneak a look at tis was if my mum was out but she didn't approve so yeah i mean i feel like little lord forderoy but this is this is a bizarre thing i absolutely craved top of the pops you know i um i was absolutely desperate to watch it every single week, but I also had the option to watch Liftoff with Ayeshu and all these other programmes, but I chose not to. They didn't quite seem valid somehow. I think it was perhaps it was kind of tied up.

There was unofficial. It was, you know, I think that, you know, probably for me, it was kind of quite anal. It was all bound up with the kind of official charts or whatever. And what these acts did outside of that context of Top of the Pops and the charts didn't really, it just felt kind of frivolously relevant. You know, what was important was to see them in the context of the charts, of the hit parade,

set in relation to kind of all the kind of slow ballady, MOR stuff or whatever. But yeah, I was curiously incurious about Pop on ITV. I never watched 45 by, you know, Kim Jensen, didn't even know he exists. And it wasn't anything to do with being forbidden to do it because we watched all kinds of ITV stuff. On the other hand, I came from an ITV family.

My dad ruled the, well, I was going to say remote control, but there was no such thing back in 74. The clicker on the side, channel two to channel 10. I mean, BBC would be on every now and again for certain things, but BBC 2, no. And Channel 4, God no. You know, I had to watch that on the slide, because my dad certainly

didn't approve of what was occurring on that channel. But, you know, FA Cup Final, World Cup, major news event, what are you going to watch? BBC or ITV? You always go to BBC, don't you? Yeah, people who watch the FA Cup final on ITV,

I thought there was something really wrong with them. Exactly, yeah. You'd just switch it on all day, wouldn't you, for the BBC, from football focus. Even before that, actually, probably multicoloured swap shop would have some kind of element of FA Cup build-up, and you just leave it on until tea time, really. Alright then, Pop Craigs youngsters, no more messing about.

It's time to go in hard on April 11th, 1974. Don't forget the golden rule. We may coat off your favourite band or artist, but we never forget they've been on top of the pops more than we have. We are hit in the face with a montage of music paraphernalia,

gig posters, LP covers, etc. and the faces of people such as Michael Jackson, Elvis, David Bowie, Elton John, Billy Paul, Roger Daltrey and Lindsay DePaul. While the BBC orchestra does their version of Whole Lotta Love. And the montage we see is kind of meant to evoke pop in all its variety, isn't it? You know, from Elvis Presley to Roger Daltrey. It's all there. Look at all these people who aren't going to be on this episode.

Yeah, exactly. Here's what you could have won. Yes yes they seem to have gone on a bit of a magpie kick ironically enough i mean with all the kind of yeah um yeah the sort of slightly kind of um psychedelic lettering what have you it's it seems to be almost like kind of they've taken the leaf out the credits you know the book of the magpie kind of credits getting it's it's um um yes it's quite bizarre i don't really remember them going through this particular phase i remember it being more of a kind of just a sober countdown but all that business at the beginning yeah and it's a bit um it's a bit yellow submarine and it's a bit multi-python um and you know particularly towards the end you know the last few numbers are very psychedelic. But there are other bits where they've just

got the same picture of a pop star's face at two angles. One, two, like that. Elvis' face tilted left, tilted right. And that's meant to blow our minds. And there's something about the saxophone in this version of Whole Lotta Love

which makes me think of some kind of really urbane, sleazeball chat show host, you know, like Parkinson, or, you know, maybe some sort of pebble mill at one kind of guy. It just feels like sort of velvet flared suits, and I don't know, yeah. There's something a bit unsavoury about it, I think.

I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost a metaphor, really. You know, you've got the original kind of rock sort of whatever, the actual love riff, and then it's rather crass departure by somebody who really doesn't have a clue about the spirit of rock and pop music. But I love it, though.

I much prefer this version of A Whole Lotta Love by the BBC orchestra than the Led Zeppelin version. As soon as Robert Plant starts fucking screaming, he's like, oh, shut up, mate. I want to hear that sax. The brass really turns me on. In the 90s, a colleague of David's and mine at Melody Maker, a guy called Tony Hawkins,

who used to run the kind of technical and muso bit of Melody Maker, he actually had a hit record with a third version of Whole Lotta Love. Do you remember that, David? God, yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah. What was the name of his band? With the Pearl and Dean music.

Yes, that was it. That was it. It brought in the Pearl and Dean. Goldberg with a British band in the 90s, he says, reading from Wikipedia, formed in Brighton in 1995 by a former member of the Beatmasters. So there we go.

But yeah, the drummer on that was our Melody Maker colleague, Tony Hook. He's got a number three, unbelievably. And it says that they were recruited via an advert in Melody Maker. So Tony probably just cut out the middleman and thought, fuck that, I'm going to join, you know. I'm not even going to publish that advert.

That's a pretty good perk, though, working in Melody Maker, isn't it? You know, you can just poach all the good band jobs. Yeah. Should have thought about that, shouldn't have. Good evening, music lovers, wherever you are. I've got a feeling this is Top of the Pops. Is that right, Limmy?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the camera crashes in on Noel Edmonds in a grey jacket with 70s regulation, massive lapels, a white shirt with what we used to refer to at school as condor collars due to their massive wingspan, and the shirt's open to below the nipples with a small gold medallion. He's basically rocking the Saturday Night Fever look three years before the event, with a luxuriant bouffant

teamed with the trademark sensible goatee. And he introduces the top 30 with a shit gag that dies on its arse because the record is queued late. Noel Edmonds, let's talk about him. Born in Ilford in 1948, Noel Edmonds was the son of a headmaster who was offered a place at the University of Surrey, but he turned it down to be a newsreader at Radio Luxembourg. After a year of that, he moved to Radio 1 in 1969 to record trailers and fill in for absent DJs. Then he bagged a regular Saturday afternoon slot in 1970, moved to a Sunday morning slot in 1971, and then was then immediately promoted up to The Breakfast Show in 1973, deposing Tony Blackburn.

He's been a regular top of the pops presenter since 1970 and he's seen as very much the golden boy of Radio 1. He's one year from presenting his first TV show, Zed Shed, a visual problem page for teenagers, presumably in a shed. Do you remember Zed's shed, David? Faintly. Faintly. Yeah, I don't think I watched it. Just faintly now that you say Zed's shed. I don't know if I want Noel Edmonds answering my relationship problems.

He's a funny old stick, Noel Edmonds. He's one of those people that's always seemed a certain age. He's always seemed about 40 years old. He seems about 40 years old here, even though he's probably in his late 20s he seems 40 years old he's 26 yeah yeah he's 26 he seems about 40 though um as you say the gags just lay absolute eggs every last one of them and it's um um and it's extraordinary he's got a real kind of coin coin hunt thing going on he's got that kind of smirk he does he does later on you know there's there's a sort of there's when he talks about here kitty kitty when you know when there's a cat yes songs and then

then he repeats it afterwards it's just like it's not even a joke it's just a kind of it's just a sort of slightly snotty snort and he's doing that kind of like slightly laughing nervously is his own his own material um and they go how does a cat go up the motorway? Meow. I mean, it's just wretched. Oh, man, you're killing his material, David. It's absolutely bizarre because my dad, we used to love him. Me and my dad, we used to call him God. We thought he was fantastic. And I'm just finding it hard to kind of.

Really? Why? Exactly. Why indeed? You know, I'm just trying to find what it was about him and his presence that just inspired this kind of, and has inspired it ever since. Did you think he looked a bit like Jesus? Yes, I think that element of the Christ-like, definitely,

about his appearance, a bit Robert Powell-ish, whatever. But no, I don't know. I just, I can't sort of fasten on anything at all about him that would have like, and has indeed inspired this kind of you know long career but you just said there david your dad liked him as well yeah did i hear that right yeah yeah so it's one thing we agreed on was the marvelousness of noel edmunds why that's not the role of a dad the role of a dad is to just cast aspersions on everyone presenting top of the pops i don't know well this is it but then to precise, that's probably because Noel Edmonds wasn't really,

he was a bit like Dave Lee Travis. He got the impression that, I mean, he says at the beginning, hello, music lovers. And it says like, you're not, you know, you're obviously far comfier talking to Dave Lee Travis about the respective merits of cross-ply and radial tyres.

I mean, they clearly weren't music people. They just had a sort of vague, sort of sheen of like like, modernity about them that made them plausible to present sort of programmes. But they clearly have no sort of love or sort of feeling or knowledge for the music. I mean, you know, you just – that does creep out, you know, with slightly later DJs. Like, your kid Jensen's people are like, you get the feeling they haven't been Janice long. But, you know, they'll say something now and again that betrays a bit of love for the music.

But nothing at all of Noel Edmonds it's just a sort of stream of hits as far as he's concerned it's just a stream of audio data it's Jimmy Savile the one and only the police, the one and only Dire Straits

the only thing he seemed to know about music was that each band was the one and only one of them and it's just extraordinary how they got away with it through the entire 70s. And also, you know, making these light introductions that were just numb jokes. They were just things said in a kind of spirit of levity, or failing that, as Noel Edmonds resorts to quite a lot. Just going into a little funny voice like that, or perhaps a northern accent. Oh, right. Yeah.

It's just like, Christ's sake, you know. David, do you want to tell the audience how Noel Edmonds introduced the only performance on top of the pops of Cannes? Of course, yes. He hoped that they would have a good chance of getting into the top ten. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Noel Edmonds appears to be one of the first Radio 1 DJs who's got his eye on the glittery TV presenting prize. I mean, he's already seen Jimmy Savile do that in a way. You know, Jimmy Savile's got clunk click on at the minute. So he's one of the pioneers to carve the path between getting off the radio and getting on telly, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. And it was always kind of, you know, it's kind of annoying to me.

I think even then he used it in a sense that there's certain people that genuinely like pop music, and there are people that just see it as a kind of starting point to a kind of broader broadcasting career. And, yeah, you always get that. Simon? Yeah, I agree with what David said, that clearly Noel Edmonds doesn't like or even understand pop music. And I think it's quite telling in your little potted bio there

that he went into radio as a newsreader first and then sort of moved sideways, or maybe even downwards as he might have seen it, into the world of presenting pop. But the thing is, he did seem kind of weirdly godlike and weirdly untouchable in the 70s and early 80s, I suppose. He did seem like, if not the face of the BBC, certainly the face of the young or the youth-oriented BBC.

And this, of course, is years and years, decades before him getting pranked by Chris Morris about the made-up drug cake or him going into his partridge-like rant about housing provisions for soldiers returning from the iraq war uh on on his sky chat show um and again decades before him uh threatening to buy the bbc uh and and uh and and then touting this special gadget that can cure cancer i mean obviously now he now he's gone nuts. He's lost it, but he's completely gone insane. He is completely, absolutely fucking insane now.

He's going full Ike at the moment, isn't he? But at the time, I think in 1974, Noel Edmonds was the most trendy person I could imagine. And I'm going to define trendy here. I think trendy in the 70s was very different from cool. Trendy meant that you were in tune with what was popular. You were not fighting against the tide. You were not trying to drag it forwards.

You were just in tune with what's popular, and you were the most in tune with what's popular of anyone. And I think my first memory of him, this probably would have been a couple of years later, actually. There was a clothing company called Trueutex 14 uh for for children and young people and they gave out flexi discs with their clothes and i must have had a pair of trutex 14 jeans and there was this flexi with it which had noel edmunds's face on the label and when he played it it had him uh introducing snatches of his favourite songs.

So it was things like Don't Go Breaking My Heart and If Not You and things like that. And then occasionally snatches of this sort of True Text 14 kind of jingle. That must be on YouTube. It is. It is. Go find it. I tell you. I listened to it earlier. That will be on the video playlist um and he just seemed to embody this kind of uh pre-punk um era of pop where it seemed that this is what was fashionable and this would always be that way nothing would ever change um his kind of

feathery bouffant hair and his sensible little beard and his condor collars as you call them that would always be the way the truth and the life and uh yeah he just seemed kind of invulnerable like some kind of uh youthful battleship i don't know yeah but it was strongly disliked though wasn't he by um tony blackburn and dave lee. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, reading Tony Blackburn's autobiographies is just a goldmine of anti-Edmunds material. Yeah, Tony Blackburn, Dave Lee Travis and Alan Partridge. All of them despise Noel Edmunds. Oh, yes, of course.

Yes, Alan Partridge indeed. One of them, it's a coincidence. Three of them, it's a pattern, isn't it? Yes. My memories of Noel Edmonds, I think my favourite memory has to be the advert he did for British Gas, where he's hosting a disco that's full of ovens. Do you remember that one? No. Oh, there's a fucking advert. There's a series of adverts of Noel Edmonds at a disco and everyone's getting down.

But on the side, there's like a bank of gas ovens and people are stopping dancing and going over and, you know, turning a spit and... People are stopping dancing and sticking their heads in. Yeah. I mean, just think it's the most dangerous thing ever. Can you imagine having fucking ovens on the go at a disco? Jesus Christ.

Disco Inferno. Possibly one of the things about him, because he has been successful, clearly. And, you know, how can you just run for so many years, so many decades on empty the way he's done? And, I mean, first of all, I think he's never changed that haircut. He's been like Glenn Hoddle. He's maintained, he's sort of like Wade Anker.

No, do you remember that thing? Vic and Bob. Vic and Bob took the piss out of that,'t they they they had uh one of them i think it was uh bob mortimer comes on in this weird kind of lion like body suit and this weird kind of noel edmunds head mask and he feigns uh horror at seeing a photo oh no a picture of me looking slightly different you know from 12 years ago or something because yeah he absolutely hasn't changed at all yeah yeah no but people do like that people like an absolute constant you know people like john mott's and people like that people do like a kind of cultural pop cultural constant so maybe that's it that and just this unflappable self-confidence you know despite the

fact that he has absolutely he doesn't have an atom of wit about it no and he's obviously a total arse but i'll say this for him. He is a slick presenter. When you watch this episode, his jokes don't land. They're fucking awful. But he is very confident and very glib. He doesn't fuck up. He's a safe pair of hands. Actually, he does fuck up once

at the very end, which we'll come to. But basically, he is absolutely Mr. Smooth, Mr. Safe Pair of Hands. And you can see why he was such a kind of regular face on TOT. I mean, it's safe. I don't know, the odd death on his shows. But, yeah. Let's move on to a walking miracle.

Formed in Canton, Ohio in the late 60s, Lime, Jimmy and Martha Snell signed with Avco Records in the early 70s. Although they did nothing in the US charts, they had a number three hit in the summer of 1973 with You Can Do Magic. This song is the follow-up to Dreamboat, which got to number 31 in November of 1973. It's a cover of a 1963 songs by The Essex, and it's gone up this week from number 38 to number 23.

And this is being played over the chart rundown and there's stills of the bands counting down interspersed with clips of the audience. Is there anything in that sequence that grabbed you chaps? Yeah, just the fact that we do see the audience and maybe I'm reading too much into this but this was 1974 and I've been binging on Northern Soul lately.

I've been really overdosing on it for a thing that I'm going to write for The Guardian. And I just wondered if this was some kind of weird, tacit acknowledgement of Northern Soul culture in that you're seeing the audience, the audience of the stars, this idea that rather than focusing on the stage and you know the face of a pop star um the important thing is the people dancing um and we even there's a northern there's a northern soul track in the rundown actually uh love on a mountaintop by robert knight brilliant tune um it has to be said some of the audience cannot dance um there's somebody who sort of rocks from side to side in this really awkward manner that

reminds me of um janine davitsky as ange in abigail's party if you can picture that do you remember that that the way the way she that specific way she dances the entire body tilting first left and then right with no no kind of syncopation to it she had beautiful lips so very beautiful lips yeah um i i just wonder if um that that would that was maybe northern soul culture um spreading as far as totp because a lot of uh the um sort of wig and casino hits were starting to make their way into the top 40 this song though is a bit crap yeah this song is a bit crap i love um you can do magic is just an incredible record and um to this day if i'm djing and doing a soul set that is one that i'll always

reach for it's just so uplifting but this this kind of cheesy corny kind of cover of an old 60s uh girl group number um it reminds me a little bit of when Sister Sledge having made some of the greatest music known to mankind later come back with Frankie for their biggest hit record do you know what I mean it's just very it's offensively

jaunty and a bit cheesy and I'll always love Limmy and Family Cooking for You Can Do Magic but this one can piss off quite frankly I have to say I mean it's interesting what you were saying, Simon, about the audience. I think, yeah, I think I was focusing more on perhaps the sort of slightly, on some of the sort of the bad dancing, whatever,

but also just the general demeanour of the people there. You can tell this is sort of pre-theatrical, mid-70s or whatever. I mean, you look at Top of the Pops in the early 80s and everybody's a kind of exhibitionist in deedy boppers. And there's none of that. There's a kind of scorn for that. I think this is what we were like back then. We weren't exhibitionists. We were modest. We were bound by social contract.

One nation. We didn't want to be famous for 15 minutes. Other people were famous. Danny LaRue, Larry Grace, Noel Edmonds or whatever. And we just very quietly looked at the camera with a certain kind of shy sort of disdain or whatever and we got on with our dancing and that was that

it was a very different Britain then and the hair is very lank amongst the lads isn't it? Yes yeah I mean there's yeah it's almost like the whole nation hasn't had a hair wash since 1969 yeah. Whereas Noel on the other hand has had at least two cans of Cossack on his hair hasn't had a hair wash since 1969. Whereas Noel, on the other hand, has had at least two cans of Cossack on his hair, hasn't he?

Maybe that was the difference between them and us. Yeah, the stars had access to conditioner and the rest of us didn't. Cossack, though, maybe you've got it there. Maybe he bought up the entire supply of Cossack at a certain point and has been hoarding it ever since and it's a sort of career preservative. Because, yes, you never hear of Cossack these days.

Perhaps Noel bought it all up, rather than buying the BBC. It is that brand of hairspray that you only find in a newsagent's when you're desperate, and I know this as an old goth myself, when you're desperate for a can of hairspray and all the chemists are closed. You go in a newsagent's and all they've got is Cossack or Harmony.

I actually wonder, maybe Noel was a Harmony man. Is he or isn't he? So the following week a walking miracle jumped up to number 15 and two weeks later it reached number 6, its highest position. This would be their last bit of chart action however and

they toured the UK as two separate cabaret bands until the mid 80s. I don't know if it was Limmy went off on his own and Family Cooking went off another way or, oh so many perm80s. I don't know if it was Limmy went off on his own and Family Cooking went off another way or, oh, so many permutations and I don't care. That's the sound of Limmy and Family Cooking, of course,

and the Mobile Miracle. I hope our chart was very much to your liking. Jimmy Osmond, of course, rising ten places. Sunny with her doctor's orders up nine places. We've got four new entries in the chart, the highest of which comes from Mud, and the cat is on the move.

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty. Edmonds discusses a few chart placings before introducing Mud. Formed in Colsholten in 1966, Mud started off as a psychedelic band with a string of flop singles including Flower Power, Up the Airy Mountain, Shangri-La and Jumpin' Jehoshaphat until they were dropped by CBS in 1970. After three years without a deal, they signed with Rack Records, straddled both the Glamrock and the Ted Revival bandwagons, appeared on the Basil Brush Show and had three hits in 1973. This is the follow-up to their first number one single, Tiger Feet, in January of this year,

which kept Teenage Rampage by The Suite and Devil Gate Drive by Suzy Quatro off the top spot sorry about that David I know it still hurts you and it's the highest new entry this week at number eight follow-up to number one I think what you just said about them straddling glam rock and the trap rock revival is actually kind of yeah that's significant really because it's a funny old time 1973-74 it's almost for the first time rock and pop has sort of taken a breather and looking back right back to the beginnings of rock and roll there was a huge sort of rock and roll revival we'll see a little bit of that later on as well um and that's what they're managing to do i mean you've got ultra glam you've got

i mean you've got like rob davis on guitar who for me was my sort of first inkling of anything to do with like transgender or anything like that, you know, the way that he dressed. That was fantastic. And he was a point to the future, the 80s to come, where men would turn into women and all that. But at the same time, you've got Les Gray and the rest of the chat, you know, doing the whole sort of Teddy Boy thing or whatever. So they kind of really are.

They're sort of like tapping into two sort of significant strains at the moment. You know, the sort of tail end of glam rock and all that kind of futurism, but also that sort of mood of revivalism that you've got. You know, you've got Shoo Waddy Waddy and people like that elsewhere at the same time, as well as, you know, it's happening in films, it's happening everywhere. People are really thinking about early rock and roll at this time.

But surely the Ted revivalists would hate a band like Mudd. Yeah, I mean, I suppose the actual purists probably would. Yeah, they would disdain them. Obviously, they're a sort of pop dilute version. But yeah, there was something, I mean, maybe Mudd had purists probably would. Yeah, they would disdain them. Obviously, they're a sort of pop dilute version. But yeah, there was something. I mean, maybe Mud had their own kind of sort of hybrid thing. I mean, you know, it was fantastic. I mean, I was a Mud boy at the time,

and that meant going out into the disco, you know, two thumbs in two sort of belt loops or whatever, sort of indulging that stag ritual or whatever. Two blokes. It was just like, off the Mud Rocker. So the band begin by standing behind each other with their arms out like a glam Ted Shiva. And they're led by Rob Davis, the designated effeminate member of the band.

Now, one thing that's always bothered me about this, do you think glam bands, I mean, obviously they had to have someone like that in their band. Yeah, Steve Priest in Sweden. Yeah. Do you think they actually drew lots to decide who it was going to be? Or would one of them volunteer to do it? That's a very good point, actually, because they both do it with gusto. You don't get any impression that like they're doing it under sort of protest or sufferance, do you? But then the other thing was, you know, you actually talk, you know, Steve Priest, you know, when you see him interviewed.

I mean, there isn't a sort of trace of effeminacy about him at all. And, you know, Rob Davis, neither as far as i can make out yeah so it was purely a kind of put on but uh no they were just you know very happy to um do their bit they're all wearing uh powder blue with a glittery piping motif but les gray gets the elvis jumpsuit and rob davis looks like margot Ledbetter with sort of dangly coin earrings I mean and I thought at the beginning I thought he was wearing a dress but he was just wearing really massive flares I tell you he reminds me of Rob Davis with his massive dangly earrings it's uh do you remember when Pamela Stevenson on not the nine o'clock news used to do an impression of uh the newsreader Jan Leeming yes there's there's a lot of that about it actually i've got to correct

you um it's not shiva it's vishnu they start off in the vishnu formation it's vishnu yeah yeah yeah so they're stood there three of them with their arms out it's uh it's a formation that would let her uh would later be uh reprised by dead or alive in their video for you spin me round um but they just they hold that pose for just a couple of seconds and then they break don't they and they're huddled tight it's very kind of shoulder to shoulder that kind of dance they do and it's like a gang it's a sort of come and have a go if you think you're hard enough pose that they're doing which which seems to atone in some way for any kind of possible effeminacy embodied by by rob davis and his earrings and and and and you're right that um they are um as well as being kind of the last knockings of glam or glam bandwagon jumpers they are kind of teddy

boy cabaret act in a way because one of their biggest hits was oh boy a cover version of the uh buddy holly song and and then there's uh there's lonely this christmas which is a an elvis pastiche really so that's clearly where that their heart was um and uh you could tell they've been around a while their hairlines have been hit by the recession yes um it's it's inconceivable to look at them that anyone fancied mud i don't think anybody had posters of mud on their walls and you know fantasized about any member of the band um there'd be a tough sell in mirabella music star wouldn't they they would um i'm this is not exactly

a genre but a category of record that fascinates me and that is follow-ups that are exactly the same as the song that came before it right um and in an attempt to you know um you know to make magic strike twice so for example uh kung fu fighting carl douglas the follow-up to that was dance the kung fu and it sounds exactly the same but just slightly crapper i love that song and it you know didn't really make it um there's one that books the trend is actually Chubby Checker Let's Twist Again which is if anything better than The Twist but normally these kind of follow-up records that are exactly the same as the predecessor

kind of fall on their arse and flop this one didn't really it got to number two in the end nearly repeated the success of Tiger Feet so you've got this kind of feline themed very urgent glam rock record and if I think if you hadn't heard Tiger Feet first you would actually think this was a truly fantastic record it's it's it's diminished only by not being Tiger Feet because Tiger Feet

is actually perfect um and you know this really is uh Chin and Chapman at the top of their game I think. Another thing I wanted to talk about is the visual language of Top of the Pops that we see really crystallized in this performance because if you look to the corners of the screen you see the colored spotlights doing that thing they do in the camera of forming this kind of radial spangle around the edge of the screen and it's such a beautiful evocative thing and i don't know if it was deliberate or just some kind of weird side effect of the slightly insufficient technology of the time but that the way the colored lights go into that kind of spangle effect in the corner of the screen during this mud performance that to me

is early 70s i think that one of the things you always get on top of was always struck me even as a kid is that it was a kind of a metaphor for what it was like is placed in the culture it was this moment of light you know in a time of like pop cultural darkness he was always aware on the periphery of the screen high up in the studio rafters of the this blackness kind of surrounding you know surrounding the performance you know because it was only partially lit you know the stages all there but you're always aware that way up in the rafters, it was very, very dark. So things like this, I guess,

is a little device to kind of try and offset that. Do we notice, by the way, when Rob Davis holds the guitar behind his head and gives it a bit of Jimi Hendrix? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I guess. Extraordinary moment. And the camera zooms right in

so that we see his hand with a plectrum, but we don't see what his fingertips are doing i think there's possibly a reason for that yeah it's very possibly lovely thing though about a group like mud is this general point it is it was granddad annoying i mean my dad wasn't supposed to be my granddad he would sit there and fulminate over top of the pops every week and it was always the same thing seven days jankers they'd get seven days jankers whether it was roy wood or mudankers, whether it was Roy Wood or Mudd. It was just absolutely infuriating.

It was a bit sort of short back and sides by temperament. And I was always very satisfied to know that the generation gap was being duly observed. My dad's standard retort to anything like this was, they're not fucking real. And that's the point, Dad. The trouble is then Oasis came along. I know. Oasis came along and were fucking real.

And again, you know, we always go on about Alvin Stardust, you must be out of your tiny minds. Les Gray was there for the kids as well, remember? He was. He did a Green Cross code advert. He did. Mudward coming out of the recording studio

and just about to get into their limo. but let's see some kids running uh running across the road so he uh he he gives them a stern lecture in 1976 by the way that was so they're coming out of the recording studio having made a record nobody's gonna buy yes yeah but at least at least he saved a few lives yeah the following week the cat crept in to number two then uh went down to number three and then back up to number two but no higher the follow-up rocket got to number six in august and lonely this christmas would be the festive number one of 1974 they'd have eight more chart hits including the number one with the cover of oh Boy in 1975 before splitting up in 1976. They had a short but very decent run, didn't they?

Yeah, and I actually saw them live at Butlins in about 1985, so they clearly patched up their differences. Actually, maybe at that point it was probably Les Grey's mud, wasn't it? Les Grey and a bunch of ringers, because Rob Davis by this point was probably thinking about his songwriting career and he did very well didn't he in the uh here kitty kitty department the cat crept in and that of course is a new entry from mud how's a cat go up the m1 meow quite right and this week's number four we find slade. If you're

not really satisfied with seeing them here, may I remind you they're starting a tour of the UK almost immediately. And they're starting in Bradford, would you believe? Slade and Every Day. Every day when I'm away I'm thinking of you Edmunds, alone on a podium, gets one more shitty cat joke in before warning the parents of Bradford to lock up their daughters as he introduces Slade. We've covered Slade in the last episode of Chalk Music

as they embarked on their early 80s go-around, so let's be brief here. This is a follow-up to Merry Christmas Everybody, which was still in the top 40 by February, and the second single from their current LP, Old, New, Borrowed and Blue. Seen as a risky departure for the band from their usual glam stomp,

the song was selected as the next released after an argument between manager Chas Chandler and the band during a tour flight to Australia. Fucking hell, that must have been a very long argument. It was last week's highest new entry at number six and it's jumped up two places this week to number four. Now, here's

another song that's a follow-up from a number one. Yeah, first of all, that whole thing about Merry Christmas, everybody, still being in the top 40 in February, that never ceases to baffle me. Who the fuck is still buying Christmas records in February? What on earth is that about? Who gets out of bed on a Saturday morning in February

and thinks, do you know what I'm going to buy? I'm going to go and buy Merry Christmas, everybody, by Slade. So, yeah so we got Edmunds having done his joke how does a cat go up the M1 meow then he says he says Slade's tour is starting in Bradford and then he goes would you

believe with his sort of smug little wobble of a head I mean what does he mean by that he thinks he's really suave he says it in this kind of like pseudo suave way like you know would you believe um oh man anyway but you know it he gets away with it yeah he does he sort of does a little head wobble and he gets away with it because he's got got these sort of fawning these sort of fawning people around him and but but then immediately what cracks me up about the song

itself is that this is slade's sensitive ballad they've come from the kind of raucousness of merry christmas everybody to this beautiful sensitive ballad and immediately it's messed up by super yob dressed as an egyptian pharaoh waving this kind of big blue drape around from the neck of his guitar which is actually kind of brilliant in a wrong way yes and i i think this is a genuinely great song. We all think of Noddy Holder as this sort of genial black country clown, but I do think he's got one of the great rock and roll voices, never mind just in Britain, you know, maybe, you know, the world. And I think he really shows it.

I don't think you can argue with this being a brilliant song. really shows it on the spec i don't think you can argue with this being a brilliant song um i think it's you know i suppose that really kind of clunkingly um head-smackingly awful uh comparison would be oh well it's like the oasis of its day but this pisses all over something like wonderwall for me it really does um oh by the way did you notice something happens in this performance that i love um there's a bloke in the audience uh and he's wearing a tuxedo and a bow tie uh and and and he walks away yes he walks away uh as if in disgust near the end of the song and i don't know if he's disgusted by trashy pop music in general or whether he just thinks oh man slade is sold out well you see this this would have been me this would have been me when I was 12, you see.

Remember, fast, good, slow, bad. And I would have probably felt a little bit disappointed by this. Also, if he only gets up to number four, you know, I would have probably felt as well as being aware of the child's thing. Well, they really are slowing down. Normally, it was straight at number one if it was Slade. So I would probably be disappointed.

I think it is a really good song. I agree with Simon, actually. But it's, you know, of course, it's not just Johnny Holder. It's Jimmy Lee who there gets. I think it's possible that Jimmy Lee is trying to kind of assert the kind of more kind of wistful, pensive side of Slade. You get with Look at Last Night and things like that with this one. And he gets to play the piano on this one. He says, look, it's not just the fella in the hat and crash helmet hair there.

It's, you know, it's me, Jimmy Lee as well. And I can do sensitivity. So it might be that it's kind of a certain bit of his kind of Jimmy Lee-ness within the whole scheme of things. And I don't know, it's not, he sings it beautifully. There's a slight sort of, you know, if I'd been told that he was singing it under some sort of protest, I wouldn't be surprised given the sort of way he kind of stares out

slightly dully really, you know, as he's doing it. I think he's probably happier doing some sort of protest. I wouldn't be surprised, given the sort of way he kind of stares out slightly dully, really, you know, as he's doing it. I think he's probably happier doing, in terms of, like, expressiveness, doing the kind of, you know, the big songs. And yet, vocally, yeah, he deals with it really well. Noddy's wearing his standard Rupert Bear suit and a standard feature of Slade performances

on Top of the Pops, as anyone who knows Slade's know, would be the unveiling of dave hill's new costume he used to keep it a secret what he was going to wear on top of the pops until they were in the dressing room and he came out and in this one he's got all night blue and white material around his wrists and uh in my notes here i've got like an aztec bov a boy i just one thing i want to chuck in about dave here. My five-year-old niece got hold of a pair of scissors the other day and decided to

cut her fringe off. She now looks like a blonde Dave Hill. It's great. Well, that hairdo actually became weirdly fashionable with hipster women about ten years ago. Yes. It was a sort of robotics-type thing, wasn't it? Lady-tron-ish I guess. Yeah. You do feel sorry for Jimmy Lee. He was a sort of robotics-like thing, wasn't it? It was a Ladytron-ish thing, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you do feel sorry for Jimmy Lee. You just wonder if you, you know, he was a co-songwriter. You wonder if he really did feel kind of

overshadowed by Johnny, you know, sort of Noddy Holder and Dave Hill there. But the kids don't really know how to react to it, unfortunately.

There's a bit of awkward swaying about. I mean, they would have put the lighters up, but, you know, there was a fuel shortage in the mid-70s, so they wouldn't have't been allowed to i can imagine my 11 year old self there saying come on noddy get down and get weird yeah you're thinking come on audio we're all crazy now why

aren't you so the following week every day nudged up to number three its highest position and the band spent the rest of the year working on their film Flame. The follow-up, Banging Man, got to number three in July. And the follow-up to that, Far, Far Away, got to number three in October. But four top 20 hits later, their career petered out until the early 80s. Anything we want to say about Flame? Excellent film. I saw it at the time. It is, isn't it?

Yeah, it's one of those films which kind of transcends the probably all all the intentions that that went into it uh it was probably made without any high expectations by the people who financed it but you know by the producers you know possibly the director may have had some kind of artistic intent but i doubt it and yet just almost by accident, it's an incredible document of a certain place and time and just a certain atmosphere of just black country Britain, I think, in the 70s,

which I think, you know, a straight documentary could probably never have captured. It's an incredible film. It is really good. I mean, at the time, for me, I wasn't really a cineast at the age of 11, but for me, the important thing

was that I think I kind of caught that sort of air of authenticity you're referring to. For me, it confirmed Slade's hardness. As fast as well as speed, hardness was important as well in a group. And I definitely caught that.

Noddy Holder's quite a decent actor. I mean, he was in The Gremlins and all that. My mate actually worked with him on that and they'd spend all the dinner times in noddy's trailer talking about song music of the 60s he was uh he was quite the fan and quite the expert quite pleasing that in it when uh when someone who you don't immediately associate with a certain genre of music turns out to be crazy about it and you know really knowledgeable i love that slade 247 music makers in the finest tradition and a big thank you to the gentlemen for all the work they've been doing for radio one recently their latest single sound four

and every day mr dorset wrote it and he's right there at the front he's going to tell us all about a lady who's got oh lovely long legs stressed in black as well take it away mongol she's a long-legged woman dressed in black Dressed in black, dressed in black, dressed in black, black, black A ginger girl jumps up on the podium next to Edmunds as he thanks Slade for all their recent work on Radio 1 and coquettishly plays with her hair as Edmunds pointedly ignores her and introduces Mungo Jerry in an offensive northern accent.

Gratuitously, well, I would probably sympathise because I was a bit anti-northern myself at the time, being a sort of, you know, would-be southern snob. Yeah, probably only confirmed. Self-hating Yorkshireman. Well, I wasn't a Yorkshireman, you see. I was born in Edgeware in London, you see. Oh, this is the thing.

And I was out of my natural waters. All right, all right. We grew up in the waters, so... Formed in 1969 in Middlesex, Mungo Jerry, named after a cat in the T.S. Eliot book, came out of nowhere to get to number one in 1970, staying there for seven weeks. Although they're seen now as a one-hit wonder,

their second single, Baby Jump, also made number one in February of 1971 and had two more top five hits, one of which, Lady Rose rose was withdrawn from sale when it was at number five as the b-side contained suggestive lyrics about cocaine this is the follow-up to wild love which got to number 32 in november of 1973 and it's up from number 42 to number 36 i was you know we're seeing a band who's had a bit of a run and it's faltering. What's strange about

Mungo Jerry is that it never really occurred to me anything that he, that he was black in any way. I was always aware of his kind of big sideburns

or whatever. It didn't really impinge on me. I mean, look at him now. He actually looks like a potential god. He looks like a hyphen

of Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley or something like that. And then, how comes this sort of bizarrely inappropriate sort of piece of pub pop rock, I suppose.

I don't know how to sort of describe it, really. Well, Ray Dorsett stands above the rest of the band. There's obviously only one star in this band. And he's wearing a white flared studded outfit, cut off at the sleeves, looking in this performance like the bastard son of Lenny Kravitz and Fred West oh and his guitar strap nice touch here festooned with horse brasses you wouldn't like to be caught across the face by that would you

Simon Mungo Jerry what do you reckon on this um It's desperate. It's awful. It's glam by numbers, and I think, in a way, it's symbolic of the fact that glam as a genre was running out of steam. Long-legged woman dressed in black. It's almost you could sort of assemble it from cutting up the titles of other previously existing songs, couldn't you? And what do you call Mungo Jerry a glam band? No, well, not as such, but they were that kind of rough ass end of glam

really that kind of you know uh sort of scarf waving sort of lads lad glam um yes you know the song all right all right all right there was a hit by them which was actually a cover version of a moi a moi a moi by jacques de tron um which was that that was a pretty stomping glam record um yeah i i noticed in this one that the uh okay yeah um ray dorsett is up on a podium but they put the drummer at the front he's at the top of some steps yeah yeah yeah but the drummer's at the front and uh that's something the only other example that leaps to mind to that is the jam doing beat surrender um sticking rick buckler at the front in their last ever top of the pots performance um and i just want to talk about the drums on this i i do

one thing i do like about this record sonically even though it's a just a piss awful song is that it's all about the snare there's not a lot of bass drum on these records it's all like and that's the same as mud mud was all about the snare as well. When you look at the setup drum-wise that Mud had, it's not dissimilar to the Stray Cats, some kind of rockabilly trio. So that's another comparison with rock and roll. I mentioned also during the Mud performance that radial spangle effect of the stage lights on the camera.

Well, on this, we get a complete psychedelic fucking overload of camera effects don't we they've whoever's in charge of the faders you know on the sort of visual mixer that day has gone yeah yeah all the colors coming in at once uh maybe to kind of yes maybe to kind of you know cover up the fact that it's a crap song or whatever as somebody's dad would probably say and i also note that from their advice their previous advice to have a drink have a drive on in the summertime they've moved on to another example of 70s thinking which is unsolicited sexual attention yes because the lyrics in this keep going every time i make a move, she tell me no. Well, take the fucking hint then, mate. Leave her alone.

Now, you've got to be persistent in the 70s. I think Gene Hunt from Life on Mars would probably have got along with their way of thinking. Yes, yeah. I mean, they started off as a bit of a country jug band, you know, in the vein of canned heat. And they've gone through a glam phase, as we've pointed out. And here, it's like the early stirrings of pub rock, isn't it?

It feels very much like that, yeah. And that was a sort of, I mean, you know, it was just kind of the spirit of the times in some way, definitely. There's a lot of that kind of coursing through some of the sort of rockier things here, that particular kind of cadence, definitely. And I mean, you know, that's what was beginning to happen. And, you know, I mean, there's not just anything else

that was kind of emerging. Obviously, you had Northern Soul in the air, all kinds of things in the air. It's like rock and roll revival. You know, and pub rock was just in its kind of phase of preceding punk, basically. So, yeah. So maybe Mungard is ear to the ground.

I mean, sadly, there's hardly anyone in the audience, presumably because it gets to this point of the show where the audience is allowed to stand next to the host. And so they're all kind of like crowding in, waiting for their moment. But two lads, by the end of the song, there's two lads having a slow motion play fight near the front.

Did you see that? They're kind of throwing punches at each other in a kind of a western ballroom brawl style and there's one lad in a bomber jacket with a tiger on the back and he's grooving away on his own well let's prove my point done there mungo jerry a bad influence they were they were lads band that that made people pretend to hit each other and who knows where that can yes yeah shocking well the following week long-legged woman dressed in black jumped 11 places to number 25, and it eventually peaked at number 13.

However, this would be the last chart entry for Mungo Gerrera until 1999, when Ray Dorsett recorded Support the Tune for Newcastle United, and it got to number 57. Kevin Keegan would have just loved it to have got to number one. And of course, Newcastle United were in the FA Cup final in the year that we're talking about,

just a few weeks later. That's right, yeah. Oh God, yeah, I remember that. Beaten 3-0 by Liverpool and I think with the opening goal won by Kevin Keegan and David Coleman says, goals pay the rent

and Keegan does his share. I think that might be the first football match I ever remember because we were all watching it and me nan was asked and she bet me 5p that Liverpool would win and I foolishly took her up on her bet. I think I went for Newcastle because I thought they were not as counter. Did your nan cash it in? Did your nan cash in a bet from a child?

You know what I bet she did because about a month or so later we had another bet I think I doubled down on it that Holland would beat West Germany in the World Cup final I lost that as well

I know man and I haven't gambled on football since anyway Ray Dorsett is still going he's uh touring into his 70s and he now has his own vape juice called mungo cherry mungo jerry and the long-legged woman who is dressed in black. Is there anyone you'd like to say hello to? Good heavens. There's been in the past a lot of big double acts in history.

Adam and Eve and also, she's put me off, Malcolm and Wise and Ross and Cromartie and Ross and Gay. Ross and Gay? Ross and Gay? Oh, darling. I want to give everything to you You are everything Edmunds is surrounded by a gaggle of kids Who have been lacerated by the 70s stick And he asks one girl if there's anyone she'd like to say hello to

She wants to say hello to Edmunds's beardy mouth and plants a kiss on it do you think this was set up beforehand or not i don't right i've been thinking about this because in a lot of previous a lot of previous episodes we've seen um presenters who seem to be kind of sleazing up to the girls in the audience and it just seems something slightly non-consensual about it not not in the really grim sense that certain uh presenters have been found guilty in a court of law but just something a bit off about that that dynamic in this case and i'm sorry to say this i don't think there is i think uh in the in the eyes of the young women in this audience noel edmonds is genuinely a sexy man i think they genuinely want to get their hands on him there's no coercion at all um and we can we

can say what we want about him we can we can hate him from from a distance you know of 40 years or whatever but i think he was the sex in 1974 i think he you know that's that's what women want doesn't seem to want the attention he just stands there there's there's very little i think it's only near the end he actually bothers to put his arm around someone yeah they're all over him like like an even cheaper suit than the one he's wearing after running down the list of double acts he introduces you are everything by diana ross and marvin gay this is the first release from the Diana and Marvin LP, which took two years to record due to Diana Ross's pregnancy, Marvin Gaye's reticence to record any more duets

after the death of Tammy Terrell, both singers' solo careers, and Marvin Gaye's chronic weed habit, which led to them recording their parts separately. Diana Ross had already scored nine UK solo chart hits, including a number one with I'm Still Waiting in the late summer of 71. But Marvin Gaye hadn't had a top 10 hit since 1970, had no hit singles from What's Going On,

and his last appearance in the charts was in October of 1973 when Let's Get It On only got to number 31. This song, a cover of the Stylistics tune, has nudged up from number nine to number seven as neither of them are knocking around shepherd's bush at the moment and pan's people are already doing another song this week we're treated to a bbc made film of a couple of white people mooning about on a beach yeah i i love stylistics i love things that diana ross has done and i'm certainly love things that marvin gaye has done but certainly love things that Marvin Gaye has done,

but I don't really love this at all, I think. Don't you? Yeah, I mean, perhaps it's to do with what you were talking about, the fact that they had to record it in separate studios. But I mean, or maybe I'm unfairly comparing it with, you know, the deal with Ain't No Mountain High Enough with Tammy Terrell. But I never really cared for this at the time, and I can't find it in myself to care for it now.

Simon, we experienced a Diana Ross duet in the last episode. What about this one? Yeah, we did, didn't we? And another one in which I suspected that the two... 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. Singers hadn't actually met.

I probably do prefer the original by the stylistics in this case. But nevertheless, I think it's a decent bit of 70s soul. I quite like it, but come on, we're dying to talk about the video. Let's talk about this film. So this, well,

let me just say, let me just say that I much prefer this version to the stylistics one. And I love the stylistics. And I don't know. I mean, you know, when you compare it to endless love, I mean,

it's a far better song, but also you can see Diana Ross knocking about with Marvin Gaye. Oh, yes, certainly. She'd have knocked off Marvin Gaye. Lionel Richie, no way. Not in a million years. I think maybe the problem is Diana Ross. It's almost like, it just feels like she's sort of like

wafting up front and centre of the song the whole time. And I don't think it really is a kind of true, a true Lois dialogue in that respect. I think yeah she seems to be microphone hogging a little bit but well she was pushed forward above above Marvin Gaye I mean there was a there was an argument uh before they even started recording the album over what it would be called Marvin and Diana or Diana and Marvin and you know Marvin Gaye wasn't knocking off the head of Motown at the time so he was fucked wasn't he that tells you something about her personality doesn't it because you know Marvin Gaye wasn't knocking off the head of Motown at the time so he was fucked wasn't he that tells you something about her personality doesn't it because you know not only does she uh sort of elbow her way to the front of the Supremes and you know have have them renamed

Diana Ross and the Supremes but she's still at it when she's on a fucking duet record you know where supposedly the whole point of a duet is kind of equal billing unbelievable and in the and in the uk as we can see from the from the chart actually i mean i was shocked that you know nothing from what's going on got in the charts and you know let's get it on only got to number 31 and it would look from our perspective that you know marvin gaye needed a bit of a leg up from diana ross yeah probably um and you, to be honest, there are what-ifs we could throw in all day long,

but if Mary Wilson had been pushed to the front of the Supremes and had become the solo star and ended up dueting with Marvin Gaye, you know, Mary Wilson's voice would probably have complimented his a lot better, but maybe it wouldn't have been such a big hit. Anyway, let's talk about the film. Come on.

So, Diana Ross, depicted in this film as a white girl is seen moping on some steps near a beach until she spies marvin gay a white man who looks like he stepped out of the window of john collier trolling about in double denim but it isn't it's someone who looks like him remember so it might be a white eddie kendricks or edwin starr or someone like that for all i know who is this woman it's doing my fucking heading she looks massively familiar yeah i mean i was wondering if she'd been at a sitcom or something yeah because all three of us have been i've been hitting up google yeah because it's been bothering us before we recorded i was wondering is it an advert was she in like a perfume advert for Charlie

or maybe Tweed by Lotharick or something like that? Seriously? Possibly, yeah. 16. Sitcom. I'm thinking maybe like she's somebody who had a peripheral role in Man About the House. Maybe it's Sally Tom's saucy sister

or something like that. Yeah, could have been. Or something like that. One of those kind of, yeah, something like that is definitely, yeah. Now, yeah, something like that is definitely, yeah. Now, listeners, you know when I say, you know, hit up the video playlist we put up for every episode, you know, I usually say do it

because it will help to enrich you of your knowledge of this episode of Top of the Pops. Now I'm saying it, please, just look at the fucking thing. Look at this film. Tell me who it is because I know it's someone familiar. And I know there are people out there who look at the fucking thing look at this film tell me who it is because I know it's someone familiar and I know the people out there are looking at it and going oh it's the stupid bastards

I'll tell you what my favourite scene is though in this film, it's the football scene because it does us credit again, it does us credit as a generation back then, even if it was the summer of 76, even if temperatures were in the sort of high 30s, you didn't dress in shorts and trainers when you were out you had to slow your your flares and your high heels whatever and you played football in your flares in your high heels

and that's how i think we developed the sort of skills that's how you play football on the beach in your flares any high heels i mean obviously you know playing like that you're going to have to have like your ball control is also going to be that much superior. And, yeah, I think that, so that aspect. Well, I'm afraid that the fact that England didn't qualify for the World Cups of 1974 and 1978 might have something to say about that. Ah, but the qualifying was much stricter. Do you know in 1978 it was either them or Italy that went through? I mean, that's shocking. That would never happen now.

Maybe the Italian players just played in even higher heels on the street. And even tighter than him and she's spending the rest of the film stalking him diana isn't she and uh you know she watches him have a kickabout on the beach um arsing around with a dog and then by the end uh she ends up standing behind some barbed wire in some weird kind of rural tenko scene and in between there's a tin mine so i think we're in cornwall aren't we we're down down that way anyway it's uh because there's a tin mine scene well you know what i thought i thought because it's been bothering me as well where it's where it's set and i saw i thought i saw stair hole as in you know the stair hole that was in nuts in may

yeah i thought it was somewhere in Dorset. I'm thinking Cornwall, but again, maybe the viewers or listeners can have a look for us and help us out there. I was really hoping that you'd see Keith in the background shouting up, Candice Marie, you are standing on sedimentary limestone! And Candice Marie going,

can't hear you! Can you see the B163? But yeah, I think, you know, the giveaway that it's down that end of England is A, the tin mine, and B, there are no black people. And, you know, which is just bizarre given the song that we're listening to.

So the director, we are told at the end of the show, is Bruce Milliard. And I looked him up, and apart from listening to um so the the director um we are uh told at the end of the show is bruce milliard and uh i looked him up and apart from top of the pops um his main imdb credit is the tommy cooper show uh but it turns but it turns out that he also went on to direct jimmy salvo's advert what the one with which one oh a couple of them actually a. Yeah, the one with the box with an egg in it, which was your head without a seatbelt. Yeah.

Well, he's got two clunk-click adverts to his name as Bruce Lee. And the chat show Parkinson and the revived jukebox jury when that came back. So, you know, he's clearly a company man. He's a sensible, safe pair of hands of a director. But I think this film is him cutting loose and being a bit of an auteur. This is a sort of sensible safe pair of hands of a director but i think this film is him cutting loose and being a bit of an auteur this is his kind of arty moment but he's done that

thing that um video directors did a lot in the 80s which is to tell to basically spell out the lyric in a very literal way so my favorite bit in this video uh is when um is when Charlie or Lontaric tweed lady whoever she is Diana Ross mouth yeah Diana let's call her Diana yeah she let's call her Diana that makes that angle Diane with an E yeah that angle so basically her voice or her inner thoughts are going today I saw somebody who looked just like you he walked like you do and at that point we see the bloke the bloke coming down the steps doing this kind of bandy-legged walk so he's got a very distinctive walk you know because they they have to make out you know somebody walks just like you uh so he

had to have something about his walk and yeah he does walk in that kind of cockney way you expect him to be walking towards you in a slightly menacing way saying oh yeah um get off the fucking beach it reminds me a bit of uh that that scene in in young frankenstein where you know walk this way you know the bit with uh yeah you know the the very literal sight gag of walk this way in in young frankenstein um so yeah i just absolutely love that little moment in the video anyway and she thought it was him yeah but it wasn't maybe it wasn't Bandy

no no but you know it made him a good footballer who was the was it Garincha Garincha the Brazilian

player had Bandy legs but I mean the BBC's top of the pops they did have to resort to making their own films at the time you know this is a

time when the promo video wasn't that, you know, it was hardly ever there, was it? So I've got to be honest, I've never seen one of these before. So who else? Slade had one for Goodbye to Jane. Did they? Right, okay.

Yeah, yeah, Slade had one for Goodbye to Jane. Yeah, maybe it's because they were busy trying to break America at that point. Let me guess, there was some girl there and somebody waving at them. There was a lot of, there were a lot of antics, I seem to remember vaguely. Because the one I've seen from 1973, they did a Civil War reenactment for American Trilogy. And, you know, obviously they couldn't fuck about with these things. You'd assume that they wouldn't have much time to make a film.

I actually quite like the fact that our licence fee money was going on this kind of stuff. It's quite nice that they thought pop music was worth throwing a few quid at. Because the only kind of equivalent to this that I can remember from my era, if you like, from the early 80s, was when somebody didn't come in the studio

and they didn't have a dance for it. They'd have this kind of compilation of old footage of you'd have like a steam train crashing and then you'd have somebody with with a load of feathers strapped to their arms running off worthing pier trying to fly and then you'd have a victorian strongman lifting up lifting up the dumbbells and that that kind of thing just sort of meaninglessly put together i think they used it for steve silk hurley's Jack Your Body and also for Queen and David Queen and David Bowie Under Pressure was another one like that. Yeah, the old grey wasn't as used to that and it was a sort of

to me it was always sort of faintly condescending really as if to sort of like, you know, talk about old world footage was full of people doing incredibly stupid things compared with prog rock. You've even got that bit where the dog's sniffing his balls in this clip, which I like. It's a really 70s dog, actually.

And they're really 70s balls. Very 70s balls, indeed. But you do expect to see some, you know, weak old dog shit lying on that road there. White shit. White shit as well. Exactly, white shit, to bring in the old stand-up comedians cliché.

But when they're having a kick-around on the beach, yeah, you're right, because that Brazilian version of football on the beach that Pele tried to popularise, is it futsal or something they call it when they're having a kick-around on the sand? But that's on the perfect sands of Rio de Janeiro. But British players on the beach

had to contend with rusted Castrol GTX cans in rock pools and lumps of dog shit and all that. Broken glass and dog shit, which probably would have, yeah, maybe enhanced your skills. So I do take your point a little bit there. Half broken glass is where you can still see the word lemonade

just before a child puts his bare foot on it while running. Oh, that's my, that's, that public information film, that's the one that creeps me out most of all. The following week, You Are Everything moved up to number five, its highest position. The follow-up,

Stop, Look, Listen to Your Heart, another Stylistics cover, only got to number 25 in August of this year. If you know who that girl is, fucking tell me, because he's doing my head diana ross is marvin gaye and you are everything the reason i'm laughing is this of course being the easter edition of top of the pops i've been given some eggs and they've got all yucky which leads me rather neatly into a request to the younger viewers of Top of the Pops.

Please don't go putting litter all over Wimbledon Common. You're causing terrible problems. I know the Wombles pick up litter, but they can only pick up enough to put in one bowl. That's why they're called the Womboles. And here they are, Sound 20. Edmunds, encrusted with more young ladies, appears with a handful of chocolate eggs and reminds us that it's Good Friday tomorrow and cracks, no pun intended, a really shitty joke about the Wombles. Formed in Wimbledon Common in 1968 by Elizabeth Beresford,

the Wombles shot to national prominence in the early 70s when the books were serialised on Jackanora, which led to a television series in 1973. We actually saw it being promoted on Top of the Pops in episode number three of Chart Music. Mike Batt, a musician who was on the balls of his arse after spending £11,000 on a rock orchestral LP that was never released, was approached to write the theme tune but turned down the £200 flat fee

in exchange for the musical rights to the characters. He spent a week in a homemade Womble costume made by his mam while he was writing the first two songs for the band. The debut single, the theme tune Womblin' Song, had got to number four two months previously, and this is a follow-up up from number 36 to number 20. Although Steel Eye Span filled in on one episode of Top of the Pops, this performance is by the people who played on the record, including Mike Batt,

Chris Spedding, who produced the Sex Pistols, and drummer Clem Katina, who played on 42 number one singles in the UK, including Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kid and the Pirates, Tell Star by the Tornadoes, Make It Easy on Yourself

and the Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore by the Walker Brothers, Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman, Hot Love and Telegram Sam, and Get It On by T-Rex, Jealous Mind by Alvin Stardust, and Save Your Love by Rene and Renato.

What a fucking CV. That is a pretty impressive band altogether. That's like a sort of British version of the Wrecking Crew or something. Yes, it is, isn't it? Look what they're doing. Yeah. But it's interesting. I mean, the audience, you know, the crowd, they're really

up for this one, have you noticed? I mean, people are kind of swaying around rather numbly to a lot of the offering. And they're not kiddies, are they? No, no. They're really up for this. But part of it is, I mean, I suppose there was, I don't know, there's Wombling Song, which is so-so. This is probably the best of the bunch when it comes to Womble's hits, really. I don't know, there's Wombling Song, which is so-so. This is probably the best of the bunch

when it comes to Womble's hits, really. I don't think that Super Womble, I think Super Womble is labouring the point a little bit. But this is, yeah, this is... Super Womble was very much the B-Hair now of the Wombles, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, yes.

Yeah, a cack-handed attempt at trying to fiddle in the future. But I think, you know, you just bump it. This is what they do in this country. You bung people with a bit of Irish fiddle and they absolutely love it. I mean, you know, this is an audience that's desperately waiting for Come On Eileen to be written.

Yes, I was just going to say, do you think Kevin Rowland's watching this and stroking a chin? That's right. Or Ed Sheeran's Galway Girl. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know, honestly,

you bung it. I mean, it makes people don't do it all the time. They do it about once every five years. It's ridiculous. It's, you know, just bung it it amazes people don't do it more often they do it about once every five years it's ridiculous they're just bunging a bit of Irish fiddle and you know

you see the crowd really moves on that one I mean it's funny there was obviously a bit of a Womble's made it I remember I think it was John Peel

saying at one point in about 1975 and I think he's just looking around in absolute despair of the pop cultural landscape and I think Nadir for him is

one of these kind of radio once summer fun spectacular days whatever and he's set out onto a lake. Mallory Park Yeah probably yeah and Tony Blackburn is in a speedboat driven by a womble. I think he thinks you know oh come friendly punk So there's Wellington

on guitar and then he switches to saxophone Great Uncle Bulgari is playing I think he's playing a balalaika or something Friendly punk. So there's Wellington on guitar and then he switches to saxophone. Great Uncle Bulgari is playing, I think he's playing a balalaika or something. Madame Cholet's on the fiddle, Simon. Yeah, you see, now I know why you chose this episode. It's to take the piss out of me, isn't it? Listen, right, I don't care what you say.

The violinist in this band is a hottie. She's a wolf. Wolf. For people who haven't heard previous episodes, we can't just sort of allude to this i've got to fess up i did fancy madame chole as as has been hinted at and and i this is in a kind of pre-sexual way because i was only six but there was something about her i liked and uh i think it was a combination of the fact that you sort of felt that she'd look after you she'd make you something nice to eat but she'd do it in a slightly flirtatious french sort of way a bit like vicky michelle from aloha low

and right i think i think at that age there are only two people i fancied and one of them was madame chole and the other one was the receptionist from hong kong phooey if you remember her she was great oh well i mean you weren't alone there, were you? It's all coming out now. Hello, hello. Orinoko's playing front man, of course. Tomsk is on the sax, and Bongo's on the drums.

There's no sighting of Tobermory. What's going on there? Do you think he's their road manager or something? Maybe he's done a Robbie Williams, you know. Maybe sort of gone off in search of some kind of solo glory. It's kind of odd. Yeah, or he's in the hotel after binging on rubbish. Yeah, more than one bowl, as Edmonds would have it with his little joke there. I mean, what do we think of this as a song

if it wasn't being played by people in furry costumes? Do you know what? It's not bad as a pop record. It reminds me a lot of kind of Imperial phase Bay City Rollers. I was never a Rollers fan, but there's something kind of undeniably sort of stomp along about it and you can't really argue with it. You can definitely imagine this record played by guys in tartan rather than fur.

One thing I'll say is Uncleia is probably too old to be a pop star he's like you know i don't know c6 steve or something yeah i think that's why they gave him the traditional instrument though it's not yet a bit of racial stereotyping as well because he's sort of eastern european one mike bat he actually has a sort of place in the annals of the history of electronic music he in in the early 70s he was made a series of like, he had a Moog synthesizer or Moog synthesizer that was obviously random. He made a record called Ye Olde Moog

and it was a synth, sort of like synth folk treatment sort of thing, which was attempted to kind of blend the future with, you know, he sort of grand old daisy. Was there an E on the end of that Moog, by the way? No.

Oh, wasted opportunity. Sorry, sorry. But yeah, I mean, this is the biggest crowd yet, isn't it? People have forgotten about Noel Edmonds, and he's just as hairy as they are. I mean, later on with the Wombles, he did tend to, I think at one point he just took to appearing as himself. You know, later on with the Wombles, he did tend to, I think at one point, he just took to appearing as himself.

You know, the facade came off, you know, the head thing came off and he would just perform, he would just have the kind of Womble pause, basically,

he'd stomp around in them. But otherwise, he'd just be Mike Bat, you know, he's... He couldn't live behind that mask any longer. No, no,

he felt the truth had to act. It was like when Kendo Nagasaki unmasked himself. Yes, yeah, definitely. The thing with Mike Bat is, and the Wombles on on the one hand you sort of feel like they're quite well intentioned

because they're teaching people to uh be a bit more environmentally conscious and to pick up litter on the other hand it's a fact that if you buy a wambles record you are funding the tory party because uh yes mike bat was a massive In fact, he actually composed the theme music for their election campaign in 2001. For all the good it did them, of course. Remember, you're a cunt. I think that with the litter campaigns of the 70s, I think that it wasn't so much about eco-consciousness, which was also a bit weird. It was about, it was anti-litter-loutishness. It was an anti-lout thing

rather than a pro-ecological thing. Yeah. That's a good point. And is this the first example in the UK of a kid's TV programme or any TV programme kind of going outside its boundaries and raking in cash in other ways?

Because I remember in 1974, I did get a oneble soap on a rope, which just sat on the end of the bath and collected dust until it looked really like a Womble. Because, I mean, we know about the arches and the banana splits and all that kind of stuff.

But I think this might be the first time... And the goodies came later, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, slightly, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, there would be, you know, there would be, you know, there'd be loads of sitcom characters and actors, you know,

trying their hand at releasing records and stuff, but not on this level. So this paved the way for things like Mr Blobby or whatever. Oh, yes, but fucking Noel was having a good think about that when he was watching the Wombles. He was, wasn't he? Yeah, yeah. Pinky and Perky. Yes, there we go.

You're right, you're right. So the following week, the song jumped up to number eight and would get as high as number three. The follow-up, Banana Rock, saw the band take a cod reggae turn and it got to number nine later that summer. And they were held off the christmas number one by mud with wombling merry christmas the band split up in 1975 but remember you're a womble would get to number 13 in 1998 and an appearance at glastonbury in 2011 outdrew don mclean on the main

stage i've not heard banana rock but would i be right in assuming it sounds a bit Brexit to modern ears? Actually, it's not that bad. It could have gone a lot worse. On a scale of 0 to Mike Reed's Calypso. Oh, I think it's a notch below reggae like it used to be by Paul Nicholas. Oh, OK. Not offensive, but just why. The Wombles.

Whatever you do, remember you're a Womble. That's sound 20 this particular week. And I must say, without being rude to them, I'm very relieved that's over because great-uncle Bulgaria had, well, he threatened to streak through the studio. Oh, dear, we were worried. At this week's number 22, we find the charlights, and the number entitled... Homely Girl. Quite right. Quite right.

It must have broke your poor little heart When the boys used to say You look better in the dark As the camera swings from the Wombles back to Edmonds We can see two lads in the midst of a full-on Irish reel at the back of the studio before they're stopped by a floor manager. See, you're right, a bit of fiddle, we go fucking mental, don't we?

Edmonds informs us that great-uncle Bulgaria had threatened to streak through the studio even though he was clearly naked from the waist down throughout the performance and then gives a girl with the most Essex accent ever the chance to introduce the next song. Formed in Chicago in 1959 the Chi Lights first landed in the UK charts with For God's Sake Give More Power To The People in 1971 and then got to number three in January of 1972 with Have You Seen Her? This is their first appearance in the charts since Oh Girl, which got to number 14 in June 1972 and was number one in the US.

And it's up from number 28 to number 22. Their last seven releases have failed to make the UK chart, including Stoned Out of My Mind, Fucking Out Britain, What You Like. And because they're probably in America right now, Pans People Are Trotted Out. It's not the best Childlike song, is it? Britain what you like and because they're probably in America right now pans people are trotted out it's not the best childlike song is it it's not it's not that it's not the childlights are the best with their their ugly duckling classic here um yeah I mean there have been some great childlike songs you named some of them and of course could also mention are you my woman as sampled by

Beyonce on crazy yes and a particular favorite of mine, do you know the one, There Will Never Be Any Peace Until God Is Seated At The Conference Table? Extraordinary long title, but a bit of a tune there. Wonderful record, but nah, this is awful, isn't it? It's an awful record. I think this is all right. Really? Oh, man alive.

It feels like it deserves the performance, and that's not saying a great deal go on hit performance then what performance it is well yeah I mean once again it's that kind of one of your literal Flip Colby school of choreographic thoughts it is strange you know when you talk about there's always these ridiculous

references to sort of men and dads all perving over pans people and you think why and you know because obviously you know they're working with these incredibly kind of you know strict and sort of narrow guidelines as regards sexuality in terms of the movement so they just always do this kind of weird got this weird let's kind of like bobs and moves and shuffles or whatever that are all entirely sexless um um But maybe that was it. Maybe, I don't know,

the kind of sort of seething pervs sitting at home. You know, maybe that's kind of part of the point. They'd probably be put off if they actually did try to do something sexy. You know, that might actually kind of disconcert them a bit. But yeah, one that's going to get quintessential pants people. It's sad to think that, is it Ruth out of the pants people? She's in this and she died recently.

She didn't shave. Yes. With a little RIP, if that's not really been an issue. It's a costume change routine, basically, isn't it? They go from dowdy-flared green and common dungarees with painted-on freckles to the flounciest, bounciest, backless, shorty-nightsies ever with spangly bits, feathery trim and matching mules.

Yes. I've got two words written down here. Dad Nirvana. Shorty 90s ever, with spangly bits, feathery trim and matching mules. Yes. I've got two words written down here. Dad Nirvana. Teas are sliding off laps as this song goes on. I mean, I agree that these actual costumes, yes, definitely kind of militate against what we were saying earlier on. It has to be said. You know, brief little sort of flashes of fire and what have you.

Yes. I mean, the costume, the sort of flashes of fire and what have you. Yes. I mean, the costume, the kind of like the 90 thing is just incredible. It is

probably the best thing that they ever put on. I'm not saying not saying that in a sexual way, but it's probably the, you know, the most expensively made.

You are kind of saying it in a bit of a sexual way. Oh, yeah. Looks like they've, you know, they've had their hand in the petty cash till got right down the bottom for it the one thing to say for this song is that it's not the ubi 40 cover version yes definitely yeah that's the only thing I'll say

for it the next week homely girl soared up to number 11 and it eventually got to number 5 the follow up I found sunshineared up to number 11 and it eventually got to number 5. The follow-up, I Found Sunshine, only got to number 35 and the follow-up to that, Too Good To Be Forgotten, made it to number 10 in November of this year. And the next three singles made the top five.

And as Simon's just pointed out, Homely Girl was covered or smothered by UB40 in 1989 in their Rasta Man Show Wadi Wadi manner and he got to number 6. If you should hear a very big bump tomorrow, it'll be because an anniversary falls this Friday. 20 years ago

on April the 12th, a record company in America produced a record. They all had their fingers crossed, you see. They didn't know whether it would be successful. In fact, it turned out to be rather good. Three times in the chart. It's this week's number 17, Bill Haley. Rock Around the Clock.

One, two, three, a clock, four, the clock, a rock. Five, six, seven o'clock, a hit, a clock, a rock. Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, a rock, we're going to rock. Around the clock, time out. Edmund points out that the following single is celebrating its 20th anniversary tomorrow, Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets. Formed in Pennsylvania in 1952 by a former country singer who was renowned as one of the best yodelers in America, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded the first rock and roll single to appear on the American charts, Crazy Man Crazy. In 1954, they recorded their second single, Rock Around the Clock, a cover of a song first recorded by Sonny Day and his Knights.

Sonny Day, fucking hell. However, it wasn't until it was used in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle on the insistence of Glenn Ford that the song took off staying at number one for eight weeks. Meanwhile, in the UK, the band made their chart debut with Shake, Rackle and Roll, which got to number four in January of 1955, while Rock Around the Clock only got as high as number 17 that month. However, it would re-enter the charts in October of 1955 and spend five weeks at number one. The band would have 11 more hits in the UK before falling out of favour, but Rock Around the Clock would be re-released in 1968

when it got to number 20, and it was re-released again in 1974. It's gone up from number 20 to number 17. This is a dad double whammy, isn't it? Crumpets and proper music. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's really odd, isn't it?

But actually, it goes back to what I was saying earlier on. There was a real rock and roll revival going on around here. So there's no, it's not a sort of random sort of tossing out sort of thing that's going on here. I mean, this was very much in the air. There was all kinds of documentaries about Elvis and things like that. I mean, it was very much in the air. There was all kinds of documentaries about Elvis and things like that. I mean, it was just this first, like I say,

this first moment of sort of postmodern retrospection, you might say, in pop history, where they're just looking right back at the beginnings. And, you know, it's only about 20 years earlier and everyone's suddenly getting, it's the first sort of bit of retro mania, I think, you know, the first bit of retro mania that you get in British pop culture.

So it's all part of it. It's going on. Yeah, in fact, there's quite a lot about this in Simon Reynolds' book, Retro Mania, isn't there? There's a So it's all part of it. It's going on in a much wider way. Yeah, in fact, there's quite a lot about this in Simon Reynolds' book, Retromania, isn't there? There's a whole chapter about this kind of era. I think it particularly focuses on 1973, but yeah, all this stuff was in the air, definitely. Yeah, it would be a nice thing that our dear sort of alma mater,

Melody Maker, would have been, you know, embraced all of this. But unfortunately, it was still dominated by jazz luminaries like Steve Race, and they were openly disgusted by Rockin' Around the Clock. I remember a kind of report we did about it at the time talking about flowerbeds being trampled in Croydon by the house following performances in the Blackboard Jungle. Well, it's true, isn't it? I mean, this song caused riots.

It seems weird to us now, but this song did cause riots. People would turn up to the cinema and slash the seats when you know the opening credits people would lose their shit and go crazy when this song came on yeah i mean there were riots at the dock in southampton when bill haley and the comets arrived and this is what's so weird seeing him on top of the pops amid kind of you know these fairly um i don't know dowdy brit, you know, not exactly nobodies, but people like Mungo Jerry, let's say. Suddenly we've got this kind of iconic face of rock and roll. Obviously he's a bit fatter and a bit older, but he's still got his kiss curl.

Still recognisably, you know, one of the faces that if you went to a 50s themed diner, there'd be a kind of Warhol-esque print of his face on the wall. And there he is in the top of the pop studio. It's really odd, isn't it? It is. It is. Because, yeah, it's only 20 years. I mean, obviously, Noel Edmonds talked about 20 years,

and it makes it sound like an absolute lifetime, which probably would have felt like in 1975. Now we're talking about 20 years. 20 years is when Massive Attack made Metzli and whoever. You know, time is a lot more kind of closed up now. I mean, he died in 1981 before Bill Haley. And I remember

Clive James described him as the first rock and roll star to die of old age. He was actually 55. No, he didn't though, did he? He died of a brain tumour. Well, yeah, but die of,

yeah, well, yeah. I mean, that was Clive James's life, which is a bit depressing because he was only 55 when he died. Yeah, and when we, when we see this episode here, he looks you know pretty decrepit then and this harks back to the

previous episode we did when i was talking about how old diana doors appeared to me uh in the uh video for prince charming uh you know she seemed impossibly old this old granny on top of the pops she was 49 there uh bill haley is 49 in this episode and that is the same age as i am now how fucking mortal do i feel about that and of course yes seven years later he'd be dead um he did uh he admitted he was an alcoholic actually in 1974 in an interview with the bbc so yes he was obviously going through a bit of a tough time so that partially explains why it does look a bit rough and people just had harder lives in those days I suppose

but you notice that the song the rendition of the song is a bit slower than the classic version it's almost like when you're watching a testimonial football match they're playing at a sort of testimonial match pace and the audience far from slashing the seats don't seem to know quite what to do with it

so they react by doing mud there's those two girls there's some really piss poor attempts at Ted dancing by two girls in matching brown jumpers yeah the other reason why Bill Haley might have looked a bit old for his age he had at least 10 children

he rocked around the clock didn't he so you can't blame the guy for looking a bit old for his age. He had at least 10 children. Oh, mate, he rocked around the clock, didn't he? So you can't blame the guy for looking a bit haggard by the age of 49. It is fascinating, just going back to that bit about the slashing of the seats, whatever, the kind of energies that rockers are not supposed to believe. You do think of them as sexual. Elvis Presley is obviously sexual energy that's been released into the culture,

whereas Bill Haley is a bit dumpy. He's not exactly a looker he's like one of the other sergeants and sergeant bilko like grover or something like that he's a big portly hungiza so whatever is exciting that energy is it's not really to do with like you know this kind of sexual icon that suddenly kind of bursts on the scene i mean that was elvis's job but bill haley it's it's something else clearly it's just it's just the music because when bill ellie and the comics pitched up in Britain, the initial reaction by the kids was,

oh my God, he looks like your dad. Yeah, and he was, he was old. He was 29, 30, and that was very old. Yeah, and I think in a lot of ways, and even musically, I'd say that Bill Haley and the Comets have got as much in common with the Glenn Miller Orchestra as they do with anything by Elvis, for example. You know, it's basically big band swing given a bit more of a kick i mean one question i i want

to ask is is what was bill haley thinking when he was behind the curtains and mud was on have i created a monster seven days jankers yes yes so the week, the song would move up to number 12, its highest position, and the band would continue to tour in the UK until 1979. In actual fact, the last known performance of this song was at that year's Royal Command performance, alongside Les Dawson, Marty Kane, Yul Brynner, Bernie Clifton, Hinge and Brackett,

Jim Davidson and Boney M and they were introduced by... Noel Edmonds. Noel Edmonds. Bill Haley died in February of 1981 and his last chart appearance was a Stars on 45 style single of his songs which got to number 50 in April of that year. Fucking Jim Davidson, what a cunt. No argument there.

I bet he... Because he was in quite a few Rocker Man performances that probably thought, oh, let's put him in for Phil. He's a racist. 20 years old, he doesn't sound a day over 50. Rock around the clock and, of course, Bill, three. Twenty years old, it was the standard day over 50. Rock Around the Clock and, of course, Bill Haley. Now, last Saturday night, about 285 million people were all pinned to their TV sets. No, it wasn't the return of Magic Roundabout starring Diana Dawes.

It was, in fact, the Eurovision Song Contest, of course. And a lot of upsets, and we've got the song that won right here by the Swedish group ABBA. It's all about Waterloo. Take it away, ABBA. Some rapid-fire shit jokes about Bill Haley and the Magic Roundabout from Edmonds and then the Top of the Pops debut of ABBA. Formed by Benny Anderson of the Hepstars, Bjorn Joveas of the Hootenanny Singers and two solo singers, Agnetha Falskog and Anna Frigg Lundstad in 1972, ABBA had already had hit records in Sweden, but they were always intent on international success. To this end,

they made two attempts to win the Melodifestivalen, Sweden's song for Europe, but failed in 1972 and 1973. However, they had one more go in 1974 with Waterloo, and it was selected as Sweden's entry. Five days before this episode, they won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton and they wisely stuck around for a few more days to accept an offer from the BBC to appear on Top of the Pops Simon Brighton that's your ends isn't it is there any plaques or anything around there funny you should mention that they just unveiled it recently at the Brighton Dome after all these years yeah I mean to me it's crazy that there isn't some kind of statue of them there but yeah there is now is now, at long last, a blue planet. Lovely.

I think David should go first and be wrong about ABBA, just so I can correct him afterwards. Right, OK, I'm stepping out of this. No, yes, I'm on a BBC... What is it? It comes out on BBC4, doesn't it? A documentary about the meaning of ABBA, I think it is. Yeah, and you were quite ABBA-sceptic, weren't you? Yeah, I was meant to go on and be an ABBA-sceptic

based on the fact that years earlier for that column i did for uncut called the reaper i'd done a sort of anti-abba article and um i went on i was doing a favor for somebody who was a producer who'd helped me out with the book i was doing and then of course about a million people watch it and then it's rebroadcast every six months and everybody has a good old laugh at me um for my kind of somewhat just you know heavily edited contributions are you basically saying that they've done to you what happens to homer simpson in the uh gummy venus de milo episode where you know he's he's been filmed in a police station and it's all chopped around to say something you didn't mean to say with it with the yeah you'll notice i do have a clock in the

background here that's 20 past 5 20 to 3 oh you didn't say agneta had a sweet sweet can did you david and yet it did have a sweet can let's be fair about that i mean my actual views are much more kind of you know mixed and sort of equivocal really i mean it's it's um they're just they're just an odd case i mean i i find them actually hard to kind of fix in a sort of general historical time they really are sort of sui generis to me you know they really are kind of fixing the sort of general historical turnaround. They really are sort of sui generis to me. You know, they really are kind of... And clearly, you know, they did influence other things. People tried, you know, Brotherhood of Man tried to impersonate them

or whatever. You've got little things like that. And then they sort of cascade more subtly throughout, say, sort of early 80s simple minds or whatever, you know, that kind of sort of glacial sort of feel that they get. And I really enjoyed this at the time. It was, I mean, in 1974, Eurovision's Contest itself, it was a close run thing.

They had a weird point system then. And ABBA, you know, didn't win it by much. They won it by six points. Six points, yeah. But there weren't that many points on offer. The scoring system was much, much lower. Well, you know, there was less of Europe to go around them, wasn't there? Yeah, yeah. But there weren't that many points on offer. But the scoring system was much, much lower. Well, you know, there was less of Europe to go around them, wasn't there? Yeah, yeah.

They got 24 points or something like that. Olivia Newton-John came third for the UK. And she's in this chart. Yeah, I know. I find that... Long live love. Yeah, absolutely. I must admit, I was on the night.

I think I was probably kind of, you know, abandoned my usual sort of 11-year-old patriotism and got behind ABBA. I wasn't aware, of course, about the Ledger's Entry, which was the trigger for the downfall of the fascist regime in that country, of course. So, altogether, a pretty good Eurovision Song Contest, actually. It launched ABBA and... Yeah, some fascists got kicked in. Hurrah! Yeah.

Living Newton-John was a little bit of a kind of sort of sideshow, really, to the whole thing. Not even British. No, not even British, exactly. I mean, Waterloo was really the default British entrant that year, wasn't it? Because it was about a war that we won. So, you know, we'll have it.

There's something charmingly guileless about ABBA at this point, at this stage in their career. From Agnetha's expression of kind of slightly cross-eyed confusion in the performance to that English as a second language diction they have at this point how could I ever refuse that thing but that well the glacial sound that David talks about has yet to emerge that kind of darkness lurking under the surface from you know Frieda being the daughter of a Nazi rapist and all the marriage turmoil which informed some of their best work

that stuff had yet to emerge but I do I absolutely fell in love with ABBA not at this point but a few years later on the first record by them that I bought was not Greatest Hits Volume 1 but Volume 2.

Yes. Yeah, we had that. I think I was inspired by things like, I think it would have been things like Take a Chance on Me and Angel Eyes, Voulez-Vous, and particularly,

I mean, it's been murdered, it's been just, it's gone now because of Partridge, but Knowing Me, Knowing You is just one of the greatest records ever made if it hadn't been ruined by by coogan and co um so so i yeah i think abba at their best they are northern european soul music that is the soul of northern europe and people say oh well they never influenced anything else but scandinavian pop or

nearly all scandinavian pop is influenced by abba everything from aha through the cardigans the knife robin all that kind of stuff is so much in in debt to that um quite kind of um cold but poignant um sound that abba had um there was a great itv documentary um easily a decade or more ago with bjorn and benny where they actually talked about how they went about writing their harmonies and I'm no musicologist I don't care anyone says but it was really fascinating seeing them take it apart and show that they're really quite innovative way of making these harmonies happen I wish I could remember enough about it to to tell you but go and have a look on YouTube if it's there um another thing that makes me feel

quite quite fondly about them is that um my dad was once mistaken for benny anderson by a group of japanese tourists really in london and um yeah and and to be fair my dad did look quite a lot like benny anderson that that's the pianist by the way the beardy one uh so of course he plays along and signed autographs for them you'd have to oh course. My dad got mistaken in a transport cafe for being Valdunican by someone behind the till, which was weird because he was wearing his co-op overalls at the time. Well, my dad, okay, because my dad's better than your dad's, he got mistaken for being a Beatle one time.

No! Yeah, he was coming out of a hotel that they were in, and he, you know, in his ear, he had sort of dark hair, and, yeah, it was a bit of a kind of flurry of screams, and then he realised that he wasn't a mop top. Oh, well, you know, they were all the same at that point. They'd take your pig, didn't they? Yeah, probably George Harrison, I suspect,

the kind of hair he would have had then. Yeah, but so ABBA, I mean, I loved this at the time, and I really liked ABBA all the way through to about 77, 78. Then something happened to me. I developed a kind of sort of very adolescent seriousness about there being good music, pop music.

I started reading the music press and suddenly ABBA became kind of a botan and I, you know, I remember writing an essay in which I describe them as a symbol of the toothpaste society, you know, they were antiseptic and clean or whatever, so I had to kind of reject ABBA even though I was seeing... Polystyrene over here!

...things like, yeah exactly, take a chance on me and things like that, I had to kind of suppress you know the fact that they still actually were genuinely and effectively strong pop songs. So, but you know actually everybody, I mean i mean actually there was a story about sid vicious um the meeting at the airport and sid vicious spots them and he kind of chases after them to you know the women in the group and they kind of run off in fright he's actually trying to get their autograph um so people you know there wasn't some sort of anti-abba sentiment expressed by you know the kind of punk and post-punk particularly and definitely you know you can definitely hear that sort of glacial thing

later on in the early 80s. Although, I mean, it's a curious one. It's not to say that it negates their kind of quality. I just think that the very fact that they've never reformed, I also think, is kind of impressive. That's quite classy, isn't it? Yeah, the fact that they've never gone in for a...

Because when people do, there's never a one-off and it always has a sort of spoiling effect on what they've done wasn't the talk about a reunion though recently it was i think but well i don't know if it was but i mean obviously i yeah i don't know if they're ever going to do it i actually saw two of them when they uh when they launched the abba world exhibit in um earl's court or olympia a few years ago i went along to the launch of that and uh two of them turned up. And it really confused me, right, because Frida was now blonde and Bjorn was now beardy. And it was like the two of them were trying to embody

the entire group within two people. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And there's always something a bit disingenuous about ABBA as well. I mean, there's a whole sort of, I mean, you know, in terms of the meaning of ABBA, there's all kinds of sort of meanings that can be extracted. I'm sure they're very premiered about the structure of the songs

and everything like that, but everything else that they kind of end up signifying a meaning to people eventually sort of goes through, you know, gay subculture and the film Mamma Mia and stuff like that. There's whole books to be written, you know. As for this performance, I mean mean we don't know that all that's gonna happen and not yet yeah we've got

to make mention of beyond explosion guitar it's fucking mint isn't it brilliant yeah better than super yob yeah and the star-shaped guitar of the bloke from the glitter band I think

those three are the are the are the definitive guitars of the era they're wearing the same gear as they did at Eurovision, so hopefully they had time to nip into a drying cleaner. And the audience are fucking loving it, aren't they? There's two girls at the front,

and they are violently getting down. Well, you can't not love it. It's just a romp, isn't it, this song? The thing is, though, this is something that occurred to me, because obviously we're looking at this for the benefit of hindsight, but the people watching this performance would have had no reason to think that ABBA

would be anything other than a one-hit wonder because they were they were Eurovision winners and uh I think uh we we looked at 1975's Eurovision winners in a recent episode and they did nothing else again you know it was the standard thing that if you won Eurovision you might have a hit with that song and that was your lot so nobody would have had any idea if your song was English language and that's been the case ever since the only group that's ever made it serious

well Bucks Fizz did alright but I just think people were witnessing history and not knowing it and that is a fascinating thing in itself. And even at this stage, honestly, Noel Edmonds is clearly thinking that.

He's explaining who they are. I don't think that he's kind of... Oh, he says, doesn't he? About the ladies and Adam. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If they hadn't have won the Eurovision Song Contest

five days previously, would we have heard from them? Or were they just too good? We'd all be speaking portuguese now yes so the following week waterloo was the highest new entry at number 17 then it shot up to number two and the week after that it became number one and stayed there for two weeks bbc took a bit of a punt there didn't they putting it on top of the Pops? Wasn't even in the chart. Good for them.

The follow-up, Ring Ring, their 1973 Eurovision entry, was released in June but only got to number 32. But they'd start to dominate the charts from late 1975 and would have eight number ones. number ones that's ever meeting their waterloo in case you wonder what abba means in fact is the initials of the names there's a alan and barry and brian alexander other where the ladies for timber cool we stick with the eurovision we go on the link to bremen where we see ter Jacks, number one for the second week running. Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.

Edmunds with the shitty jokes again, for fuck's sake, shut up, you cunt. Followed by leching of Frida Agneta before introducing Terryry jackson season in the sun born in winnipeg in 1944 terry jacks was the lead singer in the chessmen in the mid-60s a local band before falling into production in 1973 he was producing for the beach boys who were working up an english language version of Le Moribond, a 1962 Jacques Brau song where everyone was encouraged to have a good piss up at his funeral. When the Beach Boys decided to junk the song, Terry picked it up in a Womble-like fashion, fiddled about with the lyrics

some more and released it himself. This is his third week at number one and they're screening a clip from the German TV show Musikladen which appears to be made for the bbc as they've changed the background titles to the english translation of the show's name music shop this is a bit of a downer isn't it after what i mean i i was 11 when this was released and of course i heard the subject matter and being somewhat credulous child, I actually thought that Terry Jackson was genuinely dying and that this was his kind of swan song to the world that rather romantically and poignantly made it to number one

and that he might sort of peg it any week now and perhaps the sort of song would be outlasting, you know, be a posthumous number one. You know, like for the weeks after. And people go on about Black Star as if it was innovative. Yeah, so I was convinced that, you know, like the weeks after. And people go on about Black Star as if it was innovative. Yeah, so I was convinced that, you know, he was basically, that this was all pure autobiography. Of course, the original Jacques Brel version

that you're talking about is a far more sardonic effort. You know, it's real kind of, go for your buttons. It's real kind of, you know, about his, you know, his ex-wife was having an affair about the local priest who he'd estranged. It's a much more sarcastic thing. And there's another version in between, I think,

that's also similarly got a kind of, like, bitter sort of undertow to it. Whereas here, I think, he has just gone straight for... It's very American, isn't it? Yeah, sentimental. I mean, I did...

Very Highway to Heaven. I did dis... Apart from the fascination of the fact that he might die in a week soon, I disliked this song intensely. I thought, you know, if anybody, I would have actually, if anybody played it at a funeral, I would have heckled, you know.

It was... Oh, yes. I've got a list of songs that, if they're played at a funeral, that I'm getting up and walking out. Rubbish. But right at the top is, and I've told people, there's some people who've suggested this song as their funeral song. Someone I used to know who was a twat. when you're going down the travelator towards the furnace he wanted um

redemption song by bob morley played and i said if i'm there and that song gets played i'm ripping the lid off the coffin and i'm punching you in the face until you go down the fucking hole telling you so yeah wouldn't it be great david if you actually believed you went through life believing that every song that anyone ever sung on top of the pops were in the charts was actually a real story imagine running into school and going hey gary glitter's forming a gang and it's open membership elton john's got a rocket yeah yeah well you know it is i mean i get it david bowie's he he was truly lost in space.

Yeah, will he ever come back? He still managed to sort of record up there. Death Pop was a big thing around this time. You had this, you had Sonny by Bobby Hebb, and you had Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris, of course. And there was this weird kind of morbidity in the tastes of the record buying public at this time because I can certainly imagine hearing something like

Seasons in the Sun once on the radio and being a bit moved by it if you were of that kind of maudlin bent. But then to think that has moved me, if I go and buy it, maybe it'll move me again and I will put that record on at home and try and recreate that sadness that it made me feel. I find that really peculiar. And I wonder how, you know, whether people did sit at home

and play this record that often or whether they sort of bought it as a mark of respect. You know, this song has moved me, therefore I will buy it. But, you know, maybe it would lose out to, let's say, Waterloo by ABBA when it came to needle time at home. Yeah, yeah.

And the other thing is, obviously it's translated from French. So I haven't had a chance to check the Jacques Brel original. The lyrics are totally different. Oh, yeah. Trust me. It's pretty awful, isn't it?

It's the stars we could reach were just starfish that it's pretty awful isn't it it's uh the stars we could reach with just starfish on the beach i mean for fuck's sake yeah yeah you get to the point where you just say well just fucking die then one thing i do find enviable about terry jackson i think maybe you guys would also agree with me he has got the thickest hair i've ever seen yes um i'm not sure if he ever went bald in later life. I don't think he will have done. He cannot possibly. That's a proper microphone head of hair he's got going on there. He looks like the American

wrestler King Harley Race. I'll take your word for that. Just take my word on that. There's someone out there who'll know what I mean. Another interesting thing just in terms of the composition of this or the arrangement rather than the composition is there's a crunching key change at one point about two thirds of the way through and then there's another key change even higher and then there's another

one boom boom boom just i know almost almost to the limits of his vocal ability i think you know yeah yeah i mean if there was if there was a 12 inch version he'd be fucked yeah yeah yeah yes i mean that i suppose that's meant to be the last knockings of life as they kind of disappear and he sort of fades inevitably. It didn't leave him with anywhere to go, really. I mean, you didn't really hear much of Terry Jacks after this and it's difficult to do a follow-up to a Season in the Sun. He fucking died, didn't he? That's why.

Yeah, exactly. It's difficult to kind of, now let's lighten the mood a bit with the next single. He painted himself into a corner with that one. So, Seasons in the Sun would have one more week at number one before it was knocked off the top spot by Waterloo. And it was, at the time, the biggest selling single ever by a Canadian.

And it's still now third behind My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. And everything I do, I do It For You by Bryan Adams. Fucking hell. Imagine them three in a row. He'd have another go at a Jack Brown song, If You Go Away, in the summer of 1974, which got to number eight. But he eased out of the music scene in the late 70s

and became an environmentalist and documentary maker. We had seasons in the sun And the heroes have been gone environmentalist and documentary maker. For the second week running, that's Terry Jacks, Jacques Brel, Rod McEwan creation, and he's doing remarkably well with Seasons in the Sun. We can't leave you on such a sad note, can we? Slightly frivolous sound of the glitter band and Angel Face terminating this edition of Top of the Pops.

We hope you'll join us at the same time next week you will great You're a childless sweet sister Never made big towns king Edmund signs off, describes the following band as slightly frivolous, oh, look who's talking, you cunt, and does possibly the first mic drop

on British television. But I bet you know there was some BBC bloke underneath waiting to catch it, don't you? He's introducing the Glitter Band. Formed in 1972 by members of the Boston International Show Band, the Glitter Men were created as a backing band for Gary Glitter, and they made their debut on Top of the Pops in June of 1972. Before long, they were inundated with fan mail sent to Gary Glitter's they made their debut on Top of the Pops in June of 1972 before long they were inundated with fan mail sent to Gary Glitter's fan club much to his annoyance so by late 1973 they were spun off

into their own band this is their debut release and it's been at number five for two weeks I think it's quite nice for them that um having been freed from the shackles of playing on gary glitter records they've gone off in a completely different musical direction and done something that sounds nothing like anything yes but yeah the glitter band themselves i mean what is their fate nowadays i mean because i don't suppose you know angel face isn't really uh with this typically suspect 70s lyric in its own right it says says, you're a child of sweet 16. That's the first line. And then later on it goes, who knows how long your looks will last.

It's a bit, yeah. It's got a slight... Got to get you ready fast. Who knows how long your looks will last. It's a little bit U-tree, isn't it? Definitely. I've actually seen the Glitter Band or I've mentioned this before, I think, that I've seen a version of the Glitter Band, or I've mentioned this before, I think, that I've seen a version of the Glitter Band

at the Scala in London. And this was after we know what we know about Gary Glitter. And it was the most euphoric celebratory gig, or one of the most euphoric celebratory gigs I've ever been to, because everybody in the audience felt liberated and felt able, felt permitted to chart along to what were, let's face it brilliant

records that gary glitter made but without the leader himself being present to lap up the adulation and uh the people who were receiving the applause were for all we know you know innocent men uh there's there's a um there's a lyric by luke haynes isn't there? Gary Glitter is a bad, bad man sullying the reputation of the Glitter band. So they were doing Gary Glitter songs? They were. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. They did their own hits,

Let's Get Together Again and Angel Face and all of that. But they went for it. They played the entire back catalogue. Was their name up in lights? I mean, you know, I just wondered if they could sort of, it has to be a bit more discreet affair now i don't know it's uh written on a post-it note on the drum kit i think i think they were supporting adamant with uh with whom they they shared the gimmick of two drummers of course but the bloke who was who was stepping into gary glitter's boots

if you will i mean how was he how was he carrying How was he carrying on? Well, he was just one of... Was he doing the punching and the gestures and the stereo? No, he wasn't. He was just, you know, the guitarist, singer-guitarist with the band. He was off to one side. He wasn't being a front man as such. They were very much the glitter band. They weren't sort of... There was no stunt Gary, put it that way. No, no, there wouldn't be, would they? Did they allude to their former leader's troubles? No, they just I mean they didn't need to uh I think every

everybody in the audience we we all knew what we were thinking we all knew uh well you know we feel a bit sorry for these guys because their whole career is fucked now because of what's happened obviously there are people whose lives have been ruined in a far worse way by what Gary Glitter did, nevertheless you know, these guys as professional musicians are a bit fucked and as far as anyone knows they haven't done anything wrong, so yeah it was a wonderful kind of celebratory atmosphere

but as you say, putting their name up in lights would be a risky business for them to actually announce a nationwide tour in the current climate, yeah, it would be a bit scared for their safety. I mean, they're still operating, apparently. Well, there's two of them.

There's actually two versions of them knocking around, two versions of the Glitter Band. But the song, Simon, this seems to be a prime example of what you termed in an earlier episode as dogshit glam. Yeah, it's all right. I mean, I made my sarcastic comment a few minutes ago about their radical departure i mean why fuck with the formula in 1974 it's all right it's i if i was going to do a sort of top 10 of gary glitter plus the glitter band it might

just sneak into the lower reaches put it that way and this is a chance at the end of the show where we get to see the audience we do through a fishe lens, which goes back to what I was saying about the visual grammar of early 70s top of the pops. You've got that kind of psychedelic overload of the Mungo Jerry performance. You've got the radial spangle of the mud spotlights. And then you've got this, the fisheye lens. So those three together, that is early 70s top of the pops to me. And I love it. It doesn't really matter what song is playing.

that is early 70s top the pops to me and I love it. It doesn't really matter what song's playing. There's something more evocative or as evocative about that site as any song. The following week, Angel Face nudged up to number four, its highest position. The follow-up, Just For You, made it to number 10 in August when they released their debut LP, Hey!

Best glam rock album name ever. They'd go on to have five more hits, including a number two with Goodbye My Love in February of 1975, and they'd split up in 1977. And that, my friends, closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on television afterwards? Well, BBC One follows up with Are You Being Served? Something called the Burke Special.

I think it was a James Burke discussion programme. And a play called Three for the Fancy, the follow-up to The Fishing Party with Brian Glover. David Bellamy teaches you how to read the countryside in Bellamy's Britain. And they finish off with a film of Newcastle seen through the eyes of a fin. That doesn't sound like such a bad night's telly, actually. No, no, it's not bad at all, is it? I was thinking I wouldn't mind that BBC Two thing

about humanism either that you mentioned earlier. You know, I mean, God knows the world could do with a bit of that right now, eh, kids? Yes. BBC Two has Collector's World, where Hugh Scully looks at some collectible tiles, followed by The Vera Lynn show and a documentary about British people pissing

off to Australia. ITV is running an episode of Special Branch about a dead spy in Canada and he's linked with an au pair in London. An episode of This Week, an interview with Ray Harryhausen in cinema and finishes off with what the papers say and angling today

with Terry Thomas. No, not that one. It's someone from ATV Midlands. So chaps, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? Um, Ooh,

I mean, I guess, um, although it probably wasn't at the time. I was probably talking about MUD myself. Perhaps, you know, obviously re-enacting the kind of MUD rockers with a couple of, like, you know, trusted friends. Yes. Not with earrings, though. No, no, no, no, no, no.

Definitely not, no. Simon? To honestly answer the question, I think we'd be talking about Evel Knievel or the upcoming FA Cup final between Liverpool and Newcastle United because I don't think this was an outstanding episode

of Top of the Pops. I think if, you know, if you had to discuss anything from this show, yeah, I think Mudd brought the excitement more than anyone else on this episode. If you're a kid,

you know, in fact, even if you're an adult i think just mud totally bring it yeah surely people would be talking about the wambles though i don't know they can play instruments now for fuck's sake the weird thing with the wambles is that even though i was six years old i think i still thought they were a bit young for me i i think um whatever age i was and you know at any time i thought the Wombles were aimed at kids maybe one or two years younger. But like you say,

there are people who appear to be about 14 or something leaping around to that song. So what do I know? And what were you buying on Saturday? I would probably, yeah, I think I was a big Tiger Feet fan. I think I'd probably have me... Yeah, shelling out whatever it was,

40 penceence 50 pence whatever what do you say I wouldn't I'd have spent it on crisps actually I think what I've done I'd have

I'd have taped I'd have taped it off the radio what would I have taped off the radio I'd have probably taped Mud I'd have taped

Waterloo and and yeah and actually Slade because I was a huge Slade fan even though I was disappointed in their

change of pace I think I would have still kept the faith Simon I would have bought the Mud single but if I was a huge Slade fan and even though I was disappointed in their change of pace I think I would have still kept the faith. Simon? I would have bought the Mud single but if I had a few pence left then, like David, I would have bought some crisps. The difference is I would have sacrificed them.

I did not sacrifice a single crisp to anybody in the 1970s, I can tell you. And what does this episode tell us about 1974? i think it feels like a time when nothing is ever going to change because you know um in the 1975 episode there was this feeling of of slight entropy that everything's about to collapse and that change change has to come change will come um and maybe you know i wasn't taking part in the 1973 one but

there was a feeling of excitement that this is the new thing, this is the new world. I think there's this weird feeling of stasis in 74. I've got a really strong memory of going to my granddad's shop, he ran a printer's shop, and getting a scrapbook. And on the front of the scrapbook, it has a picture of a generic racing car from the Grand Prix, a generic footballer with kind

of flowing roy race hair and a generic pop star and the generic pop star looked like a sort of member of you know a minor member of the glitter band or a minor member of of mud or something like that a minor member of mungo jerry and it just seemed that this is this is what pop culture was now it was set in stone or certainly set in ink forever and um Noel Edmonds seemed to embody that as well he seemed to to be this kind of godhead at the top of it all and that the the idea that that anything could be thrown into turmoil um or that any of this kind of reich of uh of a fairly lightweight um meaningless pop would would ever crumble was it conceivable i say that i was six i was six years old i didn't have those kind of thoughts but look at looking at it now that's how it feels to me there was a

sort of sense of status at the time i think that the kind of that there'd been a sort of forward momentum for a long time you know in the sort of world i think it was just at the kind of, that there'd been a sort of forward momentum for a long time, you know, in the sort of popular world. And I think it was just at last kind of drawn to a close. And I think that not an awful lot really seemed to be happening of great interest, you know, on the surface of things. You know, we're in the kind of superstar end of things, you know, and even the sort of, you know, people, even the sort of, the who and people like that were kind of running out of steam and they were all getting kind of pissed and bloated in LA or whatever, which is why David Bowie was, you know, eventually sort of inclined to kind of relocate, you know, and do his Berlin thing.

And none of that was impinging. I mean, there's a real sense of underground. The world of pop is entirely separate, as it were. It feels very separate from the kind of world of, inverted commas, serious music. And I think the only sort of hints that you're getting of things are, like, maybe the whole sort of interest in rock and roll that you're getting around this time

is maybe sort of the beginnings of an appetite to get back to sort of basics of some sort. And you've got the pub rock thing, you've got hints of that in things like the Mungo Jerry or whatever. And the Ted thing of like, so the whole Ted thing, the whole sort of rock and roll revival thing, there is, I think, a connection between that and punk

when it eventually happens, which is only about a year or so later, the first sort of knockings of that. So, yeah, you're just sort of perhaps sort of hearing sort of distant inklings of that, really. So that is the end of this episode of Chart Music. Let me do the usual ramble about where you can get hold of us uh our website is www.chart-music.co.uk our facebook group is facebook.com chart music podcast and you can follow us on twitter chart music t-o-t-p thank you very much david stubbs thank you thank you very much simon price you thank you thank you very much Simon Price

you're welcome anytime I'm Al Needham and I am threatening to streak across the studio hello there welcome to the Cookability Roadshow. So, what are you ladies finding out about gas, Sonia? Oh, we wouldn't use anything else, it's so cheap. Dawn? Well, it's very easy to control. And Linda?

You know, these special oven liners help keep the oven clean. And all these gadgets are marvellous. Right. And it all adds up to one thing. Good ability, that's the beauty of gas. I've never eaten so well in my life.