Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #47 (Part 3): 25th December 1977 – The Last Supper Of Showaddywaddy

Episode Date: December 26, 2019

#47: 25th December 1977 – The Last Supper Of ShowaddywaddyA sort-of-festive episode of the podcast which asks: Jesus, why do we always leave this to the last minute instead of doing it in August like everyone else?It’s the arse-end of the year, and you know what that means, Pop-Crazed Youngsters: another ram of our hands into the Quality Street tin of a Xmas TOTP. This year, it’s 1977, which means that Noel Edmonds has taken one of his suits that all look the same out of the wardrobe – but this year he’s joined by Kid Jensen, in full Stylistics clobber. No trifle-related interplay this year, then, but it’s quadruple overtime for the Top Of The Pops Orchestra, who have stashed a dozen or so Party Sevens under their chairs to keep them going, and Team ATVland (combined age: 19) are sulking that they can’t hook their Binatone Pong to the telly, moaning that their Ricochet Racers isn’t much cop, and leafing through the 1978 Starsky and Hutch annual and dreaming of chocolate pancakes respectively. There were some astonishing singles that came out in ’77, but musicwise, and bar a couple of exceptions, this is your Nana’s Top Of The Pops. Showaddywaddy pretend to have a futuristic buffet. Some kids are bussed into White City to wave a tassel on a stick (or just the stick). David Soul’s head floats in space. Johnny Mathis pops up again. You can hear Kenny Rogers’ arse as he lowers it onto a wicker bar stool. And oh God, it’s Manhattan Transfer. But here come Abba, Space, Denice Williams, Hot Chocolate, and the return of Floyd Flipper as a fruity Santa! Oh, and there’s Paul McCartney’s Living Shortbread Tin and Bing Crosby. It’s a massive, sixteen-song evisceration, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, done with the care and attention you’ve come to expect from the little elves of Chart Music.Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for a long, hard stare at the winners circle of 1977, complete with such tangents as the Showaddywaddy Hanky Code, Lobbing It Out on Channel 4, assuming French is just English you don’t know yet, the gang war between Brighouse and Rastrick, Space Crumpet, when it’s time to finally let go of the Radio Times Xmas issue, and a chance to see someone from Chart Music looking like a massive potato on telly very soon. Merry Swearing!Video Playlist |  Subscribe |  Facebook  | TwitterSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here.This podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language,

which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Chart music. Chart music Chart music It's round about half past two It's Sunday December 25th 1977 It's the top of the 25th, 1977. It's the Top of the Pops Christmas Special. And this selection box has got a lot of cat shit in it. Hey, you pop-crazed youngsters.

This is Al Needham. And we're now into part three of Chart Music 47. Hope you had a nice Christmas. Me and the rest of Team Chomp Music Spent a lovely Christmas morning Going round the children's hospital Explaining the semiotics of legs And co-routines to the kids

And giving them loads of Pickwick Top of the Pops LPs Oh the looks on their little faces Made it all worthwhile Anyway Let's rejoin the show in progress Because it can't get any worse.

Nostalgia made a return to the charts in these past 12 months in the form of New York's Manhattan Transfer Company. The singing group, that is, with Chasson de Moor. Chasson de Moor. Sons d'amour L'air encore Here in my heart More and more Kid, standing by a Christmas tree while some tinsel sways in a very unsafe manner,

tells us that nostalgia was big in the charts this year and fucks up the name of the next group. It's Manhattan Transfer and Chanson d'Amour. Formed by Tim Houser in New York in 1969, the original Manhattan Transfer signed to Capitol Records in 1971 and made one LP before the label dropped them and the group dissolved in 1973. When Hauser was working as a cabaret in New York, he picked up a waitress called Laurel Mass and discovered they were both singers. A few weeks later, one of his regular passengers invited him to a party where he met Janice Siegel, another singer. where he met Janice Siegel, another singer.

After he was linked up with Alan Paul, who was playing Johnny Casino in the Broadway production of a new musical called Grease, he decided to reactivate the Manhattan Transfer name. After becoming a regular fixture on the New York club circuit, they passed on a demo to Armin Ertegun and were signed to Atlantic Records. They put out the LP The Manhattan Transfer in 1975, landed their own TV show on CBS in the same year and made their first dent on the UK chart when Tuxedo Junction got to number 24 in February of 1976. This is the follow-up up a cover of the 1958 single which Art and Dottie Dodd took to number 6 in the US charts

in April of 1958 and it got to number 1 in March of this year deposing the old sailor and here they are facing off against the might of the top of the pop's orchestra fucking hell more slow music

I would have been so angry at this point. I would have just been under the dinner table with my cars. I would not have been paying attention. I would have deliberately turned my back on it. I would have put the ricochet racers into my mouth. For fuck's sake. I'll tell you what, though. It's another early memory for me.

This is another of those first songs I remember. And, you know chanson d'amour one of my first ever attempts at writing comedy that i heard this song as a five-year-old and i imagined someone singing chanson d'amour and somebody else walking in with a stick and battering them which shows two things first of all that my sense of humor has always been based around pain and anger and secondly i could have got work writing for copycats yes definitely but you know we're all taking wrong turns in life yes that's why we're here um but and also there was only one kind of transfer that i'd ever heard of right so i didn't understand

what what their name it was like i was hoping they'd be putting sheets of gray plasticky paper on each other's foreheads and rubbing them with a coin so they had little empire state buildings floating in midair over one eyebrow and half of something that came off by mistake oh man that reminds me right about this time i uh i got a load of transfers with some bubbler and uh went to me non-armed grandpas with them all up and down me on me grandpa went fucking mental he had a he had a tattoo yeah but he was uh he was in the merchant navy in the war so he'd earned this and i think he was he was a bit pissed off that his grandson was looking like a right tramp and hadn't earned those tattoos.

So, yeah, very uncomfortable afternoon with a bit of white spirit and a scrubbing brush ensued. Yeah, thanks for reminding me of that Manhattan transfer, you bastards. I mean, I hated this song because I saw it as French. Well, you used to hear a lot of songs with a bit of French in them. Yeah, and I was very angry at France in 1977 because they won the Eurovision Song Contest with this song that I couldn't understand

and, you know, denied Lindsay DePaul and Mike Moran. The trouble is, though, when you're a kid and you don't know any French, you just hear it phonetically and assume that it's something in English that you can't quite make out. Like when I first heard Michelle by the Beatles when I was a child,

I thought he was singing, Michelle, my bell, Sunday smoky, won't play piano on song. It didn't worry me much that it was gibberish because when you're a kid, the adult world is full of gibberish. And you just assume that one day some of it will make sense to you. And some of it does.

And of course, you know, je t'adore Larry Grayson. That was a tribute to one of your lot, Neil. Oh, he was Nuneaton, wasn't he? He was, yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Treacle Town, as we call it. But what Taylor's saying about adult gibberish that's where i'd mentally put this it's but it's adults being fucking annoying to be honest with you yes um singing this song that i don't really understand and and i wouldn't have got the fact that it's a kind of you know it's an old song for starters they're

kind of looking everything else is kind of 20s ish 30s ish but it would have just aggravated me would have just just aggravated me it's adults being all adulty and not letting us in and not giving us even a chink or an aperture of fun at all this is this is a world weary kind of record i'm five i don't need this on christmas afternoon it's bringing me massively. It's the musical equivalent of your mum letting you have a swig of champagne and it all pops out your nose and you hate it. Yeah, yeah, completely. It doesn't taste of alpine. No, no, that's exactly what it is.

It's just, and it's deliberate. I'm not saying Manhattan Transfer thought, let's make a song that kids won't like, but it feels almost exclusionary to the point where, you know, I just wish that, in a sense, people buying this record... I mean, you do have to ask the question,

who the fuck is buying this record or bought this record? But beyond that, yeah, those chart returns should not have been sent through. No. As soon as you buy this record, you're prohibited from contributing to the charts, in a sense.

It just shouldn't be there. It shouldn't have been in the charts. And my God, it should definitely not have been on the Christmas Top of the Pops. What a bummer I'm having. It was the year that I finally started hating shit number ones and just getting really angry at the fact that this song was at number one and that song wasn't

and just realising that other people are cunts essentially i think what i object to most about manhattan transfer is that they're all about this suggestion of some kind of art deco elegance you know like it's like they drink everything out of a a wide conical cocktail glass and live in the chrysler building yes. When you actually see them, I mean, they're about as elegant as a catheter factory. Yes. It's a bunch of old hacks shuffling about, clicking their fingers and refusing to commit.

It's like they can't wait to get back in their corduroy slacks and sneakers and get home in time for mash you know and order some chinese food yes and at least modern revivalists make an effort to really live the part yeah and inhabit the past yeah was this lot just got a lead singer with hair like dave bartram like exuding that sort of 70s, middle-aged, fake Frenchness, like Madame Penois from Fawlty Towns, who was played by A.A. Gill's mum. Really?

Yeah. And then there's three nobodies around one mic. Yeah. There's a bloke who looks like one of the residents when he's taking his eyeball head off, and then two two still less distinguished characters and however much they croon and lift their eyebrows it's all just pissing about isn't it yeah do you know what i mean yeah it's like it's not even like they're

trying to do something for the olden yeah yeah would be harder to mock and easier to live with. It's not like that. It's not nostalgia for the hopeless. It's a sort of strange, smarmy, fundamentally worthless genre exercise that seems to expect a pat on the back from a modern audience just for existing. I would have seen this as nine-year-olders. Oh, America thinks they can do a Brotherhood of Man and look how they failed. Now, what Taylor's getting at there, spot on, what would have angered me, I think, as a five-year-old, would have been not the motivation behind making

the record, but what is the motivation for buying this and listening to it? Now, if you're on your own, would you fucking listen to this? You know that episode of Steptoe and Some where they split the house up in two? And Harold's there and he's got these beans in a cafeteria and he's got all his silver service out and he's finally enjoying his own living space at the first time.

This is exactly the song he put on before he turned the ballet on. And the little door opens at the side and a hand reaches out and nicks the crew I mean if you put this on in a room with people and they agree to sing along to it with you you scum and you need shooting it's a horrible record

yeah but it's rat-a-tat-a-tat even though I hated this song I did love shouting that at people in the playground that was quite the thing to do for a couple of weeks. And because it's French, you just think, oh, they must be doing a sex.

No, these people should be made to milk a cow, dressed like that, just to stick and udder in their stupid world, you know what I mean? But Top of the Pops has not let them down, have they? Because, you know, they've got a nice Art Deco set, and we actually get to see some of the Top of the Pops has not let them down, have they? Because they've got a nice Art Deco set, and we actually get to see some of the Top of the Pops orchestra. The only people who come out of this with any credit. And they actually say to the saxophonist,

they talk to him like he's another human being who's part of the band, which was nice. Bit of recognition for him. Yeah, the BBC are the only people who come out of this with any credit. They've knocked together a reasonably era-authentic stage set for, you know, 15 quid. And, yeah, the Toppops Orchestra are in their element here because they're mostly jazz musicians,

and obviously this is a piece of piece to play. The original record's got another Richard Perry production, but, you know, you can't even make the same case for that as on the old Sailor record, because this really is just smug kitsch, and destroying it would be more artistic than creating it. But it's great to see actually one member of the Top of Pops orchestra getting his chance to shine.

And it turns out that he's a fat, sweaty bloke in a tight waistcoat. He does look like Big Bill Wurbenuk,ke in a tight waistcoat he does look like big bill werbenyuk he does he does he does and it's a proper site because we don't really get a proper sight of them earlier with denise williams yeah um and the old sailor is is simply in an infinite regress of himself yes um which actually is quite effective but yeah i liked that moment when the sax solo goes the the guy does his sax solo and then he kind of he steps back and let the band take lets the band take over but there's a kind of sense that that's the good bit over with now back to the shite singing and the horrible

verses and the awful chorus so yeah it's nice to see a member nice to see you can stand up as well so chanson de more would spend three weeks at number one, eventually yielding the floor to a single we'll be hearing soon. The follow-up, Don't Let Go, would get to number 32 in June of this year. They would have three more top 40 hits in 1978 and made their last chart appearance in 1985 when Spice of Life got to number 19 in February of that year. I love it.

Every time I hear Chanson, chanson D'amour I love it. Manhattan Transfer. Now, I've got to ask you, kids, looking back over the whole year, artists you've really not liked,

is there anyone who's really grated on you at all this year? You mean apart from hot chocolate? Oh, Christ. We get more forced banter from Kidd and Edmonds where they do the tried and trusted routine where they slug off a band without realising they're standing behind them. Hoo-hoo-hoo! I'll tell you what, though.

Kidd, his comic timing is not bad. You've got to say, he could have had a far more creative career as a supper club stand. Yeah, he could. Canada has never laughed so much. The Newfoundland Herald. We're finally introduced to Hot Chocolate

with So You Win Again. We've covered Hot Chocolate in Chart Music No. 1 when they were No. 1 with this, their 15th hit single. It was the follow-up to Heaven Is In The Backseat Of My Cadillac which got to No. 25 for two weeks in September of 1976 and it was written by Russ Ballard who also wrote Since You've Been Gone For Rainbow, God Gave Rock And Roll to You by Argent,

and New York Groove by Barry Blue. It went to number one in June of this year, knocking Show You the Way to Go by the Jacksons off the top spot, and here they are, seemingly performing for the sole benefit of Kid and Edmunds. Oh, this is where it all began for chart music this one yeah it's that that lovely slick but cheap mickey most production it's the first thing you notice about this there's a basic crunch to this record that you don't get on american records like this even though they technically sound better because it's made in l London, and it's not quite state-of-the-art, technically.

And it works beautifully for hot chocolate, because there's something so charmingly suburban about them, but not in a way which undermines their genuine quality. Adds to it, in fact. You look at Errol Brown here. He looks remarkable. It's like what I thought was a cool outfit when I was about 12, you know. But on him, it actually does look great. He's got a black shirt with a collar turned up,

a sort of silver necklace, shirt tucked in a black cord with a silvery belt and pointy silver boots. He looks like a high street Lando Calrissian. It's like Lando Calrissian at CNA. And you could almost believe he was in your town, wowing the local youth club disco. And it's perfect for what hot chocolate are, like true warmth from a cold country.

Meanwhile, the rest of the band had done up in Off White, which may have been white before someone put their outfit in the same wash as Errol's there's a bit of a sartorial split in that band because Errol Brown's obviously listened to Joe Strummer's Maxim like trousers like brain and opted for some reasonably drain-pipey black trousers but the bassist is sporting an absolute pair of billy smarts they're fucking

voluminous and from here on in if you're like me you're spending your time watching this performance seeing where the rest of the band stand on trouser leg width you know and it's a it's a 50 50 split as far as i can see well i mean the thing is as we're seeing throughout this episode, not many people look great in 1977. But Errol, he, you know, he cuts a dash always. And crucially,

always this masterly knowledge of the camera and where it is. And the use of slight gesture, but mainly just gently getting into the groove. He's my, Errol Brown, I think for a lot of people, he's my get out Claus Torrey, if you like. You know, he's so get out Claus Torrey, if you like.

You know, he's so lovely. I don't even hold that against him. And even at the young age that I was, age five, when I would have watched this, it would have been clear to me that here was clearly just a lovely, beautiful man inside and out singing these awesome songs. Emma is the actual one for me with hot chocolate, what a song

that is but but this is great too and the way that they play it masks that it's a russ ballard song um but i mean age five of course you're barely conscious of a songwriting process what i would have thought is simply this is what happens it's hot chocolate this is what they do and you respond and yes it's a wonderful performance of a wonderful song by a wonderful band and one of the one of the best front men british front men ever who should really be talked about um as a as a ferry yes brian ferry type figure or a bowie type figure um he he's amazing errol brown um and yeah he's my get out claus tory yeah well he's only a singer i mean they're all idiots when it comes to anything important.

You know? No, I mean, regardless of whether their idiocy drops them on broadly your side of an argument or the other, it doesn't matter much because they don't know what they're talking about anyway. You know, if anything, at least you can say that the Tory singers, by and large, don't pretend they're experts or authorities on politics, unlike a lot of so-called socialist musicians whose politics when you actually look at it are equally infantile

and poorly informed it's just anyone seeking any kind of political insight in pop music you know you might as well might as well ask geese about charcoal i mean they're overgrown children they sit in vans drinking that's their life um you know they don't know anything what errol knows is how to perform and how to look just incredibly stylish it's not just his awareness of the camera in terms of the way his eyes follow it but also he's gonna put a finger point in there somewhere but he puts it in exactly the right place you know he just knows he's just fantastic errol brown and this performance is an absolute peak in this uh top of the pops isn't it fucking hell he's

here they come to save the day yeah yeah i mean it's not that hard to be a peak in such a fuck awful episode no this is definitely one of them and and yeah taylor's spot on in terms of this record absolutely it's not aspiring to be a black american pop record um although it could have been but it's that roughness to the hot chocolate sound that they always had that's why emma is such an odd record it's so grimy and dirty sounding and hypnotically dronish and they always had that just a little bit too much fuzz just a little bit too much on the snare that was just always deeply, deeply pleasurable from those productions. Yeah, it's the only problem is that

it's this song, which even though it's great and it sounds really nice and it's got that great yearning hook, it's one of the less exciting Hot Chocolate hits just because it doesn't have that hysterical edge or the tragic short story lyric,

which all their best songs do. So it can only seem like an also-run. But it does bring that lovely city-suburb romance to a Christmas top of the pops that is genuinely lacking in that. I mean, most of this programme, you wouldn't even know that trainee beauticians had fiancées. It takes hot chocolate to bring it home. You wouldn't even know that trainee beauticians had fiancés. Takes hot chocolate to bring it home.

Also, I remember as a kid being so impressed with that album cover of theirs, which was just, I think it's their greatest hits, which is just a massive close-up of a woman's mouth with an impractical amount of lipstick on, about to crunch a Malteser between her teeth, because everyone thought it was original and hilarious to call errol brown malteser head um back in the days when a shiny bonce was a ludicrous rarity but then it's like oh right oh they preempted you you know and it's fantastic just a 70s graphics because it's a beautifully stupid image rendered as absolute airbrushed perfection.

It's like high-end glossy magazine advertising. So it had that irresistible air of late 70s cheapo luxury, which beguiled me as a wide-eyed, upper-working, lower-middle-class kid for whom this stuff was just just out of reach like how i begged my mum to allow us to experience the the opulence of imperial leather soap but no it was 30p more and she distrusted it yeah yeah well i mean the thing is in the mid 70s if he had a band name that suggested something that could go into a woman's mouth without being obscene then that was going to be your lp cover i mean wild cherry is the prime example of that yeah but that hot chocolate sleeve is a design classic because right now we can all picture it perfectly including the tight face and font

in our heads but it's really stuck in our heads that image. Yeah the only downer to this song is that I had a mate and I'd go round his house and we'd play all his games that he was dead good at and he'd always batter me at them and every time he won he would sing I win again I win again here I stand again

the winner bastard fucking hell man I should have unleashed the ricochet racer gun on him. So, You Win Again would stay at number one for three weeks, eventually giving way to I Feel Love by Donna Summer, which isn't on this episode. Fuck it. The follow-up, Put Your Love In Me,

is currently at number 10 in the charts, and it would stay there for two weeks. They would go on to rack up eight more top 40 hits until they split up in 1986. You win again. You do it. You do it. You do it.

You do it. I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done

I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done I've done Edmunds sitting on a massive Christmas present

that might be a Remington shaver or something like that it's that kind of dimension isn't it tells us that people were expecting the next artist to be a success in 1977 and my god they were right it's david soul with don't give up on us baby we've already covered david solberg in chart music number 23 when he did silver lady but this was his debut single recorded in between series of starsky and Hutch which was on BBC One last night. It was written by Tony McCorley who had written or co-written Let The Heartaches Begin for Long John Baldry, Baby Now That I've Found You and Build Me Up Buttercup for The Foundations,

Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes for Edison Lighthouse, You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me for The New Seekers and Lights of Cincinnati for Scott Walker. It was the first new number one of 1977, and as he's probably at home in Bay City at the moment, noshing a big turkey with a white stripe down the side with Starsky and Oogie Bear, here is the video. Man, if you were Starsky and Oogie Bear, you could actually spend a very good Christmas

playing with toys based on you. Yeah. Fucking hell. I'll tell you what, though. You can see why they didn't let Kid introduce him. It would have been like the double life of Veronique or Spider-Man pointing at himself in the mirror. These two unter Redfords.

Yes. I'm glad they spared us that. I remember it going round the playground putting himself in the mirror. These two unter Redfords. Like, yeah. Yes. Glad they spared us that. I remember it going round the playground at the beginning of 1977 that Hutch was putting a record out and it was seen as an extremely positive thing. Yeah. But, you know,

we were expecting some proper badass funk like the theme tune with Huggy Bear on wah-wah guitar and singing how skill it was to bomb about in massive cars and land on your arse on the bonnet of them but this a song about him essentially

monging over a girl was very disappointing it was yeah when you finally got to hear David Soul's voice on this record the high fluted nature of it that was a real startling shock to me yes as a kid because he didn't obviously speak like that in Starsky and Hutch I didn't expect that sound to come yes as a kid because he didn't obviously speak like that in

Starsky and Hutch I didn't expect that sound to come out of his mouth when he started singing but we still gave him a pass because he was Hutch yeah definitely I mean you know the British record buying public could not get enough of David's soul in 77 because I mean you know this song it's a little bit backtrack a little bit Chicago's If You Leave Me Now as well, which seems to actually be exerting an influence on a few records this year. It's a guaranteed monster hit with the added push given by Soul, who we love because we love Starsky and Hutch. As a kid, though, you don't particularly want to hear this kind of apology record,

which is essentially what it is. Even when the exciting bit about I really lost my head last night line comes in, want to hear this kind of apology record you know no which is essentially what it is yeah even when the exciting bit about i really lost my head last night line comes in um it's not much used to you as a kid it might be used to you as a grown man who's been a twat last night and you might play this to your partner and you know thump your heart with your fist and nod gently as that line comes on. But as a kid, yeah, it's a pretty useless record. The freaky thing about this video isn't the actual video itself, which seems to basically be a lot of close-up shots of David singing the song.

But it's that freaky cutaway that happens to kids dancing to him. They're dancing to him in front of a massive screen with his face on it where the video is playing. It's suddenly like something out of They Live or something. And it's very weird. And it's a lingering long cutaway as well. It goes on for too long. Yes, it really is.

It goes on for like a minute. So, I mean, just adding another little soup son of oddness to an already strange episode. I would have loved David Sells. I wouldn't have minded looking at his lovely face, but I wouldn't have liked the record much, I don't think. Because it's mainly just David Soule's head floating in space, isn't it? And then meeting another David Soule head on the, you know, passing through and everything. Would have been great if Starsky's head had just come in at one point and just blown on his cheek,

like he did when he's looking at that stripper in the opening credits of Starsky's head had just come in at one point and just blown on his cheek like he did when he's looking at that stripper in the opening credits of Starsky and Hutch See last time David Soule appeared on this podcast I think I told you the story about me as a small child clinging onto a root trying to stop

myself sliding down a bank in the forest into a small ravine from which I might never have rescued with the chorus of song go around my head um a ghostly encouragement to hold on but for what i'm not quite sure looking at how it all turned out but who argues with hutch but it just goes to show this is one of those records which are among the first pop records i remember and which stuck in my head and i think people underestimate the effect of that, not on your taste necessarily, but on your general sort of almost subconscious understanding

of what pop music is and how it works. Like, you know, everyone talks about how all the great soul singers and that grew up hearing gospel music in church. Yes. And that filtered in. And then you think of all the white British songwriters from, say, the 60s who tried to copy that um but whose melodies all sound like protestant hymns which they would have heard in school you know and would have got into their heads when they were kids

because that was their background so however hard they tried to replicate soul or r&b you know it came out like you know char Charles Wesley, godfather of Britpop. But because of that, I can almost enjoy this. Because to me, until I start thinking about it, it sounds very natural and weirdly definitive, you know. But you can tell he's a hack actor because when you look at the video, how he's trying to sell this song he's doing all these ballad moves right like he's looking thoughtfully off camera and then tossing his head to the side a bit at the start of a line um and raising his eyebrows in that sort of maybe kind of shape for no particular reason and it just it just looks like he's thinking well i could wax the van on thursday go to pilates on friday night but then then when do i crucify the ape

he should he should rest his index finger on his chin just to make it look more realistic it's all these cornball things that he just thinks of what you're supposed to do when you're singing a ballad there's a bit where he doesn't have to sing at all for a few seconds and other than just staring at space which he seems to think would be like dead air um he runs through like a whole showreel of facial expressions yes which obviously got nothing to do with anything. It looks fucking bizarre. It looks like there's something wrong with it. And he's not really helped by this song

because it's no Silver Lady. No. Even though it's also a Tony McCauley number. But it's weirdly, the production is very of its time. But the actual song is almost in the style of, like most of Tony McC mccauley's stuff it's like a budget jimmy webb um it sounds quite a lot like jimmy webb's records that he was

putting out in the 70s but when you compare those to this you see the difference between a job in songwriter touched by genius and a job in songwriter who's tony mccauley because you know those records move around and follow emotional currents into unusual places and this is all straight lines and ham you know i do not like straight lines and ham it's not it's not it's not repulsive. Like, the modern equivalent of this would be repulsive because there'd be a sort of cockiness or cynicism to it. Yeah. Which isn't here. It is a cash-in, but everyone's trying to do what they can, you know.

Yeah. But, yeah, Silver Lady only struck once. And, of course, in an alternate universe, it's Martin Shaw who has two number one singles in 1977. Yeah. So Don't Give Up On Us Baby would spend four weeks at number one, being usurped by Don't Cry For Me Argentina by Julie Covington. All slow shit. And would sell 1.16 million copies in the UK alone, finishing the year as the second best-selling single of 1977.

It would also get to number one in America for a week in April of this year. The follow-up, Going In With Both Eyes Open, spent three weeks at number two in March of April of this year, held off the top spot by the next single we're going to hear. But the one after that silver lady threw itself off a wall and landed on its arse on the number one spot for three weeks in october and he's currently at number 17 this week with his penultimate chart single let's have

a quiet night in which would get to number 8 in January of 1978. Why the fuck would Hutch want a quiet night in? I've never heard that one. He just wants to go out with Uggy Bear and just raise a bit of hell. And chase some cars about. Fuck having a quiet night in. We can still come

through Don't give up on us, baby Don't give up on us, baby Hello there! Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Quickly, quickly, we haven't got long. Please listen to the all-new Angel of Sandberry Podcast.

It's a funny one. Oh, my God, it's hilarious. There's so much muck in it. 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.

A chart show really would not be complete with at least one ad ahead of the year, and this was number one in March for Knowing Me, Knowing You. No more can we laughter Silence ever after Kid by A Christmas Tree bows to the inevitable and introduces Knowing Me, Knowing You by ABBA. Thank God. We've covered ABBA fucking loads on Chart Music

and this is their ninth chart single in the UK. It's the follow-up to Money, Money, Money, which got to number three for four weeks in December of 1976, and was the third cut off the 1976 LP Arrival. Despite it being available on a number one LP for five months, it got to number one in March of this year, ending the cruel reign of chanson de moore and here is the video oh and what a video it is but before we get into that 1977 is pretty much the year that abba stopped fucking about and left his kids behind didn't

they i mean as an eight-year-old in late 1976, I could easily understand money, money, money with its muster familiar-like connotations. But this song was beyond my comprehension. What's going on? What are they going on about? It's a hard-boiled record. I mean, it's a depressed record, but not a self-piteous one,

which is quite a difficult trick to do. It's this day-to-day heartbreak. You know, you don't detect this as a child, but that kind of Northern European fatalism to this record is what makes it unique and brilliant. An American band, you suspect, for starters, they wouldn't write a song like this, but if they did do it, they'd make it angry.

Or a British band might make it whiny. Only ABBA can really make sorrow as majestic-sounding as this, but also as ordinary and day to day as this as well I have to say about the video it is the greatest freeze frames in pop video history as far as I'm concerned they're just wonderful and etched

in my memory I think there's a colossal Ingmar Bergman influence on this video I always felt and on the record I mean the thing is with the record though for me i know what it's being despoiled by or what associations may become associated with it which is a shame because to me it's one of the greatest i mean it's one of their it's a fucking amazing song isn't it it's one of those songs where it's like almost got three melodic peaks to it that are just overwhelming so the structure of the song is just one more amazing hook after another the verse is strong

enough to be a chorus then it's got this massive bridge then it's got this amazing chorus and then it goes even higher on the on the break breaking up is never easy i know line uh so much to get your head around as a kid and you absolutely massively respond to it melodically whilst, yeah, you're completely right, Al. You don't quite know what this song is about. You sense it's about relationships but you don't quite know what it's about. You have to grow up a little bit to really understand and appreciate it, I think.

But it's one of their greatest and one of their greatest videos as well. I mean, you can imagine in certain households mum and dad are giving each other some proper side eye when this is going on yeah but no more carefree laughter silence ever after fuck it out it's it is an obvious point but the fact that this song yeah helped along by partridge etc is now still seen by the general public as some kind of kitsch artefact is mind-boggling and hugely disheartening. I think music fans have mostly now worked out

that it's one of the most beautiful minglings of authentic heartbreak and instantly accessible popular music. I mean, the winner takes it all, is the bleaker, later, black and white three-hour drama. And this is the earlier colour picture that's just as full of pain, but hasn't yet been quite so deflated by time and events. And it's all the more poignant for the life that's left in it

and the sort of, the remains of hope you can hear raging against the oncoming polar night, you know. and the sort of the remains of hope you can hear raging against the oncoming polar night, you know. And it understands that poignancy is beauty plus pain and it starts from there. And, yeah, it's one of the best things of the 70s, easily, easily. And nobody else has ever been able to make acoustic guitars sound so much like cold air.

And, yeah, the video, aside from reminding me how much I miss Sweden with its peculiar, twisted kind of sanity, I mean, as well as being better singers than the blokes, the women in ABBA are also better actors because the anguished glances and sort of baleful stares they give out here are seriously convincing you'd almost think they weren't acting and that's genuinely how they were feeling um except that bjorn and benny are

hopeless actors and look like they're on the verge of chuckling even here as yes because for them life is just about the joy of creation and the accumulation of money and here they are excelling in both um nothing else touches them as deeply um so they're yeah they're unbelievably happy and they just look like they want to go inside because it's freezing. But I would say that despite the bits of it that do look slightly funny, this is probably the first genuinely good, in the sense of artistically halfway sophisticated pop video. Not that I necessarily think that's an especially valuable thing

in the context of pop videos which often work best when they're really stupid or terrible or hilarious but it's another thing you can do and if you can pull it off it will always work certainly on a song as adult in the non-pejorative sense as this one right i mean you wouldn't think that anyone could do this to create pure and hyper commercial pop music which understands and respects the the lightness and simplicity of the form and which kids love which also expresses the desperate weight of adult emotion and which represents people who are old enough for things to have got heavy, but young enough that they still really care. And this song in that sense and hundreds of others is,

I mean, it's a barely credible achievement, which could probably only have come from a foreign land. And frankly, we don't deserve it. I mean, the video is essentially us being nosy bastards at the members of ABBA being intimate with each other. And the opening scenes where everything's love layer, they come off as looking like the beginning of a sex education schools program. You're going to see a drawing ofny bollock naked any minute now neil's uh erection in uh what was it yeah i'd like to stress it wasn't my erection no no no no decide on thermal image of an erect cock in my sex education lesson yeah but then we go from being nosy bastards to feeling like we're outright stalkers.

Because, you know, we're getting some close-ups of Frieda and Agnetha with faces like smacked arses. As if they're just looking at us going, what the fuck are you looking at? Go back and play with your fucking ricochet races, you little plunder. And then they stomp off into the distance and look behind as if we're following them. I think this was probably my first cognizance of how important frida is i i think previous to this my knowledge of abba i mean i knew abba as a young kid obviously but i'm not saying agnetha was foregrounded but she was to a certain extent she was she was kind of pushed to the front she was the blonde one exactly um

she was but whereas this you know frida is so important to this frida's looks and frida's But whereas this, you know, Frida is so important to this. Frida's looks and Frida's singing as well is so important to this. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, it did change my attitudes, I think, or my ideas about ABBA. As a kid, obviously, like you say, you're not interpreting or comprehending the lyrics,

but there's melodies here, and there's a reach to the melody that creates poignancy in your heart, even if you don't know what the emotions are, even if you don't know what the song's about. It tugs at your heartstrings quite literally. This is one of the two songs on this episode that immediately pulled me back to 1977. It's the piano stabs in the verses. That takes me right back into 1977. Every time I do an episode of chart music, there's one song that I just get obsessed by and i just play over and over and over again and it was this one and um you know i spent

so much time looking at the video and now it's got to the point where i'm convinced that the video's been censored by the bbc because it goes from them being up here to them being a bit uncomfortable with each other and then the two female members being absolutely fucked off. And I'm convinced now that there's a penultimate scene in this video where Benny and Bjorn are caught having a snog with Toms and everything. When you've got that in your head, the end scene makes absolute, total, perfect sense. It's like the two of them have got to go,

oh, fucking men, you can't trust them. Anything else to say about this incredible record? Too much. Let's leave it. Yeah. So, knowing me, knowing you, would spend five weeks at number one, eventually giving way to three by Denise Williams.

The follow-up, name of the game, would spend four weeks at number one in November. Fucking hell, what a one-two punch that is absolutely and is still at number five in the uk chart it would be the first cut from their new lp abba the album which came out in sweden a fortnight ago and would almost definitely would have been the christmas number one lp but the pre-orders here were so great the british pressing plants couldn't keep up with the demand so its release has been put back to January of 1978. What a good song they make,

Abba, Knowing Me, Knowing You. What's that you've got there? Oh, it's a Christmas card from the guys. It says, Christmas comes for once a year and when it comes, it's very exciting. But Top of the Pops is always fun, especially when done by Crew 19. Oh, isn't it good, isn't it good isn't it that love thank you crew 19

edmunds and the kid don't even bother to introduce the next act, being too busy reading out a homemade Christmas card from the camera crew. It's Magic Fly by Space. Formed in Monaco in 1977, Space was the brainchild of Didier Marouane, a former pop singer who recorded his first single in 1975 and supported Johnny Halliday on tour. In 1976, after being introduced to synthesizers, he created this song as the theme for a French TV program about astrology, but his current label knocked his new direction back. Undeterred, he formed a band on the quiet signed a deal with

disc vogue changed his name to a calmer hid under a space suit and put this out as a single and bugger me gently it's got to number two in september of this year the band are presumably drifting through the cosmos as we speak having having their Christmas dinner in pill form. So here's the video. Did you know it was actually the Wombles inside these costumes? Yes. 1977 was the real year zero of synths in the pop charts, wasn't it? But at this time, it's still the sole preserve of mad Euro sorts.

You know, there was this, there was From Here to Eternity eternity by georgio oxygen by jean-michel jar and the only brits who appear to be having a go at the moment were the raw band with the crunch yeah well the thing is to compare this to a couple of favorites from past podcasts from around this time my only problem with this excellent record and presentation is that it's neither as absurd as two-man sound nor as musically astonishing as from here to eternity by george young yeah so the word for it would be delightful rather than anything stronger. But I think, in a way, the sort of restrained and quite neat and tidy nature of its craziness is what makes it unique. Because there aren't many records like this

or gimmicky image groups like this that seem so tasteful and poised as though this was quite normal. You know what I mean? Yeah. And although it's certainly true that compared to what Georgi Amroda was doing around the same time,

this is trash, that's okay because it's sort of meant to be. Really, it's an update of the Spotnix or something like that. Yes, definitely. It's like the Spotnix via hot butter. But that sound is still so fresh that you can just do this and it works okay same as in

1958 you could just turn up an electric guitar and do a grungy 12 bar instrumental and it wouldn't be a bo diddly record but it would be fine and worthwhile because it would still have that freshness to it and this is like a synth equivalent of that. Yeah. I mean, it's really important to see them because the performance is great. I really like the alternate-ness of the presentation. I think perhaps I was a little unfair to previously characterise this as a kind of Shadows record done on synths.

That's to damn it with fake praise. It's a good record. But for me, you know what? This should be absolutely lodged in my brain I mean what's not to like as a five year old kid but this track

clearly didn't percolate through and I must have been out of the room when this was on during Christmas Top of the Pops because I actually

recall it way more hearing this later on in my life when I was far too into Hong Kong cinema as the theme to Jackie Chan's

excellent Chop Socky masterpiece Snake and Eagle's Shadow it oddly crops up here and then in between fight scenes and when Jackie's running about, I don't remember it from this year, I do remember

other things that you mentioned, like Oxygen for instance or that Jean-Michel, I remember that, but I don't remember this but the presentation of it, the visuals of it, are really quite startling for the era, I'm not saying they're ahead of their time, but they're right. They look good. They look right for the music.

They're all in their space gear, which would have looked amazing in 1977. Against the black background as well is really key. And they're tight in. Let down somewhat by the fact that two of the band are wearing girls' belts. So there's big white belts with um with a big hoopie clasp but i love the kind of shoved in a room nature of it because the two

two of the keyboard players don't even have keyboard stands they've just kind of got these things on their laps and one of them is standing up playing a keytar type thing there's a kind of yeah there's a kind of it's like a lunar capsule type feel of crowdedness um and lots to look at so as a five-year-old this would have utterly delighted me i'm just astonished i don't remember any of it um yeah yeah i mean there are better synth records made in 77 and more important ones but for what it is the textures of the sound here are absolutely delicious yeah the best one is definitely that amazing motoric drummer who I believe revels in the perfect name of Joe Hammer.

And he gives that amazing performance, it's like rock'em, sock'em, robot drumming. He's just twisting his abdomen tirelessly backwards and forwards and just blankly whomping on that lovely old Gretsch jazz drum kit. Yeah, why hasn't he got a space drum? Yeah, I think it adds to it. Because there's definitely sort of that slightly old, you know, pre-steampunk homemade-ness to this.

Like the Greenie, who I presume is Ekama, because he's in the middle at the front yeah i mean his his outfit it's like he's washed it a couple of times too often you know i mean starting to bag a bit and he just he's got to work on his stance because he just sticks his ass out in a sort of bent leg half crouch like a really bad French physical comedian. I mean, there is no other guy. Yeah, but all those hours in zero gravity. Yeah, it's true.

His legs have atrophied. Neil, you know, we've established that your mum was an expert at detecting who was on drugs on top of the pods. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Due to them wearing sunglasses. What would she have made of a band all in astronaut helmets?

No, but all in astronaut helmets. Must have been on all the drugs. No, you see, astronaut helmets, they're not sunglasses. Sunglasses are a different thing, Al. Sunglasses are the thing you put on when you've taken drugs and you want to hide it. A space helmet, an astronaut's outfit, it's something you put on because you're in space

and you're an astronaut. She would not have actually insisted that um space um were on drugs she would she would have left them be um and what i really like by the way about the performance is that nobody looks like they're playing the music yes that you know that they're all just doing something they got gloves on for a start yeah yeah yeah but yeah i mean normally as a kid even you do look at hands and see what they're doing and you hope that they match the melody because that will make sense to your brain nobody here is doing any of that no they're just kind of pouring at their instruments like like

yeah strange space children it's it's nice that that touch and they're looking at a nice lady as well oh yeah a bit of spaceumpet reflected in their visors. What's quite funny is why they try and make it look like they're responding to her without any facial expression. So they just have to do a little head movement. It reminds me of there was an old cat food advert from years ago where a woman in a sexy swimsuit walks down the side of an outdoor swimming pool. Then it cuts to a cat looking up and going,

it's a bit ever so slightly disturbing. It's like it's going to be a porno remake of Stephen King's Sleepwalkers. I'm not sure to whom they were trying to sell that cat food. Do we know who the lady in question is? I got it instantly way way wong ah formerly of the young generation who moved to itv to be the golden girl in the golden shot in 1974 yeah yeah and she spent this year playing a nurse and doctor in the house don't you think though it's only the french who could have done this well no not only the french but only people from a non-rock country right because they can't see what's wrong with wearing these space gimp suits and ignoring most of the non-binding laws of rock

and roll you know while at the same time sort of trying to be rock and roll in some sort of disengaged confused way um and what comes out is balanced perfectly between rubbish and non-rubbish you know and if these were english there'd be someone laughing up his sleeve you know i mean and yeah yeah yeah and there's just something pure about you can just enjoy the sounds and the squelch and the starry sky and you feel the fresh air pouring through it you know so magic fly would spend three weeks at number two held off number one by way down by elvis fucking hell elvis had to die while he was having a shit this would have been number one sliding doors it would be their only chart single in the UK, but a remixed version would get to number 88 in 1985.

They put out three LPs in the late 70s and later recruited Madeline Bell, formerly of the 60s group Blue Mink, and latterly known for doing the Read the Road public information film and the Wonder Fuel gas adverts, but they split up in 1980. There's a junction coming. There's a junction coming.

There's a junction coming. Oh, Al, you remember that dream you had about the Sikh member of Shawadiwadi that only you could see? But I was just thinking, if there had been a Sikh member of Space, do you think a load of Daily Express readers would have got furious

that he didn't have to wear the helmet? Yes! There we go. Space, of course, and magic fly. Now, 1977 started off with this particular number one. I suppose you could call it the Christmas record of last year, Johnny Mathis and When A Child Is Born. MUSIC PLAYS Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, as he introduces When a Child is Born by Johnny Mathis. Born in Texas in 1935, Johnny Mathis was a promising high school athlete who turned down a high jump trial for the US Olympic team in 1956

to attend his debut recording session for Columbia Records. By 1958, he was a huge star in America America already putting out his first greatest hits LP and he also had his first chart single in the UK when Teacher Teacher got to number 27 in June of that year. He'd have 8 UK chart hits throughout the 60s and then the hits dried up over here until 1975 when his cover of the stylistic Stone in Love with You got to number 10 in March of that year. This was the follow-up, a cover of the 1974 Italian tune Salado, a vocal instrumental originally performed by the Daniel Senta Cruz Ensemble, who was then given German lyrics by Michael Holm later that year and renamed Trant und Lugen nicht, Tears Don't Lie,

getting to number one over there. After Miriel Matthew and Nezi Karaboczek had a bang on it for France and Turkey respectively in 1975, there were two attempts at an English lyric, both of which were a bit Jesus-y. The first one, There Comes a Day, which had a go at people for not bigging up Christ until he was dead, was put out first by Vera Lynn, but sunk without trace. The second, written by Fred Jay, an Austrian schlager singer who had

been going since 1945, was a more opaque tribute to little baby jesus and was one of the last songs ever recorded by bing crosbear the month before he died but his label didn't think to put it out as a single so johnny mathis had a go and it was put out as a single in november of 1976 on the same week as 100 ton and a Feather put their version out. Who was the singer on that? Jonathan fucking King. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's his mention for this episode of Chart Music.

Thankfully, this version prevailed, and it got to number one on Christmas weeknight in 76, denying show what he what is under the moon of love. It's rightful due and again i always make this complaint every year when we do a christmas top of the pops last year's christmas number one is like last year's be no book yeah read it dennis bouncing on a trampoline to eat the apples off the tree yeah you only laugh once yes it's a shame though really that it came out tail end of

1976 because if it had only missed opportunities you see the omen came out 3 months earlier in 1976 how good would the omen have been if at the end that shot of Damien smiling could have been accompanied by this record

fucking hell it would have been accompanied by this record. Fucking hell. It would have been fucking fantastic. But, ho-hum, missed opportunity. I was always intrigued by the B-side of this, by the way. Yeah? Every time you touch me, I get high. Is that an appropriate B-side for this song? Well, I don't know.

You look at the set for this video, it looks like he sat in Snoop Dogg's airing cover. Yes, he does, doesn't he? Very clear memories of seeing this as a kid, with Johnny peeping between the ferns, you know. On his director's chair.

Yeah, and singing live to an orchestra that sounds like it's on another planet. Yes. I don't understand what's going on sonically here. But he's enough of a pro to keep your mind off it as best he can because he plugs away and he performs the fuck out of this song, which needs it because without a big performance,

it's barely recognisable as music. Yes. And the brain would just disregard it. It's like he's singing over the background music in a funeral parlor or something he's dreamt you know it's always the the glassy sound in his head while he's in a coma yeah just it's uh but it's for old people yes it really is what can you say because old people are hard to understand. Yes. And even as I get older, I still don't understand. No.

You know when you watch Challenge TV or Yesterday or one of these cable channels in the daytime and all the ads are for old people and it's for stair lifts and weird money schemes and stuff. And yet there are almost no actual old people in these adverts. No. They're always replaced by people of about 50 or 55 masquerading as oaps so it's like it's as if the current generation of old people can't face

themselves which i completely understand but yeah you end up seeing these graying but essentially functional actors and thinking hang on you're too young to have a full set of dentures or you're too young to be incontinent and yeah you can get up them stairs yeah it's it must just be wishful thinking on the part of these people because they don't want to feel that this product which is clearly for them is for oaps right oh right well you know like 50 year olds buy it right yeah that doesn't do much for the for the self-image of those of us who are gradually closing in on our 50s um or past it well it's like this is what's left you know it's like well hang on a minute I'm only 47 it's like yeah give it five years and I'll need someone to start a tomato for me.

It's this generation who couldn't face their own middle age and are now refusing to face their own dotage. And it's like, you know, thanks for Brexit and thanks for palming off your terror on us. Cheers. Yeah. But this song, you're right, the music, you can easily imagine

Huey Green talking over it, can't you? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. With its militaristic overtones at the end.

Yeah. Yeah, the spoken bit is perhaps the oddest bit. Yes. When he suggests that one of these kids may well grow up to be the Messiah.

Yeah. It's the kind of Nazarene-friendly content none of us need at Christmas. That kid would be 42 years old now. Where the fuck are you? Where were you the other week, you cunt? Come on, come and sort this shithole of a world out now. Well, the best bit about that talkover is his crazed grin and chuckle

at the possibility that a child might be yellow. He finds this delightful black, white, yellow. Yeah. I mean, it sounds a bit peculiar now. But he's also doing that face, that sort of thoughtful face, to try and make it look like he's suddenly been struck by these ideas yeah we're getting it all fresh off his brain you know and his facial because he's not an actor his facial movements are so fake and forced you know it makes david's soul look like

ian curtis you know um it's like he's on Pointless. He's like, oh, the clock's ticking down. Oh, no, types of fish. Silver pomfret. Blue runner. Cod. Cod. I'm going to go for cod, Alexander.

No, it's a bit weird to talk about a child being yellow, unless it's a problem with Billy Rubin. But I think also this is before the word brown began to be used as a term of self-identification. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but that's what I think. I think that would have sounded quite racist at the time, whereas yellow is perfectly all right. So it means that most of Asia is excluded from his racial equivocation. would have sounded quite racist at the time, whereas yellow is perfectly all right.

So it means that most of Asia is excluded from his racial equivocation. It's like wherever this Messiah is going to come from, it ain't the subcontinent, right? Anywhere else on the planet is a possibility. But speculating that the next Jesus isn't going to be white, that would be a bit disconcerting in some households. In some households. But Johnny Mathis, he's an odd pop star anyway. He's an odd figure.

You know, a gay Republican, five years at this point still from coming out, and even in 82 it's arguable that he didn't really properly come out. He said that homosexuality was something that he was familiar with. He said it's a way of life I've grown accustomed to. That's right. It's like he was talking about being lactose intolerant. Yeah. And this I'd passed nearly being an Olympic high jumper.

I tried to find out whether he was a Frosby flop or scissor kick. But I couldn't quite get it. He's probably scissors kick if it's the late mid-50s. Yeah, Frosby flop doesn't, 68. That was, yeah. But I mean,

I, the thing is with Mathis, he, he keeps himself elusive almost throughout his career. Yeah. And I think it's a deliberate strategy to be kind of non-threatening to white audiences and sort of keep, you know,

you don't see Johnny Mathis turn up on red carpets and partying all the way through his career. He kind of hides and disappears. And I think that's... I'm not saying it's deliberately pitched this way. But it's interesting. Whenever I... I'm a big fan of John Waters, the filmmaker.

And in his book, Role Models, he does a whole chapter on Johnny Mathis. Because he's obsessed with Johnny Mathis. And he's obsessed with him precisely because he keeps himself hid. He's managed to be this huge, huge star for the longest, longest time. And he's obsessed with him precisely because he keeps himself hid he's managed to be this huge huge star for the longest longest time and he's kept himself in he's kept his sexuality here not not when i say kept it hid he just hasn't been flamboyantly heterosexual if you like do you know what i mean so there's he appealed to boys and girls in that 50s period when he was first coming up so he's he's he's an odd pop star johnny mathis and you know he's an odd one to figure out he does finally come out i think and say i am gay

and it was only 2017 as far as i can tell yeah but he did finally come out um at this point yeah he's i mean he's the third biggest selling artist of the 20th century. Yeah, that's insane, isn't it? It's mad. With this kind of maintenance-free fame that he's done nothing, you know, he doesn't really maintain. It's just there, and he's just kept himself hid, and it's stayed there. He just waited until all his fans were dead, I suppose.

So, when a child is born, stayed at number one for three weeks, being relieved of its duties by Don't Give Up On Us Baby. Mathis would have to wait over a year before returning to the charts, dueting with Denise Williams on Too Much Too Little Too Late, which got to number three in March of 1978. And he went all disco and would have one last hurrah in the charts in 1979 when gone gone gone got to number 15 in september of that year all across the land dawns a brand new one this comes to pass when a child is born.

All right then, Pop Craze youngsters. We're going to break off for a tin salmon sandwich and an handful of matchmakers. So come and join us tomorrow and we'll see how this episode finishes. Stay Pop Crazed. Chart music.