Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #51 (Part 3): March 20th 1975 – Guys ‘N’ Dolls Get Ready To Bomb Iraq

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: a party held by the Osmonds, or a party held by the Rollers?The LONGEST EVER EPISODE OF CHART MUSIC finds your host and his chums still on lockdown but DILL DANDING, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, which gives us the opportunity to pick out an episode from the Dark Ages of the mid-Seventies and properly wang on about it. The Saxons are at their flappiest, the collars are condor, Tony Blackburn has been uncrated and set free, and all is as well with the world as it could be in 1975. If you ignore the fact that three of the acts involved would go on to kill later this year.Musicwise, it’s the usual Seventies lucky bag, tainted with the musk of deceit and treachery: Kenny sport the kind of trousers Our Simon saw Rick Witter trying on at Portobello Market. There are obligatory appearances by Cliff and Lulu. Wigan’s Ovation have a massive wazz on the burning torch of Northern Soul. Guys ‘N’ Dolls do a biscuit advert, and Mike Reid makes a Northern boy cry, which is Bad Skit.But there’s also Britfunk in the form of the Average White Band and, er, The Goodies, Pans People having a proper flounce to Barry White, and a Whatnautless Moments – whipped on by the Top Of The Pops Orchestra – seize the opportunity to tell us how much they like girls. And the Bay City Rollers rip down the goalposts of the #1 spot, while the Osmonds forlornly look out of their window wondering while no-one has showed up to their do.David Stubbs and Taylor Parkes – the Humphries of Pop journalism – join Al Needham and dip their elongated critical straws deep into the milk bottle of 1975, pausing to veer off on such tangents as the glory of radiograms, what it would be like to get caned and watch porn with Tony Blackburn, our magazine plans which never came to fruition, a lament for Timbo, the importance of nipples and a big argument over a Kung Fu vest and pants set. Swearing? Loads of it.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki 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. Welcome to All Rather Mysterious, the podcast that aims to unlock the mysteries of the past with the key of fact. My name is John Rain. My name is Eleen and morton my name is david reed please join us as we present to you mysteries that have baffled the world you had any noises what about um a door creaking that weird kadunk that lights going off makes for some reason in films. All rather mysterious. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence,

which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. It's Thursday night. It's about 20 minutes to 8.

It's March the 20th, 1975. The Saxons are flapping, the thumbs are in the belt loops, and all is well with the world. Hey up, you pop-crazy youngsters, and welcome to part 3 of episode 51 of Chart Music I'm your host Al Needham and before we go any further I just want to remind you that if you want the full episode of Chart Music you need to get them little fingers out you need to take them over to your keyboard, you need to tap in patreon.com slash chart music and you need to pledge. Seriously, full episodes, no adverts.

Not even this one that I'm doing now. Anyway, sermon over at last. Onward. There you go, that's the sound of the goodies there and a wonderful number at number 23. It's called the Funky Gibbon. We've got two very funky and very good-looking gibbons all the way from the Royal Safari Park.

Can I have a little bite of your banana here? Mmm, that's absolutely delicious. While I'm eating this, how about this marvellous number from The Times? Honey, I'm keeping you I'll find some way Somehow, honey, I'm keeping you We immediately cut to Tony, flanked by two girls in disturbing monkey masks and holding bananas, one of whom holds up the back of her hand like women do when they want to show off an engagement ring. Tony describes them as two very funky and very good looking gibbons all

the way from the Royal Safari Park and then pounces a bite off the engaged monkey's banana before introducing some way somehow I'm keeping you by the times. We've already covered the former Latin ears in chart music number 43 with their cover of People, which got to No. 16 in February of 1969, and then they disappeared. But then, in the autumn of 1974, they rose a hand from the grave, got with the times, if you will, and took You Little Trustmaker to No. 18 in October of 1974. This is the follow-up to Miss Grace which did nothing in America but got to number one in January of this year ripping down down by status quo from

the summit of Mount Pop and staying there for a week before giving way to January by pilot. It's been rushed out while the group are in the uk touring with amp ebles and even though it's not in the charts yet here they are in the studio but before we get stuck into the times that introduction very creepy and you know a very poor example set to the youth here by tony talking with his mouth full yeah it's disturbing we don't need that do we yeah you certainly don't and it's a kind of don't need that, do we? Yeah, we certainly don't. And it's a kind of departure, really, from the sort of like rather straight,

puter-esque type introductions that he was doing at the beginning. Yeah. This is more like the sort of, you know, like the kind of DLT territory, really, all this nonsense about bananas that doesn't even work as innuendo. Yeah. But it's clearly intended to be as such, you know. Yeah, it's sinister, though. He's got those animal masks and the banana mouth insertions.

It's like something from the last half hour of The Shining. Yeah, it's a bit Wicker Man, I feel. Yeah. I was a bit worried that the salmon of knowledge would pop up later on. Thankfully not. And also it falls foul of that old uh inexplicably common confusion between primates in that uh he refers to them as gibbons quite clearly chimpanzee masks it's not the same thing

yeah it's not the same thing if you've seen that film conga where michael goff is a mad scientist who creates a giant gorilla and he starts off he's got a little chimp in his lab, and then he injects it with the growth serum and it turns into like a 40-foot gorilla. Yes, it does. And, but at the end, not to, well, all right, it's a spoiler. Spoil it, David. It shrinks to the tiny little creature it was, the civilian creature it was at the beginning,

which is very poignant, isn't it? Yeah, back to a chimp. Yeah. Now, this is the style of Top of the Pops at the time, isn't it? You come out of nowhere with a number one, you're guaranteed a free shot with your next single. And, you know, the times are being allowed that, but it's pretty clear from the off

that this song isn't going to be the two tribes to Miss Grace's relax, is it? Yeah, yeah. I would have watched this episode avidly at the time and yet it hasn't impinged on my memory at all and yet at the same time you know yeah it's bog standard for this kind of thing really this kind of frankly obsolete mode of um soul music making but you know given everything else the bill of fare tonight um it's an absolute golden shower of brilliance i mean it absolutely pisses on everything else.

As the review in Melody Maker said, this could have been recorded at any time in the past 20 years. But yeah, you are right, David. There is a touch of class being brought here. It's something that will go well with the chicken and chips in the basket. That point about the 20 years thing

holds true, really, because in its time, this is particularly old school, and of course black music has gone through that kind of militancy of the late 60s, early 70s, with Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield. And it's as if that has kind of blown out slightly, and there seems to be almost like a return of this more reassuring, more choreographed, smarter, you know, mode of like soul music making.

Yeah, choreographed with matching suits, which was the style at the time. Oh, yeah, yeah, the matching suits very much. They're all nicely turned out on a matching salmon pink rig out. It's salmon pink, but nonetheless a sort of throwback to, you know, monochrome, innocent barbershop days. Oh, it's just, I mean, it's just pop music though isn't it i mean like back at the end of the 60s because i've done the times before they were on the uh when was it from 69 yes they then did seem on the verge of being left behind and their name becoming bitterly ironic with the they had the big suits and you know the big choruses and crowd pleasing and all of that and it was really out of step with where

soul music was heading and where soul music ended up going um but i don't know 1975 it seems like just by staying where they are they've watched everything revolve and five or six years later they're still just doing what they're doing. Yeah. But the thing is, that show-busy backing that they had in the 60s that was letting them down has sublimated into a sort of filly lushness. So they sound pure 1975, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

You know, it's good. And of course, they're up against the top of the pops orchestra who uh as we're going to find out are going to have a very busy shift tonight aren't they and it's not the usual crime scene but it's it does look like the times are a little bit bemused by how fast this accompaniment is going like the original is fairly quick by the standards of 70s soul but this is sped up to like a crazy it's like someone put the word around that the bbc bar was going to close in five minutes they do the full song here and it's almost a full minute shorter than the record but you know beyond

that they don't do a terrible job they're not they don't sound like philly studio musicians or anything like that but they they cope they they do it as deftly as they play a bbc sports theme or yeah music for an advert they're just cracking on with it glad to be here well they're they're pros aren't they yeah you know and they get through it because they can sing live properly there's a lot of live vocals on this episode and they're mostly competent but they tend to be a bit limp and a bit sort of a bit of a mid-70s sag to a lot of the performances and the times sing up you know and force the issue it's it's it's nice to i mean despite despite the fact that the top of the pop's orchestra have effectively put them on one of those mechanical rodeo balls

and cranked the speed up, they do it. Hang on, they stay in the saddle. They are Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy. Yes. They just go faster and faster, and they're still there. They're kind of giving each other amused looks, going, this is a bit rapid, a bit rapid isn't it but yeah they don't miss a beat they don't miss a note and we're starting to see more and more of the audience

which is always a joy yeah in top of the pops episodes of this era and yeah it's it's it's very dowdy and austere isn't it a lot of blokes in um jackets with uh condor collars uh there's a lot of uh kenny themed stickers and badges that have been lobbed out yeah which everyone's gleefully put on even though they look like the sort of people who would not give them the time of day normally but there is one standout of course is that bloke who's wearing the yellow kung fu pajamas with some chinese lettering on the back i would have worn the shit out of that at the time, and possibly nowadays. This may have been the month that my mam bought me

and showed me an outstanding yellow matching kung fu vest and pants set with two bold kung fu fighters, just like in each other's face, about to just, you know, put the moves on each other. And I wasn't allowed to wear that until we went on holiday, like, months later. But what would be the joy in that? You surely weren't proposing to wear them in public? Well, yeah.

I was five. I didn't care, man. And, you know, a kung fu vest and pants set like that, that deserved to be seen, man. That was just too good. I had to go under a T-shirt. No, not at all. At five, you T-shirt. No, not at all. At five, you have sentience. No, no, no.

We were still doing music and movement in our vest and pants. And I would have cut a fucking dash, let me tell you. We were never reduced to our pants for PE or anything like that. It was shorts. Yeah, but you were older than me, though, David. We weren't doing PE just yet. We were pretending to be a tree. Up in Leeds, you would not consider, you know,

if you were about two or 18 months old or something like that, you wouldn't mind being seen in your pants in public. But after about the age of three or four, it was the absolute lowest, worst humiliation. Nelson Muntz, you know, in The Simpsons. If you imagine that, that kind of parade of shame that he does. That is how being caught in your... Therefore, it didn't matter whether it was

kung fu or your underpants. I mean, mine were just white little Y-fronts and a little plain vest. You know, this wasn't a medium for ostentation. I think that says more about the state of pants in Leeds than anything else, David. Well, I mean, they weren't great, that is certainly for sure.

We were free spirits, man. But the thing is, remember, as far as we Leeds people concerned you're a southerner oh yeah and a scab as well this is frankly an example of southern ways i mean the reason i couldn't put these this vest and pants on is because it was the rule in nottingham household certainly on our estate anyway that your mom and dad would buy you loads of new clothes months in advance of your holiday that you could not wear until you went on holiday to give off the impression that you wore new stuff all the time. Ah, yeah, yeah.

Taylor, is this ringing any bells with you? Yeah, I don't remember having whole wardrobes to take on holiday. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I distinctly remember that when we went on holiday, the first thing I had to do was put everything on and walk up and down the caravan for me mum and dad to look at and show off to me grandparents who were there as well.

And I do distinctly remember walking around extremely proud in me kung fu vest and pants set. We were going to have to mix with people from Sheffield, so you had to show him who the governors were you'd meet nottingham people in filey and you wouldn't even recognize but yeah the times the only thing that bothers me about this song is it's called some way somehow i'm keeping you oh yeah and as an older man of the world here, I'm thinking, I bet you're not, mate. Because, first of all, determination counts for very little in these matters. It can often make the situation worse, in fact.

And even if you do manage to persuade her to stay, she's going to be so full of suppressed resentment, she will be an unexploded bomb emotionally. And whatever ends up setting that off however innocent you can be absolutely sure that it will be 100 your fault um which if you trace everything back it probably was so at this point your best bet is just to put a bullet in this lame horse move on and uh spend the next six months wanking over the thought of women who you find much less attractive than her,

who wouldn't even give you a second glance. Or give Tony Blackburn a call and drown your sorrows together. So the following week, and for every week since, some way, somehow I'm keeping you failed to chart. The follow-up, do you know what it is taylor if you think that title was bad what about this one god's gonna punish you just failed to make it over the line getting to number 41 in january of 1976 and time was called on their career over here.

Incidentally, the times were in Dallas on the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated for the 1963 Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour with Paul and Paula, Little Eva, Brian Highland and the Ronettes. A show that, according to legend, Lee Harvey Oswald bought a ticket for that very morning. There's fucking optimism, isn't it? Yeah, the Times should feel lucky they didn't have any books to deposit that morning.

That reminds me a little bit of Mark Steele's Best Ever Line, which said that his ideal day would consist of a worker's uprising in the morning, followed by a quiet drink with friends in the evening. And it's a bit similar to that, really. The Harvey Oswald's ideal day is a presidential assassination in the afternoon. And in the evening, I'm going to do the locomotion. Yeah, some way, somehow, I am keeping you.

Yeah, some way, somehow, I am keeping you. Getting their applause at the moment, and that's the sound of the times. I said we had something for everybody, and now for all the fellas, we've got Pants People dancing to What Am I Gonna Do With You from Barry White. Tony has to wait for the audience to stop cheering they really like that song before he can introduce something for all the fellas Pans people emoting to I really like that song. Before he can introduce something for all the fellas, Pans People emoting to What Am I Gonna Do With Ya by Barry White. We've already covered Barry on Chart Music 25 when I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby got to number 23 in June of 1973

and since then he's notched three more hits into his bed post this is the follow-up to you're the first the last my everything which got to number one for two weeks in december of 1974 and was the chart topping perennium between gonna make you a star by david essex and lonely this christmas by mud it entered the chart at number 32 weeks ago, soared 17 places to number 13 last week, and this week it's flew up another eight places to number five. As Barry is obviously too busy having sex to pop over the Atlantic or something,

in his stead are the people of Pan. And you'd think, right from the off, Pan's people, Barry White. But I'm not feeling it from this. I feel the dads are being let down here. That's strange that you say that, because, oddly enough, whenever I come on, whenever there's a Pan's people thing,

which is practically every time, I always say some sort of variation on the same thing, which is sexist but sexless. There's always that thing about their movements that are kind of studiously unsexy. Sexist-lust. Yeah. But it's slightly kind of frumpy, like Joyce Grenfell leading

Eurythmics on the lawns at St Swithin's College. That kind of vibe. You mean frumpy pumper? Yes, frumpy pumper, quite. You've got to use that from now on, David. Okay, frumpy pumper. Yeah, that'll save time. I'll just say frumpy pumper quite yeah you've got to use that from now on david okay frumpy pumpy yeah that'll save time i'll just say frumpy yes however there's something about this trap which is almost kind of i mean it's almost like barry white is sort of conveying exuding sexuality almost in the abstract there's something kind of diaphanous about this particular track that's you know

amorphous whatever and i think the set that they've got, that slightly wet, dreamy, dry, icy vibe, and it's something that, to me, actually works. I mean, look, it's not exactly horny or such or whatever, but it's whatever the parlance is. I love it when you talk dirty, David. For me, it kind of works at least atmospherically i think it exudes a certain notion of sexuality in a way that they normally they kind of kill the thing you know in the pans people whatever but you know frankly there could be

morris dancing and they probably you know they'd be sexy but um even so even so um i know i'm all right with this yeah i mean i feel the dads are being let down here because there's too much dry ice there's too much macrame or whatever it is hanging in the foreground and too much clothes on pan's people all you get to see is a bit of back and by back I don't mean in the

submix-a-lot scheme of things well look, the weird thing about both the main dance troops right like people and legs is that the steamier the record to which they're dancing the more prim and edwardian their outfits and routine yes it's quite correct that the sort of floaty dreamy look and dance fits the floaty dreaminess of the record but there's not a hint of raunch and i don't think that's a coincidence i mean we've previously seen them interpret uh andrea true connection singing a song about making a porn film by dressing up as uh innocent pacific island girls

and uh noodling around in a bamboo hut uh and now it's Barry White's condom-busting fuck anthem. And they're frocked up to the ankles, you know, and they're twirling around like children. But when you give them a nice jaunty dance record, like Sir Duke, or a bittersweet disco vignette like Dancing Queen... They go off, don't they? don't they fucking practically lean out of the telly and give you a tweak you know it's there's definitely a balance right it's all about

the producers want a bit of sex but not a whole sex and so the the girls have to sex it up or sex it down yes in relation to the record to keep it right on the plimsoll line like here i think they're they've deliberately gone very classy and respectable precisely because barry is singing i know when we get through girl i won't be able to move so they have to slightly defuse this beautiful vivid vivid picture of Barry White, all spaffed out, lying naked and sweaty on his back with his arms spread out, breathing like a racehorse with his slowly detumescing penis lolling over to one side like a boiled leek.

You need to do something to take the fizz out of that. Yes. We like Barry White, don't we? Yeah, I love Barry White like any semi-redeemable human being, apart from the idea that you're meant to listen to his records while you're having sex. Yeah. I've never done that.

Terrible idea. Because surely it would be like having this burly, loudly wheezing man standing at the end of the bed over your shoulder shouting encouragement through a cupped hand. I love these records and I can certainly see how they are sexy in their way. But to me, they have to be kept well away from actual sexual activity. Because if those two things come into contact they make each other seem ridiculous but musically this episode's picked right up hasn't it it's just a shame he didn't stick to the old rules of uh show business nomenclature and call himself fats white uh just go for it you know remember when if someone had a distinctive physical characteristic, they had to name themselves after it.

Like slim, fats, shorty, horse mouth. Yes. Or a beardy, smeary-faced ginger cut. Yeah, except quite often there was the opposite, wasn't there? So in fact, you know, it's like, in sitcoms like On the Buses, the black character is called Chalky,

et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, so you actually sitcoms like On the Buses, the black character is called Chalky, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, so you actually shouldn't have called himself Skinny White. Lofty. Yeah, lofty, exactly. Taffy in Dad's Army. So Skinny White would have worked. Skinny White. And no offence to gingers.

I've fancied a number of you. Taylor, you interviewed Barry White, didn't you? Yeah. Fucking hell. Yeah, it wasn't like, you know an in-depth the barry white interview but it was for a feature called rebellious jukebox in melody maker which was like where people listed their favorite records and talked about them and it was really it was just a space filler in the magazine but it was a good way to get to meet people who wouldn't usually have a feature in melody maker at that point in time um so yeah i did two on the same day it was barry white in

the morning and the human league in the afternoon and fucking hell and a cab ride home thinking about how weird my life had become but um yeah he was staying in that big hotel by chelsea football ground um in the penthouse suite so you needed a special key to get the lift up to his floor right as if anyone in 1995 would have wanted to burst in on parry white for any reason so i went up there and i was led into an oak-panelled ante room and sat down at a huge long wooden table with my back to the double doors leading into the main part of the suite, like I was waiting for a medieval king. And so I sat there for a couple of minutes,

just the anticipation building. Then I heard the doors open and Barry White walks around from behind me and sits down in the seat opposite and he's wearing a red silk dressing gown with gold trim red silk pajamas with gold trim and red slippers with gold braid right and he sits down and the first thing he does he puts his hand in his pocket pulls out his fags and puts them on the table and it's marlborough reds with a gold zippo lighter and i swear to god i look at his hand as he puts them down and he's wearing a gold ring with a big red jewel in it now my strength as an interviewer is that i've never been swayed by fame or notoriety right like

it means nothing to me i don't observe it i don't understand the idea of getting autographs or or selfies with people do you know i mean it baffles me that stuff but this is the one time when i thought yeah this bloke this isn't just a bloke like me, but he's good at singing. Right, this bloke is a star. It's like pure charisma. It wasn't anything he said. In fact, he came across as a man of, let's say, very average intelligence. He chose Ain't No Mountain High Enough as one of his records. And I remember him saying to me,

Ain't no mountain high enough enough ain't no valley low enough ain't no river wide enough to keep me from you that lyric is about the struggles and hardships of love it doesn't mean literally a mountain and politely i refrained from thanking Professor White for this illumination. But, no, he was a real charmer as well. That's the thing. He was sort of buttering me up. But, you know, he wasn't doing it cynically. Like he had... Don't think he was trying to have sex with you then?

I thought about it at the time. On the way home, I was pondering on that. But I came to the conclusion I don't think so. He chose People Get Ready was another of his choices, right? And he didn't say very much about it. So I had to prompt him to say more. You know, like when you're interviewing someone and they don't, they're not very articulate or they don't want to say much.

You have to find a way to make them say some more. So I thought about it quickly. And he had said something previously about how he got really into songs with messages for young black people in America. That was what had got him into music. And so I said, do you think this was a particularly important record because the Impressions version was one of the first big message songs by a black artist.

And he said, yes, and you know your history, young man. Whoa! And that didn't help me much with the feature, but it was one of the loveliest personal moments of my entire career. Even though it was obvious flattery and buttering up, because that's like fact one of 60s soul. Do you know what I mean? Everybody knows that. It's like fact one of 60s soul do you know what i mean everybody knows that it's like saying the rolling stones are important because they were the first 60s british band with a rebellious bad boy image it's like you know it's not you don't have to be

a fucking uh a rock historian to know that but either he'd chosen to be very charming to the interviewer um which is generally a good way to get decent press, and the bigger the star, the more likely they are to understand that, I found. Or he saw this sort of skinny 22-year-old white kid in jeans and thought, fucking hell, this lad, he won't have a Scooby or any of these records that I'm going to be talking about.

And he was pleasantly surprised. I don't know. Neither of those things are all that flattering, really, when you think about it. But, you know, I don't care. I think he is known for being the walrus of disarming journalists as well. There's another story about him being interviewed by two Melody Maker writers at the same time.

I think because they couldn't decide who should be the one who got to meet barry white so they went together um and apparently at the end of the interview as they were leaving the room they heard him turn around to his pr person and say those were two fine gentlemen um which you know that was he trying to be overheard or you know is it just that he's got the kind of voice that carries who cares so the following week what am i going to do with you stayed at number five its highest position the follow-up i'll do anything you want me to got to number 20 in june of this year and he'd have seven more top 40 hits throughout the remainder of the 1970s.

There it is, Pans people, dancing to that one from Barry White right there. We're very flattered that so many people want to see us at Top of the Pops, but please no more letters because we have a six-month waiting list at this very moment. But we'll let you know when we can take some more of the requests for tickets. OK, right now, let's go to the States. The number six sound from the Average White Band, Pick Up the Pieces. Cut the pieces. Tony informs the pop craze youngsters that so many of them are battering down the doors of Television Centre that there is now a six-month waiting list to be in the audience and they are to wait for further instructions.

He then grabs hold of us and whips us straight in to pick up the pieces by the average white band. Tony's hair is a bit strange here. It's like he's got a side bit flipped forwards and sideways across his temple so all his hair is going the same way it's like he's been standing on the prow of a cross-channel ferry or or next to a duct you know he should have folded one of his wing collars over that way as well to create like a really strong sense of movement formed Formed in London in 1972 by assorted transplanted musicians from Dundee, including Oni McIntyre and Robbie McIntosh,

who were in Chuck Berry's backing band when he recorded My Ding-a-Ling, the average white band knew of each other from various local bands, but met up by chance at a traffic gig in London and decided to team up. A year later, they bagged a support slot at Eric Clapton's comeback gig and immediately got a record deal with MCA and a manager Bruce

McCaskill who was Clapton's tour manager and fronted the money to relocate them to Los Angeles and team them up with a riff mod in of Atlantic. Almost immediately however they lost Macintosh when he died of a heroin overdose at a party and almost lost bassist Alan Gorey to an OD on the same night. This is their fifth single the follow-up to How Can You Go Home which fell to chart just like the other ones. It too flopped in the UK when it was released in July of 1974 but after it got to number one in America last month, it was put out over here again, and this week it's edged up one place from number seven to number six.

They've already been on top of the pops two weeks ago, along with six other singles in this week's episode, when Pans People had a cavort to it. So this week we get some live footage and all dear as always the band are poorly served by their own footage there's a there's a sickly yellow wash about this one isn't there chaps which it makes them look like they're playing in the tank that was used in the piss christ installation it does have that sort of yeah like that that weird sort of ferris hue about it

doesn't it as if it is you know in a sort of a very alien landscape that all of this is taking place yeah i mean obviously you can't but they're scottish i mean they're scottish as well i don't think yes maybe when he says let's go to the states he means uh tayside loathian dumfries and galloway he more properly properly referred to as local government regions at the time, I think. It's a bit disappointing. You'd expect someone like Tony Blackburn to know better. Yeah.

I bet Pan's people did a right fucking good turn to this, though. Yeah, he's that episode lost by any chance. I like to think that Babs knocked over a jigsaw or something at the beginning. This tune, though though fucking hell i mean it's weird because i mean you can't yeah you can't really argue with the tune you can't fault the tune but it's somehow or other i think that the kind of sheer lack of spectacle it's almost like you know visually it's almost like having a sort of fixed shot of the bloke running the projector booth you know it's just so it's those mechanics it's just very very functional and i mean yeah this is a very very memorable sort of thing but somehow

it's kind of seems very reductive i mean if jazz is a conversation you know and if there's an element of jazz in this i suppose it's jazz funk or whatever but the jazz element it's a conversation it's more like turned out nice again yep turned out nice again turned out nice again. Turned out nice again. Yep, turned out nice again. Turned out nice again. You know, before he embarks on a rather halting sort of solo or whatever. And it's weird, really, that I should have... You know, I feel like I've kind of reacted slightly negatively to a fairly unimpeachable tune, really.

I mean, this is the kind of song that you hear so much of when you're a kid. Yes. But you don't form an opinion of it. It's just there. It's just part of the landscape and it's only years and years later when you suddenly hear it again you just think fucking hell that's good and it's but it's made by them them scottish lads yeah fucking hell yeah see it is good but to me it's like i don't they're doing what they're doing to a high standard they're're really good at playing, and it's nice to listen to. But these are the kind of compliments that you find your brain dispensing.

It's like nice and quality. It's a bit static. You know what I'm saying? Nobody is going to be transported by this or devastated. It's not really sexy. It's not really evocative of anything it's not innovative um and i mean the playing's really good but it's not so blistering and funky and fluid that you know the music just turns into lava and sweeps you away i mean what this really sounds like is very very good incidental music uh maybe

like if you had a scene where a hard-bitten scots detective is tracking a suspect to new york city or the big apple as everyone who lives there always calls it um yes and follows him through the sweltering streets and the the seedy hamburger stands of the town they call the Big Apple. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or an animated sort of 10 frames a second line drawing animation of like a lanky loping groover in loon pants. Do you know what I mean?

Like perambulating down a wobbly street, surrounded by some, you know, zked-looking pigeons on a telephone wire. It's very good. Musically, it's very correct, but it has a congenital lack of badness, or bad acidness, if you will. It means it does fit in quite a narrow and peculiar place culturally. I think the video is completely wrong because it's just going,

hey, look, here's some musicians achieving a standard. Yeah. And it's not as good as the single, but, you know, it's better than nothing. Well, what they should have done was just, if they were in America, just get the camera, put it in a shopping trolley, push it down a hill and just record everything and as twice to be satisfied oh look at that yeah they sell they sell pizzas yeah and what's a hero how'd you eat that the trouble is it does make it look like this gig was being played at a

relatively manageable volume and uh well until a few seconds before the end or a few seconds before this cuts off, when, you know, Big Eck or whatever his name is, like the beanpole sax player, he looks like Tony Roberts in Annie Hall, right? Whoever he is, he starts mildly skronking and breaking a few of the straight lines, you know, at which point you think, oh, this is getting good now, and the clip just ends abruptly.

Yeah, everything's very, very truncated tonight, isn't it? Well, there's a lot to fit in, isn't there? We can say what we like about it from this distance, but placed in the context of March in 1975, this is a colossus standing over everything else in this episode so far. And, you you know a good pat on the back for us for mastering black music which we're going to see again very near future aren't we oh yes the bass player here is a bloke called alan gory who is really notable for two

things firstly about six months before this top of the Pops, he had his life saved by Cher. Yes. When the average white band were at a party at Cher's house. Someone passed around some heroin, which they thought was cocaine. The drummer died, alas. And Alan Gorey was saved by Cher, who made him walk up and down until medical aid arrived.

But it's weird. There was a a lot of people used to do that like dying from taking one thing thinking it was another like was it that much of a social faux pas in those days as you were lowering your face to the mirror to say what what is this man because no it doesn't matter just shovel it up your fucking ooters whatever uh and the other main thing about alan gorry is that he appeared in that ludicrous film permissive from 1970 and i only joined these dots the other day it didn't occur to me until then but yeah it's him film permissive directed by uh ultra hack lindsay shontoff um who also made night after night after night sort of grimy london proto slasher movie and also made those abominable james bond parodies like uh license to love and kill which is one of the worst films i've ever seen in my life

like trying to parody something that was already a self-parody with gareth hunt as uh charles bind yeah now that is an unfunny film but permissive is a an interesting one it's a bad pseudo social realist uh exploitation film about uh underground rock bands and the groupie scene in the 60s uh unremittingly bleak to the point of comedy um and it's completely terrible in every respect in terms of the actual artistic choices being made by the people making or in the film it's terrible story terrible dialogue terrible acting um terrible direction the worst sound i've ever heard in the film. It's a terrible story, terrible dialogue, terrible acting, terrible direction. The worst sound I've ever heard in any film. But in other ways, it's amazing

because it's all shot on location in London in the 60s. And if you ignore the story, it's like getting into a time machine and stepping out into the true ambience. You know, we always go on about the misery of these ugly smelly hairy men in transit vans going up and down the m1 um in the rain in moldy overcoats this film is like an instant portal into that stuff and the group in it are a real group called forevermore um who are like a folk rock band who were really shit.

And Alan Gorey was in them. And he stars in this film as himself. And he's the big number one prize that all the groupie chicks want to ball. Right. Despite the fact that I genuinely don't think I've ever seen a less attractive, less charismatic man than Alan Gorey in Permissive. He's like a little wood troll. I don't want to be mean about someone's appearance.

He's done it all to himself. It's the hair and the beard and just this, yeah, he's stomach, he's like something off a woodcut. You know, it's got to be seen if you believe. Anyway, that's Alan's alan go well done share i suppose so the following week pick up the pieces dropped six places to number 12 its success in the us so rattled james brown that his band the jbs recorded the tune pick up the pieces one by one and call themselves aabb the above average black band the follow-up cut the cake only got to number 31 in may of this year and they'd have two more top

40 hits over here before splitting up in 1983 yeah cut the cake apparently it's not it's not dundee cake they're talking about. After, you know, losing one of your band members to drugs and then coming out with a song going, oh, let's have some drugs. I don't think you've learned your lesson, lads. No. Hello and welcome to the musical podcast. I'm Kiri. And I'm Jade. And I'm Dave.

Dave's on keys. But we don't play that too much because otherwise we'll have to pay some people rights money. We do a live show where comedians come and sing their favourite musical theatre songs in front of a live audience. This podcast is us bringing that person inside of a building welcome to just a minute with jade adams i panicked enjoy 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. Good afternoon, guys. Good afternoon. You have an instrumental hit in the trance, but there you go. All the way from the U.S. of A. We'll be right back. It's been a long day You must be halfway Oh, baby, it hurts me so To know I've lost you

Really lost you really lost you baby Tony comments on the rarity of instrumentals in the charts and then says he can't believe that it's 11 whole months since the next artist had a record out and now he's got another one it's Cliff Richard and it's only me

you left behind we've covered Cliff all the fucking time god on chart music and this his 66th single release Left Behind. We've covered Cliff all the fucking time. God. On Chart Music. And this, his 66th single release, is the follow-up to You Keep Me Hanging On, which got to number 13 in June of 1974. It's a return to pop, Cliff,

after a go at country music. And marks a lull in his career when he's not got a new album out, he's not got a BBC One show out, and he's not making any films set in Birmingham. So here he is in the studio. Well, cliff time again, Charles. A sprightly 34, and yet somehow already as old as stone.

It's a really odd blend of life and death that we see here. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit disturbing to watch it what it reminds me of it's that jarring thing you always get in zombie movies you know it always bothers me if you watch a zombie film and at some point like all the graves are ripped open and the tombstones are chucked aside and the dead get up and walk and you see this army of reanimated corpses marching down the street and you think hang on a minute everyone in this graveyard seems to have died at about the age of 26 that seems statistically improbable and there's a bit of the same thing going on here it's like looking at a young person who's been dead for a very long time. It puts you on edge.

I'm old enough to be Cliff's dad by this time. Yeah. And I'd be right proud of him. Yeah. Always remember when you're depressed and you say that thing, there's always somebody in the room that's even more depressed, and that's me. But it's got to be said that he looks pretty futuristic here by 1975 standards.

I was going to say exactly that. I mean, very futuristic. He's got a grey one-piece suit buttoned off down one side with rubber trim. You know, if you took the flares in and you put a stupid hat on him, I'd say he'd have an even chance of getting into the Blitz Club in six years' time. Yeah. Well, yeah, he looks sort of part intergalactic and part medieval that's the weird thing about it it's sort of him don't he looks

like he should be uh cackling toothlessly while pouring a cauldron of boiling oil over the side of a cx-21 space cruiser yeah i yeah i i saw it more as a... I was thinking in Star Trek The Next Generation when they have a delegation and the Betazoid representative comes along for a drinks reception in 10 forward or whatever. It's that kind of outfit,

isn't it? It's futurist informal, as it were. Futurist casual. He's the galactic ambassador from the planet Dorcas. He looks alright. What's nice is that this costume was obviously made for him.

Like a lot of olden days pop costumes. It's completely original. It's like a unique creation but the cut isn't quite right. It's a bit homemade look like it was run up on uh deirdre barlow's mum's sewing machine you know what i mean yeah the song though i mean by cliff standards this is all right yeah i mean obviously it's kind of by default because

you know pop music isn't a bit of a quandary and i think that as a result um he he kind of emerges with a reasonable amount of credit from this as somebody who's still vaguely got it is somebody that's still just about able to hang in there it's like yes in football terms it's like george best has gone jimmy greaves retired but roy of the rovers roy race they're not actually quite real pop star cliff richard is is still in there and he's still up there. God, yeah. Cliff Richard and Roy Race, man, the comparisons. Yeah, yeah.

Cliff of the Christians. But, you know, he's got a kind of modicum of style, a certain amount of nous, a grasp of, you know, whatever whisper in the air is passing for the zeitgeist in 1975. You know, he's still throwing those customised shapes that he throws. And it feels like a sort of solid 7 out of 10, really. It's, you know. Yeah, I mean, we're a year away from Devil Woman and all that.

But he's gone through a period of doing a bit of country music and stuff. And he'll still dabble. But that's not what people want from Cliff. No, no, no, no no we want we want pop cliff any song that cliff claps his hands in you know that that'll do for us around about this time i think and he does you know he's got he's got this kind of like three clappy thing going on at the beginning of the song yeah it's uh it's a bit undistinguished though isn't it i mean it's all very well to say you know well done for being able to stand upright and deliver the it's really the only thing you remember about this song is

those echoey claps you know because i mean that's practically the hook line in it that occasionally it goes and it sounds like he's trying to wake up the musicians you know come on heathen cunts i mean it's true he's on the verge of making probably the best records of his stupid career you know but still i don't know at this point he's he looks he looks like he'd be more suited to prison life than singing contemporary pop you know what i mean he's like i mean he's great suit but he's relying on making sense now isn't it but he's relying on the hit-making potential of Hank Marvin, who co-wrote this song. I mean, we complain about him, you know, employing B.A. Cunterson,

but, I mean, Hank Marvin, 1975. He might as well have got Kenneth Kendall to write you a song. But it's not just the song, though. I mean, you know, it's the kind of arrangement. It feels, you know, it feels reasonably kind of efficient. You know, he doesn't sort of make a fool of himself, particularly in this. I mean, there are far more foolish-looking people

in this episode than Cliff. Yes. You know, and I mean, yes, I mean, I think that it's fair to sort of like it's pretty mediocre. I mean, when I say seven out of ten, it's more like the overall kind of thing, you know, things like star quality and stuff like that. You know, the costume, the confidence with which he's kind of carrying himself at this particular point. No, I mean, he hasn't quite developed the danger dancing yet, has he?

No. There's a bit of mild peril dancing, but he doesn't really... Caution dancing, if you will. I suppose, you know, with Cliff, like with anybody else in the 1970s, it's best not to know too much about what they actually think and feel about things, which, quite wisely, they kept, you know, well below the surface. I mean, you know, whether it's Les Dawson or Cliff Richard, it's, you know, you don't want to know too much.

Oh, what about Les Dawson? Cliff Richard. It's, you know, you don't want to know too much. Oh, what about Les Dawson? What? Nothing outrageous. I mean, you know, not on the sort of scale of Cliff, but his politics are a bit dispiriting, really. Oh. You know, so I'll put it that way. The kids are quite into the song, though, aren't they? The chap on the left.

We're starting to see more and more of the audience, and I'm liking what I see. Yeah. There's one girl in Bay City Rollers again. She's enjoying herself, but not as much as the two lads, one black, one white, in matching star jumpers, who've got into this routine of rocking from side to side so they pop out by the side of Clint.

I really like that. Yeah, absolutely. He's got the chap on the left, yeah, the white geezer. He's strutting away. He looks like he's experiencing feelings of confusion. He's perturbed at his exhilaration. There's two blokes, though, who I assume are heads with massive fucking greasy bouffants,

one of whom looks a bit like Alberto Tarantino. They're not as impressed, are they? That's not what they've come for. One of whom looks a bit like Alberto Tarantino. They're not as impressed, are they? That's not what they've come for. And you look at them and you go, what are you doing on top of the pops? There's going to be nothing here that's going to interest you. You want old grey whistle test, mate, up the corridor.

The one who caught my attention is... Well, you know how a lot of people in this episode, in the audience, are wearing things that have clearly been handed out to them by the band? Yes, yes. There are a lot of K badges on them. Yeah, there's a lad in a sort of... And stickers. Yeah, he's got a sort of blue-grey blazer on and a big K badge.

Oh, yes. And he's sort of staring bemusedly at Cliff as though... It's like he's looking at a snake that he's been told isn't poisonous, but he's not 100% convinced. Also, he looks like he's not quite sure whether or not he's actually dancing with the blonde girl next to him. So it's best just to avert his eyes

and just keep them fixed on something, like just anything else, while he dances in a slightly stiff and self-conscious way. Anything else to say about this? Yeah. The best bit is the very end. Well, obviously,

but I mean, just, just before it actually finishes, um, Cliff completes the song, uh, with a healthy grin. Yes.

And strikes a crucifixion pose. Yes. But he does it for about a second. And then it's as if he's suddenly realised what he's done, that he's taken the suffering of his Lord in vain. So he kind of goes, ah, and panics, and quickly raises his right arm vertically. Into a Nazi salute, yeah.

He's got his left arm out like an aeroplane, and his right arm pointing upwards thus inadvertently signaling the letter j in the international semaphore alphabet um which is arguably a subtler way of creating awareness for the jesus brand right but yeah but only deeply religious sailors would have got that well that's i don't think they comprised a healthy percentage of top of the pops audience at the time yeah worse than that and cliff would have been horrified if he knew this it's also a signal from the secret international pedophile sign language no yeah it's i mean he wasn't to know obviously but it was daisy birding what that signal actually means in the international paedophile sign language is i am not a paedophile you know it might have been deliberate after all

because as we all know he isn't oh i suppose you know it's you know it's a special meetings you know it's just like you know the door or whatever it would it would help the sort of people on the door that um you know if he gave that particular signal that they couldn't let you know well well you know you obviously no place particular signal well, you're obviously no place here then, off you go. A twisted life of saints. Yeah, and the song lyrics, the most unbecoming of a man in his mid-thirties

Oh, it's only me you left behind. Oh, don't worry, it's only me. Oh, it's horrible. Yeah, don't worry about me suffering here. Passive-aggressive. As you're crashing out of Wimbledon yet again. Amazingly, despite

the endorsement of Tony Blackburn, It's Only Me You Left Behind was left behind in the back room of record shops across the nation, and it failed to chart. Three weeks after this episode, Cliff was in the Granada TV studios in Manchester to promote this single on the forthcoming

Bay City Rollers show, Shang-A-Lang. And when he was whisked out of the studio in a police van, an estimated 300 Rollers fans charged at it, thinking it was their Scottish pop faves. And in the resulting melee, a Greater Manchester police officer died of a heart attack. Death stalks this episode of Top of the Pops, doesn't it? The follow-up, a cover of the Conway Twitty single Honky Tonk Angel,

was put out in September of this year and was set to put him back in the charts until it was pointed out to him by his fans that the song was about a prostitute which led to him going on the telly and asking people not to buy it he then refused to promote it any further and eventually got EMI to withdraw it on sale which means that 1975 was the first year since he began that Cliff Richard didn't have a record in the charts. But he roared back in 1976 with the LP I'm Nearly Famous and four top 40 hits, including Devil Woman. He could afford to do that, couldn't he, Cliff?

I mean, I don't suppose he worried that much that this wasn't a hit, or that he can actually afford to go out and tell people not to buy a single that he's recorded although he would have thought i mean in all the kind of the meetings the pre-planning the many hours that go into the kind of creation of things like this that yeah i don't know i would have had a word with his people at that point for uh not flagging it up i mean you know even even i would have probably have known at the age of 12 what a honky-tonk angel was and what she got up to. Yeah. Thank you. It's a really great year for Wigan, and in fact we have now Wigan's nation. Here they go, skiing in the snow. Blackburn tells us that he's going to make Cliff his record of the week next week and then informs us that it's already a great year for Wigan as he introduces Skiing in the Snow by Wigan's Ovation.

Coined by music journalist and record shop owner Dave Godin in Blues and Soul magazine in 1968, Northern Soul was a term for the stomping mid-60s Motown sound that was falling out of favour in America but was still highly prized by provincial sorts and was taken up as a labelling system by London record shops for the benefit of travelling football supporters on an away day in the smoke. Thanks to its burgeoning popularity in the North and Midlands, it threw up a swathe of old records into the charts in the early 70s, including I'm Gonna Run Away From You by Tammy Lynn, Heaven Must Have Sent You by the Elgins, There's A Ghost In My House by Ardeen Taylor, Love On A Mountaintop by Robert Knight and Hey Girl Don't Bother Me by The Tams,

which got to number one for three weeks in September of 1973. By late 1974, as Northern Soul reached its peak, Russ Winstanley, a DJ at the Wigan Casino, linked up with Disco Demand, a subsidiary label of Pi Records, who had come across a 1968 single by Canadian band The Chosen Few and held a clapping competition at the club, with the winners being taken down to London to overdub clapping on a speeded-up version of the instrumental, along with crowd sounds taken from the 1966 FA Cup final.

And when it was put out, it appeared on top of the pops, accompanied by a selection of casino dancers, got to number nine in February of this year, and spent four weeks in the top ten. While Footse, by Wigan's Chosen Few, was kicking its flares all the way up the charts, Wynn Stanley seized the opportunity by approaching a local glam band called Sparkle and getting them to cover this song,

which was originally recorded by Surfy Chance as The Beach Girls in 1965 and then covered by the soul band The Invitations a year later. The latter version sank without trace until it was discovered by Ian Levine in a warehouse for TK Records in Miami and possibly purchased from Harry Kayser, who worked there before becoming KC of the Sunshine Band. While Footsie is still hanging in there at number 33, Skiing in the Snow has soared 20 places from number 49 to number 29 and here they are in the studio five words before we start gentlemen the racer of northern soul absolutely yes i mean christ almighty keep the faith yes i mean it doesn't help that there's an art deco flavor going on

in the top of the pop studio. We're seeing all this kind of like 30s stuff all over the place. And this band have been plonked in front of a stage that has, well, it kind of got a dartboard motif about it, hasn't it? And what they're wearing, it does make them look as if they're about to have a go at the bronze bully challenge, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so tempting to pretend that this is great just to piss off the old

soul boys he thought it was something worth getting angry about but no yeah but it's not it's horrible they're just like a bunch of rowing club lads in crappy dart shirts that have already been washed a few too many times.

Northern soul like it used to be. Yes. Yeah, I mean, they've got a guitarist with haircut like a wigwam and a terrible singer. He's like, do you know what I mean? Like a soulful as a roll of wood chin, just real pub singer. He's like a provincial Friday night Roger Daltrey if his rock horse had been a gelding. Looks a bit like Mickey Mouse, doesn't it?

Yeah. I mean, they've got those Northern Soul shirts on with the patches on. They look like football shirts. So it's as if all the Panini stickers of Scottish Division One players you've got loads of doubles of have come

together to form a super group yeah yeah oh they're so shabby and the terrible thing is northern soul is not an especially tricky style to assimilate or approximate right there's a lot a lot of white british groups who've done it right because the heart of northern soul is not some arcane african-american cultural secret right it's pop songs it's certain chord changes it's like a emotional in quite a simple and commercial and instantly comprehensible way um it's got a high tolerance for gimmicks um and it's quite easy for musicians who haven't been raised in a particular culture to understand it and get it. Because it's not roots music.

It's city pop music that's already the product of cultural crossover. And it's not even original in itself. It's like Sleaford Mons, Northern Soul, Motown on the dole. And because it's so simple and so free, it gives you a lot of space to do your own thing. So in theory, it's an ideal music to be influenced by. Like Soft Cell can synthesize it and make it camp and sleazy. It works perfectly, you know.

Or Dexis can do it with a sort of rough edge and streams of ranting lyrics, and it's brilliant. Although the purist soul boys saw Dexys as another Wiggins ovation, pretty much. But there is a lot of snobbery there. That's half the fun of it, you know. Yes. But the one thing you can't do

is the one thing you can never do, which is just come along and imitate the basic structure of a style of music and cop a few of the trappings and then just play it with all the guts and feel of a preset on a casio keyboard you know with a horn section recorded in a sock um it's the problem with this music is it's nothing to do with northern soul it's that it's just it's lumpy custard as as pop music you know i mean the record's enough, never mind this re-recording that they've done for Top of the Pops, the fucking mug.

This is the thing, at least with Paul Nicholas and reggae like it used to be, you knew that he was alluding to reggae. It's like, for me, I would have been mystified as to what this is supposed to be alluding to at all. I mean, you know, it's a great year for Wigan that I would have just found instantly depressing because, you know, I wouldn't have been thinking of Northern Soul. I was just thinking of Eddie all i mean you know it's a great year for wigan i would have just found instantly depressing because you know i wouldn't have been thinking of northern soul i was just thinking of eddie waring you know rugby league that's it just had only rugby league connotations

and as you say you know the kind of just the sort of lump and crappiness of this you know would have just disparaged me further it certainly would have been any kind of gateway to northern soul that's for sure david i mean you were 11 12 at this point were you aware of northern soul being a northern soul yourself i was a northern soul um i you know as a church-going boy so i was you know i felt i did have a soul um but no no northern soul was just not a concept known to me um you know there's various of the trappings i I mean, obviously, you know, the Lionels, stuff like that. You know, the use of the togs. That was de rigueur, you know, for like Saturdays.

They have got some proper Saxons on, haven't they? Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. But no, it just wasn't something that I was aware of at all, and this certainly didn't help. Of course, they are backed by the top of the Pops Orchestra, the masters of black American feel. Yes. Who are really keeping the flame burning here, aren't they? And, of course they are backed by the top of the pops orchestra the the masters of black american feel yes really keeping the flame burning here aren't they and of course the vital hunting

horns motif of course yeah it's like uh it's it's actually i think it's actually pinched from uh lonely surfer by jack nietzsche yeah it sounds like the end of sapphire and steel the atv end cap um i think at least some of the listeners will get that and the the sort of paper scarves it's pitifully budgetary isn't it giving the kids a load of tiny banners to wave about haven't they yeah yeah i mean that that's pitiful really paper scarves you know it's just like what should we do i'll just lob them in the bin you know i mean the song is it's a weird one because out of the three people who've done it now none of them you'd expect to go on skiing holidays no yeah you know california girls and urban black americans and this load of cloggers skiing in the snow and i'm what else would you

be skiing in i mean i don't know maybe very true shit or you know skidding in the shit oh god see this is what we're reduced to also that silver box is back in the audience that we were talking about earlier you know what i mean it's like yeah and it does so you can see it from a side angle it is a camera is it really it looks like they got it out of a spitfire yeah what it looks like it's like if if someone had gone to the moon in the 30s, that would have been mission control. But whatever it is, you know they've got it out in the middle of all these kids when it would have cost £16,000, which is £17,000 in today's money.

Perhaps even more. Part of the issue here i think right i i don't think the authenticity or otherwise of this record is the issue right no the problem i think you have to delve a bit into how into the back and forth between historically black and white styles of music and how that works and doesn't work right like it's a conversation that's resulted in some of the the greatest pop music ever made but it's not always a simple thing to explain when it works yeah uh never mind when it doesn't work but they're not playing a song with its roots in some traditional experience that's unknowable outside of an

american inner city or a gospel church right you would expect that this is lifted from the invitations version right the northern soul yes which is but when you listen to the version by the beach girls um whose very name tells you all you need to know about their rootsy authenticity um yeah it's like it's like a beach boys cash in sort of with a bit of that sort of four freshmen sort of quasi barbershop thing mixed with a it's got a it's got a frankie valley yeah yeah well it's because in this singer's hands it's more frankie trough right because it's a it's a it's a bob crew production who uh worked with the four seasons and it's written by um sandy

linzer and denny randell who are pure new york songwriting robots right i was sort of involved with don kirschner and people like that went on to write native new yorker and uh yeah and um fucking breaking down the walls of heartache and loads of really good songs um this is you know their early work and it's obviously supposed to be a cash-in and a bit of a novelty record but yeah but it's quite good though it's a silly and confected piece of music but it's all right okay and so when the invitations do it they take this sort of what is basically a sort of a cutesy white middle class record and soul it up right so already you've got a like an ongoing swirl of musical possibilities and sort of mixtures of styles around a really daft song which was obviously

just written more or less to order and it's all going fine you know you've got two different versions of this song and then these ham-handed knock and nailand-nailing-with-your-head fucking driving test failures show up and do it like a Top Loader tribute act. You know, just plough. Well, they are. They're ploughing straight down the middle. Do you know what I mean? It's a vague imitation of the basic shape of the song,

which is the dumbest and the crassest and the least interesting thing you can do to any song. So there's no subjective judgment possible here this is clearly much worse than the invitations record because it's just the same but one of them glides and the other one is slowly peddling uphill with like beads of sweat gathering in its bum fluff mustache you know and it's it's only it doesn't do anything with soul music it's white soul whose only concession to its whiteness is a almost total dearth of soul um it adds nothing to this song and it just subtracts everything this is this is

weird i mean if you think about a lot of the sort of slightly painful preoccupations of, say, 10 years onwards, 86, 87, as regards soul or whatever, with, you know, authenticity, retro style and all that kind of thing. They're just not evident here at all and just not evident generally in pop. You know, it is the kind of instant whippy or, you know, people don't mind the kind of sort of synthetic recently invented aspect of things you know people aren't really sort of harking back you know the authenticity is just not much of a preoccupation in in pop at this stage but i mean the whole idea of northern soul always bemused me because it's like early 70s it's not like black music has stopped making decent music what is it about the majority of white british people who just yeah take ages to pick up on on what black music is doing yeah there's always that delay there's always that delay and

i think it's to do with you know there are people that are right now probably just about now getting comfortable with public enemy who absolutely were not at the time i think there is something unnerving to a lot of like white rock fans about contemporary black music and the kind of sense of menace and threat it kind of might entail. And they're much happier and comfy with the kind of the vintage version. I mean, even like, something like the Blues Brothers, someone just talked about that, that, I mean, that's all very kind of vintage. You know, this is 1980. Apparently, Rose Royce put themselves up to be featured in the film

and they got knocked back, you know, because they were just too contemporary. There always has to be that kind of 10-year lag. And I mean, I think that people are uncomfortable with the inherently futuristic nature of black music. And why wouldn't black people, you know, be sort of like futuristic? What have they got to be nostalgic about, you know? So, but yeah, it's very different with white audiences.

And you do get that lag, you know, the affirmation, that delay in which people kind of get their kind of dues. Yeah. And it's like with Public Enemy, it's interesting. Another example, when I saw them in 1990, the audience was almost entirely black. I mean, 10 years later, the audience is entirely white.

That's really weird. Because when I saw Public Enemy in 1988, it was about 60% white people and I rolled up to it thinking oh shit what if I'm the only

white person there that's interesting when I saw them in 1980 yeah it was in Birmingham I mean I don't know yeah I started listening to Northern Soul

in the mid 80s and you know there was loads of decent black music going off but I wouldn't have any of it I wouldn't give it ass room.

And it's only now that I go, oh, actually, that's fucking amazing. What the fuck was up with me? Yeah. Strange. Yeah. But Northern Soul, essentially, it was not quite successful. Motown. And I suppose the reason why it's wonderful is that Motown,

the truck was like, you know, Diana Ross and Supremes or whatever, the four tops, those teams have been played and played and played so much that they're so familiar that they, you know, they're victims of that. And they've kind of lost a certain element of freshness. And, you know, they are picking up on an exciting tune that's been in some sort of language in some warehouse in Miami for like 30 years. And even if it's not technically quite as good as like one of the absolute Motown. Yeah, and the freshness of it is what makes it really, really exciting. It's almost like a feeling of hearing a Motown track for the very, very first time. Yeah.

Rather than the thousandth time. The lead singer. One thing that caught my eye, he's got proper old school tats, hasn't he? Yeah. Just words carved into an arm. Probably went to a tattooist that says, oh, look, I only do naked women or swallows. Anything else you can't have.

Or, yeah, or he... A black fist? No, I can't do that. Did it himself with a compass and a biro. Yeah, because, you know, there was a trend, apparently, amongst the northern soul contingent of putting in serial numbers of record companies or big pharma companies who made Speed.

Oh, right, yeah. But this is a prog band, isn't it? Yeah. This is the other motif of this episode. Proggers stopping doing songs about Griffin Lords or whatever and, you know, cashing in. Because apparently this band, Sparkle, they were known for playing the Wigan Casino,

but on rock nights, which finished just before the all-nighters started. So they'd be coming out of the club lugging their fucking amps and everything wearing vests with the armpit ears sticking out going, fucking hell, all these people wanted to get in to see us but there was only anyone there, what's going on? According to Stuart Cosgrove in the book Young Soul Rebels, on Thursday, 20th of March, 1975,

a date etched like a horrific murder in the minds of Northern soul fans, Wigan's ovation appeared on top of the pop, singing an old torch classic, skiing in the snow by the invitations. The group were dressed in exaggerated baggy trousers and t-shirts adorned with soul patch badges. It was the first time many people had become acquainted with the term Northern Soul and unfortunately the cliches stuck like a demeaning glue. For the underground hardcore, it was a dire time.

Our Vietnam flashback moment, as Mike Mason, a Scottish northern soul collector, put it. A fucking travesty. In extremis, this was the night that the Wigan Casino died.

Or more accurately, the night that the club's first generation fell out of love with a place that had defined their life. I can imagine that they would obviously think this was appalling. But I mean, the idea that it somehow kind of shed any light on their kind of world. You know, it's not even a sort of dilution or whatever

or an appropriation, really. It obfuscates it. In Top of the Pops parlance, Northern Soul was like a mayfly. You know, we've seen it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And that footage is amazing, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They've just got about a dozen kids in the Northern Soul gear just spinning around and around while the audience looks on, thinking, hang on, this isn't Pants People. What's going on here? I mean, this is a rare incursion, you know, for Top of the Pops to do something like that, isn't it?

Yeah, definitely. That's on the video playlist, everyone. Make sure you check it out. It's remarkable footage. Yeah. The following week, Skiing in the Snow moved up four places to number 25 and would get to number 12 a month later the follow-up personelli got to number 38 in july of this year and after super love got to number 41 in november

they never came back to chartland and split up in 1976 one thing i will say for this record, I think it's the only British hit single with a double I in the title. Really? Unless, of course, you know different. Down, down, skiing in the snow. Down, down, skiing in the snow. There you go, Wiggins' evaluation at number 29, Down, down, down, skiing in the snow. There you go, Wiggins of Asia at number 29,

and that's the number called Skiing in the Snow. Here's a fabulous record not only to listen to but dance to, so get up, have a little dance around your television sets, take your mama for a ride with Lulu. Shup, shup, bachewada. Shup, shup, bachewada. Shup, shup, bachewada. Shup, shup, bachewada. Tony commands us to dance around the television set, which my mum would have gone mental at before, as he introduces Take Your Mama for a Ride by Lulu.

We've covered Oui Marie for a Glasgow almost as many times as Cliff on Chart Music, and this is her 30th single release after a renaissance in 1974 that saw her take The Man Who Sold the World all the way to number three in February of that year, her first top 40 hit in five years. It's the follow-up to The Man With The Golden Gun, which was put out in December of 74 and failed to chart, and sees her trying to move away from her belty gut-bucket stylings and try out a more laid-back contemporary approach.

Although the single's not out yet, she's midway through her seventh and final Saturday tea time show on BBC One, now called Lulu, which gives her a free pass to pitch up and do her thing. Oh, it's about time Lulu came back to chart music. I mean, this is Freeman's Lulu, isn't it? The catalogue queen. I mean, she's only, what, about probably 26 or 27, maybe, yeah. But it's strange.

I mean, it's all 27 going on 47, isn't it? It's in various ways, really. I mean, you know, a 27-year-old in 1975 is a 47-year-old in today's money isn't it really yes I would have watched at the time and this would have felt punitive really um you know this is always the thing I mean there was so much in that just like that sort of 30 or 40 minutes that you just had to had to wade through really to get this to the stuff with you know a bit of thrust or whatever and uh you know And it's almost like

you're not getting your basic roll of chips until you've had some until you've eaten your Lulu's. By this time, Lulu would be the woman off the catalogue advert. Yeah, definitely. That would be lying about that I would have zero interest in because they haven't got any toys in them.

And I'm a bit too young for looking at pictures of bras yeah it was all play text cross your heart in those days wasn't it still yeah she's having a go like Cliff she's she's trying to progress isn't she she's trying to kick on yeah there's that slightly desperate bit when she kind of come on everybody you know and it's just like you know that is the real kind of mum dancing moment wasn't it it's like the kids are looking on like their own children in deep embarrassment you know as if she's had a couple of baby shams or something there's something so uncomfortable about the the forced sexuality of this performance as well it's not right is it it's fucking lulu i mean you know

literally yeah it doesn does smack of, oh, you're getting a big lad out, Jason. Oh, God. Do you like dancing? Yeah, it's all this mid-70s sleaze going on. It's really inappropriate. It's all, you know, shagpile rugs and hairy cocaine sex. I blame that David Bowie.

He never used to be like this. But it's not right. david bowie yes used to be like this but it's not right lulu dressed in the uniform of the 1970s permissive jet set she's got designer jeans and a load of blusher and blue eyeshadow gyrating her hips and smiling coquettishly but like interspersed with her usual sort of wide mouth primary school teacher smiles you know it's like this yeah really uncomfortable combination of flaunted sexuality and a heart that's not quite in it right because you know we know what lulu really is so she just comes across like someone who's got divorced about seven years too late and is now on the prowl you know like singles bar junk food and it's like if she'd i don't know she had she been to la or something

because that's what it's like it looks like she spent too much time in la and come back with like a suitcase full of shiny wet look lipstick and low-cut blouses and the idea that this version of the 70s was for everyone which it clearly wasn't because here it's like she's plonked down in front of a crowd of little wood shoppers and you know scowling lank haired frumps with visible panty lines and lads who lads who spent like the last five years peddling their chopper bikes around the playing fields and the brutalist shopping precincts of Boreham Woods. And she doesn't look like an alien that has descended into this scene or a stranger.

She's too close in nature to them. And you can't be fooled, right? Because she's got nothing to fool you with. So as the performance wears on, you can see her sinking back into this world that she belongs in and all that sort of act one of boogie night stuff looks increasingly transparent and like a false promise because she isn't that person no and anyone can see it and the the best she can hope for is is to be a slight embarrassment at the next wine and cheese party anyone can see

it it's they wouldn't don't bring lulu to my wine and cheese party no she'll just have just she'll just hit the hit the red a bit hard and uh yeah it's i mean look they wouldn't have let her into studio 54 basically would no they wouldn't even let her into Studio 54, basically, would they? No. They wouldn't even let her into Studio 53. That was much worse. She's on course for a tepid affair with a divorced 36-year-old from the Salesforce who thinks he's a space-age super stud because he wears skimpy men's briefs under his weekend wranglers instead of you know he chucked out his pale blue wire fronts with the elastic peeping through the hem like when he was married you know

he's fucking misery thank god for the end of that world right thank god for the normalization of filth in this country yes right and the end of people having to guess what might be sexy because they have no ideas of their own, you know. And whatever new problems that's created in society, I would take them over Lulu in heat, right, which feels like a slap with an extremely cold fish. This song said nothing to me about my life, put it that way.

It's essentially saying oh go on treat your missus to a night at a bernie inn take her out give her a chance to wear all that wonderful freeman's catalog stuff she's just bought and it's just hanging in the fucking wardrobe the audience don't know what to make of it either they're really embarrassed yeah absolutely yeah they don't know where to look there's a bloke right down the front who looks like he's waiting for the fall to form so he can be the drummer but in the meantime he's just sort of leaning over his concave chest and looking at the ground you know it's because it is embarrassing kung fu pajama man's back though isn't it he is yeah in full effect he's putting some moves on moves on a very petite lady with flicked back hair,

but she's not having it. No, no, no, no, no. Well, you know, this record is bromide, isn't it? All this performance. Because the point is, if you're going to go all out and try and be sexy, an overtly sexy, raunchy woman is powerful. But a fake one who gets it wrong just kind of looks lost. You know, I like when a man tries to do this and fails.

He looks like a cock and you just want to throw fruit at him. But when a woman tries to do it and fails, it kind of puts you on edge. And it's just a bit awkward. And that's what's happening here. You can see all these eyes being averted from the spectacle. So a month later, take your mama for a ride. Enter the charts at number 49, and two weeks later, it got to number 37,

its highest position. The follow-up, Boy Meets Girl, failed to chart and she was done with the top 40 for the next 11 years, when a re-recording of Shout got to number 8 in August of 1986. But she spent the rest of the 70s as a BBC regular, popping up as a guest on The Les Dawson Show, Seaside Special and Blankety Blank. Let all the troubles go

Don't you hurt me It's time to call time on this episode of Child Music, I believe, and extend an invitation to come back tomorrow for the final episode. On behalf of David Stubbs and Taylor Parks, my name's Al Needham. I implore you to keep the faith and stay pop crazed. Shark music. GreatBigOwl.com Hello, I'm Chris England and I'm here to tell you about the Fun Factory podcast,

available now on Great Big Owl. Each time, I will be reading a couple of chapters of my novel, The Fun Factory, a historical comedy about the history of comedy. So it will kind of be like a free audiobook, which you can listen to at the gym, or jogging, or at your desk while pretending to do your job, or on the train, without the embarrassment of people seeing you actually reading a book like some kind of SWAT.