Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #63: December 28th 1972 – Thank God For Belgian World In Action

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; Singleton Noakes Purvis and Judd, or Baxter Woollard and Rodd – who was the better Prog band?Santa has come once more to Chart Music, Pop-Crazed Youngsters – but this year he’s decided not to curl one off into our stocking, and has dropped off what is indisputably the greatest episode of the Pops we’ve chanced upon thus far in our five-year odyssey, plucked from the very dawning of the Golden Age. No, it’s not a Xmas Day one – that year’s episode, featuring Jinglenonce OBE introducing Clair by Gilbert O’Sullivan, has been plunged into the memory hole – but as always it’s an opportunity for the show ponies of Our Brand New Favourite Year For Pop to have a trot-about, egged on by Tony Blackburn and his foul nemesis Edmonds.Musicwise, GASP: a combination of old chancers and young upstarts team up to drag Pop away from the foul mung of the Sixventies, the Heads are chased off by unkempt youths in spangles, and the result is a glorious year for singles – and this episode of TOTP is a non-stop barrage of banger after banger after banger after banger. Mike Leander invents the DNA of Glam. Donny Osmond demonstrates why eleven year-old girls turn up at his hotel with sledgehammers. After some KID’S LIB INNIT, Hilda Woodward casts an eerie spell and enchants the Kids into the worst occurrence of Granny Claps ever seen on Top Of The Pops. Roberta Flack takes over on piano. THE PEOPLE’S BAND shake a silvery top hat. Benny Hill delivers last year’s Xmas #1. Chicory Tip whip the silver and gold-booted hooligans of Sheffield into a frenzy. Cherry Gillespie’s three-day ordeal in wrapping paper bondage mercifully comes to an end. Mary Whitehouse’s masturbatory nightmares are relived once more, with the assistance of Rolf Harris. Then it’s the three-punch knockout of Utah Valhalla, the Jackson 5 and the Blessed Marc before Ringo pitches up at the end. Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for a celebration of Top Of The Pops at its most godlike, gleefully veering off on such tangents as famous pianos we have played on, schoolkids in London being forced to watch The Third Ear Band, Saddam Hussein’s choice of Christmas chocolate, why Americans are so rubbish when it comes to Christmas #1’s, Levi Stubbs fails to get a good night’s sleep, and a brief chat about some film that the Beatles are in. TUCK IN, POP-CRAZED YOUNGSTERS – and treat yourself to some lovely festive swearing…   Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. You pop crazed youngsters And welcome to a vaguely festive episode of Chart Music The podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee

On a random episode of Top of the pops i'm your host al needham and by my side today stan taylor parks hello yes and neil kulkarni i like that oh team atv land in the house the little kevin ginger joe to myMac, if you will. So, yeah, if you're listening to this before Christmas, I extend the heartiest of seasonal greetings and all that shit. And if you're listening to it afterwards, well, thank fuck that shit's over with. Bollocks to Christmas. Anyway, boys, pop things, interesting things. Fill my stocking up with them right now, if you please.

You know what? There have been a couple of pop and interesting things in the past few months. Yes. I've done a couple of interviews with sort of heroes. Horace Panter, which was nice. Did that for Bass Player magazine.

Nice. Had to think of some bass related questions. That was lovely. And, oh, yeah, actually when I spoke to Horace, Terry was sat nearby,

and I'd never sort of spoken to Terry. I was really starstruck. And he got up, and he sort of walked away, because he knew that Horace had to do his interview. And I was just like, you all right, mate? And he was like, yeah, you're all right. And that was that. But that could have been a better moment, granted.

But I have now spoken to Terry Hall, which was lovely. And what else oh yeah and i spoke to uh dennis bevel um for the quieters which was just magical i mean there was so much i didn't have time to do because i had about an hour with him um so i couldn't i couldn't speak to him about like fella cootie and i really wanted to speak about his work with him but man the 20 minutes in which he described exactly how he made silly games was one of my favourite interview experiences ever. He was wonderful.

So those two things were nice. And I've also been going to some gigs since then. Bloody hell, Neil, you are a boy about time, aren't you? I have been busy, haven't I? Since the grand reopening, I've been to a few. Went to see Little Sims in Brom. It was great. Went to see JLS.

Fuck. At the Resorts World Arena, or the NEC, as it should be called, really. JLS were fantastic, by the way. I mean, I was the only and definitely the oldest bloke there. But there was a very revealing moment that kind of revealed the demographic for me. Because I'm a bit shady about JLS. I don't really know much about them. Although I do know that their name stands apparently for Jack the Lad Swing,

which is pretty awful, isn't it? But yeah, there was a revealing moment before the gig where the DJ, who was awful, played Let It Go from Frozen and the crowd went fucking nuts, which was quite revealing of the demographic. But it was a really good pop show. It avoided that terrible thing that pop bands sometimes do of having a live band to prove their chops, you know,

always degenerates. What were they supposed to let go, Neil? Their bladders. It was weird. It was weird. But no live band, just everything played off a laptop, bone-crunchingly loud with a lot of hysteria. It was good.

And then sort of just two nights ago, actually, went to Human League. Whoa. Also in Brom. Altered images and support, and unfortunately I missed them. I was going to go the full Shemoli and kind of get tarted up, but a quick Google search revealed that Claire Grogan is entirely happily married, annoyingly.

I thought she might see me, you know, gyrating my hips in a sexy manner in the press row and perhaps, you know, send an emissary out to me with a billet to do to get me backstage but it wasn't to be pop stars man always let you down i did catch the tail end of tom bailey from the thompson twins oh dear he still can't sing that thompson twat but i was really close to the side of the stage um i was on the side of the stage that joanne was on and i always fancied joanne and i swear down there was eye contact um and but they were great they were absolutely brilliant um but i mean one of the things that phil raised on stage if you like

that he mentioned was that he couldn't get around birmingham anymore And it's not a pop and interesting thing, but if you'll allow me, I just need a slight sidetrack. I need catharsis about Birmingham, about their fucking road and traffic department. I now work four days a week in Birmingham and regular listeners to chart music will know I'm a tolerant cove with very much a live and let live attitude. Definitely, yeah.

Especially to my yim-yam brethren, like Taylor, for instance, who, despite being saddled with the comic sands of accents, they do live in England's second city. And they should be rightly proud of the fact that, as a city right now, Brum is just not fit for purpose. My commute, that used to be a brief and breezy 25 minute jaunt from cove to digbeth has now transformed into just this hour-long shitmare of fury um where i find myself vacillating between homicidal suicide genocidal rage and the terrible

thing is it's making me into a racist it's no no you know which is no good i mean i find myself seeing as i'm spending like eight hours a week stuck in birmingham traffic i just find myself really raging and it's going beyond its righteous target of the kind of road planning department who are after all to blame it's percolating now into just atrociously racist anti-yim-yam language in my car i can't i just can't help it you know the other day i found myself just having appalling thoughts and putting appalling thoughts in the head of just innocent pedestrians and other drivers the other day i found myself looking at a guy who was looking at another guy digging a ditch um in a contraflow and just you know slipping into appalling racist language about yim yams.

Just kind of, I drive around just saying, yeah, well, I don't actually have to speed this because I'm a brummie and I eat my own shit and I fuck my nan. And all this atrocious, terrible shit. And I had to stop myself. So I'd just like to apologise to my yim yam brethren, which of course includes Taylor. But yeah, fuck you, Birmingham Road and Traffic Department. Fuck you. That poor bloke digging a ditch his life used to be so much better when he was working at the car wash how you been Taylor well you know back in a familiar pattern like frustration lethargy self-loathing mild dyspepsia uh to paraphrase Elvis Costello, every day I don't write the book. I'm a bit fed up because I had my booster in November

and I read up on the stats that basically this makes you invulnerable to the Delta variant, just frothing over with antibodies. And I'm like, yes. Gave me a new lease of life i was back in the gym meeting friends taking the tube you know it was beautiful licking people's faces oh yeah i was i was optimistic i was upbeat live honestly you wouldn't have you wouldn't have recognized me then after about a week of that i turned on the news and it said tonight's headlines guess what um it's time to go home on your own again and stay there wiping down packs of antibacterial wipes with an antibacterial wipe

what a refreshing change i've forgotten how quietly great it is not to be under house arrest um and as a londoner you have to you know as a responsible londoner you have to take the lead and say okay we're the first target for this new variant so we're the ones who have to curtail our activities first omicron came to nottingham first mate well you know it was curious it hurt so much yeah it not good. This isn't good for me. As Laurence Olivier says in Rebecca, I have become boorish from living alone. And my Christmas present shopping has been screwed, right,

by something else. I met this bloke who makes sculptures out of lollipop sticks, you know, like cathedrals and ships houses of parliament perfectly to scale uh and fashioned entirely out of lollipop sticks and glue so i commissioned him to make me a christmas present for someone i told him i want a sculpture of a lollipop stick and he said how big do you want it i said three quarter scale he's fucking joker he said, how big do you want it? I said, three quarter scale. He was fucking jokery, so he couldn't do it. I was fuming. Fuming.

What am I meant to get Amanda Holden now? Another clavichord. Still, there are a lot of exciting options for the new year, right? I made a list of them. Become the second person to invent the internal combustion engine, try to restart World War I, form a band called Dead Heat, write a letter to Mick Jagger

and pin him down on whether the song Dancing With Mr D really was about Fred Dynage, convince Gary Davis to let me ghostwrite really was about Fred Dynage. Convince Gary Davis to let me ghostwrite his scandalous tell-all autobiography, working title Camel Unfiltered. Finally contrive an opportunity to say, Mr Hollishead, if you didn't want your autopsy, you shouldn't have died in the first place.

Train imaginary animals to jump on and off some colored boxes and or through the barrier into objective reality starving and curious um and i mean you know if all else fails they're 30% off the box set of Cannon and Ball Series 11. Although I've heard bad things. Yeah, not their best. So before we get stuck into the selection box that is this episode of Top of the Pops we're about to peruse, let's get the business stuff out the way. So first of all, massively soz for the interruption to your chart music service last month,

massively soz for the interruption to your chart music service last month but it couldn't be helped because uh one of us took badly with the spiteful armoured bollock on the men now so everything's all right but yeah really sorry that we didn't do your chart music uh earlier this month that's just hurts me man secondly you might have heard that Owl, who we've been rolling deep with for the past few years, is winding up. And people were fretting about that and got into it. And I just want to say that, don't you worry. We're already linking up with a new collective. And to quote KRS-One,

we will be fresh for 22, you suckers. That's lovely to hear. Nothing can stop stop us you can't stop chart music nobody can stop chart music before we move on notes and corrections uh because in the last episode rock expert david stubb said that rumble in the jungle by the fujis was the only time that anyone has ever sampled abba which is bollocks, because, fucking hell, loads of money doing up the house, sampled money, money, money. And we covered that in a fucking previous episode of Chart Music.

I mentioned that. Was it an episode that David was on? No, he wasn't on that one. But I was on it, and I knew it, and I didn't say anything. So that makes me look a right cunt. So I'm sorry that you found out that I'm a thick cunt, Bob Crazy Youngsters.

I would have corrected him, but I never listen when other people are talking. Oh, yeah. Also, the Queen and I by the Justified Ancients of Moomoo, they sampled Dancing Queen. So there we go. There's another one. Wasn't that quite a big deal at the time?

Yes, it was. Because it wasn't so much sam big deal at the time yes it was because it wasn't so much sampled as just play huge chunks of it and abba put the foot down and so they went off with someone from the enemy to present a gold disc to abba for sales rendered couldn't find them and so just gave it to a prostitute in stockholm which was nice yeah that's thoughtful also and probably more importantly i would like to make right now a public apology to neil kulkarni for accusing him of liking kiss on twitter that's okay that's okay it's it's a bit of a hot button issue for me now because for those of us who don't use Twitter.

On Twitter, an awful lot of people were sharing their Spotify lookbacks, where you get told of all the stuff you listen to. And I just suggested that a better way of displaying your immaculate music taste was an old rough book or an old exercise book where you'd scrawled loads of names on it. And I showed a picture of my one from, I think, 1986 when I was about 13. Now, in tiny letters, Prince is there. And also in tiny letters, the word Kiss is there, which I genuinely wrote down in 1986 because I just fucking loved that song.

Al, jump into conclusions, I have to say. Accused me of liking the band Kiss just like to assure all pop crazy youngsters that will never ever happen. It's an ongoing battle between me and Sophia, my youngest daughter, who's trying to convince me of the worth of Kiss via the song I was made

for loving you. It's not going to happen. I will never like Kiss. They're a fucking awful band and whilst I'm here, and if Sophia is listening priest are better than maiden and one day you will learn what you're gonna do to stop her from trying to force kiss upon you neil i can't you've got to put your foot down mate you've got a drastic action is needed next time there's a she's got appearance evening go with kiss makeup on flicking your tongue out at the teacher while

they're talking to you you know what i suspect she's just saying it to fucking wind me up she don't listen too much with that sort of area she listens to new york dolls way more than she listens to kiss so um no there's not a lot i can do about it i think you know and then she you know because my little uh grandsons they love Kiss as well. Oh, no. Well, yeah. How old are they? Oh, God, now you're asking. They're eight and ten now.

Oh, Jesus. And when we go for walks in the park, Sophia whispers this in there, eh? Gramps hate Kiss. And they find branches and hit me with them in an attempt to try and convert me. But on this, I stand as firm as the rock of Gibraltar. I cannot compromise on this. They're a fuck-awful band.

So you're forgiven now. Don't worry about that. An easy misunderstanding, to be honest. Thank you, Neil. That means a lot, man. So that's it, then. We're all cleared up with it. The slate is wiped clean and we can move on. But before we move on, you know what we've got to do we've got to drop

the knee and give thanks to the latest batch of pop craze youngsters who have jingled our g-string through the medium of patreon and in the five dollar section this month we have mick wright or maybe mike wright i'm not sure, Ron Sims, Cole, Tim Turner, Paul Webb, James Harris, Chris Durbin, Mark,

Carol Tennant, Will, Andrew Crudgington, Gareth Windybank, Jimmy Greaves, Dave Morris, Paul Stilwell, Eamon Kane,

Colin Rooney, Andy Barrett, Andy McLeod, Helen Hookins, and a Pacey back pass from Maurice Malpass. Oh, babies, we fucking love you. Yeah, and cheers, Jimmy. Yes. And in the $3 section, we have Jamie Anderson, Matthew Kendrick, Rich Riddle, Jason Hoyle, Sigrun, Lee Villette, Gary Mulcahy, Lauren Shaw, Padraig Holmes, Joe Lathorn, and Martin James. Mwah! We love you, babies.

And Don Whiskerando and Doug Grant, welloug grant well well well you shoved an extra handful down the g-string this month didn't you you get to come into the special room where we sit on your lap and whisper a dissertation about racy in your ears you lucky boys critical racy theory and a special thanks to tony who's only gone and hit us all off with christmas presents this year actual christmas presents in boxes and shit good lord can you believe that yeah i'm i'm sending them on to you in good time so tony that's over and above and away and beyond the call of juta we are massively grateful. Thank you. Cheers, Tony.

Thank you. Thank you. You know we're going to open them. It's just going to be like a boxing glove on a spring. So, yeah, as always, when we do a Christmas one, this episode is dedicated to all the Pop Craze Patreons because they've kept us going

through this miserable, pinch-faced cunt of a year and we thank them forever and ever and ever and ever. And as well as getting this episode of chart music in full without adverts, the pop craze Patreons get to tamper and a scamper, fiddle and a diddle and rig and a jig and a reconfig. The all new Christmas chart music top 10 here we go chaps are you ready yes let's have it hit the fucking music we've said goodbye to sharks piss fire

oven ready women taylor pox has 20 romantic moments and the continuity Westline, which means none up, five down, one non-mover and four new entries. Down two places from number eight to number 10, Jeff Sex. Last week's number six, this week's number nine, rock expert David Stubbs! First new entry this week comes straight in at number eight, Staircase of Cock. A two-place drop from number five to number seven. Here comes Jessamont.

Last week's number 2 drops 4 places to number 6, RomoCop. Into the top 5 and it's a new entry at number 5 for Tyler the XXX Privately Educated. No change for the second week running at number four for Bummer Dog. Last week's number one has finally dropped to number three, the bent cunts who aren't fucking real. It's a brand new entry straight in at number two, Skin Heady He heady which means

this week's number one and the highest new entry and the chart music christmas number one the popular orange vegetable oh oh what a chart pop cra Craze Youngsters. That is a surprise, that number one. As is the dropping of bent cunts who aren't fucking real. Oh, man, they had it in 2021, didn't they? Fucking hell, their year. They'll be disappointed not to get the... They're like the House Martins with Caravan of Love. They just didn't quite make it.

So, the popular orange vegetable. Obviously a psych band to my mind. You know, did a few festivals with Bummer Dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Staircase of Cock, though. What are they saying? They sound a bit new metal to me. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, perhaps so. Yeah. Papa Roach-like. Yes. Tyler the XXX privately educated. Well, that's modern ramble, isn't it, that we needn't concern ourselves with. He's definitely got a tattoo somewhere. Possibly a tattoo of his own face on his face that fills his entire face.

So he's just like he's gone over with a pencil on some graph paper of a photo of himself and it looks shit. And of course, skin heheady-heady. They do fun sing-along cover versions of OY tunes, don't they? They could do a tour with OY Division. Oof. So if you want in on the pulsatingly exciting lifestyle of the Pop Craze Patreons,

as well as the ability to be able to sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that you and you alone are keeping the world's greatest podcast where people wang on about old episode of top of the pops for fucking ages going you see that keyboard you flex them fingers you mash mash mash patreon.com slash chart music step Step up to that pay window. Pull the elastic of our G-string back and shove it down. Thank you. Let us know it's Christmas time. So this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, takes us all the way back to December the 28th, 1972.

Oh, and you may have noticed just there,'s not the usual christmas day special that we do at this time of year but yes it's another opportunity for the show ponies of pop to trot about in the winner's circle of that year and oh my fucking god this this fucking episode chaps i know it's fucking gargantuan, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Well, for me, this is without a shadow of a doubt, I think the greatest episode we've ever covered. Yes.

These sort of end-of-year round-up shows, they usually sort of militate against thinking there was any kind of golden age ever, because, you know, habitually as listeners to music of the past, when thinking about the quality of a musical era we kind of look at albums lists don't we yeah but that's not really the experience of pop which is really about what music we experience coming at us from a load of sources often from a load of sources we can't control you know passing cars clothes shops the radio the fifth form set the

stereo or whatever it might be gives you perhaps more true vision of pop and because these end of year shows are often seemingly random or at least entirely mercenary in their methodology of how they choose what records to play we usually come out of these end of year shows surmising that yeah you've got some gold but they're also reminders of the more humdrum reality that god there was a load of shit out there too, no matter what the era. But this episode really does give you the impression or gave me the impression that 72 is something of a peak year. Something of a great high point, like 66, like 81. And I'd happily have 72 in there as a zenith too. It's a fucking amazing episode of a fucking amazing year.

The year that me and Taylor were born in. So it's bound to be amazing for pop. Oh yeah, um the year that me and taylor were born in so it's bound to be amazing for pop oh yeah 1972 year that god made me thanks thanks man nice timing because it as great as 1972 appears to be here it's a bit of a drag being born in 1972 because from the moment you become aware your entire life is played out against a backdrop of decline. You know, like, I mean, the soon to come... Merry Christmas, everyone. The soon to come oil crisis is one of the key events of the 20th century

as it's basically the bridge between one era and another in terms of the economy and ultimately the culture of the West, you know. And it may be partly our modern-day perception, but when you look at footage of Britain and British people from 1972, it still looks like it should be soundtracked by swinging 60s library music, you know, or maybe something off Ziggy Stardust, you know. But you look at footage from 1975 or 1976 1976 and even if it's showing kids playing

hopscotch it everything looks like it should be soundtracked by the first few minutes of shine on you crazy diamond you know or black sabbath yeah yeah yeah 1972 carry on abroad 1976 carry on england that's not only is that a precipitous decline it tells you everything because the first of those is the old world excited by and trying to embrace modernity and adventure and the other is the old world collapsing in on itself with nowhere left to go and ending up with touch of moa so for 1972s, it's strange to look back on a life spent watching things disappear and worse things appear. Of course, there's obvious exceptions in terms of social attitudes

and medicine, but in general, we're at a disadvantage compared to older people who at least got a taste of an optimistic world and younger people who grew up in the current shit show and and and are used to things like society as combat and the state as a disruptive rather than a steadying influence in their lives and whereas we were raised in one world and then sudden you know prepared for a cozy social democracy and then suddenly as adults dumped into a totally different society for which we were not

prepared which is why our whole generation is so weirdly obsessed with and simultaneously in love with and terrified of the lost details of our collective past. This doesn't happen with other generations, right? There were no middle-aged blokes in 1972 doing six-hour podcasts about the 1920s. No, no, no. The thing about flagpole sitting, right? You know, people always get it wrong when they talk about sarsaparilla. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen.

They all had long hair at the sides and wore leather jackets with a shirt and tie and got with the programme, you know. Whereas we are all essentially the baby in one of the best songs written around this time and about this time, The End of the Rainbow by Richard and Linda Thompson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Although probably no need to be quite that rude about our sisters. I've been immersed in the early 70s lately because I've been on YouTube watching videos of ILEATV,

which was a closed-circuit television network for schools and colleges run by the Inner London education authority from 1969 through most of the 70s broadcasting in that very time-specific format of black and white videotape and i'm pleased and surprised to see that loads of it survives and is on youtube and the bulk of this output is precisely what you would expect from people who went to teacher training college in the late 1960s there's a lunchtime magazine program which opens with a discussion between a heavily bearded man in a tie and four student union presidents one of whom is wearing a razor blade around his neck on a chain, which I wish he'd lent to the presenter

because I really doubt he's got access to a regular supply of cocaine on the 1970s campus. Although you would need some kind of stimulant to make it to the end of that discussion. But if you do, you're rewarded with an appearance from Trevor Phillips with a full head of hair. But it gets stranger the further in you go, right? These programmes, there's a programme for the ladies

called Making the Most of Yourself, The Changing Shape of Women, which is essentially a televisual finishing school presented as feminist self-empowerment. It's really weird. There's a posh old lady called mrs mary young who started classes in poise dress and personality for the ilea you know in the days when there was money to burn right in education um even though her round puffed up hair looks like it should have one of the american gladiators inside it like propelling

her head into other people's heads um so so mrs mary young i'm the mrs to prove that she hasn't been left on the shelf um introduces two of her students mrs parish and sandra and then first she makes sandra get up on a runway and walk backwards and forwards side on to show off her terrible posture. Now, Sandra is a is a flaxen haired hippie chick in sweater and flared jeans. She walks back and forth with this sort of cute, slightly stoned drooping posture and frankly looks quite sexy and cool. drooping posture and frankly looks quite sexy and cool but mrs mary young with absolute contempt says well now you see quite clearly why her mother was so keen for her to attend this class if sandra doesn't do something about her line she'll end up looking like a tired old lady before she's 30 and then she turns to mrs parish and says now let's have a look at mrs parish's needs

and gets out a tape measure as is so here we are the biggest measurement around the curve of the seat you're not wearing a foundation garment are you hmm it's not quite spare rib but yeah you get a more traditional 70s vibe in the programmes for younger children, right? You get curb drill from a man called Mr Safety, whose appearance and manner does suggest his name may well prove bitterly ironic. He's this thickly mustachioed Jason King slash Peter Sstedt abomination with like shifty terrified eyes wearing a silver spangly jumpsuit unzipped to the navel and latex gloves um and he sings this song that goes hey it's Mr Safety here when I'm around you've got nothing to fear the gentleman does protest too much and to the point where at one point he

says every day on the road two children will be killed and 142 injured and others will be burned in a fire or drowned and you expect him to continue unless my demands are met but wait look let me let me quote you this passage in full um lest you doubt that mr safety has the gift of the gab right he says now talking of animals has anyone been to africa they have a special code there and it says never run in front of a crocodile and they call it the green croc code did you like that total silence from the kids in the studio but seriously would you run in front of a crocodile i'm sure you wouldn't you see a crocodile if it ran over a car couldn't hurt it but a car could run over a crocodile and kill it. And it could kill you too.

At which point he turns to the silent, miserable kids and says, Now, how many of you like playing with balls? I think Mr. Safety is probably dead now. i think mr safety is probably dead now but unfortunately it didn't happen before his reggae song about the green cross code but look look look elsewhere music is the crowning glory of the ilea tv output because this is what's really great about it. These clips from Music Alive, their music show, which are genuinely great. Oh, yeah. Even if they could perhaps be accused of focusing more on what the staff

think the kids should hear than what they actually want to hear. A lot of this is from 1972, and yet the acts we see on this year's Christmas Top of the Pops are conspicuous by their absence. And instead, we get the third ear band improvising in the studio.

Whoa. Yeah, matching mole doing a 15-minute version of smoke rings. Fuck yeah. Caution contains flashing images. A four-song acoustic solo set from Stormcock era Roy Harper, who's clearly unwell. And loads of mistakes and false starts left in.

And they introduced it with the phrase, but we decided not to edit. All of this beamed out to the brutal, crumbling red brick schools of inner London in 1972. To give them a taste of fucking culture, right? White head style. All these little thugs with bowl cuts and afros like glowering at the big telly rolled in on casters, right? Getting a maximum dose of the Canterbury sound. It's like these ILEA kids, they don't need no education. They don't need no thought control.

They need a slightly ragged jam session from the soft machine and veiled instructions to seize control of the means of production, as good working-class people should, while the producers of music are live or over here on the beanbags. Good luck, comrades. Coming up later on ILEA TV, a salute to Eric Honecker, where to get the best red lab, and how to stab a police horse in

the bollocks with a knitting needle. It is weird being born in 72, because you're going to miss out on every subsequent supposed pop era in a sense. You're going to be too young, really, to, you know, be a punk, or a post-punk, or a new romantic. And then by the time you're old enough

to perhaps feel part of something, you're so cynical that you could never be part of anything. So, you know, when rave and things like that start happening in the 90s, which I suppose you could argue would be the next sort of epochal pop moment, you're too old to really feel part of it. So you really do fall in between the cracks if you're born in 72. Too young to be yeah part of things in the late 70s and early 80s i'm too old by the time things start getting exciting again yeah i remember when rave was but i was like 16 17 and it was like uh so what's this all about well you go and stand in a field with hundreds of random people and you just kind of lose your

own personality and you all become one and it it's like, oh, that sounds like literally the worst thing. Yeah, this is not what interested me at that age. No, I mean, ecstasy was a great drug, but it was kind of, yeah, an at-home thing for me. I didn't want to join in with a lot of other people by that age. Yeah, well, anyway, fuck rave. We'll deal with that another day. Let's isolate on the music of 1972 because fucking hell when i looked at this episode the jaw swang open it's just banger after banger after banger

after banger and then a huge crescendo at the end i'm i was just looking at this thinking we've got a very long day ahead of us yeah we might have to do a really long episode this time and the thing is it's not just fantastic songs throughout this episode it's amazing performances just really unforgettable performances I mean if you wanted to show the youth how insanely brilliant Top of the Pops

pop music, the 70s and our fucking lives could be you sit them down in front of this episode and then you pity them for being born in the wrong century it's that good so first question chaps when i say the music of 1972 what's immediately occurring in those massive pulsating musical brains of yours so many different artists being at the absolute top of their game. Yes. Off the top of my head,

just like, you know, three instantly occur. T-Rex, Rolling Stones, Curtis Mayfield. Just, I mean, just so fucking much going on. And Can did the best album, I think. And just every band,

because like, when you do think about the past, of course you do come back to albums quite a lot. Every band seems to be just crafting great, amazing records in 1972. There's also, and this is a sidetrack but there's a pleasingness about that number 72 i don't know what it is but there's just something nice about

it it's it's more aesthetically pleasing to me than 73 or 74 or 75 and this is a glam era but i'm not entirely sure it's called glam yet. So many bands and so many artists just in their imperial phase, I think, in 72, you know, with a real suggestive kind of possibility of where 70s pop might go. So not only just amazing tunes on this episode, but so many sort of tracks laid down, if you like, for the future as well. It's an amazing year. 1972 never really comes up in the conversation when people talk about great music years but i had a look at my record collection

before this and it's rammed with 72 so you know stuff like brother brother brother by the isley brothers america eats its young by funkadelic still bill by bill withers floyd joy by the supremes there it is and get On The Good Foot by James Brown the soundtrack to The Harder They Come Superfly by Curtis Mayfield Backstabbers by The OJs On The Corner by Miles Davis I'm Still In Love With You

by Al Green, Talking Book by Stevie Wonder, Round 2 by The Stylistics, What You See Is What You Get by The Dramatics Donny Hathaway Live, The Whatstack Soundtrack, and Troubleman by Marvin Gaye has just come out in America, not over here yet.

And that is just a small sliver of music that's available at the moment. That's the non-white section of 1972. I was going to say, Al, if you look very closely at that list, you might eventually spot the reason why 1972 is not really seen as a great year for music by most prominent rock and roll critics yeah neil you've said that a lot of amazing bands are at the peak but one of the striking things about this episode

is that out of the 13 acts we're going to see yeah only two of them were part of last year's christmas fair and and one of them's only them were part of last year's christmas fair and and one of them's only here because it was last year's christmas number one it's almost like a cartel of new faces and old acts have come together to drag us out of the 60s and begin what is the proper early 70s and the golden age atop of the pops yeah absolutely i think you're absolutely right and stylistically the way this episode is directed as well the title sequence and everything else i don't think it gets any better in the 70s than this um you know the mix of audience with artists and just

the camera work and everything about it they have really nailed this show to almost perfection in this stage by looking at this it's obvious that the golden age has begun despite all because of the generation gap that appears to be opening up in pop but it's still getting coated down consider the following television review by bob phillips in the coventry evening telegraph earlier this year headline pop without the sparkle Headline, Pop Without the Sparkle. Nostalgic 30-year-olds nursing teen beat memories of Adam Faith, Duffy Power and Terry Dean must stare aghast at the juvenile, amateurish claptrap which the BBC puts out each Thursday night as their sole concession to pop music. each Thursday night as their sole concession to pop music.

Who can suppress a shudder at today's scene when comparing it to 6'5 special or Ready Steady Go and those jolly, lank-haired girls, all starry-eyed, who introduced us to Marty Wilde and Lord Rockingham's Eleven in the innocent atmosphere of a youth club social? Now Top of the Pops is fragmented bits of film, flashing lights and unkempt youths in spangles and string vests. All the vitality and energy, the enthusiasm and immediacy of contemporary pop music has been brushed aside in the interests of appealing to an imaginary audience of lovelorn ten-year-olds.

Tricked-up camera angles, cavernous echo effects and the strange jollity of Tony Blackburn, Jimmy Savile and Ed Stewart cannot disguise the desperate mediocrity of it all. Up yours, grandad. Too right. Get with the fucking programme, daddy, eh? Kids love cavernous echo effects and trippy visuals.

He liked Pants People, though. Yeah. Obviously. Because he's a fucking dad. Yeah, what a fucking rotter. I mean, it's hard to know what to say about it, because it literally is someone saying, you know, yeah, T-Rex and uh slade it's all shit in it it's better when it was lord rockingham's 11 yeah that's literally what he's saying who needs mark boland when i've got skiffle

it's ludicrous but it's always like that i was flicking through the first episode ever of top of the pops on the newspaper archive site just to see what they said about it slagged off on day one yeah yeah the essential thrust of the review was oh this isn't as good as uh thank you lucky stars yeah yeah where's cliff richard yeah yeah it's the same shtick in it young people are disgusting and their pop music is disgusting yes who's this david bowie did you ever sing donald where's your truces no he fucking did i mean while doing the research for this episode that the kids were taking over big style there was an article in the daily mirror called tots of the pops where they were going on about how

youth clubs were starting to run their own discos because the kids were really getting into the scene, man. They interviewed some of the kids, said what the like, and they said, but oh, T-Rex, Gary Glitter, it's mint. And one girl said, oh, well, when I'm at home, I have to listen to old people's music like Tom Jones. And when I'm at school, I have to listen to matching mold what the fuck is this there's something very noticeable about the audience in that regard i mean like i remember

doing the episode from 69 with taylor or was it 1970 and you know the audience in those episodes just a mere sort of two three years before they, they seemed hip. You know, they seemed Carnaby Street hip, if you like. They all seemed 20-something, or at least early 20s. But, you know, in this episode, although the people who are kept near the DJs during the between-song announcements are still a little bit like that, in the audience, frugging away, you do see proper kids.

Yeah, and they're fucking loving it, aren't they? Oh, they're fucking loving it. And we loved it too. So let's move on! In the news, Richard Nixon orders that the US Air Force bomb the shit out of North Vietnam for 12 days with a break over Christmas because baby Jesus

to worldwide condemnation. Meanwhile the Viet Cong are still boycotting peace talks in Paris. Can't imagine why. Harry Truman the president of the USA who ordered the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki dies on Boxing Day at the age of 88. Kim Il-sung decides to change his job title and becomes the first president of North Korea. The American mathematician Edward Lorenz publishes a paper which introduces the world to the butterfly effect. A newspaper in Uruguay reveals that 16 survivors from a rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes had their dead mates for tea and probably shoved the bones up each other's arses for a laugh

because you know what rugby sorts are like. Meanwhile, West Germany's Stern magazine reports that a skull found by some builders in West Berlin could belong to Martin Bormann. It would be another 26 years before DNA testing proves them right. In the UK, a listener's poll in the Radio 4 programme The World at One has voted for its man of the year, Enoch Powell. Of course.

An Icelandic patrol boat has cut the wires of a trawler from Hull in the North Sea, ramping up the cod war. Howard Hughes has suddenly turned up in London and immediately blockbooks the entire north wing of the Park Lane Hotel for £1,000 a night. He was rushed through Gatwick Airport despite not having a passport and is expected to throw handfuls of money at british

businesses invest in assorted schemes both here and on the continent and wear some tissue boxes on his feet princess anne has been spotted trying to kill some foxes with a mystery man who turns out to be captain mark phillips sparking rumors of a potential engagement by sad bastards who are into that sort of thing. Molly, a performing chimp appearing at a Christmas show in Leeds wearing a dress and frilly knickers, escapes through the audience, gets out into the street and eventually breaks into someone's house

and watches the racing on the telly with them for a bit before being recaptured. Tommy Docketer, the new manager of Man United, has made his first signing. George Graham of Arsenal for £120,000. United, currently languishing at second from bottom in Division 1, would end up avoiding relegation but went down the season after that. But the big news this week is that Santa's been. You were too young for this Christmas shit, weren't you?

Yeah, pretty much. Four months, I think I was. Well, on your behalf, I got loads of space stuff. Sort of wind-up spacemen and moon launchers and shit like that. I mean, this is the curse of my life. You talk about the curse of being born in 1972. Imagine being born in 1968 and having no

memory of seeing any moon landing stuff on the telly. That hurts, man. The last moon mission finished a month ago. I can't remember a single thing about it. I suspect that it all happened in Porthcawl, you know. I heard something on the internet.

On the cover of the NME this week, Jimi Hendrix. There's a new story about an official film biography coming out in the new year. On the cover of Pop Swap, Donny Osmond. On the cover of the Christmas Radio Times, Bruce Forsyth,

Morecambe and Wise, Lulu, and a stuffed lion, all circused up to commemorate Billy Smart's circus thing on Christmas Day. On the cover of TV Times, Jack Smethurst and Rupert Walker in Santa costumes, indulging in a bit of festive racism. Love Thy Neighbour featured

in the all-star comedy carnival on ITV on Christmas night presented by Jimmy Tarr, but we mentioned it before. Bloody Nora, It's a Black Christmas, etc. etc. The number one single this week Long-Haired Lover from

Liverpool by Little Jimmy Osman. Don't worry, Pulp Crazy Youngsters, it's not on this episode. The number one LP, 20 All-Time Greats of the 50s. The highest-placed new LP is Slade by Slade at number five. Over in America, the US number one single is Me and Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul and the number one LP, Seventh Sojourn by the Moody Blues. Chaps, shockingly, Americans, who are, after all, to blame for the trend of ramming Christmas up people's arses from October onwards

and think they own the fucking holiday. Never been asked about the Christmas number one, have they? No, they haven't, have they? Isn't that weird? Yeah. It's a completely British phenomenon. Would you care to hear a list of the Christmas number ones in America from 1970 to 1989?

Yeah, alright. Hit the music. 1970. Tears of a Clown, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. Really? 1971. Brand New Key, Melanet. 1972, as we've said, me and Mrs. Jones,

Billy Paul. 1973, The Most Beautiful Girl, Charlie Rich. 1974, Cats in the Craigle, Harry Chapin. Nah, fuck off. 1975, That's The Way

I Like It by KC and the Sunshine Band. Chill. Nah, fuck off. True. Ah, Jesus, no. Beautiful. Yes. Le Freak by Sheik Yes 1979 The last number one in America of the 70s Escape The Pina Colada song by Rupert Holmes Fucking hell

1980 Lady Kenny Rogers 1981 Physical Olivia Newton-John Yeah 1982

Maneater Hall & Oates Yes, yes, yes, yeah 1983 Say, Say, Say by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. 1984, Like a Virgin, Madonna. Faintly festive, I suppose. Meh. 1985, Say You, Say Me, Lionel Richer.

1986, Walk Like an Egyptian, The Bangles. Yeah, go on then. 1987, Faith, George Michael. 1988, Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison. Oh, my fucking God. And 1989, Another Day in Paradise by Phil Collins. No sleigh bells, no cliff, no jive bunner. Why do Americans hate baby Jesus, I ask you?

That's fucked, isn't it? I mean, the whole idea of a Christmas record is just foreign to them, completely foreign to them. There are some corking records in there, but bloody hell. Yes, there are. That's the way I like it, fucking tune. No, I mean, we are Don't You Want Me, of course course but you know it's it's a big part of christmas here hearing those christmas songs christmas songs mean something to us that two-word phrase i guess it means fuck alter i mean if every rose

has its thorn it's a fucking christmas song to americans jesus yeah although really that yeah only only started in the 70s, because in the 60s, the Beatles used to put a single out every Christmas, and that was always number one at Christmas. It was never about Christmas. So anyway, boys, what were you

doing in December of 1972? Well, I've not got a lot of memories. I was four months old, living in the roughest area of coventry wood end oh but you know innocent of what was going on outside yeah basically what sitting in my own shit i guess four months old yeah and oddly enough my parent i don't know why my parents did this but literally when i was about a week old in early august we'd gone to india um which obviously i don't have many memories of.

There are photos of me, just a newborn on a nine hour air India flight to India. Very strange. But yeah, all that was over. So yeah, in my little flat in Woodend, the Woodend that would later,

you know, be part of the enemy's own strategy to make themselves look hard by saying stories going off Woodend style, whatever the fuck that means. But yeah, not a lot of memories to be honest with you but happy as larry yeah what was i doing christmas night screaming and crying so i've come full circle really what are your parents doing ah when my dad was working at courthouses in Coventry, he'd finished his degree at Nuneaton Technical College. And he was working there in Courtaulds on Foldhill Road.

And my mum was doing... Doing what? Yeah, this is it. Did everyone know what their dad did for a living? I mean, I knew he was an engineer. Eventually, I think when I was about 10, he explained what type of engineer. He was a costings engineer, thrillingly enough. He didn't make a chocolate biscuit machine or anything like that no unfortunately you know and my mum was the

matron of the old people's home that we were living in and that was sort of the story for most of the 70s so my mum would be matron and we'd live in the flat above all the old folk so yeah even as a baby i was beinged around, passed around basically between old folk who otherwise would just be staring into the distance with sad memories etched on their eyeballs, really. But yeah, I was completely oblivious to this. So the usual snuff deliveries and the rest.

Yes. I hadn't met my parents yet. I was still waiting to be adopted. So I was one of those babies who this Christmas Christmas, has no home. Oh, no. The little boy that Santa Claus forgot. Yeah, I know. Oh, it breaks your fucking heart, man.

It didn't do me any harm in the long run. Well, I was four, and 1972 was another golden year in my life. I'd started the year at Lino's, which was the bingo hall in Ice and Green where my mum worked as a cleaner and a caller because the nursery was too far away. And I fucking loved it there. Old converted cinema.

So loads of massively long games of hide and seek and playing with the toys in the prize bingo section and most importantly, singing on the microphone next to the bingo blower. One of the songs we're going to hear in this episode, I was very fond of shouting. But by this time, December, I'd been let into Scottoam Infant School a year earlier. My mum always says to me that I could read by 18 months

and I'm like, really? And she said, well, you know know we'd be sitting on the bus and another bus would go by the other end and you'd point up at the poster the advertising poster on the side of the bus which was a packet of fish fingers and you just shout bird's eye fish fingers anyway i was let into scottham infant school a year earlier on the basis of me recognizing a massive photo of a fish finger and i do remember the first day there because i can remember my mom techie met and uh miss baxter was there who was lovely she was a proper you know 70s go ahead young teacher play the guitar and she asked me what my dad did and i said oh he's a lorry driver miss

and then she asked me what my mom did and i knew she was a cleaner and i couldn't think of the word cleaner so i just said oh she's a scrubber miss and my mom pissing herself laughing and then giving me a right fucking clonk afterwards so by this time i'm pitched into the you know the cut and thrust of scott omen for school and i fucking love it and practically the first thing i learned at that school was that thursday was pop day because that's when we had the dinner time disco you know half a p to get in which i mentioned before and i became the token white member of the rudy guys the smooth faces of the assembly hall who danced in a line like the stylistics while everyone else was skidding about

and fucking the knees of their flares up. And it was they who told me in hushed tones about this amazing thing that was going to be on the telly later that evening where the gods of our era would descend from the planet Wow and make themselves available to us. Top of the Pops is not in my life yet you know i haven't linked up with tony bones and his mam who is the fucking patron saint and goddess of chart music so that all happens next year but for the minute i'm

dipping a toe into pop and i'm liking what i'm hearing yeah and you would be in this year i mean i was thinking about those new stories that you read out earlier al and it was all pretty much unremittingly grim wasn't it apart from you know yeah the inspirational figure of molly the chimp but yes but yeah you'd need pop in a year in a year such as this yeah um some kind of escape i've been flicking through melody maker and new musical express of this week and they are moaning like fuck about how you know oh this is fucking kids stuff all this rubbish but it's not i listen to the stuff we're going to talk about now and it's just fucking brilliant pop music it's pure pop and it just so happens that me as a kid could totally understand it yeah as i said before about the suite you know i was four five six when i was

banging to them and i never get upset thinking oh if i'd have been 14 or 15 or 16 i would have understood them even more i didn't have to be that old to get a lot of the stuff that we're gonna see in this episode it was just brilliant it wasn't childish it was universal yeah yeah there's a lot i mean yeah there's a lot of that sort of music in this episode stuff that basically is It was just brilliant. It wasn't childish. It was universal. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's a lot of that sort of music in this episode. Stuff that basically is perfect for kids who've got the jitters in their legs, you know, and just need to move. It's that kind of stuff.

So before we go any further, why don't we do our usual thing and peruse the pages of an issue of the music press from this week. And this time I have gone for Melody Maker, December the 30th, 1972. Do you want to join me on this journey, chaps? Yes, please. On the cover, looking to the future, because, hey, it's only just begun, the maker hits us with the headline, Face of 73. Elkie Brooks, the hard-biting lady from Salford, Lancashire,

and her raw jeans and sweatband vinegar Joe, looked like becoming the working class heroes of 1973. Since the early 60s, Elkie has shivered her way through more changes in pop and rock than most people would care to remember. She was on the first Beatles tour of the States. But now, Joe are slamming their way through

a staggering amount of live club work and are rapidly becoming everyone's favourite live band. So be prepared for a little vinegar in your rock in 1973. It means absolutely nothing. It's a shame Dave Lee Travis didn't find out how hard-biting she was

in that episode we did a while ago. In the news, the Makers News section this week is rammed with new tour announcements with Free Bread, the New Seekers, Sweet and Wings announcing shows across the country. But the top story is the comeback of Eric Clapton after two years, with a gig at the Rainbow, supported by a supergroup led by Pete Townsend. My Eric Clapton history is reassuringly shaky. But was this when he just got off heroin with some kind of bullshit quack electric acupuncture treatment?

It's quite an expensive way to cease buying heroin and then putting it into your body, which is all you're actually doing. But who am I to lecture Eric Clapton about science? He knows more about it than scientists do. MCA Records have announced a worldwide five-album deal with a band from Dundee, the Average White Band. They're being whipped over to Los Angeles to record their debut LP, Show Your Hand, which features the original band logo,

a white gollywog, which is almost immediately replaced by the one with a woman's arse forming a W. Oh, a white gollywog. You can't have that nowadays, man. Well, out of those two logos, which is the most offensive in a way? I don't think I'd be offended by a white gollywog,

to be honest. But you'd be offended by an arse? No, i wouldn't be offended by an arse i guess but um what about a white gollywog's arse that's beyond the pale out now one scottish band who isn't having such a good time of it at the moment is the jsd band the folk rockers who supported david bowie on the first leg of the ziggy stardust tour they traveled 200 miles just before christmas to a gig in cheshire to discover that their instruments that were in a separate band which was involved in a multiple crash outside of hall which led three people dead had been impounded by the police and the promoter had already replaced them with Manchester's answer to the Grateful Dead Greasy Bear

Not a vintage era for band names Flaky Pastry etc etc Oh by the way the big news story in the NME this week is that hot on the heels of the Osmonds and the Jackson 5 a British group is

planning their own cartoon series t-rex mark boland says that he's currently working on the idea and has already fleshed out scripts and storylines and plans to have it all done in-house and then offer it to tv stations sadly it's it's all bollocks got Got it. Got it. Yeah, the funny thing is, though, I feel like I've seen it. Do you know what I mean? It's so easy to imagine exactly what that show at that time would have been like. Yeah, it would have been crystal tips in trousers. Yeah, but it means I can just watch it in my head. Yes.

It's all right, you know, nothing special. Yeah. Worth seeing if you get the chance. Inside the paper, well, page three is given over to the writers of The Maker. Not naked, but laying their hot tips for 73 upon the readership. Richard Williams firmly lumps onto who he calls the first cabaret star of the Beatle generation and the perfect artist for ageing hippies who can't be doomed with Bolin and Boer, Bette Midler. Other writers go for Holm, John Martin, Stackridge, Glencoe and Gentle Giant,

but Roy Hollingworth wins the prize for the following article. They had a very good year this year, actually, but this punky, long-haired, scruffy, loud, ear-kicking band will certainly cause a few bruises in the year to come. Loud enough to be illegal, it's stuff to grind your heels to, grind your teeth to, and grind your mind to. Music may well become exceedingly angry next year, and they are angrier than most. They also have a habit of making people dance, which at this moment is the right direction. Come on down. Can you guess, Neil? Oh, no, I can't. No. Chicory tip? I don't fucking know.

Status quo. Wow. chicory tip i don't fucking know status quo wow the main interview this week is part two of michael watts's trip to jamaica to doss about with the rolling stones who have commenced work on goat's head soup after knocking about with mick jagger for part one he has a a sit down with Keith Richard, who says he dislikes not being able to live in England for tax reasons, but doesn't feel out of touch as he listens to the BBC World Service every day. But the British media chooses not to point out that people in Western Europe live twice as well as the British. the british he tells watts that there are worse places to live than his current domicile switzerland but says it's the most uncreative place in the world because they're all minted he talks about the recent tour of america and feels that the place has calmed down a bit since 1969 and speculates it's because american kids have become proper custard gannets. The centre spread is given over to more gazing into the crystal ball of 1973,

this time by, quote, the big names of music. Tony Iommi reckons that the big event of 1972 was the staging of Tommy at the Rainbow last month after it was banned from the Albert Hall. Rory Gallagher predicts, or at least hopes, that glam will die out next year. Hawkwind accused Gary Glitter of destroying a lot of the integrity that was once part of rock. Brian Connolly of The Suite states that the head scene is gradually losing its hold and slayed with a band of the year, but he doesn't think they'll last in 73. And Bob Harris has written 1972 off

as an unmemorable year for music. Of course he has. Yeah, I write it off as an unremarkable year for Bob Harris. Much like 1973, 1974, especially 1976. 1977, 1970, I mean, you 1976, 1977, I mean, you know, I could go on. Michael Benton drops in on Ray Dorsett of Mungo Gerre,

who were back on the comeback trail after a turbulent 72, which saw him split the band, put out a solo LP, and form a new Mungo Mark II. He tells Benton that he regrets the instant successor in the summertime rort and implores us that the new band's LP that has already

flopped, called Boot Power, isn't a true indication of the band. Boot Power. I've heard the single of the same name. It's so disappointing. But how do they make a whole album that isn't a true indication of the band?

And how can you regret the success? Twat. Benton also has a chat with Edwin Starr, who's in the country shopping round for a record deal. And he says that he'll be spending a lot of time in Britain in the future. Mark Plummer journeys down to South London to link up with Steelers

Wheel, who have just lost Jerry Rafferty, who is pursuing a solo career. The band tell him that although they think Rafferty is a great songwriter and performer, they're only going to get better in 1973. And then Stuck in the Middle became a massive hit in America, and Rafferty was brought back in where he stayed until they split up in 1975. And an entire page is given over to pieces on, quote, two important new Motown albums,

1957 to 1972, the sign-off live LP by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Troubleman by Marvin Gaye. Troubleman's fucking mint. Oh, yes. No single reviews this week because, hey, it's Christmas, man. But in the LP review section, the main review is given over to No Secrets,

the third LP by Carly Simon, and Alan Lewis properly reckons it. This is contemporary music at its best, a perfect blend of the singer-songwriter movement with the red-blooded vitality of rock. It's not her best album, they're all marvellous, but it's the one that's going to break her to the great British public via the single You're So Vain. It was Bob Harris, I think, who said recently that Carly Simon was becoming ominously fashionable. I hope so. Ominously

fashionable. Did he get through the whole review without mentioning the fact that the cover features what I've always assumed to be a lewd visual gag on the album's title? No. No. Well, if so, what kind of 1970s male rock journalist is this

nipples for fuck's sake come on oh yes yeah yes yeah because um john lennon used to call it nipples didn't he when he was knocking about with harry nielsen oh of course yeah well maybe that's how alan lewis ended up being the head of IPC's entire music press department in later life. He's responsible. Motown have finally put out Ben, Michael Jackson's second solo LP over here, just in time for him to gnaw away at your little sister's Christmas record token. But Alan Lewis is still confused about the title track, which is currently at number eight in the singles chart. It must be the strangest hit of the year.

How many of the weenies who are currently shivering with delight at Michael's dulcet tones realise he's singing to a rat? And if they don't realise, do they think he's singing to his boyfriend? I can only report that Michael continues to amaze with the boldness and maturity of his phrasing and his sense of swing. But it's a coat down for clear spot by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, which gets the headline, No Heart, No Beef. I can only be totally baffled by this says richard hollingworth here is the captain here is one hell of a roaring band and all we get are fairly acceptable numbers that you won't

rush back to in a hurry wrong wrong wrong wrong that's a fucking great record yeah it's astonishing how underappreciated clear spot was at the time. People actually listened to Big Eyed Beans from Venus and thought, hmm, I won't rush back to this in a hurry. Too busy listening to Vinegar Joe. Or Greasy Bear. Keeper of the Castle, the first LP by the Four Tops after their defection from Motown has disappointed Alan Lewis. Deprived of real meat, the Tops can easily sink into the kind of well-upholstered mediocrity which puts them

nearer to Las Vegas than Detroit, says Lewis, who compares the LP very unfavourably to Nature Planet, their last Motown LP, which came out earlier this year. Unhappily for Probe, their new label, that final Tamla album reminded us what the tops can really do. Buy that before you buy this. And Lewis finds time to put the boot in on the Roscoe album. This album, which contains 12 hoary old soul classics linked by some typically frantic patter by Emperor Roscoe, began life as a promotional aid

for discotheques and put on the market presumably for those who want an instant DJ kit to enliven their parties. Well, if you really need this, your party is beyond resuscitation. In the gig guide, well, David could have seen Sparks at the Marquee,

Jailbait at Islington Sunrock, the Average White Band at the Speakeasy, or took himself down to the Golders Green Odeon to check out Cinderella with Ed Stewart, Barbara Windsor and Jackie Mr TV Palo Taylor could have seen Edwin star at Barbarella's or nip down to Wolverhampton to see Cinderella at the Grand

starring Donna and Freddie Garrity, fucking hell I think I'd rather count the bees in a hive making Neil could have seen Steelers Wheel at Dudley I think I'd rather count the bees in a hive making. Neil could have seen Steeler's Wheel at Dudley JB's or Aladdin at the Coventry Theatre with Mike and Bernie Winters. Oh, and Schnoorbits?

No, no Schnoorbits as yet. No Schnoorbits, okay. Sarah could have seen The Equals at Scarborough Intercon, Judge Dredd at Scunthorpe Baths, Chicken Shack at the Hull Intercon, Judge Dredd at Scunthorpe Baths, Chicken Shack at the Hull Intercon, or nipped over to Peniston Town Hall to see the new Elvis documentary That's The Way It Is.

Al could have seen Fumble at the Intercon, Jigsaw and Desmond Decker at the Intercon, Emperor Roscoe at the Intercon, or Judas Priest at Hucknall Miner's Welfare. What a show that would have been. Intercon or Judas Priest at Hocknell Miners Welfare. Oh my word.

What a show that would have been. Jigsaw and Desmond Decker. It can't be that Jigsaw surely. Not Ducky Des. And Simon could have seen Bobby Crush at Tito's in Cardiff all week and fuck all else because hey what else do you need when Bobby Crush is there all week.

Yeah but worth the trip to see Judas Priest at Hucknall Miner's Welfare. In the letters page, the main topic of conversation is still what Paul McCartney said in a Melody Maker interview about Northern Ireland, but the letters are too boring to go into, and it's clear they're only there so Melody Maker can use a massive cartoon of Macca as a dove of peace perched upon a microphone. The furore over My Ding-a-ling by Chuck Berry continues unabated, and Christopher Pearson

of Purley has his say. The real obscenity is not the Shakespearean borediness of Chuck Berry, but the mechanical plasticity of the Osmonds. Yeah, man. Yeah. Everyone who likes the Osmonds is a robot sheep.

Melody Maker has been banging on all year about what a place of artistic freedom New Orleans is, but Gene Nunez Jr., a muso who lives there, writes to say that he reckons it's cat shit. The rock musician's New Orleans has nothing to offer. The club audiences on Bourbon Street are only interested in hearing local bands play carbon copies of the latest heavy sounds

and playing original material or blues are two ways to find yourself and your gear being ushered out he writes oh fucking hell mate come to ucknell it's all going on there mate i'm sick to death of listening to people going on about the genius of tommy says steve mendel of piram i for one think this so-called opera is a cheap pretentious attempt to bring a ray of culture into the scruffy lives of the who. Bands like the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Weather Report must always struggle because their music requires some concentration and you can't get off on it straight away. While bands such as the who, using simple repetitive chords and phrases will always flourish

it's just not fair man those simple repetitive chords and phrases that's not rock and roll yeah when that letter started off i'm sick and tired of hearing about the genius of tommy i thought you're gonna say uh right bobby ball of Oldham until October the 24th I had heard nothing of Genesis and was still listening to Bolan and the Boppers after that evening I was completely changed

says Andrew Dyer of Gosport not only are they original but they sing such imaginative lyrics it shows the older generation that not Not only are they original, but they sing such imaginative lyrics. It shows the older generation that not all bands are thick dropouts. Right, because nothing could be more important than showing the older generation that. Michael Pinner of Winchester speculates that all this glam rock campere is going to result in a right-wing backlash so intense that Enoch Powell will look moderate. Philip James Durrell of Hampstead thinks that Amon Dull 2 are the...

Am I saying this right? Yeah, I think so. How can I say it wrong to offend David the most? Amon Dull 11. Philip James Durrell of Hampstead thinks thatamon Dull 11 are the most fantastic combination of true progressive sounds I have ever experienced. Miss Carol Gardner of the Gold Hawk Road points out that Slade have nicked their habit

of misspelled song titles from Sly and the Family Stone. And Jay Worrell of Birmingham is disgusted that Yes have bypassed the second city on its latest tour. There's no doubt they would sell out, even with two performances. People from all over the Midlands would flock to see them. Maybe they just can't find Birmingham. Maybe they're having the same problems as you, Neil. Too bloody right, yeah.

40 pages, 8p. I never knew there was so much in it. And judging by the critical content, I think like 8p's fair enough. There's so much snobbery, isn't there? Yes. This mechanical plasticity. Yes. It's really noticeable.

And that word mediocrity. And not only in the letters, but also in the writing. Yes. That tendency to be like over-loquacious to try and prove smart. It's almost like the whole thing is kind of, I don't know, is the demographic kind of university students. It seems like a kind of a middle-class sneering at working-class pop quite often.

Yes. A lot of things that you've read out there. So what else was on telly today? Well, BBC One starts the day at a quarter to ten with a repeat of the sky at night where patrick moore asks how far are the stars that's followed by an episode of desert crusader the french kids action series that's essentially the flashing blade with sand then annie nightingale presents Before the Event, a documentary about the Salisbury Pony Club.

Could see that the only female on Radio 1's getting a proper tune. Yeah, they also sent her to deal with anything to do with children. Although actually, thinking of who else was working at Radio 1 at the time, that might not have been a bad idea. After Huckleberry Hound, Bob Langley walks

250 miles on Britain's longest footpath from derbyshire to scotland in the pennine way after a repeat of the mastermind final mammy two shoes slings tom out of the house and he and jerry conspire to get him back in in the lonesome mouse that's followed by jimmyks, where the Maggie-loving, bold, automatic shill finds out how the people of Hoxton managed to cope with life. After the news, it's Bob Langley again

on Pebble Mill at One. Then it's Pogles Wood. Then the 1958 Ingrid Bergman film The Inn of the Six Happiness. After Play School, presented by Miranda Connell and the late, great Rick Jones, Bernard Cribbins reads Beauty and the Beast in Jackanora,

then Singleton, Noakes, Purvis and Judd review Blue Peter's highlights of 1972, which include a whistling lady footballer and an exploding piano. Then it's Yogi Bear, the news, regional news in your area, nationwide, and they've just finished Tomorrow's World with the

Triforce of Baxter, Woolard and Rod. Or, who would be the better prog band out of them two? Singleton, Noakes, Purvis and Judd, or Baxter, Woolard and Rod? I think Baxter, Woolard and Rod. I mean, I think, yeah. They'd have better effects, wouldn't they?

Blue Peter would be more of a Canterbury scene thing, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it would just be an enormous Christmas crown made out of coat hangers, wouldn't it? Yeah, I think Singleton, Noakes, Purvis and Judd would be more on the sort of frilly, filigree end, you know, high-pitched singing andger dean cover whereas um baxter woolard and rod would be more like the you know blast your eardrums out carry the equipment in three

articulated lorries yeah kind of greasy bear basically yeah yeah yeah bbc2 sets up shop at 11 a.m with play school then closes down at 25 past 11, and it's off down the pub, then back at chucking out time for a kip under the desk, and then off to the pub again for something to line the stomach with, before nipping back at half past seven for newsroom. I say it again, what a doss job working on BBC Two was in the 1970s, man. ITV commences at 9.30,

with an hour and 40 minutes of scores programs before One Way Out, the 1957 crime drama. Then it's regional news in your area, The Enchanted House, Shaking Jackanore, and Witch's Brew, the horror laden puppet show.

After first report with Robert Key, Les Dawson, Timbrook Taylor and Lenny Bennett pitch up on Joker's Wild and then suicide and abortion rear their ugly heads on day two of the latest Crown Court. After General Hospital,

the cast of Women Today hold an early New Year crochet party with the assistance of the Birmingham and Midland Scottish Association and by Conti Bernard de la Girondeur, who owns the Laurent Perrier Champagne House. Jack Hargreaves sucks on his pipe and talks to a wheelwright or summits in Out of Town,

and that's followed by the drama series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. Then it's Land of the Giants, the new Dick Van Dyke show, the news, regional news in your area, Crossroads, and they're 20 minutes into the TV film Up the Down Staircase about an idealistic

teacher and the sucky you she has to deal with. Oh, boys, Christmas is done, isn't it, in Tellyland? Yeah, it's mental. There's nothing festive in that at all. Well, the only festive thing on Telly today is this episode of Top of the Pops, and it's not that festive, is it?

No, no. And also, yeah, an hour and a half of schools programmes. Yes. People back in school. I was trying to look into this. Yeah. The section's called Out of School. So I think they just bunged on some schools programmes

just to fill some dead air, even though no one's back at school yet. But you don't know it's the early 70s, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They drove those kids hard in those days. Maybe it was for super swats. Yeah. Bloody creeps.

Kinos. But it's, yeah, it's not exactly the unforgettable Christmas television of ages past, is it? No, it's not eight episodes of Only Fools and Horses, is it? A bit like back to back with a pre-recorded continuity announcement in between running from a laptop in an empty room yeah but you know you don't look at those listings and think see this is what we've lost now no you know now that we're able to watch what we want whenever we want you know i remember christmas is my youth the sheer joy of a whole nation

being forced to sit down together at Christmas and all watch the Two Ronnies 1978 Christmas special, Two Ronnies, One Cup. 98 million viewers. Yes. And 146 million complaints. But not from me, i can tell you that well chaps i do believe that this not feast not christmas feast more of a christmas buffet isn't it and you know there's an absolute feast of pop awaiting us but before we go any further you know it's that

time of the year where we should all sit back and share a moment of contemplation, brought to you directly from the pages of the Sunday People from Christmas Eve 1972. A Merry Christmas, dear friend. Was there ever such a crazy, mixed-up season as Christmas 1972? On the one hand, it's the biggest, brightest, booziest season of the year, and at the same time, some of us will be lonely, lost, and our tree will hang with tears instead of tinsel. So do me a favour, folks.

This year, open up your hearts and your home. Before the feeding and frolics finish, be a detective and find someone who has no one. Ring up the local welfare office, knock on a stranger's door if you think they are alone and have them round for dinner or tea. Be a pain in the neck to everyone until you find someone at least try and i promise you'll feel happy like fantastic one of our top pop stars has already phoned me and said hey can you find two orphan kids to join the wife and me for Christmas Day? That's the spirit, and it'll do you more good than the other spirit, that's for sure. For me, without my darling duchess to fill my stocking for the first time in life, I've asked my friend God and Father Christmas to find me

lots of people so I can fill theirs. God bless you all. Your pal Jimmy Savile OBE. Oh my God. Jesus Christ.

Oh Christ. Won't you expect him that? I was expecting something. I was braced, but not for that. Poor old Jimmy with his tree deck with tears. Rolling about in his mum's clothes. Yeah, I used to do that, but no, I couldn't deal with the hassle,

so now I just use fake tears. Do I want to know who the pop star was? Do we know? I'd love to know married wants two orphans it's like he's ordered nothing done to a crisp brown turn please yes in bread crumbs please speaking as a parentless child in the care of social services in christmas 1972 let's just say i pretended to be asleep all right then pop craze youngsters it is time to go back to late december back in 72 what a very special time for me and you always remember we may coat down your favorite band or artist but we never forget,

they've been on top of the pops more than we have. It's ten past seven on Thursday, December 28th, 1972, and Top of the Pops, still in a party mood, is entering stage three of a week-long splurge of pop. Four days after last Thursday's episode, they drop the first part of their annual review of the year, presented by Ed Stewart and Jingle Nonce OBE in a disgusting pastel

floral suit. Alas and alack, that episode has disappeared into the ether. So here's what we could have won. Here's what was on that episode. Starman by David Bowie. Crocodile Rock by Elton John.

Claire by Gilbert O'Sullivan How Can I Be Sure by David Cassidy Pants People Dancing to Popcorn by Hot Butter You Wear It Well by Rod Stewart Amazing Grace by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Take Me Back Home by Slade Vincent by Don McLean california man by the move telegram sam by t-rex i'd like to teach the world to sing by the new seekers sugar me by lindsey de paul long-haired

lover from liverpool by little jimmy osmond and silver machine by hawwind. Gotta say, we've got the better part of the deal here. Without a doubt. I was doing the old thumbs up, thumbs down just then and it was definitely more down. Even though that episode has been lost, you can almost imagine the massive sense of deflation you'd have. Going from Telegram Sam to I Want

to Teach the World to Sing. It's a typical Christmas episode, isn't it? It is, isn't it it is isn't it and this is why we've got the better deal because you know christmas day top of the pop got to consider the oldens aren't you and mom and dad yeah top of the pops on a thursday night having their pick and choosing of the biggest hits of the year oh man we've won hands down on this one yeah if just for not having to see claire by g'Sullivan introduced by either Jimmy Savile or Ed Stewart. Fucking hell, yes.

Yes, that puts the spinner. I am anticipating the day when we sit down and talk about Claire. I've got opinions on it. Let's put it that way. Yeah. But anyway, as of December 1972, Top of the Pops is in rude health, pulling down 11 million viewers a week, and still under the reign of its original executive producer.

Born in Tombridge in 1917, Johnny Stewart was the son of the choir master and organist of Magdalen College, Oxford, who joined the BBC Radio sound effects department in the late 30s. When World War II broke out, he did his bit as a wireless operator in the Middle East before working in intelligence, rejoining the BBC after Hitler got the biffing he richly deserved. He eventually gravitated towards music shows

such as BBC Jazz Club, Sing It Again and BBC Show Band. In 1958, he made the switch to television, producing The week's new releases and considered their hit-making potential. started to pull down an average of 9 million viewers which soared to 22 million when the beacles appeared as jurors and when the bbc decided to give a pop tv show the full gun in late 1963 stewart was the obvious choice as producer and given carte blanche on the formatting and 6 25 minute slots on wednesday night at.25 were commissioned for the first six weeks of 1964. After deciding to lift the format of Jimmy Savile's Teen and 20 Disc Club on Radio Luxembourg and streamline it for TV, and presumably installing Jingle Nonsense as its first presenter to avoid any mither, stalling jingle nonce as its first presenter to avoid any mither,

Stewart racked out the rules of the show, which stood pretty much untouched until the 90s, and insisted that all acts mime to their single, as he was convinced that the kids didn't want to hear an inferior version of what they could hear on the radio, and is also responsible for the name Top of the Pops. The first episode of Top of the Pops, which went out on New Year's Day in 1964, was immediately slagged off by the newspapers, but the kids went berserk for it. And long before the six-week trial was up, the show was recommissioned on a rolling contract.

Stewart would pilot the good ship TOTP right through the 60s and 60s, adding the Top of the Pops orchestra after the musicians' union moaned about a music show with just mime in, and eventually installing a dance troupe, the Go-Joes, in November of 1964. He is now completing his ninth year as the kindly overlord of top of the pops and finally after 62 episodes we can give the praise that is rightly due to johnny stewart without a doubt it's all down to him man what a fucking visionary yeah and and good on him for i mean the essential idea of the miming so important and and i know it seems like a daft little thing, but Top of the Pops is a fucking fantastic title for this show.

Yes, it is. It really, really is. So all of those decisions, absolutely spot on. And that's why they remained unchanged for so long. Yeah. All of which he thought of while sitting on a high chair with his jacket slung over one shoulder. Yes.

Yeah, the only person on the credits of any BBC show that got his own logo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ray Butt used to have his signature. But that was the only other one I could think of with a visual element. Yeah, just as well it wasn't a visual element. After the thrilling, life-affirming blast

of Whole Lotta Love by the Top of the Pops Orchestra and accompanying visuals of a dolly bird slinking about, thrilling, life-affirming blast of whole lot of love by the Top of the Pops orchestra, and accompanying visuals of a dolly bird slinking about, some American roadworks and buildings, a merry-go-round, and the sort of visual effects more commonly utilised in headache tablet adverts, we're hit with the logo Top of the Pops 72, and our host for the evening, one of whom is Tony Blackburn, who is still holding down the alpha male position on Radio 1 as the host of The Breakfast Show, a position he's clung on to since the station's launch of September of 1967 and is finishing off a year which could be his high water mark. He began 1972 by telling the Daily Mirror on January 1st that his New Year's resolution was to make friends with John Peel.

Then he got engaged to Tessa Wyatt later that month, got married in March at Caxton Hall with 50 coppers holding back 500 onlookers, then bought a semi-detached in St John's Wood in the same month, announced that Tessa was pregnant in November, and rounded out the year by opening the remodernised walls on Oxford Street with Miss England, Miss Scotland and Miss Wales. Where's Miss Northern Ireland? That's wrong. And comparing the stylemaker queen of sewing competition at the London Hilton.

But let it be known that it's not all been sensational for Tony in 1972. He spent most of the year ploughing money into a custom-built nightclub in Corfu called The Beeb, buying land, having it built to its own specifications, and importing state-of-the-art equipment. But according to the Daily Mirror, quote, so far the Bieber's not turned out to be so idyllic. First torrential rain flooded it out, then legal snags forced its closure for a time, and there was trouble with permits for Tony's English chums.

What's more, local fans seem reluctant to turn up. But a grin and bear it Tony, who says he is trying to convince himself that Greece isn't a police state, declares, We're going to sort out all the problems. If we don't, I'll have to put the place up for sale. Furthermore, an interview he gave to the Reading Post in November has put a considerable amount of noses out of joint. He began, If there's one person I really admire in this country, it's Ted Heath.

He's a great Prime Minister, and he's battling against a lot of fools. Those men in the unions are not to be taken seriously because a lot of them can't even speak the queen's english he went on to moan on about how anything that becomes successful in britain like radio one and by extension him is automatically knocked and it's not like that in america most of the people who slag him off are only doing it because he's on the radio in the morning and people are naturally grumpy at that time they never should have banned the pirate stations and he shuns friendship and would never

do public appearances if he didn't need the money he said in some ways I'm a great believer in the art of not meeting people. Just look at what that has done for Elvis, for example. Yeah, that turned out brilliant, didn't it, Tony? He was also quoted in that Melody Maker Prediction Centre spread. And just to get the flavour of 1972, here's what he said. The music scene has really begun to change. It started this year with the underground thing, but that has gradually been overridden by the Osmonds, Jackson 5 and Cassaday.

The scene today is much more happy, and it's nice to see the younger kids enjoying themselves. Today, the 12 to 14 year olds are being specially catered for. Showmanship is right back and Bolan and Slade have had tremendous years. Their character will help them next year. I have doubts about David Cassidy staying the course. Younger kids are tending to think he's too old. Next year could well mean a British pop idol like Donny Osmond. A melody is here to stay again. It's going to be the year of big images.

John Peel is now the one making the mistakes, praising all those heavy groups. Yeah, so there's the New Year's resolution gone for a toss. Yeah. But while it appears that everything's coming up blackburn, the fault lines are beginning to appear. While Tony was being measured up for his flared burgundy wedding suit, the BBC have installed some serious competition

over at Radio 2's breakfast slot in the shape of Terry Wogan. And there's a new challenger to his throne because young Noel Edmonds has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. Edmonds is still holding down the 10am to noon slot on Sunday, which he took over from Kenny Everett in April of 1970 and has curated a

singer-songwriter heavy playlist for that mellow pre-Sunday dinner experience as well as being a regular presenter on the Radio 1 Club, a weekday show where a DJ will be packed off to a school or youth club in the sticks and be made to put themselves about with the provincials. But he's clearly being groomed for bigger things. And to that end was catapulted into the Top of the Pops presenting roster on the 20th of July of this year, becoming part of a talent pool which at the time consisted of Blackburn, Savile and Ed Stewart. And this is his fifth, but far from the last, Top of the Pops gig. Yeah.

Him and Tony in very festive alpine hats for some reason. Yes. Yeah, it's like they're about to clink foaming tankards together and slap each other's thighs, you know. Yeah, they should have had lederhosen as well. Tony Black Forest. It's a bit creepy, though, and it's like like where do they spend christmas the eagle's nest noel brought a bone for blondie no questions asked actually no they probably spent christmas together didn't they these two great friends yes yeah tony bought noel a rubber breast that squirts blood. And Noel brought Tony six pickled onions and a spin of the whirly wheel.

It's a dirty business. Blackburn and Edmonds, the former in a brown tank top with a cat on it, the latter in a hideous lime green shirt with floral embroidery up the front, appear on screen surrounded by some women who are clearly older than the usual batch of audience members and a twat in a fake beard who's desperate to get his face on the telly both are wearing undersized turquoise green alpine hats making the tableau look like austrian tv's version of whatever happened to the likely lads. Oh dear. It's a bad look for both of them,

isn't it? I mean, Blackburn's usually modishly dapper and Edmonds is usually suited up and gone for a change this year and it's a mistake, isn't it? It is a mistake. It is a mistake. I mean, the thing is, it also, you know, they appear they're the first people that you see after that astonishing title

sequence. There's no way after that astonishing title sequence yes there's there's no way out of that title sequence without sort of crashing and burning down to the brute reality of what radio one djs were like at the time but yeah fuck me it really couldn't be more apparent could it how our presenters just have this strange tangential relationship and not immersion in pop and rock they just it's it's a real come down after that amazing title sequence I found. Did you really like that title sequence? Well, when I watched it last, I was a bit wasted. So maybe that helped.

And perhaps, you know, it doesn't stand up in the cold light today. But yeah, I did enjoy it. That theme tune is so fucking pulsating and exciting that you could put any kind of footage to it, you know, fucking abattoir scenes. Yeah, yeah. It is a bizarre mix of those sort of, you know, handheld road bits of Cine 8 types of Super 8, rather, film.

But it's the distorted effects they put on them. I mean, that is not an Asian wedding video. That is seriously bizarre effects. Anyway, there'd be trippy effects, certainly if you were a kid. There would be trippy effects if you were watching it on a colour telly. If it was black and white,

you'd be just banging the top of your set. It's mostly footage of office blocks and concrete road bridges. Yeah, it is. But in America. Yeah. They could have filmed it driving around Telford. But it's weird because it's supposed to say it's America,

therefore it's automatically exciting. But at a time when the charts are pretty British, really. Yeah, yeah. And the kids are as interested in beer monsters from Wolverhampton dressed as Venusian jesters as much as chubby-cheeked American veal. So, I don't know, it's just solarised footage

of the view out the window of the Hertz renter car driving in from Dulles International Airport. Well, it's a bank, isn't it? Is that what it is? Yeah, it's a bank building. Even better. The thrilling excitement of pop. But what I do really

love about it is at the end they have that countdown on the screen. Presumably to, you know, symbolise the chart countdown. Except that it's a countdown that doesn't go down to one, it goes down to zero. She's somewhat deflating I think. Why isn't there a number

zero in the charts? I know. It goes beyond the chart into negative space. Yeah, just the least selling record of the week. That would be great. I love the idea of a countdown to nothing, just in itself. It'd be great to have a big room full of people and just blast over the loudspeakers like a booming voice.

Ten, nine, eight. And then when it gets to zero, just nothing happens. Just leave the cameras on and see what they do. The odd thing about Blackburn and Edmonds here is that, yeah, of course it's all smiliness and palliness, but it very much reminds me of when Henry Hill in Goodfellas says, see, your murderers come with smiles they come as your friends because obviously you know edmunds is going to take blackburn show next year at this point they're still kind of pally what comes across most is that although noel is already pretty slick and relaxed with that confection of ease that we've discussed before

he's still very much i think in, in Hocta Everett. Yes. In his style, certainly, and definitely in his look. Whereas Blackburn is sort of more as Blackburn always does because he can do nothing else. He's inhabiting his own skin. Edmund still feels like he's not really found his shtick. He's kind of confusedly somewhere between the the kind of besuited professional

future and this kind of dissolute counter-cultural past indicated by his time but um that's why much of the interaction it's kind of i mean at the time of course nobody knew but um yeah it has a little taint of sadness to it because obviously things are going to go in different directions for these two guys in a big way yeah poor old poor old Tony's in a bit of a bind here. Number one, he must be wondering why he's not done the Christmas Day show like he did the year before and presumably the year before that. But he's also been teamed up with someone who's quite similar to him, but a bit younger, a bit smoother, a bit more professional,

a bit more bearded. Yeah, it's cruel almost. And you can tell he's rattled a bit throughout this episode by that it is a bit of a fall from grace not doing the christmas day episode it must be yeah yeah and losing it to ed stewart of all people yeah yeah fucking hell yeah we were talking last time about the chirpy curly haired russian doll. Let's not forget that Noel Edmonds is a prominent component in the bearded, leonine, blow-waved Russian doll, the outer shell of which was obviously Barry Gibb.

And inside him, it's Morris Lee out of The Grumblewood. And inside him, Don Felder from The Eagles. And inside him, Kenny Rogers. And inside him, Don Felder from the Eagles. Inside him, Kenny Rogers. Yes. And inside him is Noel Edmonds. And inside him, Richard Stilgoe. It's a slow seller, that one. There wasn't a lot of take-up.

Partly, I think, down to all the rumours about people who died after buying one. Apparently, there was one in the hold of a ship, and the ship sank. Even the people on the ship thought it was for the best. Well, a fine mess you got me in, Sue Stanley. Good evening, John. Welcome to Top of the Pops. Welcome indeed. Did you have a nice Christmas, Norm? I had a fantastic Christmas. A lot of presents, a lot of trees, plenty of glitter.

Glitter? What a coincidence. Singing Rock and Roll Part Two, here comes Gary Glitter. APPLAUSE After Blackburn does a shit Lowell and Ardy impression and Edmonds calls him Ton, they exchange false pleasantries regarding the Christmas period, working their way to the key word glitter. So they can start us off with Rock and Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter. Born Michael Farr in Walthamstow in 1941,

Mike Leander spent the early 60s studying law, but packed it into working a minor music publishing company after leasing a single to deca he was offered a contract with them as an arranger and ended up working with cliff richard billy fiore shirley basse and lulu and after working with marianne faithful on her debut lp he was commissioned by the rolling Stones to score the orchestration on their version of As Tears Go By. In 1964, he was signed up to Atlantic Records to work with the Drifters and scored an immediate hit with Under the Boardwalk before returning to the UK to write the soundtrack for the Paul Jones film Privilege. After he was drafted in at the last minute to score She's Leaving Home for the Beatles in 1967,

he moved to MCA to head up their new UK division and took three singers under his wing, Elton John, David Essex and Paul Gad, who was working under the name Paul Raven, and when his deal with MCA was up, he set up on his own and took the latter two with him. One morning in November 1971, Leander and Gad were kicking about Leander's office when David Essex called to cancel the studio session that was booked for the day, so the two decided to use the time to have a piss about.

After hours on a drum kit, looping and multitracking, then adding guitar and hand claps and multitracking them, Gad added lyrics inspired by a headline he read in Melody Maker, Rock and Roll Part 1. It was put out in March of this year, but was rejected by every DJ and producer at the BBC. But after it exploded in the discos and clubs of the UK, with the virtually instrumental B-side Rock and Roll Part 2 becoming more popular, it entered the top 40 at 37 in June, jumped 16 places to number 21, then soared to

number 6, and a fortnight later, it began a three-week run at number two in July and although much of this episode is essentially a clip show here's the leader in the studio backed by the glitter band so yes chaps obviously like all Christmas episodes they're going to be leading very hard on the repeat performances but you, you know, in 1972, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It would be another chance to see, as they say in the telly papers. So on Christmas Day, the pop craze youngsters would have been salivating at the chance to see Starman again. Absolutely.

And any chance of hearing this fucking amazing record is worth a take. Yes, because it is fucking amazing, isn't it? Well, yeah. And the really odd thing about Glitter is how there's no truly sort of great non-parodic period from which he then downfalls in a parody. Even here, doing his finest record by Miles, I think this is his best record.

He looks like a Benny Hill parody of pop. You know, Eric Morecombe as spick sparkle is a better dancer and performer but that's perhaps why gad's vanishment from pop is complete and total not just because of his later crimes but because i think the bulk of his records bar this one i'm not saying they're not worth keeping but he has completely vanished you know when you buy a glam pop compilation from sainsbury's now of course the glitter band will be on there yeah you know gad's been written out and i suspect the place to hear him now the most is probably american sports events where they seem

totally dimly oblivious to his history and his conviction yeah it's easy to reject him yeah because the contrast between this kind of uptempo party pop and his crimes is so i remember when channel four did their sort of top 100 best-selling singles to mark 50 years of the chart, and every other entry was covered in some depth, many with interviews, but Gary Glitter's was cut short after about 10 seconds. The voiceover saying,

this man used to be one of the most popular entertainers in the country. Not anymore. The thing that makes him so horrifying is that he really did con everyone you won't find in the 70s really any rumors i don't think um you know he wasn't remotely sinister he was comedic and his endless comebacks afterwards got parodied in smash hits and that kind of lame but lovable thing was his his profile throughout his career the long twilight of his career you realize what good cover that provided him.

Of course, a lot of glam rock and glam pop was bit dodge. Slightly older men who'd been in the industry longer than their newfound fame really indicated, dressed in ridiculous kind of outfits surrounded by 12-year-old girls. But in Glitter's case, yeah, obviously it turned out to be real, which is all a shame because this record's fucking

mental it's brilliant this bizarre repetitive rotation of moments this kind of it's dehumanized sort of proto dub this record i'd slot it next to rock on you mentioned david essex well it's white dub isn't it exactly before dub even took hold in reggae well quite yeah absolutely but but those same sort of techniques with rock on you can at least establish a kind of a narrative or message to it there's no significance to this record it's all about effect and the effect you can see it in the audience here it makes you move not not particularly because it has a groove but because it almost like it's like built out of samples from rocks past, just kind of ruthlessly put together.

And that trippy dubbiness is something that, you know, I mean, they do it repeatedly throughout the episode. The backroom boys up in the BBC gantry, they start putting wibbly wobbly effects on the camera. And for the kids, all of that stuff's naturally,

immediately addictive. It is for kids. It's like those whistles that only under-18s can hear. The response to it is kind of Pavlovian. And that two-drummer, you know, bass-heavy vibe is so brilliant and influential. No hi-hats, no cymbals, just toms and kick and snare. You can feed this forward, not just, I would say,

to Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow, but also in a way to the next wave of of sort of the wave that's going to come after the wave that's about to come in glam I hear this stuff in the Bay City Rollers as well I think it's it's hugely important and in a way it's the one record in his career in which Gary Glitter's weaknesses uh his strengths, his vocal in this, is this weird thing. It's almost driven out of existence by the wallop of the band. And when you do finally get to hear it, it's this weird kind of wheezy,

thin, nasal, fogey-ish voice. Even he looks unsure in this performance when he starts singing. And he's giving himself a slap on the back every time he reaches the end of the line. But with each line, I mean, these are the best lyrics he ever did. Rock and roll, rock and roll, rock and roll, rock and roll. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Those are amazing lyrics. Even, say, ACDC, who are similarly lyrically limited

to stuff about rock and roll, their songs at least include trajectories and narratives in their lyrics. What makes this song great is it's got no narrative, no story, no protagonist, no tradition. And I love what Leander's done here. This is Leander's record, really. I mean, I remember reading a quote from him regarding this record where he said, you know, we produced something that was like all the records

we'd ever heard before and yet were different to them all. We were writing and making the sort of record that we had both loved to listen to when we were 14 and 15 years old yet it wasn't preconceived we'd not planned it that way but when we played the tapes back the sound we heard was a revelation it still is it's a masterpiece because it's practically inhuman this record the drums and guitars that echoed and stretched out so much they don't really appear to be played by human beings. And it's got these big cavernous grunts in it, which really do sound like dub.

The performance is great. A couple of moments really stood out to me. The guitarist putting the strap back on his star-shaped guitar when it falls off. I love that bit. I love that guitar, man. Oh, man, yeah. No, because, you you know when buying a guitar

the first consideration should always be how's it's going to look on top of the pops yeah i also really like the girl who clearly quite fancies a frog with a completely disinterested tony blackburn because he's just bobbing about in his own solipsism and i love the moment at the end as well when i love any moment in top of the pops when this happened where the record fades out but one of the drummers carries on the camera is tom this weird sort of shard of low finest so a fantastic performance of an amazing record yeah shame about the singer yeah i mean the beat is the dna of glam isn't it it It's essentially Adrian Street in Morse code. It just skips around for a bit and then just punches you in the back of the head

while you're talking to the ref. Yeah, yeah. It's just perfect. Yeah, it hits you up physically, this record, beyond anything else. I mean, to me, this is the first pop song I ever heard. I'm four years old when this comes out. Well, no, I'm three when this comes out well but now i'm three yeah this comes out

this episode half the songs are part of my life in 1972 and half of them just aren't but this is one of them that there is you know i said earlier that i was um i was at my mom's bingo wall singing next to the bingo blower and this was the song i sang because it's just hey just grabbing the microphone just going hey i'm punching the air and it's just, hey! Just grabbing the microphone, just going, hey! And punching the air. And it's like, is this pop music? Fucking yes, I like it. More, please.

I was excited by the bingo blower. They used to do bingo at the old folks' home all the time. Amazing piece of equipment. When I actually started being a bingo caller, I was so disappointed that the blowers had gone and it was just a screen and a button that you pressed. And you couldn't do the lingo because all the cunts who went there

wanted as many bingo games in as quickly as possible. Scum, all of them. Anyway, Merry Christmas. Let's get everything off to a nice, smooth, uncomplicated start with one of the best pop singles of the 70s being sung by a serial child sex offender. Grab a mince pie. Have a log on the fire.

Have a Baileys with a lager top. Relax and luxuriate in the cosy glow. So it is sort of a tricky one, but it's sort of not. I remember when he came up on a very very early chart music chart music three yeah which i would have listened back to but i no longer have any of the old equipment required to play it back and besides when you hear it it's just like but i think we said back then um the spiritual and creative distance between, on the one hand, this record, and on the other, the actual real life of this cunt is so unbridgeably huge that it's easy to digest this without feeling like you've somehow let this person into your home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or you've given a load of money to the paedophile information exchange. Yeah, precisely. I don't think about the human being that much when I respond to modernist art anyway, you know. Or indeed any art. You know, I grew up into like the fall, Alfred Hitchcock, Philip Larkin, you know, Phil Spector's Christmas album and all that. But when the human being is as distant from the work as this it's like watching a film where the key grip turned out to be a strangler yeah yeah yeah i mean obviously he is there front and center showing out but this record is not about a moment of spiritual

connection between the listeners and paul gadd because he's sealed inside a silver bubble floating around. And what you're responding to is the surface of the bubble and not the paedophile inside it. Because what did he ever mean? You know, it's not like he was the voice of the Woodstock generation. You know, now all these boomers wrestling with their scruples, you know, it would have been if it had been Crosby, Stills, Nash and Glitter, that might be hard to listen to, you know, for several reasons. But not a piece of abstract sound

created by Mike Leander and the Glitter Band with some awful sex criminal standing in front of it. You know, it's like some edgelord punk band putting a picture of a serial killer on the cover of the album, right? That's the level at which this is uncomfortable.

No more than that. So don't give him credit he doesn't deserve. The only way in which the presence of Gary Glitter is important here is in the clash between the dry 70s minimalism of the sound and the lurid visuals, right right and that's obviously a big part of the point the fact that the performers have overdone their image to a ludicrous degree while the music is just the steel exoskeleton of something that doesn't exist right like you can only see the edges there's no there's almost no reverb no movement no counter

point there's no meaning it's just this and it's yeah ugly and beautiful and it's unapologetic and it's 50 foot high you know and people usually talk about british glam in terms of you know brickies in eyeliner and all that stuff but there's usually something in the music that suggests glamour or glitz or exoticism or fantasy or a party or something. Whereas this record's about as glamorous as ferro-concrete, you know, which is the best thing about it. Yes.

It's also, it's more alien and it's more awe-inspiring in its complete blankness and inhumanity, you you know and it's primal and contrived and could only have been a product of the british 70s you know and it's not diminished in any way by any associated horror no in that episode when we talked about gary glitter i mentioned that you know while i was doing a pub quiz and Gary Glitter was in the picture and someone tried to beat me up and got thrown out of the pub. Well, just before lockdown, I was doing quizzes at this pub where I used to play all the music off my iPod because it's easier. But in this pub, they said, no, no, we've got a tablet that does Spotify and it's right over the other end of the pub and you won't be able to get

to it so don't worry about it we'll play some music and you just do your thing it's like okay fair enough yeah right one night i'm there doing the quiz and the pub's rammed out and they'd set a 70s playlist up on spotify and spotify decided to play not one but two gary glitter records and this was the first one. And immediately, as soon as you hear the first second of it, you know what it is. And so my eyebrows shot up and I thought, oh, fucking hell, here we go.

Loads of people are going to kick off on me and it's nothing to do with me. And the pub's so crowded that I can't get to the tablet to change it. So I'm like, oh, well, you know, I'll just have to blame the landlord for it. So I'm bracing myself and nothing happens. And I wait a bit longer and it's like, you must know what this is now. Yeah, yeah.

And I look round and there's people just sat there just tapping their feet and like going, yeah, so what? It's a tune. It's like, oh, that's interesting. I think this has become a glitter band record in a way. Yeah. You know, because people like it so much we find ways you know this is the thing all that shit's about oh no one's going to play michael jackson singles anymore well that's not happening because how can you be a human and live without don't stop till you get

enough it's very very difficult and it's similar with this record i mean it's weird to to think that he was ever a pop star anyway yeah just. Just because of what he is. When I was at high school, I sat at one of those old-fashioned desks with the inkwell in it and the lift-up lid. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. He'd obviously been there for decades. Like the cover of School's Out.

Yeah. Without the knickers. And scratched into the top of the desk with a compass were the words, Julie for Gary Glitter. Even before we know what we now know, that seemed a really strange thing for a schoolgirl to write. Because of all the many pop pinups who don't make sense,

he must be the most unfathomable. Not just because he was an ugly old cunt, but because of the strange queasiness of his present. He doesn't look authentically confident yeah he also no he's too monstrous to seem vulnerable right he's like he's simultaneously 50 and 12 yeah those little vole eyes and nervous smile and i mean it's one thing to expect young girls to fancy some, you know, lantern-jawed muscular zilch with no charisma, because at least that's a blank wall on which they can project their fantasies. But who would ever have sexual thoughts about this fat hybrid

of Benny from Crossroads and Fred West? He looks simultaneously sinister and weak, which is hardly surprising considering what he is, but it's not a combination that usually wows the teeny poppers, is it? Yeah. He was just, I think, just incredibly lucky to run into Leander. It's interesting. I was reading interviews with Glitter at the time that this record came out,

and he was sort of searching for highfalutin justifications for the record. He actually compared... I read something where he was quoted at the time as citing, you know, Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. Well, no, nothing to do with sticks of butter, but I think there's a line where Brando says we don't need words and uh Glitter said that you know he used that quote as a kind of counter to the lack of lyrical kind of complexity of this record but you know yeah I remember that scene now

where Mol and Brando lobbed it in and went hey but there's a lot of these unique vertical records in this episode that don't really lead anywhere but are just astonishing and even though he's a joke figure and even at the time he was a joke figure even a joke can kind of just make something astonishing now and then this is by miles his best record yes yeah yeah have you ever seen his film? No. Oh, only the clips that everyone else has seen. It's a terrible film. I'm talking about the somewhat hopefully titled Remember Me This Way. Yes.

It's a very gloomy thing, right? Really, it's just a documentary about how famous and important Gary Glitter is with that peculiar fantasy sequence. Yeah, he kung-fus a bunch of goons, you know. Yes. It's about as convincing as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you know what I mean?

But most of it is just him saying nothing of interest in his weird, affected, posh voice, pretending to be interviewed, staged conversations between, conversations between Mike Leander and his manager or whatever, and some live footage which only shows off what a truly horrible singer he really was. He's awful.

But what's weirdest about it is this film has got the exact production values of a 1970s British porno. Yeah. It reeks of full ashtrays and empty scotch bottles in an upstairs office in Greek Street. It's like the negative flip side of that Italian documentary about Johan Cruyff from the 70s, which is Il Profetto del Gol,

which is all this amazing, beautiful footage of Cruyff presented with the exact production values of a 1970s Euro porno, all glossy and fuzzy and funky. It's much better. Stick that on the video playlist for any 70s football and Euro sleaze lovers who are inexplicably bored and alone over Christmas. Costume-wise, Glitter's in his bako foil rig out, but it's still early days, isn't it?

So the shoulders are only slightly padded, while the Glitter band appear to be tugged out in spangly Mime Artist gear. They haven't got the look nailed down just yet. These are early days for glam. The musicians are wearing non-super superhero suits with what you might describe as

unflattering camel toes. I was having more fun looking at the audience, to be honest. Yes. A very peculiar bunch. If you remember, we saw that episode two years before this, right from 1970. And the entire audience were like these hand-picked,

heartbreakingly beautiful Kensington and Chelsea honeys, you know, dancing around in miniskirts. Kensington High Street honeys. Indeed, yeah. And it's now, it's all changed. And I think it's because they've let the general public in. And this era of the general public being showcased on top of the pops, which I guess would last up until the introduction of Zoo,

is a great thing. Even more so in this one, because there's a definite BBC works do vibe going on, isn't there? Yeah. As we'll discover yeah yeah yeah i don't like to be sort of a little bit rude about these people who probably don't deserve it but there's a couple of grumpy older sisters there's someone who looks like someone's mum except it's 1972 so she might be 19 yeah there's a lost model type dancing on her own and looking disgusted like she was like

last time she was top of the pops it was 1970 and it's like what's going on here there's a perfectly generic mr early 70s in shiny green jacket yeah and flares and a rod the mod yeah who nowadays would have a huge beard and a third reich hairdo i mistook him for rod stewart at one point um yeah in the episode is he the one who's got the beach boys t-shirt on yes yes yes and also that mum you mentioned taylor she makes several appearances uh the camera is clearly fond of her but she's got she's oh you're right may well be 20, but she could be late 40s. But she's poppy because she's got a very sort of silvery, glammy belt on, but her dress is quite normal.

But yeah, the audience are a delight throughout this episode. Yeah, yeah. There's also a Scott recognisable by his tartan flat cap. Yes. Possibly the first appearance of the tartan flat cap which was absolutely endemic throughout the 70s yeah there's a there's a strange hand clapping fellow in black with big teeth looks like an osmond at a funeral and an owlish bloke with glasses and a neckerchief who looks like a psychiatrist relaxing on the deck of his yacht

and rising slowly from the crowd, a deep putrid fug of unwashed hair grease and undeodorised teenage armpit. But the point is, because it's 1972, the kids are not the vague wash of grey and blue that decolourises the mid-70s episodes there's still all this naive flash you know residual 60s optimism and it still feels like someone in there might actually have been having a good time yeah no one's coordinated it's like

multiple patterns and multiple checks and multiple yeah it's super colorful yeah a quilt of an audience to me this is the first ever pop song it's amazing and the time has not withered its bizarreness you know not at all it's still a fucking really strange record but as we'll see throughout this episode this is a time when really fucking strange records can do amazingly well. Oh, Gary, why? Why? I remember watching that. I was working at AOL,

and the whole fucking office floor stopped to look at the screens when Gary Glitter was giving that speech after he got done. And it's like the little child in me didn't die, but he, you know, got hit by a car and grazed his knee like willie weasel so rock and roll part two would finish the year as the seventh biggest selling single of 1972 and would also get to number seven in america where it began a strange afterlife in 1976 when a pr man for the kalamazoo Wings, a minor league ice hockey team, suggested it be used as a timeout music during games.

When he moved to the NHL club, the Colorado Rockies, he took the music with him, causing radio stations in Denver to be bombarded with requests for the Rocky Hockey theme song. After the other pro teams in Denver started using it, it spread across America and became known as that song they play at the sports events. When you said the Kalamazoo Wings, I thought they were a tribute band. Meanwhile, in the UK, it was covered by the Human League

on the Holiday 80 EP in 1980, sampled by the Time Lords in Doctor and the TARDIS which got to number one in June of 1988 and was used in the Joker a couple of years ago the follow-up I didn't know I loved you till I saw you rock and roll got to number four in October and Glitter would go on to score two number twos and two number ones in 1973 oh and by the way he also got divorced this year so it's safe to assume that he didn't have an orphan delivery from savicado this christmas amazing fucking single god bless whatever air stewardess knackered david Essex out the night before they recorded this, eh? There you go, that's Gary Glitterite.

They're looking over all the number ones. Nice to have us. It's a party time. All the ladies who are married to the cameraman. Nice to have you here with us. We've got loads and loads of cameramen. It's been a great year for the Osmonds, the Jackson 5 and David Cassidy.

Right now, to sing Papi Love, here's Donny Osmond. APPLAUSE And they called it puppy love We cut back to Tony, surrounded by a gaggle of women who were older than the usual top- the pops bystanders. He tells us that they're all the wives of the camera crew and they have a bit of a giggle. Then he tells us that it's been a great year for the Osmonds

David Cassaday and the Jackson 5 but it's not a great length for Tony as he introduces Pappy Live by Donny Osmond. Pappy Live by Donny Osmond. Pappy Live, fucking hell. What a professional.

All he has to do is say who that was, you know, who's coming up. It's not that tough a gig. He had one fucking job. He fucks up every single aspect of this remit, completely Pappy Live. And what's always heartbreaking about Tony is he's not got the brazenness to just yeah brazen it out basically you can see in his face he's crestfallen that one yeah we're gonna see

a lot of tony being crestfallen in this episode aren't we yeah it's still not enough we last covered donny osmond the boy who loves the moon, the countryside, wind, trees and fishing, and suffers a broken heart when he encounters war, pollution and a bird with a broken wing, in chart music number 17. And this, a cover of the Paul Anka single which got to number three in April of 1960, is his fourth solo single, but his debut in the UK. It's the follow-up to Hey Girl, which was never released as a single over here,

and it got to number three in America in April. But when it was put out over here in June, it entered the chart at number 36, then soared 23 places to number 13 and two weeks later it wrestled take me back home by slade off the summit of mount pop don is currently in utah with his family wondering what coca-cola tastes like so here's a video of sorts of him and his family on stage in their Elvis costumes. They're all wearing those white Vegas costumes, aren't they? Yeah, and alas, five beaming drips in Elvis suits does not add up to Elvis

any more than getting volleyed in the bollocks five times adds up to a blowjob. I mean, look, a graph showing all of the Osmonds and Osmond related records arranged according to their quality would look like an outline of Norwich Cathedral and without wanting to spoil or anything we may get to be steeplejacks later but what we're looking at here is the nave or possibly the south transept, you know, if not quite the crypt where little Jimmy lives. And what's strange is that for such a well-known record, it's quite hard to respond to this. Well, I mean, it's impossible to respond to this positively. Yeah. But it's also hard to respond with sufficient negativity to be very entertaining

because really it is sludge um yeah and what's most telling is that i couldn't actually remember whether we've done this record before or not right i do recall doing something donny related at some point yeah because i can remember comparing him to his latter-day analog bieber and frowning over the fact that his selena gomez was his own sister but beyond that it's all as dark as the background against which the fellas are performing here which is a bit creepy you see they're blind in white suits glimmering against this pitch black abyss i don't know where this was filmed but whoever filmed it seems extraordinarily keen to keep that location secret because i mean i sadly i think we can rule out interstellar space

or the mariana trench but visually it might as well be. I mean, David's obsession with the darkness surrounding the stage on top of the pops would be aggravated beyond endurance. This is red zero, green zero, blue zero. It's on a stage, isn't it? But it's not a live performance because, you know, there's no girls pissing themselves and screaming. No. Which was the accompaniment to this song usually yeah without a doubt it's in an abyss as taylor says this bloody record it's it's one of you know you know that thing where you find out what was number

one when you were born this was number one when i was born so i'd love oh no yes i mean which means i'd obviously love to salvage something from it. But it's difficult because this is less a record than a kind of series of great and incisive commercial decisions coming together, really. I mean, it is, I think, inevitable that this was the moment that the UK sort of finally, totally capitulated to the Osmonds because it's an extremely manipulative record, but a very effective one. I mean, for a few reasons, you know, the aforementioned kind of coming back of the 50s. In the summer of 72, you know, you've got Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry doing a Wembley revival gig. You know, the 50s are already making their inroads into the 70s.

So it's logical that the kind of other side of the late 50s and early 60s teen culture, i.e. sort of Paul Anka, Tab Hunter style love songs, should come back. You know, Donnie's 13 when he sings this and he's from Salt Lake City. And he's therefore going to equate and be relatable to pre-teenagers, I think, boys and girls, more than an average 15 year old kid in 1972. He sounds younger than a teenager here. He's not quite the slappable, chubby freak that is Jimmy Osmond, but he's not a pensioner like his brothers. And so it's inevitable that this hits bigger

than Go Away Little Girls, say, at a time when you could argue... You could argue at this point they've already passed their commercial peak in the States, but the production is so manipulative as well. It accentuates that. Oh, it's calibrated to the nth degree, isn't it? Without a doubt.

I mean, when Paul Anka wrote this, he was 18, and he wrote it for Annette Funicello, who was 18 as well. But the production of this accentuates that pre-teen feel. He's double-tracked, so his voice has this slightly unreal kind of patina to it, but it also totally dominates the mix. The backing and music is just treacly and insipid, but that doesn't really matter because what this song is, what this song is ultimately,

it's kind of, it's edging denial pornography for young girls and boys, basically, you know, it, it puts him in the room with you while the record's on. But crucially when it, when the record isn't on, it puts them in, in people's heads when the room with you while the record's on. But crucially, when the record isn't on,

it puts him in people's heads when the record's, you know, not even playing, when you're dreaming. And when I read pop annuals of this period that feature Donnie or pop mags that are entirely about Donnie, it's very much just a series of kind of sort of photo sets, you know, that are called like Donnie Dreaming of You, where he's in bed or you know donnie goofing around where he's wearing crazy stuff or it's basically you know donnie poses for feature in donnie magazine you know it's and of course all the astonishing tidbits about you know in liking seven up and stuff

but um his voice it has this karen carpenter like smoothness but but whereas in karen carpenter records and carpenters records right that you do get the sense that karen's lived a little um in this record you know you're getting played by yeah this denial edging porn basically as every girl watching this episode in 1972 was no don is not allowed to date until he's 16 which is great because that makes him even more untouchable yes absolutely but it means if you're a 14 year old girl you can go well well i can't have him but neither can anyone else so that's fine two years time i'm having him it's like like when the Sunday Sport ran photos of a 15-year-old Lindsay Dawn McKenzie in a school uniform and say, oh, wait till she's 16, lads, they're coming out.

Well, yeah, and to be fair, Donny sells it well. You know, the key moment, of course, in this record is the help me, help me, help me please moment. Like a rabbit caught in a fence. I mean, of course, course you know it's going to divide the audience straight down the middle if you believe those moments this is an irresistible record if you don't of course this record puppy love is everything that's wrong with music this song was definitely part of my life because my cousin who was um i think she was 13 or 14

she had it and uh every sunday my dad would fetch my mum from my granny's house and the kids would be there and everything. And I'd stand by their radiogram and play air guitar to everything on the Top 30 Rundown. And I remember one time being in her bedroom and seeing the single that she owned and being absolutely blown away that you could put a song on a bit of plastic and you could put it on a record player and the song would come out.

I think before then, all the bands and singers in the world would have to queue up inside Radio 1 and wait their turn to do their song. You know what I mean? The idea that you could put a song down on something. Insane. It's still insane. It's still a miracle. So, yeah, this song was in my life as well. And it's not that I didn't like it.

It was like, oh, can we have Gary Glitter, please? He's better. Well, they're about to completely clear up in England. You know, the Osmonds, Crazy Horses, et cetera. But there's very much a sense here that they're dividing to conquer, if you like. They're replicating. Jimmy's been given the tiny tots and the old folk

and marie's gonna end up with a fucking line dancing brummies and uh don donnie's been given the teenagers you know with this record yeah i mean the story of the osmonds that everybody takes as wrote nowadays is that everything was lovely until donnie got pushed to the foreground and most of their energies were spent on his solo career but that was never the case in britain all they'd done in the uk was get to number 40 for two weeks with down by the lazy river yeah yeah in april of this year and so it turns out that as far as the uk is concerned it's the osmonds that are being dragged along in the toothy wake of their slightly younger brother. I mean, it's nice that they let him out of his veal crate for the day. You can understand why people got irate about it in 1972.

Anyone who did was allowing their self-important lack of perspective to get the better of them. Because there are far worse pieces of of low impact pop music than this like before and since but ultimately this just isn't very good or interesting like either musically or semiotically speaking mainly because as neil says it's just a cynically constructed and targeted thing without the beauty or the energy or imagination to redeem that. And no teen idol has ever transcended the form

with sincerity and piety and without a genius on the project somewhere. You know, it could happen by chance chance but i'm not sure it ever has and i mean covering pre-beatles pop songs is always as much an admission of bankruptcy and creative defeat for a teen pop act as covering beatles songs is for a rock band yeah and another shit move is the predictable and slightly cynical thing where you take the pinup of the group and credit him as a solo artist even though that's essentially completely meaningless um whenever the song is a doe-eyed ballad called leave a loaf of love in my

little love loft or you know lovely love with my lovely little lover or something. Or my dream girl is a socially awkward 12-year-old. Although better that Donny sings a song with that title than certain other artistes on this episode. It's just a shite thing to do, isn't it? There's no reason why this is a Donnie record rather than an Osmonds record, other than a very precise marketing strategy. And that kind of thing is fine in this sort of pop music,

so long as it's invisible. But as soon as you can see it, this clearly, it becomes a bit obnoxious. Yeah, I mean, everything about this performance is teeny bopper crack, isn't it? Well, they're not even calling them teeny boppers now, it's weenie boppers. That's the term of abuse used in Melody Maker in

the NME at the moment. I mean, the only thing that's missing really is Donnie with his shirt off feeding an apple to a orphan pony. Actually, the only other things that are missing are teenage girls keening and howling and being dragged off by St John's ambulance men who all, funnily enough, look like Derek Giler. I mean, what's the appeal about the Osmonds to British girls?

Is it to do with the fact that they're American? I don't know. They appear as emissaries from somewhere better. Yeah, but do the Osmonds appeal to British teenage girls? Or does just Donny? The Osmonds actually curiously start making interesting records, as we'll see later in this period, sort of after their commercial peak in the States.

But it is just Donny. I keep coming back to pornography, not because there's... So do I. There's a lockdown on. But, you know... There's a lockdown on, don't you know? But sexuality isn't mentioned in this record, in a way. And, you know, it's the thing that can't be spoken about. But the whole record's appeal is about sexuality,

is about that pre... It's not innocent. You know, it's not puppy love, if you like. It's not the innocent sort of way it's portrayed the way this record makes teenage girls feel and the way this and pre-teenage girls feel about donnie and the way crucially i come back to the fact it's not about what happens when this record is on it's about what happens when you're not listening to this record and just dreaming of donnie this record will

be in your head all his songs right about this time are the same thing aren't they i mean um go away little girl is essentially even younger girl get out of my mind yeah i wonder if the appeal was partly the weird alienness of it because they were so american and so glossy and the fact that they were you know, Mormons and all that stuff just made them seem even weirder. So at a time when, like, an exotic, weird alien quality was seen as a good thing in a teen idol rather than now where it's, like, seen as career suicide,

maybe that was it. I remember as a very small kid seeing the Donny and Marie show on TV and being a bit confused and disorientated by it just because of the queasy, simpering unreality of it, right? Which as a kid struck me not so much as blandness, but as a kind of alien thing. And I wish that the Osmonds in general had been even more like that, because ultimately nowadays,

the frustrating thing about the Osmonds and Osmond discussion is the airtightness of their dullardry. You can poke into the Mormon thing, as we have a bit in the past, but beyond that, it's tricky because the blandness goes all the way through. They're like a gas planet

there's nowhere to land on the surface and if you keep going in you just get crushed by the overwhelming pressure of this featureless haze it's it would have been so much better for everyone and especially us if you know if donnie had turned out to be a goat fucker extraordinaire or something, or a massive cokehead. There's still time. Donnie van der Beek. But the fact that he never was those things means less fun for us as well as him, you know. And none of us are going to heaven, so what was the fucking point in that?

At least the banana splits had a bit of mystery about them. banana splits had a bit of mystery but i mean this is why they draw such a sort of that they're always uh negatively compared to the jackson five because in comparison you know the jackson five are a riot of idiosyncrasy compared to the mormons um who are just yeah the the os you see i just called them the mormons when i meant to say the Osmonds because you can in a way because it's five it's six sets of teeth in it now chaps it's three days since Christmas day so your annuals that they're still pretty much fresh currency aren't there and a glance of the fab 208 annual of 1973 tells a tale or two about the state of playing pop they've gone for a massive front and back collage of the heartthrobs of the

day. Rather looks like the cover of the Island Sampler you can all join in. Naturally the Osmonds feature prominently with Donnie studying between Tony Blackburn and Jack Wilde with a massive David Cassidy sitting at the front because they've fucked up on the dimensions. I mean if he

stood up he'd be twice the size of the bloke next to him. George Best in a really shit tank top. Other participants, Mark Boland in a smiley face t-shirt. Cliff Richard

pointing off and shouting at someone for some reason. Davy Jones, Kenny Everett and Dave Lee Travis right at the back in a psychedelic smoking jacket.

Davy Jones? Davy Jones, yes. Still hanging in there. Star of the Saturday morning reruns. Let's also have had Gentle Ben and Scooby Doo. Inside, there's a pretend pen pal exchange between Donnie and Jack Wilde.

Loads of pics and facts with an X on the end. The usual girly rubbish about get some makeup on. And a huge section called We Love You Because which takes in practically every dishy male celebrity

up to and including Rodney Buse, Jack Lord and Cat Stevens and Richard Beckinsale and here's Donnie's We love you because you're natural and nice and success hasn't changed you

We love you because of your shiny straight hair which always looks so nice to touch We love your big clear eyes and your freckled face which lights up into a smile at every chance you make us happy when you sing and dance we love you for being young and still a boy but old enough to make our hearts beat a little faster. We love your voice, which skips and jumps, but is always true and clear as a bell. We love you for being the boy we'd like to have as a brother,

a son, a boyfriend, and as someone we'd like to be with all the time. Jesus Christ. Tony Blackburn and Kid jensen are in there as well um tony is the greatest disc jockey we've ever known and kid has flowing blonde hair and a soft canadian accent and he's young and speaks for us one thing that we forget about donny and his appeal to teenage girls in particular and young girls in particular is that he was clean do you know i mean it seems like a little thing but we forget it he looked so clean and let's be honest little boys are not clean little british boys in the early 70s were certainly not clean so just the fact that he looked like he scrubbed up

nice you know and probably smelled nice was probably a big part of his appeal, I think, to little girls at that time. Oh, my non-art would have banked on about Donny. Oh, isn't his hair so clean? He's lovely. Such a nice turned out lad. Why can't you be like him? We've got another two years of Osman mania in the UK,

which would probably culminate when the BBC ran that five-night special Osmonds show. Oh, yeah. And got the Osmonds to co-present Top of the Pops with Noel Edmonds. So, Puppy Love would spend five weeks at number one, yielding the floor to the next single we're going to hear.

And would finish the year as the third best-selling single of 1972. The follow-up, Too Young, would spend two weeks at number five in October, and he'd close out the year with Why, getting to number three earlier this month. By which time, the news that his balls had dropped had made the front page of the UK tabloids, and he'd realigned with the Osmonds for their first tour of the UK. More of whom later. Oh, and can I do another of those

We Love You Because things? Have a guess who this is. It's very short, so, you know, it was clearly written by Fab 208 annual staff member, Philippa Collum. We love you because you're big and lovable like a teddy bear. You play records we love to hear and have a smooth, friendly voice

that we recognise immediately when we hear it on the radio. You have dark curly hair and a bristly beard and we feel that you protect us and help us when we had a problem. We love you because you're near to us and not distant

like some men. Oh Christ, no. Quack. Quack. Quack. Oops. This is not a puppy love. This is love This is love

Puppy love Puppy love Came out in affection from one Donny Osmond with his Puppy Love. I suppose one of the most controversial characters of 72 was Alice Cooper with his rather unorthodox presentation of songs such as this, School's Out. APPLAUSE Alice Cooper with his rather unorthodox presentation of songs such as this. School's out! Edmonds, surrounded by loads of girls and some cunt with a false beard,

tells us that one of the most controversial characters of 1972 was Alice Cooper, with his rather unorthodox presentation of songs. At this, the girl to his left raises her eyebrow as if to say, you know what you're going on about, mate? And she was right. She's lovely, I like her. Anyway, here's Scores Out by Alice Cooper. Formed in Cortez High School, Phoenix,

the Airwigs were a band put together by the 16-year-old Vincent Furnier with other members of his school's cross-country team in order to dress up like the Beatles and perform barren, knights-like parodies of mop-fab songs about running for a local talent show after winning the competition they decided to make a go of being in a band changed their name to the spiders became the house band at a local club and put out their debut single why don't you love me on a local label by 1967 they had made inroads into the Los Angeles music scene, changed their name to Nas, and relocated there by the end of the year, sharing a house at some point with Pink Floyd.

When they found out that Todd Rundgren's band had virtually the same name, they changed it once again to Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper. In 1968, they linked up with Frank Zappa, who was looking for new acts for his label Straight Records, and recorded two LPs, which both flopped. However, they were encouraged by another band on the label, the all-female GTOs, to drag up a bit and put on some slap. In 1970, the band relocated to Michigan and immediately clicked with an audience used to the MC5 and the Stooges. Meanwhile, Zappa sold straight records to Warner Brothers and they told the band they would keep them on if their next single was any good. So they put out I'm 18, which got to number 21 on the Billboard chart and instantly became one of the biggest rock bands in the usa this single is the follow-up to be my lover which failed to chart in the uk

it's the title track and lead-off single from their fifth lp which came out over here in june and was held up in america because of the inclusion of a pair of paper knickers made in britain which were impounded by u.s customs because they weren't fireproof it's entered the chart at number 44 then soared 27 places to number 17 and then assisted by an appearance on top of the pops a tabloid outcry about it is stage show which reached wembley empire pool and involved baby killing and hanging and all sorts put it to number one in august knocking off donny osmond and here is a repeat of the original performance on top of the pops three words gentlemen kids live right listen before we get started on this one,

before we get started on the actual record, Noel's intro is extremely revealing, I think. So far on this programme, which is less than 10 minutes old, we've had a child molester and a group of adherents to a sham religious cult based on exploitation, misogyny and the belief that black people have no souls and must be excluded from the temple. All of them wheeled on with nobody batting an eyelid.

And then the guy who is introduced with a perceptible sneer by future megalomaniac and life-threatening conspiracy peddler, Noel Edmonds, as a controversial character, is a golfing Republican with a sense of humour who likes dressing up for a laugh. It's this bizarre assumption, which lasted all through the 70s and 80s,

that the straight-looking establishment people and the deeply religious and those who played along with that and all those who appointed themselves guardians of public morality were the wholesome, harmless, upright citizens. And the people who wore black and asked questions and did things their own way were reprobates from whom our children had to be protected. When, in fact, not only was this not true, the reality was almost the exact opposite.

Yes. Authority figures, of course, were using their authorities as smokescreen. Moral leaders were, at best, ill-informed and frequently corrupt or even criminal. ill-informed and frequently corrupt or or even criminal and institutions charged with the physical or moral welfare of children were often factories for industrial scale abuse either emotional or worse but this guy puts these golf clubs down long enough to say yaboo down with school and it's called the cops i mean yeah i've got a letter here which uh you fellas may or may not be familiar with um but some of the potcrow youngsters won't be so allow me to read it dated 22nd of august 1972 addressed to the director of public prosecutions 12 Buckingham Gate, London, WC1.

Dear Sir, yesterday I arranged to have delivered to your office a copy of the record, Schools Out, now being played by Radio 1 and 2, and on BBC One, Top of the Pops. You will also, I trust, have received a telegram from me requesting that you take action, the BBC, for playing this record on their programme. You will hear that the lyric contains the following chorus. Innocence, schools out for summer, schools out forever, schools been blown to pieces, are, no more books, no more teachers.

In our view, this record is subversive. I hope you agree and will take the appropriate action. It could also amount to an incitement to violence. Yours faithfully, Mary Whitehouse. Of course, Mary Whitehouse. Now that was was the mentality that was the level of thought and analysis and cultural literacy of the leaders of the movement you know the movement of the forces of reaction people who would before too long be taken seriously and elevated into positions of at least peripheral power. These are the people who, for a time, would be guiding the country

and passing judgment on the rest of us. Not just sour and pinched and nasty, but really stupid and totally wrong about everything. Because they had no understanding of popular culture or culture of any kind. And because, like for a lot of very religious people, the truth was not actually important to them. No.

I'm sure Mrs Whitehouse will turn up again shortly, as was her want. For the foreign pop craze youngsters who might not be aware, Mary Whitehouse was the founder of the National Viewers and Listeners Association and, by 1972, the nation's leading interfering ratbag. The Daily Mirror actually ran a poll to find out whether Mary Whitehouse was a force for good or whether she should just fuck off. And the results came back 3- one in favour of the latter.

Although a letter from Stan Shears of Stockbridge went, we need Mary Whitehouse to put over the public's point of view. We applaud and want such healthy shows as On The Buses and Love Thy Neighbour. Fucking hell. Yeah. I knew you were going to say love thy neighbour. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Obviously Stan Shears hasn't seen Mutiny on the buses or any of the on the buses trilogy of films, which is non-stop gusset leer, isn't it, basically. But worth remembering that while at this point Mary Whitehouse is a little bit of a national joke, she would later be courted by Margaret Thatcher and given something of a role,

something of an unofficial but influential role in the moral guidance of the nation as it was destroyed in the 1980s. Oh, Mary, Mary, why you bugging? Did you know that at one point in the late 60s Mary Whitehouse lived two doors away from Enoch Powell? Yeah.

Why wasn't there a crowd funder to buy the house in the middle and give it to a gay Asian Ugandan couple? That would have been fucking brilliant. Yeah, quick, somebody called Vince Powell But part of the joy Of this calls out

Of watching this performance Is what you can't see in a sense You can sense all of that reaction at home You can sense it away God how joyous must it have been for so many kids That this got you know this replaced Puppy love Oh imagine being 15 when this song came

out oh god during that glorious weekend between you leaving school for good and starting at the pie factory on monday but every now and then watching top of the pops you are confronted with these moments that that sort of feel historic. Yes. You know, that realisation that this is obviously, it's the only show that everyone a certain age is watching. And that becomes so apparent in moments like that. In moments like this, you can almost feel a nation's teenagers having their heads ripped off. It's just one of those moments.

When Alice looks down the lens of the camera with his fencing foil for the no more teachers for you bit, you can feel all that adrenaline and release. I mean, especially after Puppy Love. I've always loved Alice and it starts here, I think. I know lots of people talk about the Starman appearance of Bowie that year, but there's so many unforgettable TOTP appearances this year. This is one of them.

This is one of them. And what a glorious fantasy this song remains, really. You know, it's essentially about a fantasy day that is real. You know, the last day of school is real. And it's always a time of bedlam and hysteria of non-uniform

and, you know, hoping someone's bought in crossfire so you can have a go but um but but the deeper fantasy that this introduces is of you know it's that line school's out forever the the end of school so complete so total i mean the idea of a school being blown to pieces isn't just a glorious mental image for any school kid school kids are going to buy into it because it's also genuinely reflective of just how much the summer holidays reveal the sham of school.

And how it kind of gets blown to pieces in the internal psyche of every kid. And that's the key thing with this record, I think. Every kid. It's an inclusive record. Of course, as a Detroit band, there's a kind of studio-ness to it. And there is the suggestion in there

in one of the verses of never coming back to school that of course is purely fantastical for most of us we knew we'd be back after the summer holidays but it's an inclusive record this isn't just a fantasy for the naughty kids or the bad kids and it doesn't exclude the creeps it's a record for everyone from the good kids in the

front rows of the desks to us naughty fuckers pissing about at the back records take on school they're tricky because like you could compare it to baggy trousers but because there's similarly no condescension but i think a more telling comparison or a more revealing one if you compare it to say another brick in the wall you know i mean all of these records acknowledge that the kind of hatred and trauma of a lot of school is real but another brick in the wall projects entirely adult views and perspectives into the school experience to make this kind of ball achingly obvious political point whereas this record isn't like that at all it's not condescending at all it still sounds astonishing as well that crunchy guitar intro fuck me what a year for guitar intros, as we'll see later on in the episode.

And the spooky playgroundness. Crucially for something that's dark and twisted. And Alice, you know, it's interesting. Magazines at the time, pop magazines, they firmly put Alice Cooper in the freak rock category. Along with the dolls and Mopahoople and all of that. But it's such a summer record. It's full of the bouncing joy of knowing that for the next two months you know all rules are done and you don't have to fucking go to school and the performance oh my godfather if he'd appeared by

himself it'd already be unforgettable but i think that would have made it novelty in a kind of arthur brown kind of way yes but the key thing is, is the band and the audience here. And it's illustrative massively of that early 70s top of the pop stone dynamic that's so instantly watchable, pure golden age telly. You're watching pop history being made because it's one of those moments where watching it as a kid, you'd have just thought, right, this has to get to number one. And oh my God, when it does, Silver Machine is at number three.

Yes. I mean, that's fucking nuts. And there's the wonderful moment, not just when he points that thing right down the lens, but that crucial moment when he, that really points out that inclusivity of the record. The moment when Alice starts bopping with that girl that's been dancing.

That could have gone one of two ways. You know, that could have been creepy as fuck. And if you imagine like Gary Glier doing it, it would be creepy as fuck even before what we knew about him because he would never have the confidence to do it properly but alice he bops with her really well they do the bump a bit and then there's that mad moment where he grabs her hair and he kind of leads her backwards in this kind of frightening ritualistic noose like moment and then releases her and launches into the chorus. But there's no worry there. No.

It's just fucking fantastic. And she's into it. He's into it. What a performance this is. Oh, yeah. In an episode full of lovely audience observations, this is the loveliest, right? Yeah.

In part because these are the kids who want to be a little tiny bit wild, even if they're not quite sure what that entails. But they see this emaciated ghoul with his sleazy leather gloves and his red balloon, and they think, okay, this is exactly what I'm going to be all about. Even if, like that girl, I'm still wearing what looks like a Laura Ashley maternity dress from C&A and I've washed my hair in Duckham's queue.

But I don't know what happened to any of these kids, right? I don't know whether they followed through on this and became proud rebels and resistors or whether they all grew up to be Virginia Bottomley, or, you know, well, that sinister woman who sits in the director's box at Newcastle United next to the gay-killing, journalist-dismembering horn of plenty.

Do you know what I mean? It's this woman, I forgot her name. She looks like she was born to clink champagne glasses with Blofeld and then turn on her heel while two goons throw someone into a pool full of crocodiles. Spoiler alert. At the end, she falls in and the crocodiles are here. No, actually, real life spoiler alert.

At the end, she dies in her sleep at the age of 97 in a huge bed, made out of woven 50-pound notes, completely happy and fulfilled. Anyway, look, whichever way they went, it's beautiful to see them here, completely free of the bullshit of 1972 and lost in a record which, if you were forced to rank all the great records on this episode, would surely make the Champions League places at least.

And it is a fantasy panto reality, but it's one which really hints at genuine excitement and genuine freedom. Even though when this episode went out at Christmas 1972, one month previously, his girlfriends died of a drug overdose. Wow. So they're caught in that beautiful no no man's land between the restricted freedom of childhood and the dangerous freedom of naive young adulthood um but that's where they are and this is what that sounds like and this is what that looks like and it's it's blissful yeah i

mean this is the beginning of a wave of outrage about teenagers that would get stoked by Teenage Rampage by the suite and would reach a peak in 1977 with the comic strip Kids Rule OK in action where all the adults in the world die from a plague and the kids take over and aggro is a way of life. I'm a bit too young for this. I don't recall this being in my life. To me, school's new and it's brilliant. I get to play football and dance

with the Rudy guys. Play school's out forever. If there was something similar in 1984, I'd have had it. I'd have been well up for it. Yeah, no more pencils. That's the best bit. Yeah, man. Snap those pencils. Yeah, fuck you, graphite.

And I love the Christmas cracker jokes in it as well. Like, we got no class. And we got no principles. Brackets. Principals. Which doesn't work in Britain. No. No one cares. And as a kid, you'd have been delighted with the line about

not being able to find something that rhymes. I know it's revealing the nuts and bolts, but you'd love that. I mean, I don't even really give a toss about Alice Cooper beyond this amazing record. I like some of his other stuff. I like the fact, you know, I like I'm 18. you know I like some of his other stuff I like the fact you know I like I'm 18 uh if just because it goes yeah I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart which I think we can all relate to and uh elected um if just because it's got one of the best videos ever yeah and I even like um

poison his hair metal sunset yeah yeah umie is obsessed with that record oh yeah because he looks so old it's a bit of a tune it is all right yeah but he looks so old in the video and it's even crappier than before and he still can't sing a note so it's hilarious it's like all those late aussie records that are just lovely rubbish yeah like, like no more tears. Except the difference is with Alice Cooper, there's no part of you thinking, yeah, but Planet Caravan? It's like, no. Because it's just a logical conclusion of what he always did, you know.

It's like a less musical twisted system. He gave up the booze, so now this is the 19th hole for him. You know, just piss take rock and roll. But I can't remember the last time i chose to play an alice cooper record because really to me most of them just sound like a shit panther man and i know that alice cooper had the riff first on billion dollar baby but it's true that alice cooper had the riff first on Billion Dollar Babies,

but that counts for nothing in this game. Do you know what I mean? Elected is fantastic. 18 is fantastic. I think the 71 album Love It To Death is great as well. But go for, I mean, basically go for the best of where they're all dressed as gangsters on the front. That's the fantastic best of when it comes to Alice Cooper.

But yeah, no, I mean mean what a moment, what a fucking moment this is, I mean I just you know, I felt it just watching this episode, I'll never forget going from, you know that move from James Galway to Thin Lizzy a while back, coming from Puppy Love to this was similarly just

total adrenaline I think the best thing about Alice Cooper in a way is that none of the imperfections to put it mildly about any of his music matter because Alice Cooper is all about things not mattering you know like he gets his head chopped off

but it's you know fake it's just the weird clarity of drunken nihilism yeah drunken nihilism but it's a beautifully finessed record. I mean, you know, that crunchy guitar intro. Oddly enough, I was speaking to somebody the other day who used to tour manage Alice Cooper. And, you know, he said one of...

Because we were talking about just interviews and stuff. And he said one of the interview questions that Alice and his guitarist actually always get is, aren't you a bit bored of schools get is aren't you a bit bored of schools out aren't you a bit bored of playing schools out every night and Alice's answer to that is always why would I be bored of a record that's basically paid for my life and that you know enables me now to bring out an album to my fans that sells only 5,000 copies it doesn't matter because I've got schools out yeah um and he loves playing every night who would not love playing

that intro every night there's something to be said by the way and we'll say it repeatedly i've been through this episode when we go through all the guitar bands here fuck me guitars sound amazing in 1972 and intros guitar rock intros sound fucking astonishing in 1972 they don't get much better and the backdrop on this performance is fucking mint isn't it? A big astronaut. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Big astronaut's helmet with the moon lander reflected in it.

Oh, fucking hell. And it's one of those performances as well where the Batroom Boy's trippiness with the visuals suits it perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. A lot of the fuss about Alice Cooper is what he looked like. You know, a pioneer of glam. But in this performance, he looks like Jim Morrison ripped from the grave, doesn't he?

Well, yeah, I mean, he was never going to, he can't do pretty, can he? So he's just got to do ugly as best as he can. And he really does. And, you know, it's that thing of going to Detroit and basically becoming, in a sense, an honorary Brit in a way. Because, you know, he is put together with bands. I've got a pop magazine, actually the same magazine where I was looking at pictures of Donny Osmond, where there is just a page, it's an advert for a magazine, that's called Freak Rock. And it just says, all your Freak Rock favourites.

And Alice features big, as does Bowie and Bolan and New York Dolls and Mott the Hoople. And basically anyone who was glam in the UK is called freak or shock rock over in the States. And there is that real crossover there, I think. He was mates with Groucho Marx in the 70s, Alice Cooper. Really? Yeah, they lived near each other in LA, which is just what it was like living in la in the 70s you know so that's alice cooper's house that's groucho marx's house yeah they used to

hang out together because groucho was really old and he didn't have many friends left so he appreciated having a young lad go around and sort him out they'd sit around and chat and groucho would nod off and alice would let himself out um and they uh yeah he used to go to their gigs and stuff groucho marches to turn up alice cooper's gigs in los angeles just stand at the back so schools out would spend three weeks at number one eventually being toppled by you wear it well by rod stewart the follow-up elected would spend two non-consecutive weeks at number four in october and november and they'd notch up two more top 10 hits in 1973 with hello hooray with Hello, Hooray and No More Mr Nice Guy. But Teenage Lament 74 would be their last Top 40 hit in February of 1974 and the band split up later that year with Furnier taking on the name for himself. Memorandum to Christmas There you go, it's been a fabulous year for Alice Cooper Haslip.

I hope, incidentally, that you're having or had a wonderful Christmas. We're still keeping the celebrations going right the way through until the new year. Here's one that took seven months, believe it or not, to get to number one. Then in October, it was at number one for four consecutive weeks. It's called Muldy Old Doe from Lieutenant Pigeon. APPLAUSE Tony, with a smattering of crumpet, bumblefoxed his way through a Christmas greeting,

then remembers that it's 1972 and they didn't hang Christmas out like us bunch of cunts. I'll tell you what, Tony looks and sounds like he's been on the Valium here, like before he actually was. Already. A Noel scene scurrying away from Tony's BBC paper cup of coffee, covering his mouth with his tiny fingers. Tittering.

Gotcha. He then tells us that they're going to keep at it all the way to New Year's before introducing an elephant's pregnancy of a song that took ages to get going over here. Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon. Formed in Coventry in 1967, Stavely Make Peace was a band formed by Rob Woodward, who had been a solo singer in the early 60s called Shell Naylor, and his classmate Nigel Fletcher, who recorded their songs in the front room of his mam's Hilda Woodward, a typist at the local Jaguar factory, who held downside jobs as a music teacher and was the resident pianist of the Stoke Ex-Servicemen's Club.

In 1969, they put out their debut single, I Wanna Love You Like a Mad Dog, which failed to chart. No wonder. Disturbing thought, that is. But a year later, their follow-up single, Edna, was picked up by Top of the Pops and shoved into their Tip for the Top section, but also failed to chart.

By this time, the band were looking for an outlet for their less serious songs, and to that end started recording under the name Lieutenant Pigeon, recruiting Hilda as the second pianist, and they were picked up by Decca, Shell Nailers' old label, in 1971. This is their debut single, and when it came out in February, it flopped in the UK.

But when it was picked up by a Belgian current affairs TV show and used as their theme tune, it shot to number one there, beating off a cover version by dutch chancers lieutenant parrot lick and pickery emboldened by its benny luck success deca re-released it over here broke out the judy zook satin tour jackets and pushed it hard on radio luxembourg for weeks until it was picked up and played on Radio 1 by Noel Edmonds. It finally entered the UK chart in September, number 38, then it soared to

number 20, then soared again to number 4, and two weeks later it pecked at the face of How Can I Be Sure by David Cassadare and nested atop the very summit of Mount Pop. And here they are with their double piano attack. One more time for King Hell. Finally, moldy old dough enters the arena. Quite right. Oh, man. The civic pride, honestly, it's pouring out of me right now.

I mean, I've had City of Culture here all year and it's all been shit and I've avoided all of it. But oddly enough, yeah, the moment that provides the most Civic Pride this year is talking about a 50-year-old record. But yeah, I feel like Brian Kulcline lofting the FA Cup in 87. But you know what? God, the British charts are a strange fucking thing

and this is surely the strangest number one record ever it's just so fucking wrong the thing is all the other highlights of this episode and there's several, they kind of point forward to things, you know, where the fuck does this point, it doesn't

point forward to other novelty records and actually I'd argue it's not a novelty record no it points back to old music but in such a strange way that that speaks of the broken ramshackle falling to bits feel of 1972 britain um even more than anything more contemporary sort of sounded because this isn't old music lovingly preserved and recreated it's old music that's kind of been left to decay and rot and get gamey and odd and seething with stuff and you you can you could if you want see moldy old dough as harking back to kind of knees up some piano parties and you know the stomp of pub music that was still happening in pubs in 72 but yeah no no listening to this is like opening the door on a 70s pub isn't it yeah but just being

hit in the face with a fog of fag smoke and stale booze and oh it's wonderful it's wonderful and there's something really curdled about it it's just a bit off this record and that's a tremendously difficult thing to achieve i mean whenever i've read about this record and people have been looking for comparisons i've sort of read it being compared to kind of like winchester cathedral say for instance you know but come on that's clean that's easily digestible as a piece of retro clean and upbeat yeah as a piece of retro entertainment carl toby street this is no this isn't with this coventry high street well with this the title And Carnaby Street, this is... No, this isn't. This is Coventry High Street. Well, with this,

the title is literal. This is the stuff of former pop being allowed to rot until it makes you feel queasy. And also, there's a faint melancholy

to the madness of this. But it's a good queasy. Oh, without a doubt. There's also the faint suggestion maybe all this old shit that we're re-rotating is just old shit there's

there's a sort of critique to it as well i mean later on as we'll see we're going to talk about a pop star later who accentuates the weirdness of old sources of old kind of influences and i think moldy old dough it recovers that sense of lunatic freedom in really old music that we assume that kind of only the counterculture can enable so it's for me it's not a novelty record it's just a great record and there's genuinely nothing else like it i mean i can't think of another mother son band no i can't think of a vocal like that growl of the hook which genuinely sounds like it could have been a tramp wandering through the studio like like the whole record was built like it could have been a tramp wandering through the studio

like like the whole record was built around a random tramp like a gavin bryers thing or something um it's no accident that fletcher and woodward jr from this band are big joe meek fans i think you can you can hear that and stavely mate piece singles by the way you mentioned that that was the band before you know they called themselves Lieutenant Pigeon they are strange things they're not just resurrecting something long lost I mean you know we forget you know Winifred Atwell Mrs Mills they were alive and well in 72

you know still putting out albums which makes this triply weird and you know if you really want to know by the way for those of you who've only ever heard this song really want to know by the way for those of you who've only ever heard this song and want to go further i would get a lieutenant slash lieutenant pigeon album but i'd actually go to the next single desperate dan flip it over and play the b-side of that song opus 300

it's truly avant-garde nuttiness um Really freaky, freaky shit. This is one of the highlights of, I don't know, I'm going to call this power cut pop. That's really what it seems to be. Power cut pop. You know, I mean, there's odd things in the audience as there is throughout this episode during this record being played.

I did double take thinking the chap in the green jacket was Rod Stewart but it's very telling as well that the Bat Room Boys, they don't put any strange trippy effects on this record there's no need, there's no need it's fucking weird enough, and not to make things too cov but I do want to stress, as somebody

who's DJ'd in Coventry a lot, this is obviously a staple and it has to be played, you know, at virtually every cov party. But fuck me, I think this is a great record to DJ with anywhere, especially if you drop it late in the evening,

really late when people are fucked because it lurches this record. It's got this tremendous sense of sort of drunken imbalance. You feel slightly pissed hearing it um i am ferociously proud that this bizarre number one came out of the city i call home um but it is it is a very cough record i have to say but what a moment what a moment i mean thank god for belgian world in hell yeah i would love to know what tv show that was. I would kill to see it on YouTube, to see this played over footage of, I don't know, youths throwing stones at tanks in Northern Ireland

or Vietnam bombing raids or God knows what. But what a thing to put on your current affairs TV show, man. Yeah, or something kicking off in Antwerp. Yes. See, I do like this record, but I sort of took against it a bit on this watching because it bothered my now geriatric cat who responds with bug eyes and a grim stare to any sound in the frequency range of bird song or mouse squeak including the title sequence of soul train um the squeaking of my exercise bike uh and the penny whistle on this down record now on the first two i told her to lump it but sooner or later i have to back her up right but she likes this record about as much as she would like an actual pigeon so uh but i mean look yeah for a while this record was bigger than kate bush's

hands so it must have been you know people must have connected with it on some level yeah and i can see why you know i can hear it it in the timbre of the tack piano and especially the fact that, like the strange doubling effect when you've got two of them going at once. Like the glitter band. Yeah, but it creates a slightly eerie effect, which is pleasant and a bit unsettling. It's like a flat beer British approximation

of Brian Wilson's spectral piano on the smile sessions. It's not completely absurd to think that that might be what drew a lot of people into this record. And not every sale of it was to old granny grave clothes, you know, buying it with money she should have been saving to piss away on social care you know it's like this there is something really enticing and intriguing about this record like even before you see the band yeah i mean it's it's grandma glam isn't it it's glamour and glamour we love you. So like,

for anyone listening to this who can't see this, you've got Woodward Jr. on the piano dressed as Robin Hood, a little nod from Coventry to Nottingham there.

You've got Kevin Ungodly on the drums. You've got Fletcher on the drums dressed You've got Fletcher on the drums, dressed like a pirate. Best of all, you've got Woodward Senior playing the piano, dressed as a witch. Yes.

She looks amazing. It's just this kind of huge old lady, dressed in like a crap Halloween witch outfit, just with a permanent grin on her face all the way through. I was thinking, this is actually who the Eagles wrote Witchy Woman about. I'm surprised Mary Whitehouse wasn't writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions about this. I think you will find, if you consult your Bible, it says, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to

live um i urge you to take the strongest possible action immediately how brilliant would it have been if the audience was whipped up into like a witch craze frenzy and became a mob and dragged her off the piano and started ducking her. It'd be amazing. What are her familiars? Black cat and a stout sir. Or a pigeon on the piano. That was her familiar. Well, although,

disturbingly, just as witches were said to do to their familiars, she did actually suckle one of these people. So I wouldn't necessarily be against giving her a go on the ducking store just to be on the safe side um but the terrible thing actually if you look at her closely what she really looks like is arthur marshall from call my bluff yeah yeah she does like uh it's like any second the music's gonna stop and she's gonna go well now come with me if you will back to the court of george ii the last of the foreign-born

monarchs who uh if you were to enter the court of george ii you would have been expected to be carrying your condyloma because your condyloma was a kind of oh fucking i give up don't call my bluff gags fucking jesus christ this was not how this was meant to pan out for me too late too late for it's too late for marriage now next time i get in a big black car they'll be loading me in through the hatchback never Never mind. No, I'm only joking. I couldn't afford a funeral. Do we know how old Hilda Woodward is at this time?

I do, and I was startled. Go on. I think she's 58. 58. 50 fucking 8. According to the papers of the time, even more shocking there, she's actually 52, which is one year younger than I am now.

I'm not having that. I am not having that. And that is a fucking dagger of ice down the spine. It's awful, man, because this year has been filled with people people i know turning 52 and every time they do i'm on facebook saying happy birthday oh by the way you're the same age as her on this but no when she died in 1999 her age was given as 85 meaning she would be at least 57 right she still looks about 15 years older than that though, doesn't she? Yeah, I know.

It's nuts. Harsh paper round. But shouldn't that actually make you feel good about yourself? No. No? When you're 53, Taylor, nothing makes you feel good about yourself. Trust me.

Just you wait. I played that piano that she played. No. Oh, yes. It's in the museum. It's in the Coventry Museum. We meant the Lieutenant Pigeon Museum.

We have a Coventry Music Museum and I tend to avoid it because you know how Scar has basically become big, bald, old, white blokes music. It's kind of one of that sort of stuff. But that piano's in there. Add a little tinkle. Only the second famous piano that I've ever played um the first famous piano it's not that famous

actually the other one it's not as good but i played um agatha christie's piano in her um in her home in greenway in cornwall um there was a sign up said feel free to have a tinkle so i did um so yeah that's two famous pianos I played. I was just thinking, if it's signed, feel free to have a tinkle. You stood there and just started pissing all over the piano. You go, what, what? Look at the sign. You ever played on a famous piano, Taylor?

Yes, I played on the piano on A Day in the Life. I don't mean I played the piano on A Day in the Life. That would be quite the claim to fame. Pre-birth. Jeez, that's put me back in my box. I mean, the thing about this song is as soon as you hear it, you're into it. And then you hear the bloke going, oh, the old day. And you just think, oh, this can't get any better.

And then they pop up on top of the pops and they look like this. You've just surrendered to him haven't you totally every now and again there's a moment where the british people collectively actually get something right and one of the prime examples is putting this at number one i know it's fucking mental that this got to number one but of course it makes total sense as well yes absolute total sense the thing about um lieutenant pigeon in in a sense similar to other acts that we're seeing in this episode they've had pasts you know they've had pasts that they're coming out of they're not neophytes in the biz as it were

i mean another thing to seek out when when seeking out other stuff uh lieutenant pigeon related please people find um a track by Shell Naylor. Shell Naylor was the name of Rod Woodward, basically, from Lieutenant Pidgeon, when he was signed to Decker in the 60s. At age 17, he did a song called One Fine Day, which was actually written by Dave Davis from the Kinks, and came out as a single in 64 with Jimmy

Page on guitar, and it's a fucking tune. Do seek that one out as well. that should go on the video playlist i would say there was actually a tabloid kerfuffle in late october which makes the story even better a front page article in the sunday people entitled moldy old muddle granny hilda woodward's pop career struck a discordant note yesterday mich Michael Geary, a 19-year-old musician, claimed that he and not Granny Woodwood played the piano in the recording of Mouldy Old Doe, which has been top of the charts for three weeks. Pianist Michael has instructed solicitors to take action against

the group, claiming he is entitled to payment or royalties michael sat down at the piano in his home in burbidge's lane coventry played moldy old dough and said there you can see it was me rubbish it was me on piano mrs woodward, who is 52, said today. She sat down at the piano at her home in Kingsway, Coventry, and said, it was definitely me. Rob shouted me out of the kitchen, and I played just like I'm doing now. Rob Woodward said, it's true that Mike sat in for one session,

but for technical reasons, we had to scrub that tape and send another one to deca i called him mum for the second one so amazing things coming out there number one this woman's shaved six years off her age yeah in a doomed attempt to appear younger somewhat unconvincingly it has to be said and lieutenant pigeon have gone you know, what we really need to get this song up the charts is to pretend that my mum's played on it. Insane. Probably the best bit in this whole performance

is where the bass player, Johnson, creeps up behind Fletcher on the drums, pulls his tricorn hat down over his eyes, in response to which Fletcher seems to bark, fuck you. No. Yeah, perhaps forgetting where he was for a moment, which is easily done during a Top of the Pops appearance.

Did British people say fuck you in 1972, though? I don't know. Fuck off, yes. Fuck you, I contend not. Actually, no, maybe the best bit is near the end. At the beginning of Woodward Jr.'s big closing

penny whistle solo during the drop, something goes a bit wrong, possibly something Brown Ale related. And the whole thing just collapses and there's a battle. Oh, that is the absolute worst case of granny claps in the entire history, on top of the pop.

It's just, oh, it's gloriously shambolic, isn't it? Yeah, but two seconds, which you can reasonably say, is the most musically challenging and disruptive moment in the whole show. Yeah, all the granny clappers are totally thrown off. And in fact, granny herself ends up turning the beat around, still with that grin on her face, and she's clapping. Then again, people that age do tend to clap on the on-beat anyway,

don't they? But yeah, the demented smile doesn't falter for a second. I don't know if anyone's got round to watching the amazing film Frightmare that I was going on about next time, but I would definitely have cast Sheila Keith in the Lieutenant Pigeon biopic, which will mean nothing to most people, but if you know, you know.

But fucking hell, what an amazing tune this is. Yeah. I mean, look, the Queen's on her last legs. Let's, you know, let's not beat about the bush. When she goes, get rid of that shit national anthem that we have and have this, man. Do it, old man. I mean, the thing is with the vocal, the thing is with that vocal,

it is the missing link between Albert Steptoe and punk rock. There's something resistant about it. It's not just fun. I love it when the camera, by the way, in this episode, I think it's just before the granny claps go badly wrong, it does that thing of centering in on Fletcher's face right in the middle of the screen, and he doesn't do anything. He just laughs.

They all seem a bit pissed, actually, a bit half-cut. They're fucking about, but it's all right. You can fuck about to this song. He sings dirty old man instead of mouldy old doe at one point. Yeah, yeah. It's wonderful. It suits the song. I mean, this record in point. Yeah, yeah. It's wonderful. It suits the song. And this, I mean, this record in Cov has gone nowhere. It's always been about.

It's always been on every jukebox in a way. Whereas in the rest of the country, it hasn't. I mean, a mate told me that when Joe Royal used to manage Oldham Athletic in the late 80s and early 90s, this was the track that they played when they used to come out onto the pitch. But then, of course, they got promoted to the to division one and that and then it got replaced with fanfare for the common man by elp anything else to say about yeah i was gonna say we talk about the national anthem one of the many things that's wrong with our current national anthem is like you know leaving aside all the lyrics and everything,

is the fact that it begins with a drum roll of indeterminate length, which means that everybody comes in out of time. Yes. Always, every time. How is that supposed to give you any national pride? To at least have this, at least the bit where everybody goes out of time is at the end. Yeah. At which point everyone's just waiting for it to finish anyway.

So Mouldy Old Doe would spend four weeks at number one, eventually shooed away by Clear by Gilbert O'Sullivan. Oh, Jesus. It would become the second best-selling single of 1972, behind Amazing Grace by the band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, selling over 790,000 copies. It's now most commonly

used by unionist marching bands in Northern Ireland. Blimey. Because it's got a bit of pipe and drum in it, I suppose. Fedean blood. The follow-up, Desperate Dan, is currently number 34 in the chart

and would get to number 17 in January of 1973, but they never troubled the charts again, although the band are active to this day and will be releasing their next single on February the 18th, 2022. 50 years to the day that Moldy Old Dough came out. Here we go! And from Lieutenant Pigeon to one of the more emotional sounds of 72, Roberta Flack. After a weird transformation where we get to see the blurred out vision of what is presumably the top

of Noel Edmonds head, we transmogrify very quickly into the darkness at the top of the top of Noel Edmonds' head, we transmogrify very quickly into the darkness at the top of the top of the pop studio that David always goes on about. As Edmonds puts his British accent on and introduces one of the more emotional sounds of 72. The First Time I Ever Saw Your by roberta flack born in black mountain north carolina in 1937 roberta flack was a child prodigy on the piano and became the youngest person to

receive a music scholarship at harvard university at the age of 15 after graduating four years later she became a music and english teacher in was, D.C., whilst trawling the music clubs at night, playing and singing jazz, where she was discovered by the pianist Les McCann. He set her up with an audition for Atlantic Records, and after being signed up, she put out her debut LP, First Take, in 1969. put out her debut LP First Take in 1969. Two years later, while Flatt was struggling to make any sort of a dent in any US charts, Clint Eastwood picked this cut from her first LP, a cover of the 1957 folk song written by Ewan McConfer for his bit on the side, Peggy Seeger, which had already been covered by Peter, Paul and Mary and the Kingston Trio and used it in the film Play Misty for Me. Released as a single, it shot up the US charts, spending six weeks at number one in April and May.

And in the UK, it became her first hit, getting to number 14 in July. And here's another chance to see that original performance. Isn't it telling chaps that it's Tony that gets lumbered with mouldy old dough and Edmonds gets to introduce the serious quality stuff. Yeah which is weird because I would associate these two records completely opposite

to that. Yes absolutely. Absolutely yeah. So we start with the elephant in the room which is her amazing haircut yes i wrote in my notes flack the princess leah pioneer and any rappers listening feel free to take that line because i have to say its flow is exquisite she rocks rough and stuff with her afro puss yeah she's got these two huge side bunches with every strand of hair gathered up and scraped over.

Basically, if she'd drawn faces on both of those bunches, it would have looked like she had three heads. It's fucking amazing. It's like a beat by Dre haircut. She looks so great. She's wisely got them round her ears. They're quite low because with that look, if you have it any higher,

you start looking like Mickey Mouse or Chairman Mouse. There is that danger. And if you have it even higher, you look like Dave Lee Travis in 1981 with some dealy boppers. But what can we say about this? Not a lot because it's a brilliant... Apart from it's fucking amazing. It's a good song, you know this,

but I think it was waiting for it. It was waiting for Roberta to do it. I don't like this. I saw Ewan McColl's reasons for writing it. And his hatred of all of the cover versions of it. Particularly hated Elvis' one, didn't he? He said it sounded like Romeo singing to Juliet who's on top of the post office tower.

Yeah, and he had a section in his record collection called The Chamber of Horrors, which contained all the covers of this song. But which seems a tad harsh. Considering they paid for that part of his house. You know, and also I think there's something a bit sanctimonious about Ewan McColl in general and then suddenly writing this love song.

But it was waiting for Roberta Flack to do it, because this is a lovely version. Off first take, which is a great album, I would say I Told Jesus is the track. It's amazing, that track. But this is beautiful. But there's not much to say about it, because it's just a really competent performance

by an amazing-looking person of a beautiful song that she absolutely nailed. I mean, it only got to number 14 in the charts, and it's here, obviously, as a bit of a mam song that she absolutely nailed. I mean, it only got to number 14 in the charts, and it's here, obviously, as a bit of a mam-sop. But, you know, who cares when it's this good? Something's got to follow mouldy old dough. Oh, God, yeah.

You need your heart rate to reduce a little bit. Yeah, and this does a job more than adequately to my mind. Yeah, Top of the Pops always, at some point, has to slow things down a little with a ballad. With a beautiful song recorded by a beautiful lady. A beautiful lady with a beautiful voice. And, you know, rather this than almost any of the other available options from 1972 because it's a very, very, very, very good record. And it only becomes a piss break in the context of this episode.

Yes, yes. Because of what most of the rest of the episode is like. It doesn't fit because a mood has already been created, which is not this mood, and is not complemented by this mood. And it does deserve better because the original recording is one of the warmest and most intimate records

you could ever hear. And even here, the Top of the Pops Orchestra can't mangle it. No. Because it's too simple to screw. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because 99% of the soulfulness is carried in her voice and her performance rather than in the arrangement, which makes it so irritating that so many hack singers

have seen this as a great song to cover. I mean, I don't, yeah, this is a cover, but they tend to cover this version. And it's always those sort of screwed up face and splayed out hand held out in front of them type singers you know i wouldn't have minded if faust had done a version or you know les rallies de nude or something if you're gonna do this song in the roberta flack style you'd better be at least as good a singer as roberta flack are you as good a singer as roberta flack and if the answer is christ no then go and cover yellow submarine instead right

because otherwise you're going up to botticelli's birth of venus and you're pasting a gurning selfie over her head you're absolutely right and all the people who cover this song, or at least cover the Roberta Flack version, they always do everything that Roberta Flack doesn't do. They add extra notes, and they put all this melisma in it. She never does it. She keeps it clear. She keeps it simple. It's just beautiful.

And it's because they can't do this, because it's not a trivial thing to stretch out your voice like this so the individual notes begin to dissolve like airplane trails you know and to do it in a way which demands an emotional response and so yeah singing this song the way almost all modern singers would and do it's a grotesque thing to do neil's right though it's a terrible shame almost every time we get a great black american female singer on here we all agree that it's one terrible shame almost every time we get a great black American female singer on here we all agree that it's one of the best things

on the programme oh if this was on any other episode we'd have been fucking raving about it yeah but none of us have all that much to say about it and it's always the case yeah because there's nothing to laugh about

or take the piss out of you know well is that who we are Neil no but you know it that who we are? no but you know when you do just we talked about Gary Glitter earlier that is a great record

but it's not a great record made by a beautiful artist or anything like that there's all kinds of extraneous shit going on with this, this is as pure and simple as this episode is going to get it's just a woman doing a job which is turning up on the telly and being mimped with a brilliant record This is as pure and simple as this episode's going to get. Yeah, it's just a woman doing a job. Yeah. Which is turning up on the telly and being mimped with a brilliant record.

I'm sure you're aware of its use on December the 15th of this year, 1972. Go on. Well, the first time I ever saw your face, I think, yeah, it's played as the wake-up music on flight day nine to the astronauts aboard Apollo 17 on their last day in lunar orbit before returning to Earth. So basically, this was the last song played. That was the last human exploration of the moon,

and this was the tune that brought them home. Makes a change from country music, which is what they're using for the Apollo. Should have been Moldy Old Don't. This is the problem. It's a great performance. It's a great song, but we've just had moldy old dough and it's like oh why haven't you got an older white woman playing the piano next year as well

the thing is i worried for a bit about this phenomenon of these records that we got nothing to say about because i was thinking is it my background in writing mostly about rock and pop that's limiting me? Or worse still, can I only write or talk about people whose experiences and influences are like mine? But no, because I could write about roots reggae and dub from now until spring, and I'm fairly sure that the church community of Black Mountain, North Carolina is more like suburban lower middle class Britain than the rocker community of Washington Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica.

So I think it's just simply that a record like this does not leave much to be said. No. If you're in a crowded room and this plays and then it stops, nobody says anything for a minute. No. Which is not the case if you put on naughty, naughty, naughty by George Sarney.

Certainly not. This just doesn't need much commentary. And I've always been a little bit dubious in the past about the way that most writers who specialise in writing about soul or R&B of this period always seem to focus more on biographical or contextual detail than digging into the actual music but now i think i understand it better yeah because i mean look the biographical and contextual detail is often stuff that i don't know enough about to hold forth on like an expert

or it's stuff that i don't feel particularly well qualified to comment on. So I tend to get a bit stuck, you know. So I guess in future chart musics, these ladies are going to keep appearing and I'm going to keep saying this is brilliant. Let's move on. And unless we get Nelson George to join the team or something, you know, I'd like to hear him on BA Robertson. Doors always open, Nelson.

Perfection is difficult to talk about, you know. And for many of us the most perfect music ever made was 70s black pop so that's why whenever we encounter it not whenever we encounter it

but quite often when we encounter it we can't really go beyond that this is perfect you know yeah yeah yeah it is surprising though that yeah

it's introduced by Noel and not Tony because Tony's the style guy so I wonder if he was slightly gutted about that but Noel's the serious music guy. That's why he's trying to put himself at the minute. He is leaning into the Americanisms at the moment, isn't he?

He's not found his voice, which is a very annoying and twee one. Yeah. So the first time I ever saw your face would win a Grammy a year later for Record of the Year. And as Neil said, two weeks before this episode was aired was played as a wake-up music for the crew of Apollo 17 ending the last bit of contact humanity has had with the moon the follow-up of sorts was a duet with Donny Hathaway where is the Where Is The Love, which got to number 29 in August. And she'd roar back one time in 1973 with Killing Me Softly with his song,

which got to number six in March of 1973. Your face Your face Your face It's party time here at Top of the Pops. Our cameraman has dressed up as Father Christmas. This is Richard from our sound department. Evening, Richard. It's rave-up time once again. Mama, we're all crazy now. The Fabulous Slaves! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Tony, back amongst the crumpets, reminds us that it's party time and then introduces us to Richard from the sound department,

who has come dressed like one of Jack Reagan's on-off girlfriends in the Sweeney who sings in a club. He then declares it rave-up time until a huge cheer from the kids introduces Mama, we're all crazy now, by Slate. Yeah, but it's hard not to focus on the sheer ecstasy plastered all over Richard's face throughout this little link section.

I mean, life's full of surprises, Richard. Throughout this little link section. I mean, life's full of surprises, Richard. It's funny because at the end of Roberta Flack, as soon as she stops singing, you hear this laugh and she's got a smile on her face. And you think it's her doing that laugh. Yeah, I did think it's her. Which is really odd because it's like,

oh, I've just done this love song. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Look at me pissing this out of my arse. But it's actually Richard who's laughing. He can't stop. oh, I've just done this love song. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Look at me pissing this out of my arse. Yeah, yeah. But it's actually Richard who's laughing. He can't stop. We've done Slade loads on chart music, and this, their eighth single under the name of Slade,

is the follow-up to Take Me Back Home, which got to number one for a week in July and featured on the Christmas Day episode. It's the lead-off single from their third LP, Slade, with a Y and a question mark, and it came out on the 1st of November and was inspired by Chuck Berry when the band saw him play live earlier in the year and noted that he'd stop singing from time to time and let the audience take over, and they decided that they wanted some of that in their repertoire. When the single was finished, the band and manager Chaz Chandler told their label Polydor

to get their arses in gear and make it the first single to enter the chart at number one, since the Beatles did it with Get Back three years earlier. But the label was convinced that that was an impossible task in the climate of 1972 and would therefore not ban dare when it entered the charts at number two in september and a week later it toppled you wear it well by rod stewart as the topper most of the popper most and here is a repeat of their original performance. That cheer that goes up, that tells you everything you need to know

about Slade in 1972, chaps. The People's Band. Yeah. And we hadn't had one of them in a very long time. Probably the Beatles would have been the last band that was generally considered by everyone were fucking mint and skill. And that's why it's so smart for them to

write a record which writes the crowd into the song um into the process yes but yeah i mean absolutely this is half about this performance in particular of this song is half about looking at slade and half about looking at the amazing audience and i've got to send up the kind of um the retrospective fancying someone klaxon here because I am actually hugely curious about that aforementioned total mum that we see in a blue dress who has a silver belt on. Who's cutting a rug to this and clearly knows the words. Who is she? Where is she from? What's her story? story but just after the camera picks her up there's a girl to her right in a sort of spangly

diamante long dress who's the spit of diana riggers emma peel i fell i fell i fell hard for her i i really fell in love there the boys don't know how to dance to this actually in the audience there's two lads at the back in slave t-shirts who you'd think would be going mental they were just sort of stood there who almost look like roadies um yes but i think they might they may well be roadies but the girls certainly no outdance to this in an episode full of records for kids with with those jitters in their legs this delivers massively a massive overload moment yeah i got mixed feelings about the audience on this because there's a few too many silver top hats down the front there. It looks like the lair of a monopoly thief.

Somebody should tell those girls, don't imitate, be inspired. Take a lesson from the coolest person in the crowd there, that woman who looks like the Home Secretary's wife, doing a slinky dance. It might just be

my age, but yeah yeah there is something interesting going on very much so it's awful man the older you get the older the the people you fancy i would say that's not awful that is merciful yeah yeah actually right heidi hi when it first came on i really fancied tracer then i started fancying gladys and nowadays i'm i'm looking at fucking yvonne going are you all right you know terrifying fucking i'll be amy turtle next no everyone grows up to love ruth maddock a little bit more i think yeah yeah but in terms of the audience here, yeah, I'm, I was quite amused and very faintly disturbed by that small gang of lads in Slade t-shirts at the back of the stage because they just got their arms

folded. Yeah. Yeah. Stone faced and motionless. They're like security of the first world. Or security of Wolverhampton, which is at least near the first world. Yeah, and what's weird is they stay completely still

even at the moment when this record spills over, which is, of course, the key moment in this record is near the end. It's the ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-yeah bit. Yeah. The choruses have always threatened to give you that overload, but they don't quite deliver it until the end.

And Noddy, of course, just has the best, ultimate rock and roll voice for that kind of moment, which isn't to say that the lead up to those moments isn't great. We've already said, you know, 72 and Amazing Guitar intros. This song starts amazingly. It starts as well as schools out. And in a weird way, in in terms of in a mild sense parent and authority kind of threatening sentiments this is almost like a twin record with that albeit with the caveat that with slade you never get the feeling of us and

them it's just us and i i love i i do like the kind of the frantic bingingey British feel about hedonism of this record, about getting the scotch and the pints in and getting wankered very quickly. You know, don't stop now. Come on, another drop. Come on, full fire water won't hurt me. But God, I mean, for me, it's all about those ending choruses.

And by the end of it, we're in a weird place with this record, really. I mean, when it fades, it's like Acid House or something. It's just the beats are nuts and the kids are hysterical. So it's so good. I can't even begrudge it. I know this might not be everyone's favourite Slade tune, but I think it's one of the best they ever did.

And I think it's one of the best on Slade as well. And it's so good. I can't even begrudge it stopping Children of the Revolution getting to number one. I think it's wonderful. It's really even begrudge it stopping Children of the Revolution getting to number one I think it's wonderful it's really telling in this period of course that you know the only I think trying to break America is eventually what kills Slade a little bit and the only US kind of hack boosting them at the time was Lester Bangs which makes total total sense they were never really going to crack America

because they don't do country rock, really. They're not loud, heavy metal. They're not quite bubblegum. They're not quite mainstream. And also there's that traditional suspicion in America of funny costumes and stuff. But yeah, I think that's what eventually breaks the band. But this is a band getting close to their zenith, I would say.

Slade or Slade's fans were really fucking organized you know they had a rough idea when the band would be on top of the pops months before and so they they just bombard the bbc with applications so that's why you see a lot of people wearing the slate t-shirts and stuff like that and of course the band might have lobbed one or two out but yeah yeah, they were organised, like the S1Ws. I think a big part of that is probably Chaz Chandler as well. But yeah, I mean, as far as the performance goes, possibly the debut of the mirrored top hat on Noddy with Dave Hill in a matching full-length coat.

And the people in the gallery know what's expected of them. You know, there's loads of Dutch angles and lots of mad stone age visual effects not the kind of effects you'd expect with a band like slade but it kind of works yeah it does kind of work because the whole record's about getting unhinged yes and you know we're fucking mentalists so we're all mental um so yeah the increasing kind of trippiness of the visual suits it actually yes yeah i was thinking the fact that slade were so clearly wearing pale blue y-fronts under the sequins

and tartan is the best and in a way the worst thing about i mean i mean to the extent that there is a worst thing about slade because the tension between the the euphoria and the dizzy party whirl on the one hand, and on the other, the gurning rootsiness is what gave them that enormous and unique power. But it also placed a bit of a limit on how far they could take it. Not that I think that there's a problem with making a run of eight a run of like eight or nine of the best singles of the 70s, you know, and then stopping. But I'm actively looking for negatives here just to open the conversation up a little bit because we all know what we all think of Slade.

So whenever I hear what is probably my favourite Slade song, which is How Does It Feel, which is right at the end of their period of being big i always find myself thinking they had the talent and were a sufficiently deceptively musical group they could have followed up the three-year chart blitz with a move into something a bit more emotionally affecting without losing the fizz right which is something that only the very great groups ever do because it involves a level of talent or a type of talent that's categorically different from the talent required to make mama we're all crazy now yeah and they had that but what's also required which i don't think they ever had is a kind of starry-eyed, otherworldly aspect to your nature.

Because to really do this, you have to slip the chains which have thus far held your talent in place and forget all the faces in front of you and start thinking like an artist, which can be very dangerous. I mean, it can be very dangerous to your creative hygiene and it can be even more dangerous to your bank balance right but it's a chance you have to take and i don't think they

ever would have if they'd suddenly come up with eleanor rigby or strawberry fields i don't think they'd have gone with it right i'm not sure they could have taken themselves seriously for long enough but if you don't make that leap into the darkness, there will be a limit on what you can do and there's a time limit on how long people are going to want it from you. The only time they ever did that was when they made a film. Right, which is brilliant.

Because everybody was expecting a Black Country Beatles film. Right. And Robin Nash, who by that time was running Top of the Pops, called them afterwards and said, do you realise you've made a huge mistake here? People don't want you being serious.

Yeah, I know, but it's what a great film. What an amazing film it is. Yeah. You know, but it just meant that instead of moving on into doing something else, inevitably Slade ended up fucking around in America and slowly devolving into a crap hard rock band you know as the audience fell away and I mean nobody criticises

Pilot or Dead or Alive for not turning into a different group and nobody should it's only a side issue here it's just because of those tantalising hints that Slade running out of hit juice needn't

have been the end, you know, but those pale blue wire fronts were chafing. Completely. The thing is, Taylor, you used a phrase there regarding their musical complexity and stuff. That's the thing about Slade. Musically, they're amazing. When you listen to this record,

this is not a straight ahead stomp of a record, even though the effect is deeply physical. It's really quite complicated what the drummer and the bassist are doing. And, you know, it's a fucking clever record in that regard. They definitely had the capabilities of, like Taylor says, pushing into perhaps a new lease of life. or perhaps a new lease of life. But they had this run of amazing singles, a run of singles that could have lasted a band a decade, you know, packed into a year or two.

And yeah, trying to break America fucked them. Yeah. If you want to understand how musical Slade are, go and listen to an Oasis cover version of one of their songs. Well, yeah. They were more than just the Oasis it's okay to like. Mama We're All Crazy Now would spend three weeks at number one, yielding the floor to How Can I Be Sure by David Cassidy.

And although Polydor had started to accept the challenge of an instant number one and worked up a marketing strategy, the follow-up Goodbye to Jane, another album track, entered the chart at number eight in November of this year, got to number two three weeks later, and is currently at number six. And contrary to Brian Connolly's prediction, Slade pissed 1973 out of their arses, racking up three number ones that went straight in at the top. People's Band. People's Band. People's Band.

And you know what? When you read interviews of people like Bolan or Brian Ferry in this period, they all repeatedly say, oh, I don't want to enter the sort of hellscape that Slade are living in. I don't want to do that Slade thing. There's a real snottiness about Slade, especially from their contemporaries. Because of the hellscape that Slade lived in,

what, like next door to the girls' school? Yes! Oh, I didn't know when I moved in. One of the most sonically and visually exciting acts in the world. Slade there and Mama were all crazy now. You know, one of the most difficult things to do in the recording business is make a comedy record. An even more difficult thing to do is to make a successful comedy record.

It's nigh on impossible to get one to number one. But January, this year, he did it. Benny Hill and Ernie. But January this year, he did it. Benny Hill and Ernie. You could hear the offbeat pound as they raced across the ground. And the clatter of the wheels as they spun round and round. And he galloped into Market Street.

He's badgered upon his chest. His name was Ernie. And he drove the fastest milk cart in the West. Edmunds, flanked by two girls, is clearly being stalked by beard twat now, and we see him adjusting his pubic adornment in a comedy manner. What makes it worse is that he now has a mate, sporting a red nose and looking very pleased with himself. Unfazed, Edmunds tells us how hard it is to make a comedy record, and it's nigh impossible to get it to number one, but he knows someone who did. Benny Hill with Erne, the fastest milkman in the West. Born Alfred Hawthorne Hill in Southampton in 1924, Benny Hill was a former shop lad at

Woolworths, and a milkman who became a stage manager with a touring review before he was called up in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as a mechanic. After transferring to Ensor in 1944, he changed his surname in tribute to Jack Benner and became a radio performer when he got back to Civvy Street. In 1950, he transferred to television and by 1971 had appeared in five films, including Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and The Italian Job and the star of The Benny Hill Show, which began on BBC One in 1955 and had transferred to ITV in 1969. and had transferred to ITV in 1969. Like most TV performers of the 60s, Hill signed a record deal with Pi in 1961 and had already racked up three chart hits,

Gathering the Mushrooms, which got to number 12 in March of 1961, Transistor Radio, which got to number 24 in June of the same year, and Harvest of Love, which made it to number 20 in June of 1963. And after he moved to ITV, he was picked up by Columbia Records for the LP Words and Music. This single, the lead-off cut from that LP, was written by Hill for his Tem show in 1970 and scampered up the charts in November of 1971, knocking Cause I Love You by Slade off number one in mid-December and holding on to become the Christmas number one of 1971,

keeping Jeepster by T-Rex at bay. And here, once more, is the promo video, which was reshot when it became a hit as the original was filmed in black and white and yes if you're old enough to be listening to chart music you probably know this video shot for shots like many of the videos that were on the benny hill show over the 70s and beyond. But not for those reasons. Benny Hill, did you get on with him? I mean, he was always there.

He was always there. I mean, as a child, I found him hilarious, I've got to say. Right. You know, which might seem odd. I mean, it is annoying to me that this record keeps Jeepster off the top of the charts. This record that I've always considered the pervy cousin to Scott Walker's Jackie in a weird way there's a lot of similarities there and also lest we forget this is also a record that David Cameron chose as one of his desert island discs

you know at precisely the time actually David Cameron was making a big fuss about violent lyrics in rap music so I remember people questioning whether it was strictly appropriate for him to be endorsing a song about men fighting to the death for sex. But as a child, I did find, yeah, I did find Benny Hill hilarious.

I mean, it's kind of revealing to me, thinking about myself, that I also found Kenny Everett hilarious. In that there are similarities in that obsession with control and editing and absencing yourself from anything live and risky, which I think is what Benny Hill was all about, turning the editing suite into this kind of comedic tool. When you read about Benny Hill's early years coming up and auditioning at places like the Wimbledon stuff, what is a persistent theme is how he always pretty much died on stage, especially when he toured with Reg Varnie.

He's not naturally funny. He's quite a shy individual. He went down particularly badly in Northern clubs. And it's also revealing that what does excite him post-World War II and what becomes a niche for him is television, much as with Everett, when you haven't really got a natural rapport with people, and that isn't an option,

the kind of conspiratorial close-ups and glances that tv can give you that's a neat substitute if you like for actual you know being able to in you know being able to connect with an audience he always struggled with a live audience for me as a kid i always thought he was a very very funny man clearly one of those funny men who was only funny on screen and went in control and hopeless in a lot of other aspects of his life because there didn't seem to be a natural humor to Benny he was never going to be performing this song live on top of the pops like you know no like Waterman and Cole for two of their comedy record a decade later but as I got older I have to admit

I started feeling more uncomfortable with his comedy and and the sexism I mean older, I have to admit, I started feeling more uncomfortable with his comedy. And the sexism, I mean, even before I knew the word sexism, there was something wrong about this old fella chasing young girls around a park. Or about, you know, therapists starting to be read as the rapist.

This was all starting to look wrong in the 80s, in a big way. So, of course course i fell out of love uh in that period this record it's it's often held up as a kind of a really a sort of good example of true comedy record it's a very precise record i suppose we should applaud the finesse it's not a precursor of rap i want to knit knit that in the bud. What? Well, no, I mean, it's spoken word, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's in the lineage, I would say, of Stanley Holloway and things like that.

Yeah. But it does show up the usual things about British people and sexuality. When we did the episode about Kenny Everett, oddly, and I was on Mixcloud finding old Kenny Everett radio shows, I also found a Noel Edmonds Radio 1 show during Ernie's stint at number one in January 72. And as usual, it's a good time capsule, you know. And it shows that Noel was playing on a kind of Kenny Everett light theme, if you like.

But what's interesting is he plays, I remember he played Jeeps the first, Noel Edmonds, in the show. Yeah. And you know the bit in Jeeps that I'm gonna suck ya yes that line

he plays the Donald Duck noise over that covering it up well that makes it sound like he's saying I wanna fuck ya he just obscures it completely with this weird Donald Duck noise

and then two records later he plays Theme from Shaft and you know obviously he's a bad mother the mother goes missing it's just he's a bad but this record of course just gets played completely fine yeah because it's harmless i guess um this record

it doesn't matter whether i like it or don't like it it's in there as you say it's in my head yeah this video is a bit of fun in terms of throwing comestibles at each other i would argue the goodies did it better with bun Fight at the OK Tea Room. Yes. Later on in the decade. It is sad what happens to Benny, I think. Yeah. Regardless of what you think of his comedy,

his treatment by the industry, I think was pretty fucking appalling. Yeah. Towards the end of his career. So I was tremendously fond of him as a kid. And I'm not even going to say an innocent kid. You know, I think his comedy got worse and it didn't progress in any way and you know i'm not saying his comedy should have reflected the sexual

politics of his day but i actually think the sexual politics of his comedy got worse and worse and worse and and in a way it started getting a tad misogynistic almost towards the end rather than it just being kind of innocent fun so yeah i'm not a massive fan of this record of course but it's in there it's part of my cultural lineage it's in most british people's heads and this video frame for frame yeah you remember every single moment on it yeah when i was a kid this used to be on junior choice every single week yeah and i used to find it quite upsetting and scary scary because he died and then became a ghost. And I'm pretty sure that one morning I ran off and hid in another room. And when my mum found me, I was sniffling a bit.

And she said, what's wrong? And I said, I'm thinking about old Ernie. Which, you know, is not really bad skit as i was only five but i did immediately start building myself a huge emotional war so it would never happen again which i finally completed about five years ago and now nothing gets through it in either direction unless it comes through the cat flap um but of course i didn't realize at the time this is actually a kind of parody of those old records like johnny remember me yeah and ghost riders in the sky you know the old death discs and perhaps perhaps not to be taken 100 seriously did any other records upset you like that death

records um because i reckon i've got a faint memory of Lily the Pink doing that to me. Yeah, later on, much later on I think. Obviously later than it came out, I wasn't even born

when it came out. But yeah, they can hit you hard when you're a kid, records in which the main protagonist dies. As we've all

pointed out, David believed that Terry Jacks was actually dying when he did Seasons in the Sun. Yeah, he thought it was like Hurt by Johnny Cash.

Yes. The only song that's ever hit me in that way was Old Shep by Elvis. Not because it affected me, but because it affected me dad. We'd be in a car and he had an Elvis tape and I would know the track listing back to front and I'd be counting down,

going, oh, fucking hell, in about three songs time, Old Shep's coming on. And if there's a traffic jam or anything, my dad's going to be roaring in the car about Elvis' dead dog. And I'm going to sit there next to me weeping, Dad, please, please, all the traffic lights, stay on green. Oh, bless. I mean, I don't like this record very much,

but I would say it's a superior novelty record. And of all the songs written to make people who aren't bothered about pop music laugh, this would be comfortably in the top half of that table. And as Benny Hill pop music parodies go, it's not quite as funny as his spoof of Supersonic with Mike Mansfield. Yes. Which is not that funny in itself.

Is that super chronic? I can't remember. I just remember it gave him a chance to do his peerless Roy Orbison impression again, albeit somewhat out of time. But, I mean, this is funnier than those goodies records without the distraction of desperately wanting to be serious. And of course, the video's got Henry McGee in it, who just has funny pouring off him at all times. Yes. Even when he's not trying to be funny.

Alas, no Bob Todd. No. Or Jackie, what's his name? Yeah, yeah. But it's not stutter rap or Shut That Door by Larry Grayson or something. Or Les Dawson's version of I Can't Control Myself by the Trogs done as comedy sex pest Cosmo Small. Oh, I like that though.

Yeah, well, I mean, I've heard worse, but this is better. This sounds like it's longer than an afternoon. But he was a weird but he did actually work as a milkman for a while yes he did presumably is where he got the inspiration for this don't think it's a true story but he had a sort of unspectacular but quite an interesting life like you know he grew up in a condom shop it was actually it was was like a surgical appliances shop and sort of medical bits. But really what kept it afloat was young men buying condoms. But it was like one of those old things

where you have to engage in this ludicrous pretense, you know, that like, oh, no, this isn't a condom shop. We don't just flog John, is it? But they did. That's what it really was. And it's possibly not too simplistic to speculate that might have had some effect on his aesthetic and his later work um you know at least as much as the fact that his dad was a bit of a cunt and he got on really well with his mum and all that sort of

stuff that biographers love you know uh but people always assume that formative experiences are the obvious things and i'm not so sure you know yeah i mean there's two things but people always assume that formative experiences are the obvious things and i'm not so sure you know yeah i mean there's two things that people always talk about with benny hill the person first of all he was obsessively frugal like he made millions out of the overseas sales because it was big in america and yes that does my head in that does i've read so many biographies by members of the bloods and crips and they all bang on about how much they fucking love benny hill there's one where someone says oh yeah i went i went into the other territory on on a bike and i got my shotgun and i fucking killed four people cycled back with you know bullets flying over my head, got home, went up to the bedroom,

laid the shotgun under the bed just in time for the Benny Hill show. Yeah. Yeah, I remember when Snoop Doggy Dogg, as he then was, was on the cover of Melody Maker. He said in the interview that he loved Benny Hill. Yeah. But yeah, he had millions in the bank from this. But he lived in a crap flat around the corner from Thames Television Studios.

Yeah, Teddington Lock, Middlesex. And he would go down to the docks with a big bag and buy cans that had got wet and the labels had come off. So you didn't know what was in them, which they used to flog off cheap in bulk. And Benny would be there with a bag and seven million in the bank and you know there he was a surprise every meal time yeah london grill with peaches which he'd exchange for sexual favors from factory girls wouldn't he it's been said you know what about this uh give me a blow job and there's plum tomatoes and kitty cat. And he never bought anything. He used to get all his stuff from just doing openings of shops and stuff.

And in payment, he would take a three-piece suite or something. Really weird. The only things he ever spent money on were foreign holidays and the ladies, which is the other thing. Because he lived on his own and he stayed a bachelor and he was so excessively demonstrative about his interest in women, people assumed that he must be gay, which he wasn't.

He was just a randy old man who didn't want to get married because he liked staying in on his own and watching the telly. Because that never happens when you're married, does it? But specifically watching what he wanted to and watching the telly. Because that never happens when you're married, does it? But specifically watching what he wanted to watch on the telly. So he'd take these women out for a posh lunch and a couple of drinks, bring them home, get a blowjob,

apparently not interested in what the news of the world would call full sex, and then he'd get them a taxi home. So he could sit there on his own, eating biscuits and watching coronation street which you could argue displays a certain emotional immaturity or you could argue that it displays an admirably stubborn resistance to doing what he didn't want to do on the reasonable grounds that there was no actual reason to do it yeah you know as if there

aren't enough divorces in the world you know what i mean didn't work with hazel o'connor though did it got to kick up his ass for his troubles if you're insanely wealthy i'm guessing like that kind of weird hermetic frugality is just more interesting than the mansion life as it were i heard that and i know this is all going to be a lot of i heards, but with regards to his sexual peccadilloes, it is, yes, so frequently suggested that he was gay. I mean, what I've heard is, yeah, he didn't like full sex, as it were. It was all blowjobs. And he liked the person administering the blowjob,

is that the correct phrase, to call him Mr. Hill because it showed respect. But, yeah, I mean, that's twisted in a way itself. People want to seek the twisted in Benny Hill. I just think he was a very quiet, private individual who I think was mainly obsessed with comedy. Yeah. Oh, the story that Bob Monkhouse always used to tell

was that apparently Benny Hill's hobby, he'd go round to the houses of his middle-aged female friends and do their cleaning for them. Like this was not in return for sex or anything. This would be people he wasn't sleeping with. He'd go round and he'd clean their kitchen. And Bob Munkhouse said that in a business full of eccentrics, this was probably the strangest thing he'd ever heard any comedian do.

But you know what he was saying about America? Americans don't think of him in the same bracket as other broad mainstream comedians. This is the weird thing. They think of him in the same bracket as Monty Python. Yeah. Which is ridiculous, but quite interesting. I think it's because they used to show them both on a loop on American Python. Yeah. Which is ridiculous, but quite interesting. I think it's because they used to show them both on a loop on American TV.

Right. And they were both British and sort of naughty with tits in at a time when American TV was a bit more sort of uptight about it sort of thing. So to all those people, they were just essentially the same. Like, you know, when you go on a podcast app and you see chart music, and underneath it says, similar podcasts you might enjoy. And it's always like word in your ear, you know. It's like, oh yeah, it's just the same.

Oh yeah. But in a weird way, Taylor, there is a similarity, isn't there? Because the Pythons, masters of the edit and masters of the editing suite, and it's not just a case of speeding up stuff to make it funny it's cutting it funny and i think there is that similarity there isn't there a little bit so maybe that's why americans perceive them similarly as well yeah well when when you look at his early tv work it was really different from early what we grew up with like it was really

inventive yeah like you say it was all about that sort of like technical wizardry split screens and stuff yeah yeah just trying to do stuff that you could do on telly that you couldn't do on a stage and all that sort of thing and i mean that's where he built his reputation and that stuff really is good i think what we got um in the late 70s and 80s was uh i don't know it was he'd reached that point where he didn't really have to work because he knew that yeah if he slapped the little bald fellow on the head yeah he looked up a young woman's skirt and then looked to camera and did a face people would just fucking scream with laughter you know so it's all that stuff's all just the same joke it was comfort latching wasn't it yeah

you know to my mind by the late 70s, the Benny Hill show was right. Okay, you've got to sit through a load of very samey sketches to see some woman in stockings and suspenders. Yeah. That's what you were waiting for. Yeah. Although Americans thinking he's like Monty Python

is probably more defensible than the French who think he's a fucking chaplain-esque physical comedy genius. I mean, he's good, but he's not that fucking good. I went on a French exchange when I was at school and the mum of the house where I was staying tried to think of something English that she liked to start a conversation with me, right, rather than talking about the French things that she liked,

like Jean-Marie Le Pen. And I remember her coming up to me and saying, J'adore Benil, which was not the sort of thing my 13-year-old self expected to hear a French woman say. No. But, you know, such were the insights granted to us by the EEC, right? Yes.

I think British audiences do understand him best in the same way that no one really gets Bruce Springsteen like a randy car mechanic from New Jersey you know but I think there's still a few misconceptions about the nature of what he did in Britain yeah amongst British people you know like and you're right the way that he was treated the way he was drummed off the screen was a little bit slimy and it's not that his time wasn't just about up you know and if you've seen any of his shows from the late 80s it certainly was because they're fucking awful and it's not that it was unreasonable to say look i understand that you're still very popular but for various

reasons we don't really want to do any more primetime family light entertainment hours where the only women in it are models in bikinis getting goosed by 60 year old men you know and and bella emberg is the the patron saint of unattractiveness you know and it's not i mean his like 80s stuff his only innovation was to bring in hill's little angels who were children in in the tradition of the little rascals not in the tradition of the mini pops i hate no yeah uh but it's still revolting because children just are any kind of comedy show you know but he made a hundred million pounds for tems tv yeah by the time he'd finished yeah fucking hell it's just easy to forget he was an innovator and yet he's the first tv comic to actually love

the medium of tv and not see tv as this thing that you do in addition to the live circuit that eats up all your material yeah he's the first person to truly use the form. I mean, the only question I really have about this record, and it's not a deep question, is it the ladybird singing on it? I believe it is. Right, got you. Makes sense. Yeah.

Who would spend a lot of time on Top of the Pops in the 70s with their mates, the Top of the Pops Orchestra? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I just hated that weird... Because I remember it, when he got the the axe and comedians who weren't fit to kiss his enormous ass were throwing street parties you know what i mean people used to talk about it there was this weird celebratory thing like self-congratulate as though he was a bad

person rather than an old person you know i mean I mean? And it's like, people have very simplistic ideas about comedy and what is or isn't offensive, right? And it's one of those things that everyone thinks they understand, even when they don't. You know, I'm always moaning that anyone who can kind of spell and put words in an order that it makes sense thinks that they're a fucking writer, right? And it's not the same thing.

It's the same with comedy, because everyone watches stuff and laughs at it people think that means they know what comedy is or they understand how comedy works and most of them don't right and you really see that when people start talking about what comedy isn't isn't acceptable or offensive right of course there are jokes which aren't okay and And of course, there are jokes which reveal the people who tell them to be unpleasant people. But a lot of the time, people are trying to plot this on two axes, you know, and it isn't that simple. There's no formula for this. The context and effects of humour are far more important than the topics, right? Or even the plain, humor are far more important than the topics right or even the the plain on paper meaning of a joke right so there's so-called edgy comedy that really does perpetuate unpleasant ideas because

what it's effectively doing is nudging you in the ribs and saying hey i shouldn't say it, but it's true, isn't it? Eh, eh, aren't I daring to say this? And then there's other superficially far more appalling comedy that's actually perfectly valid because it isn't doing that. What it's doing is dragging you down to its own reprehensible level and then asking you whether you recognise yourself, which is totally different that's something that comedy has to be allowed to do but a lot of people don't understand any of this so you end up with a load of people who think that like smug trash like ricky gervais is hilarious but benny healy's

somehow offensive because he did tit jokes like as if fucking Spike Milligan didn't do exactly the same tit jokes for his whole career. Like he was some sort of crusading misogynist rather than just an old-fashioned musical comic. And there's stuff in Benny Hill's shows that certainly should be euthanized. When you watch it, there's a few jovial rape gags, which aren't very nice, and there's a fair bit of racism

from time to time um we all remember his hilarious chinaman character for instance it's not it doesn't look nice now but people assume that because if you did those jokes now they would be obviously mean-spirited and awful therefore Therefore, that's what Benny Hill was, which he wasn't. And that's not just temporal relativism, because there's a lot of old comedy that really is quite horrible and just means exactly what it seems to say. You know, nudging the ribs. But when you look at Benny Hill doing endless tit jokes,

it's not a celebration of male supremacy. It's about men being led by their dicks and making themselves foolish and being rewarded with a slap in the face every time it's just that if you stage jokes like that within a culture that is still extremely sexist they might come out looking extremely sexist especially to later generations as if he's laughing at the existence of tits or something like that but in fact he's laughing at the effect of tits on male dignity and self-possession and a lot of people just don't go yeah i don't get any mean spiritedness from benny that's the thing and and that that's what's unmistakable in comedy isn't it you can straight away spot when somebody is kicking down yeah and i don't think he ever was really what i think his

problem was was he was stuck yeah he couldn't develop his act and it had been going that long that he just had to keep telling these same old appalling jokes some of which inevitably started looking very ropey and quite offensive but i don't think think, you know, he was, I don't think he was a racist or a sexist. Now, I resent this kind of idea that we can, you know, apportion that to somebody in that way, as if it's a massive reveal of their character. I don't think it is in the case of Benny Hill. And this isn't the only reason that I think there was generosity of spirit in his work.

But his demise is truly sad. And, you know, the fact that he wasn't found for two days and this sort of stuff, and the fact that the Sun, you know, the Sun quoted him as paying tribute to Frankie Howard, who died... Yeah, fucking hell, forgot about that. Yeah, they quoted him, you know, from beyond the grave, I suppose,

because he had already died the day that, you know, two days before Frankie Howard died. Yeah, he was treated really, really badly. And I wonder what could have happened. I think by the time that he's in his sort of zenith of his fame, nobody's going to come along and suggest he changes his act. No. Which he couldn't do.

So he is stuck there, you know. But I think the way that he departed from TV, the way he was kicked out, was brutal and cruel for somebody who had given a lot to British TV comedy in a big way. And for so many of us, I've got to say, as a kid, I fucking found him hilarious. Yeah. No, it's true.

It's not that the jokes he was doing at the end weren't completely inappropriate, but yeah, they were completely inappropriate for the 80s and would have become, I was going to say, would have become even more inappropriate for the 80s and would have become i was going to say would have become even more appropriate in the 90s something of a comeback of that sort of humor in the night yeah you know what i mean it was like he just stayed the same and everything changed around him and the problem with a lot of modern people is they can't see past themselves and they don't understand how to take something in and evaluate and assess it and they can't look at anything from the past and not judge it by their own

current standards yeah and and past judgment and think that must be what it is i mean i i remember uh when peter powell was doing the Tuesday Tea Time Top 40 Roundup, and this is in the 80s, and nearly all the new entries were novelty records. They were like the Torval and Dean music, and it was Fraggle Rock, and Alexi Sale, and Mel Brooks, and all of these novelty records. And I remember Peter Powell getting really irate about this and saying there should be a separate chart for those sorts of records because

you know proper bands out there trying to earn a living and these people are you know stopping them but you know I think Ernie's a good example I love Jeepster of course that I want that to be number one but at the same time I think comedy records they add to the strange magic of the

British charts and these sort of weird happenings where, you know, you end up with, I don't know, the Sex Pistols in between Kenny Rogers and the Muppets. You know, I think those moments are good. The charts are always a democratic leveller in a way. So I don't resent this record being number one. I do kind of resent it appearing at the end of 72

when it was you know it was an overhang from the previous year so ernie would stay at number one for four weeks eventually sent off to that milk round in the sky by i'd like to teach the world to sing by the new seekers the follow-up fad-eyed foul failed to chart and he never troubled the charts again until a re-release of Ernie in the wake of his death got to number 29 for two weeks in May of 1995 and as Nils pointed out in 2006 the song rose from the grave when David Cameron selected it as a desert island disc alongside fake plastic trees by Radiohead wish you were here by pink floyd

and this charming man by the smiths culture war at the same time however it was revealed that hill used to donate money to the communist party of australia to pay for their annual barbecue as his sister was a member brilliant Brilliant. Brilliant. Did Henry McGee pop up and say, like Johnny Moore did, that, no, David Cameron, you can't like Benny Hill? Benny! And he drove the fastest new car in the

West! Hey! There we are once again, the four men from Auckland-wise. That was Benny Hill and Benny. This is Chickery Tip and Son of My Father. Edmunds and Blackburn finally reunited. Share a microphone as assorted kids, including one in a silver top hat and Slade T-shirt,

cluster about them. Here we are once again, the poor man's more come and wise, says Tony. But before he can finish what he had to say about Benny Hill, Edmund snatches the mic away, introduces the next act, and starts frugging away, deliberately avoiding the gormless, confused smile of his co-host. That was awkward. Very awkward.

And you can't help feeling deliberate on that. But although he's sort of rushed into it, it does mean that Noel delivers his best ever Top of the Pops intro. It's the cleverest thing he ever said on Top of the Pops. He says, this is chicory tip and son of my father. Perfect. Perfect. More of that, please. Formed in Maidstone in 1963, the Sonics were a beat combo who played the Medway circuit to little success,

splitting up in 1965. Two years later, however however they reformed taking their name from a jar of camp coffee and after they linked up with roger easter bear the manager of vanity fair they were signed up to cbs in 1970 their first three singles failed to chart and they had just released their fourth entitled i I Love Onions, in November of 1971, but then Easterby chanced upon an advanced copy of a single put out in West Germany by Giorgio Moroder called I'm Free Now. version of the 1971 hit Natchent Dishonour which he wrote for Michael Holm and was convinced it was going to be a massive hit over here and wanted to be first in. Complying with the arcane rules of the

UK music biz of the time which dictated that you couldn't cover someone else's song until it had been played on the radio, he pulled a few strings with BBC Radio Kent and got it played once and then set to work on making it the hit that chicory tip were gagging for after transcribing the lyrics by ear as not to alert hansa georgio's label to the sting and booking air studios for a session on christmas

eve 1971 getting in chris thomas george martin's right hand man throughout the late 60s to program a mogan in an attempt to recreate maroda's cynthy thwack cbs pulled the promotion for i love onions which was shit anyway and rushed this out in the second week of january it's entered the chart at number 30 at the end of the month, then soared 19 places to number 11, then boinged all the way up to number 2, and a week later deposed Telegram Sam by T-Rex as the undisputed king of Pop Mountain. And here's another chance to see their original performance

ten months ago. And here, chaps, are those unkempt youths that the reviewer from the Coventry Evening Telegraph was going on about. And where do we start with this? I mean, fucking hell, what a palaver. Poor Giorgio, man. Had it snatched under his mustachioed nose. It's such a strange rule.

I didn't know that, Al, about that you can't cover anything unless it's been played on the radio. Yeah, apparently so. Well, that's what it said on their website. That's mental. The Chicory Tip website. Yeah, what's weird about this is, lyrically, it's such a strangely specific and left-field topic

for a record that is unashamedly just a vehicle for the sound of the Moog synthesiser. Unfortunately, one of those words where you sound more like a dick if you say it correctly. I know, I was told there. Yeah. No, I'm going back to Moog, fuck it. Yeah, too wrong.

But the oddness of the words is probably just an artifact of this song's rather convoluted gestation. But I can't think of another period in pop history where anyone charged with writing english lyrics to a space age bubblegum tune showcasing a crazy new sound would not have just made it go oh i love my baby she's lovely and she's lovely and i love her so you know rather than thinking alright I'm going to make this one about the stifling pressures of familial expectation

it needs to be said man you know that song my old man said be an Arsenal fan I said fuck off bollocks you're a cunt like that sort of like that I mean you know my dad's a bastard. Bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard, dad.

They might as well have made it about, you know, the superiority of drawstring bin bags or something. But the thing is with the lyrics, I mean, you know, trying to find the lyrics to this in a sense, it reminded me of how antagonised I get when you do Google lyrics because I thought I knew what the lyrics to this in a sense, it reminded me of how antagonised I get when you do Google Lyrics because I thought I knew what the lyrics to this was. And I'm sticking with mine, I'm sorry, regardless of what Google says. As far as I'm concerned, he sings,

I was free from drive. I also think he sings, And I also think he sings commanded. I was stranded in a plastic crime. And I also think he sings surrounded and confounded by statistic vibes. They're very, very strange. I'm sticking with those. I mean,

the actual official ones are no less strange to be honest with you, but I can't trust them. Can you? No, you can't. Those lyrics. And also mooling is just a fantastic word. I don't know what it means, but I'm sticking with that.

Cross Channel Ferry. I put down a board and I went to Boulogne. That would have been good. The thing is, I think this is much better than the original. It's a great single, this. And I think it's much better than the original michael holmes single that you've mentioned by the way don't fall down the alluring rabbit hole of the b-side to the original german single that's called smog in frankfurt um that is such a great title and

you have to listen but but it's not worth it honestly but here on the on the chicory tip version of this song you know the moog is and I'm going to say Moog as well, it's accentuated. I find in the original German thing, it's the sort of peripheral detail, the use of the synth. But in this, I think it just is way more accentuated. It actually is the low end of this record, is all Moog, and it becomes a big part of the mix,

which oddly enough mirrors what happens with the other Chicory Tip single that year, What's Your Name, which, you know, just like Son of My Father is a Moroder composition and production, and just like Son of My Father, there's a version in German first, which is Wo bist du, I think, by Peter Maffet.

That similarly keeps the synth sounding polite, if you like, whereas with Chicory Tip, they're front and centre. That similarly keeps the synths sounding polite, if you like. Whereas with Chicory Tip, they're front and centre and they form the low end. You know, what's startling is how sparse the record is, really. It's basically based around that. And what a mind blast it must have been hearing this for the first time. Oh, without a doubt. Being used in a pop single.

Totally. Baxter, Woolard and Rod would have been well pissed off. Their show's gone for hours and hours and hours because before they play the fucking song, they tell you what the synthesiser is and what it does and how it's made. Just get a fucking half-hour lecture. This should be available in English shops by about the year 1982. Manufacturers estimate a price of about £17,000.

The thing is, it is important. What you can't really see here is the future, in a sense. We do have to wait for Kraftwerk for that, I would say. But what you don't see here is synths just used as kind of gimmickry. You know, although the guitarist is up there pretending to have been on the record, fundamentally what you have here is a long-haired, rock-like frontman. Oh, what hair. Oh, God oh what hair yo god what what a fucking

booth on he's got on it it's got marvelous hair marvelous and tough and the less it looks like he's got two wigs on his head he looks like a rock front man but he's happy to sing on something purely synthetic so you know it's very philokeish in that regard. And crucially, there's a real joy in this sound. It reminds me of whenever I let my grandkids play on my keyboards and stuff. At first, their impulse obviously isn't musical. It's just simply how can I make this sound like the future? How can I make this make robot noises or make weird futuristic noises? And I think part of that sort of delight in that novelty

of synth noises is really important and it comes across in in this single which is a fantastic single definitely the earliest if not the earliest pop singles to embrace the synth uh certainly the first number one single with a moog on it and uh as you can imagine quite a big deal was made of it at the time there's an article in in the Sunday Mirror from this February entitled, Chickery Click with a Robot Line in Music. The age of electronic music is really with us. Chickery Tip, a group from Maidstone, would probably still be comparative unknowns if it hadn't been for electronics engineer Chris Thomas.

They went to record their adaptation of a continental song called Son of My Father, and Chris, who was officiating in the control box, connected up a piece of electronic wizardry called a Moog synthesizer. The result was magic. Chris got £20 for the session, but he won't receive any royalties. Some people might be inclined to fly into a furore at the thought of chicory tip riding to fame on someone else's back. But lead singer Peter Hewson explains the Moog synthesizer is a complicated gadget which, when connected to a piano keyboard, provides an incredible number of sound effects. It takes two people to work it, a trained electronics engineer and a pianist. The big snag now is that we've had to buy a £1,000 Moog outfit and engage a full-time expert,

but it helps the hard rock sound that kids want they are fed up with obscure underground noises with no definite beat now they demand excitement something they can understand again yeah man testify he's right he's absolutely right it's just a bit of an issue that despite what we're hearing we have to look at them they're miming with guitars which does look ridiculous and it was only when i looked into this that i found out chicory tip didn't even have a keyboard player and this record was made um and the bloke playing on this clip, I think, is just sitting it. Right. It's like if there hadn't been any horn players in the Brighouse and Rasputin band.

They'd have to go on top of the pops and they'd mime to the floral dance, like, loping about with zithers. It's all a cod, man. But what I do like is that there's a drummer on the record. Yeah. And a drummer here. Because all of these, well, most of these early groups that used electronics had human drummers because development of drum machines sort of came later than the

development of early sense so if you listen to like the silver apples or or united states of america you know like right up to tubeway army you still have this strange situation where like most of the band were living in the year 1999. All you have to do is press a button that says music on it and the whole song comes out by itself. But then the drummer is still sat there, surrounded by the cumbersome relics of the acoustic age. But the combination always sounds brilliant. Yeah, absolutely. And the drums here are absolutely crucial.

When he starts rippling about and breaking up the beat and the flow, it's just sensational and really, really deeply pleasurable. Yeah. It doesn't help that Peter Hewson is a very unsure front man. I think he's performing this as if he's worried that the robots are actually going to take over and a Cyberman's just going to push him off the microphone and take over. He's not quite sure when to do the clappy bits.

And he's doing this stupid lumbering step in front of the mic stand. You know the end credits of Dad's Army, where they're all marching across the field with their rifles? God, Frey. That's what he looks like. marching across the field with their rifles. God, Frey. That's what he looks like. Chickaree Tip are essentially a lab band who've just been given this amazingly futuristic song.

It's like, I don't know, giving Firestarter to Dodgy or something like that, isn't it? It really is. It's just, look, right, that song about the onions, forget it, it's shit, you're doing this. Just do this. Just stand here and do this. You'll have a hit. But

if glam was establishing itself as a buzzword of the era, there's another word that's already been established in 1972, aggro. One of the pleasures I've had of researching this year is seeing the two words sparking off each other from time to time, as the idea of football hooliganism really took hold in the media. So I present to you this article from the Sunday People in October of 1972, entitled, When Those Gold and Silver Boots Go In. Roy Ahmed has a bizarre gimmick which distinguishes him as one of the hooligans on Sheffield Wednesday's terraces. He wears, of all things, silver bovver boots sprayed by himself with aerosol paint.

There to show I'm one of the leaders, he boasted. They also distinguish him and his imitators with silver boots from a group of rival fans who follow sheffield's other team united they wear boots sprayed with gold paint insignificant louts with a desperate urge to be noticed one of the golden boot boys told our investigators we have a reputation as a hard crowd and i want it to stay that way i'm trying to get more people to fight and you know it's not hard to imagine roy ahmed and his chums and the golden boot boys stamping a a metallic boot on the dance floor to this single which as we all know very quickly became a terrorist anthem yeah pardon my ignorance but I'm feeling that 72 is the year where football and music does come together a lot more.

Obviously, a couple of weeks after Son of My Father stops being number one, I think it's Man City fans who start using it, chanting about Rodney Marsh. And, you know, it becomes the template for any number of different songs. And also, you know, don't forget, 72, I think, is also the spring in which the first club-based, as opposed to England-based, football record gets into the top 10 in the shape of Blue is the Colour.

I think good old Arsenal. Leeds United as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. And good old Arsenal the year before only creeps into the top 20, whereas Blue is the Colour gets to number five, I think. So, yeah. And that's, I mean, it's the top 20, whereas Blue is the Colour gets to number five, I think. So, yeah. And that's, I mean, it's mad, really,

because Blue is the Colour, I think, was about the League Cup final. It wasn't even an FA Cup song. But that's happening more and more, isn't it, that connection between football and music in this period? Yeah. See, I'm slightly intrigued by the fact that the whole band seem to be wearing Farrah slacks. I mean, smart and comfortable and even slightly fashionable at this time but not really the sort of trousers you

associate with a a sneak preview of the 30th century you know what i mean doesn't that happen to chicory tip later that their record yeah and get some dressed up as futuristic Satanists. Yeah there's loads of pictures of them on the internet dressed as yeah like non super non heroes out of a Bulgarian sci-fi movie which is quite the sight to

see but they all seem to be associated with a later flop single of theirs called IOU which is of no interest whatsoever. And there don't seem to be any moving images at all of this bold new look. I mean, if they'd managed to time the cheapo futuristic image to coincide with the cheapo futuristic sound,

they would have been even more widely derided, but they might have been even more widely derided but they might have been even more exciting as well although i would forgive these people anything for having put out a single called i love onions a message i endorse wholeheartedly well except when you actually listen to it yeah it's not good news it's sort of it does expose them as actually being in that tradition of vanity fair or the mixtures you know like the only record that they'd ever heard was dw washburn by the monkeys you know it's like old-timey ingratiating rubbish you know it's all very arch and aggravating and basically just waiting for the bright, clean synthesizer wind to blow through and purify them.

Also, any extra credit earned from one of their follow-up singles being called Good Grief Christina and the lyric going, Good grief, Christina, how come you never heard of rock and roll? Also melts away when you actually try and listen to it. And you realise that, yes, Son of My Father was to them what shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand was to Gavrilo Princip. He's not hugely interested in his exploits in the All-Serbia Inter-County Table Tennis Championship of 1912.

That was the backhand smash that wasn't heard around the world. Frankly, that can go hang. I'm sorry to hear that I love onions isn't any good because that's a sentiment that needs stating. I mean, imagine life without onions. It'd scarcely be worth living. Oh, you're sounding like me mum now, Neil. Well, the thing is, I i mean food does come into this because with a name like chicory tip it's almost as if they were

retrospectively invented to be the ultimate 70s sort of early 70s because chicory is a very 70s thing i mean camp coffee i was a right picky little sod when i was a little kid with food and drink and i would have camp coffee right yeah every morning mate cold um i remember the bottle with the with the guy with the bagpipes yes yeah that that sparks some memories certainly if i had i don't need to talk you through my food preferences when i was a toddler no please that was my breakfast i'd have camp coffee and i'd have bacon right but annoyingly man i wouldn't just eat the same bacon everyone else was having my mom would have to do mine extra crispy and then break into tiny finger-sized

little pieces for me to eat that would i was just a really fucking annoying little little picky kid but camp coffee was large, large part of my childhood. It was my breakfast every morning. It was my breakfast drink. Bacon Fingers. They would have been a good support band for Chickaree 2. But yeah, this song is a song that's in the past. It wasn't part of my life in 1972.

And I lump it in with Yellow River by Chris Day. It's one of those songs that you always heard when you're on holiday and you're in the um made marrying club or something some punch like band had turned up and they'd slog the way through this without the moog thing is really to understand the importance of the synth sound here you have to clarify the differences between pop and music right right? And the people who like one or the other. If you take two extremes, right? On the first hand, you have albums, of course.

Let's say the Brown album by the band, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd, Moondance by Van Morrison, right? And on the other hand, you have singles, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by the Ohio Express, More, More, More by Andrea True Connection, singles yummy yummy yummy by the ohio express uh more more more by andrea true connection and who stick you by daphne and celeste right now to me those are all great records because i'm musically bisexual but there are a lot of people who love three of those records and hate the other three or would do if they ever heard them but the three that they love and the three that they hate are always from the same side of the selection um

because the first three of those records have no pop value and the second three have no musical value and there's a lot of people who love pop but are bored or worse by, you know, music. And there's a lot of people who love music but they're untouched or worse by pop. And generally speaking, the music people think the pop people are aesthetic simpletons with no appreciation of quality. Sheep, man. Yeah. And the pop people think the music people are dull and mentally lifeless, you know, with no wit or imagination. But in fact, not to sound like Bobby Bridgebuilder here,

they just connect to records in a different way and their imaginations are stimulated by different kinds of intensity, right? Because pop people, it's not that they have no musical appreciation at all because they understand that Crazy in Love is a better record than that you know the fast food rockers um and it's not that music people have no appreciation of anything beyond technique because they love the who who were one of the most gimmicky and sensationalistic bands who ever lived you know but the one of the great battlegrounds of history between these two people is the synthesizer because heavy music people got into synth music of a type whether it was like stevie wonder or tonto's expanding headband but yeah or the who right and all the who but the general

attitude was you just press the button and it comes out and it's dystopian anti-music and what they disliked and distrusted about the sound of the synthesizer in fact was its simplicity was the simplicity of the sound because nothing that you can do in the act of playing an analog synth has any bearing on the noise it makes you can't bend a string you can't skronk it which to those people feels dehumanizing but right it's also the simplicity of its appeal is a problem for them because for pop the simpler and the more direct you can make the sound the more exciting it is right and the more immediate it is and what georgio moroder realized first about the synthesizer and what everyone involved in this record then picked up on is that it simplifies the process of piping happiness into a random listener's ears and forcing them to respond because the point is music expects you to

do half the work and is proud of that pop music has got no time for this it has to attack you in the quickest way while you're out shopping or you're listening to the radio so the clear basic and piercing lines of the analog synth plus what was then the novelty of the sound were perfect and all that's left to do is write a song that's catchy enough to carry it without the song getting in the way of the thrill which is a satanic concept to like those eric clapton fans who don't understand that the reason jimmy hendrix was a better guitarist than eric clapton wasn't just down to faster fingers or more soul man it was that hendrix also understood things like flash and gimmickry and showmanship and all these pop qualities you know if you can operate on both sides of this dichotomy at once you've won right

but if you can't just do this write a nursery rhyme find a gimmick and oh look guess what you still need talent and vision and judgment after all or you need to know somebody who's got those things yeah yeah that certainly is part of the synth fear among musicians i think i think you know in this period there's a fear of kind of, I don't know, music getting deprofessionalised, if you like. The thing that synthesizers introduce, that is precisely why they're so exciting in pop, is that they suggest this remarkable thing that non-musicians can start getting involved and that, you know, they can start being a part of this. I don't think that's happening just yet. No.

That happens in the eventies, doesn't it? When they become more affordable. But I do think, Keith Emerson notwithstanding, there's a thing about synthesizers that does disincline that kind of virtuosity, if you like. It doesn't foreground the virtuosity as being the most important aspect of being a musician. And I think that's a deep, deep worry for your musos,

as Taylor mentioned. Yeah, especially as I think that's a deep, deep worry for your musos, as Taylor mentioned. Yeah, especially as I think the version of the Moog that they would use on this one, I think would have been monophonic. So you couldn't even play a chord on it. It was like a kid's organ. It just went... You just play one note at a time.

But it's what the kids want now, though. Oh, yes. You can't blame them, can you? I'll tell you what. Imagine if Chicory Tippet got hold of I Feel Love before Giorgio had a chance to put it out properly. Fucking hell. Oh, he got gazumped.

So, Son of My Father spent three weeks at number one, eventually giving way to the next single we're going to hear. And after initially getting the arse about it Giorgio patched up his differences with the band and became their chief songwriter for the next couple of years the follow-up what's your name got to number 13 in June and their next single Good Grief Christina got to number 17 in May of 1973. But that would be the last spray of their musk upon the charts, despite, or possibly because of, a glam makeover which saw them wearing superhero costumes with their pants over their tights,

huge orange bulbous helmets and an eye mask shaped like a massive crab, and a single called Cig and wine which was banned by the bbc for encouraging the kids to get the facts in as if they needed any encouragement in the 1970s they split up in 1975 but peter hewson was last spotted in 1983 when he recorded the single Take My Hand with Vince Clark, while the latter was in between The Assembler and Erasure. Fucking hell, this man could have been the front person of Erasure. Yeah, imagine him in some hot pants. I'd rather not.

What would have been funnier is if, after this record, they went to Man United and they won fuck all. Yes. Son of a father Morning I was morning I was weak from the dark Son of a father Man, I was burning in a burning fire Thank you very much, though, indeed, to Chicory Tip. I'm the envy of all the fellas now

because I've got the lovely pans people all round me. I still haven't got my Christmas present from you. You haven't got me anything? I've got you the most beautiful Christmas present. It's over there, right? I bet you can't guess. I bet you can't guess what that is. It cost me an absolute fortune, I did, to send that through the post. You just don't know what that is, do you?

How about that? That's Cherry. And she is going to be the brand new dancer with Pans People. Well, there you go. That's Cherry. And she's going to be dancing with Pans People all the way through 1973. Right. Well, we're going to see Cherry Wright now dancing for the very, very first time with Pans People to one of the most beautiful songs of 1972. It's called Without You from Nielsen.

No, I can't forget this evening Your face as you were leaving We cut back to Tony, who tells us how he's the envy of all the fellas with an A on the end due to his close proximity to four people of pan. He tells them that he's got them the most beautiful Christmas present and directs them towards a huge wadge of flowery paper tied up with pink ribbon. After some awkward faffing about, the package opens up to reveal Cherry Gillespie. 1955, Cherry Gillespie trained as a ballerina at the Bush Davies School of Theatre Arts at East Grinstead and was tipped as a major ballet artist in the making by the Daily Telegraph earlier this year when she played Swan Hilda in Coppelia.

Meanwhile, Pan's people, who were entering their fifth year of emoting to records and being all crumpet air, were going through a period of transition. In February, Flick Colby stepped down from performance to concentrate on stick banging. Then seven months later, Andy Rutherford took pregnant, reducing the line up to four and causing the great crumpet shortage of late 1972. An audition was called for a new fifth member

and Gillespie sailed through it. And this, her debut performance, is the birth of the Imperial Phase Pans People line-up. Oh, this is landmark, chaps. It is. Sherry Gillespie, my second favourite person of Pan

when I became top of the pops aware. And she got promoted up to first when Louise Clark left and she's clearly the bridge between the traditional Pan's people to the more live legs and co isn't she? And apparently she cost Tony an absolute fortune.

That's what he says. That whole thing is a little bit creepy isn't it? Yeah just a bit yeah. It would have been better if they had opened the present and inside it were all of pan's people's dogs dead and cut to tony laughing maniacally yeah instead what we get is when it cuts to tony and he turns back to the camera he does look like he's been caught having a wank on something really surreptitious and odd i also really like the fact the attention to detail with top of the pops at this time you know that gift tag on the wrapping paper two pans people yeah i really hope that gift tag that enormous outsized gift tag is somewhere still you know in the studio or in

television set are covered in cobwebs and fag ash um i love getting lost in thinking of the rather mundane processes that must have been enacted to make those little add-ons real. But, you know, it's a shame about the first routine she's given, really, isn't it? Oh, God, yeah. After this awkward bit is done with, Tony tells us that Cherry will be dancing with Pants People all the way through 1973, which is a bit of a demand even on a trained dancer.

And the new era starts right here, as they're going to have a bit of emote too, Without You by Nielsen. Born in Brooklyn in 1941, Harry Nielsen relocated to California in his teens and eventually worked as a computer operator in a bank, while forging a career as a singer-songwriter on the side. In 1962, he landed a job singing demos for the songwriter Scott Turner and a year later linked up with John Mariscalco, best known for co-writing some of Little Richard's biggest hits, who helped him begin a solo career. After a spell working with Phil Spector, he landed a deal with RCA in

1966 and a year later put out his first LP, Pandemonium Shadow Show. Although it didn't do anything commercially, it was seized upon by certain music biz types as the coming thing, one of whom was Derek Taylor, press officer of the Beatles, who brought home a box of the LP and started lobbing it out to folk, including the mob fabs. They were so taken by it that when Paul McCartney and John Lennon gave a press conference to launch Apple Corps in New York in 1968, Lennon claimed that Nielsen was his favourite American singer and favourite American band. He finally broke through in the UK in 1969 when his cover of the Fred Niel single Everybody's Talking, used in Midnight Cowboy, got to number 23 in October of that year.

But despite establishing himself as an albums artist in the early 70s, hadn't been anywhere near the charts since. This single, a cover of a track featured on Badfinger's 1970 LP No Dice, was heard by Nielsen at a party in 1971 and after going through his Beatles LPs and discovering it wasn't one of theirs, recorded it for inclusion in his seventh LP, Nielsen Schmielsen. Put out as the lead-off single in America in October of 1971, it slowly clawed its way up the Billboard chart, spending four weeks at number one in February of 1972.

Emboldened by the number one place in, RCA put it out over here in the same month. And a month later, it had dragged Son of My Father off number one. Flick Colby said this was the worst ever Pants People performance. Chiefly because the costumes are too voluminous. But, you know, mainly they've been dealt a right shitty hand here,

haven't they? They have. Just imagine what they could have done with some of the singles we've already heard and are about to hear. Too right. Could have been a hot pantered frenzy. But that said, I mean, I like the way

that they're kind of dressed like Ingrid Pitt and Britt Eklund in the closing scene of The Wicker Man, but what they're being asked to do is pretty horrendous, really. I mean, there's only one way to dance to this record, if you're minded to dance to this record and that's drunk with your partner with your hands pouring each other in a really unpleasant way that descends into a sort of unholy frot fest i mean in terms of coolness if the coolest thing

pans people ever do that little promo vid they did to John Barry's Persuaders theme, then this routine is down there with, yeah, Gilbert O'Sullivan's Get Down routine. It is Pans People, probably my favourite dance troupe. So the things that we love about Pans People, that slight sense of rushed rehearsal, those tiny imperfections that make them a cherishably British phenomenon, more than merely a version of an American trope. All of that's there, but I don't want to watch this routine ever again. No.

You know what I mean? There's nothing in the routine that engages at all. Yeah. I mean, they're dressed as inmates from a sexy asylum. Yes. Or like the ghosts of 18th century children children bricked up in the cellar. It's like when Sally Oldfield was on top of the pubs. Remember that one?

Diana Ross and the Brontes. I mean, we've seen other Christmas specials where Legs & Co especially were allowed to cut loose a bit from their enforced artificial innocence and stop smiling like halfwits and get a bit sexier you know like as if they were battling for attention against the post christmas dinner bloat you know but here is the exact opposite it's like yeah they're done up in yeah long sleeved smocks that go from the collarbone right down to the grubby studio floor. And when they spin around and around without getting dizzy,

which is fairly impressive in its way, but not much of a dance routine, although this isn't much of a dance record, you can see that they're even wearing petticoats underneath, just in case. Oh, they're wearing their support garments. Yeah. Yeah, i don't know what the thinking was do you think mary whitehouse has crept in to the dressing rooms she would have no

complaints about this would she no it might have been one of the things that she might have written to the bbc to commend them on much as you know i think she wrote to itv commending them on a beaver documentary once suggesting that they actually be on primetime television it was odd what she found entertaining but you know what can you what can you do to this record i know let's let's cut to the chase i fucking hate this song it's pure dad divorce pop isn't it if you were around your mate's house at any point during the 70s and his dad came back from the pub and put this on or turned it up when it came on the radio that was the fucking sign to leg it out the house and have a really loud and intense game

of kirby i know what you mean it's awful man it's fucking awful people go on about harry nielsen say oh you must investigate this and that it's like no i've heard this i'm not going any further fuck him on one level it is passive aggressivey, emotional blackmail, this song. It's bombastic. It's over-sincere. It's pathetically drunk as well, this song, it sounds. Basically, yeah, I'm going to top myself if you leave. And I think the key word is he goes, I can't live if Livin' Is Without You.

I'd have more respect for the protagonist of the song if he did spell it out in a very teenage way and said i won't live if an authentic promise rather than a needy threat i don't believe listening to without you that the singer of this will really do it if you like and and as a cry for help it's just kind of annoying the one blessing about it is it's shorter than you think this record and that's amazing neil because as soon as it comes on and you hear it it's just like oh we're in for a long haul it's one of them songs and it's totally the wrong song for pants people to dance to because it's a man's song isn't it yeah without a doubt i mean the one thing in its mitigation is that it did

i think it kept american Pie off the top spot. And I hate that record even more than I don't like this. But the thing is with the record, and I have to say some positives about it, I think it's arranged really well. It's very, very clever. It's kind of ahead of its time in that regard. Mariah Carey is free when this record comes out.

But for that kind of singer and for the legions of copycat witnesses and Mariahs that a show like x factor would encourage this is the perfect song to showcase your chops because you've got to do quiet you've got to do close you've got to do tender but you've also got to belt it out at key points yeah or you could do it on bulgarian idol or whatever it was called where that woman turned up and says i'm going to do this song called Ken Lee. And they were like, what are you going on about? And she started singing it.

She thought it was called Ken Lee. Look, I mean, the Badfinger version, right, I think goes on too long. It feels a bit demo-ish. And I've heard varying reports about the recording of this song. Jimmy Webb was in the studio next door and said... Can you shut the fuck up? Jimmy Webb's recording an album of his own in the studio next door and said... Can you shut the fuck up? Jimmy Webb's recording

an album of his own in the adjacent studio and according to Jimmy Webb, he witnesses what he still considers to be the greatest vocal performance in all of pop or rock. It isn't that. It is better than I think than the overlong Badfinger version. There's actually a demo version of this as well

that's even better than this version. I do have problems with it because it leads to some pretty horrible records. I mean, I think you could draw a direct line from Without You to All By Myself by Eric Carman. And certainly, if I was a kid watching this, it would be a definitive piss break song. It would have annoyed the fuck out of me

as a repeated play number one as well. Much as I would have felt about, I don know those were the days and seasons in the sun um it's one of those in it let's get out the room the problem that pans people have here apart from you know being virtually tied up in a sack is that this is not a woman's song i mean if they were dressed up as dads in an armchair knocking back a bottle of teachers. It would have been more opposite. Or they should have been dressed up as Christmas trees decorated with tears. I bet fucking Savile was playing this over and over as he frotted his mum's clothes this Christmas. The thing is, of course, it's bitterly ironic that Neil should say that he doesn't believe the singer of this is actually going to do it.

I know actually co-written by two people whose biographies say otherwise yeah one weird and sometimes wonderful thing about pop music is the way the rules can shift and morph around you and sometimes something which can seem like obvious rubbish can turn out to be magnificent, and sometimes something which seems like it should be objectively good ends up feeling a bit unsubtle and overbearing, which may be what's happened here. Because I don't really like this record either, even before the nightmarish, pseudo-sincere over-singers of the modern era have got anywhere near it, right?

Because let's not be in any doubt, right, Harry Nilsson was a very talented man and an extremely good singer, at least until he broke his voice singing drunk. And in fact, the best thing about this version of this song is the layering of the vocal tracks, he's harmonizing with himself but the more the song comes undone emotionally the more he splits the vocal tracks and lets them drift away from each other which works rather better to convey desolation and mental collapse than the ghastly overcooked screeching and bellowing Which most people now associate

With this song Thank god karaoke hadn't been invented In the 70s man Fucking hell This is the Kaylee of the 70s isn't it But what's weird is that Nielsen was primarily a songwriter I mean that's how he got his start

He wrote Cuddly Toy for the Monkees Was his first success which is a song that i've never liked because it's a bit too delighted with its own naughtiness and and cleverness you know it's a jolly sounding song for the biggest teeny band of the day and it's called cuddly toy and of course it's about having it off with a teenage virgin uh although the delicately ambiguous morality of the lyrics is a little bit steamrolled by Davy Jones on the record. But he was a songwriter, that was his thing,

and yet his two best-known records, the only two Harry Nilsson tracks that anyone's ever fucking heard of this and Everybody's Talking, which are both covers and both totally unrepresentative of his style. There's a TV special from, I think, 1971, where he plays a load of his songs on his own on the piano, which demonstrates how beautifully and cleverly and intricately constructed his songs were,

but also how hard it can be to get inside them, because they're usually a little bit fiddly and a bit distanced because of the way he uses all these old-fashioned 1930s chord progressions and harmonies and stuff it's what he was into and he can never resist being a bit playful you know yeah but he was at least unique and he was not at all the singer of simple major chord ballads that you'd think if you'd only ever heard him on Top 40 radio. Yeah. He was interviewed in Melody Maker a year from now, and he was asked why he did this song,

and he was blatant about it. He said, we did it because my career was on the wane, and we wanted something to make a hit. You have to have hits. I don't care who you are. If don't have hits fuck you without you gave us that boost we needed so it was perfect but my reaction then and now is if you can't live just fucking die then please die now and finish this song and let's put something good on. That's a kid's reaction, Al. That's a kid's reaction. It is, it is.

But, you know, the child still lives within there. The child that hates Harry Nilsson still dwells within there. But the thing is with Nilsson, I don't know if anyone else got lost in reading about him a little bit. Could anyone establish for me how he died? Because I read a story about that when Nielsen passed on, he had a fatal heart attack whilst in the dentist chair in Burbank, California.

Not with Gaza. They left him in situ overnight, planning to move his body in the morning. And that night Burbank got hit by an earthquake and the chair with Nielsen in it was swallowed up by a crevice and never to be seen again. Now I don't know if that's true or not. I'm just sending that out there. It's a strange

end isn't it? I've not heard that story but that'd be great wouldn't it? If it was. You've got to go. What a way to go. Safety expensive for funeral and all that yeah. See the thing about this it's not even one of the best Badfinger songs. Yeah. That's what it's kind of annoying about it.

And I mean, the story of Badfinger is quite well known now but possibly not well known enough. Like, you know, everyone knows they were picked up by Apple, the Beatles label and they were given Come and Get It which was like, you know, one of Paul McCartney's more commercial cast-offs.

But really what fucked them was the fact that Apple was not the best or not the best organised or most professional of record companies. Yeah, I've heard that. Entirely stuffed by hippies, right? The head of press being the magnificent Derek Taylor. And if you want a quick, shocking glimpse of how PR has changed in the last 50 years, you have to watch the clip of Derek Taylor

being interviewed for American TV on the occasion of the Beatles' breakup. And imagine the same thing happening today. The biggest thing in the world has just happened. And the world's newsmen assemble in London to get the official word from their public relations man, who turns up with a dolly bird in a floppy hat and is very visibly on the wrong or right end

of half a bottle of scotch and several big chunky English joints and proceeds to ramble completely incoherently for ten minutes into the camera. It's wonderful. He starts talking about Emperor Hirohito for no reason. And he concludes some marvelously incomprehensible rant by pointing drunkenly into the camera and saying, if the Beatles don't exist, you don't exist.

And there's a pause and then he goes, something like that. He's fucking great. But it gives you an insight into how Apple was being run. It was like, on the one hand, it was that. And on the other hand, like a bloodbath as all that hippie chaos was being bulldozed by financial thuggery of Alan Klein. So as the only good group on Apple, which they were, apart from the Beatles. Hot chocolate.

Yeah, but it was when hot chocolate weren't very good. That's the thing. Right. Then they really suffered. They had no guidance. They had dodgy people working for them. They got into terrible trouble and all culminated in the in suicide of pete ham co-writer of this song and eight years later the suicide of tom evans the other co-author of this song because they still hadn't sorted out

the shit they were in which is a horrible story yeah um it was over the royalties for this single wasn't it yeah all their money basically got they got swindled out of all their money and you know the the thing about although the the bad finger story lights up the disconsolate tone of this song in a slightly different way really the moral of the story isn't comforting either because the moral of the story isn't comforting either, because the moral of the story is sometimes too close is worse than nowhere near. Oh, that's bleak. Although to lighten the mood, here's a pop quiz question. The clue being that it's something of a callback to something we were talking about earlier. What does this record have in common with Hey Jude, Life on Mars, Killer Queen, Your Song, Perfect Day

and I Don't Like Mondays, amongst others? Ooh. I'll let you answer this, Neil. Do you know the answer, Al? No. Is it to do with the instrumentation of it, Taylor? It is to do with the instrumentation of it, Taylor? It is to do with the instrumentation of it, Neil. And is it to do with...

Because I'm sensing no guitar, piano. I don't know. I shall put you out of your misery. Yeah, do so, please. They were all played on the same piano. Ah, wow. Yeah, the studio piano at Trident Studios in London, which is a remarkable fact,

unless I got some of the songs wrong, in which case I don't care at all. But it's at least very close to being correct. Although I'm a bit uncomfortable bringing that up because for a certain class of music nerds, I believe that fact is bordering on a frank beard, like a frank heavy stubble if you yeah yeah but i went with it because i'd never insult you or our listeners by assuming that any of them are that

nerdish or anal or interested in things that don't really matter so without you would spend five five fucking weeks at number one keeping american pie by don mcclain and beg steal or borrow by the new seekers off the top eventually giving way to something more upbeat and vital amazing grace by the pipes and drums of the military band of the royal scots dragoon guards the follow-up coconut only got to number 42 in june and the only other time he bothered the business end of the charts was when Without You got to number 22 on two non-consecutive weeks in November of 1976. Nielsen would spend the rest of the 70s getting pissed up with Ringo and John Lennon, putting out singles and LPs to diminish in returns, eventually dying in January of 1994.

But a week later, Mariah Carey splayed the song out on some chipboard, nailed down its extremities, and gave it the full X Factor blowtorch, which went straight in at number one in February and stayed there for four fucking weeks. And from the peace of Nielsen to the power of the Osmonds. Thank you. There's a message floating in the air Come from crazy horses riding everywhere After a quick flash of some abstract art for some reason, we crossfade out of Nielsen into the next single,

which means we don't get thwacked across the face by the mental synthy intro. So, yeah, cheers for that, Harry, you cunt. Edmund, putting on that voice again, tells us we're going from the peace of Nielsen to the power of the Osmonds with Crazy Horses. Yeah, the peace of Nielsen. It shows how closely Noel was listening to that suicide ballad.

Yeah. Ah, peaceful. He must have been distracted by Pans people because he enjoyed that but if he had three hands he would have applauded we covered ken ken ken ken and donnie in chart music number three and this taken from their fourth lp of the same name is the uk follow-up to down by the lazy river which got to number 40 for two weeks in April. It only got to number 14 in America in October, but on the back of the success of Donnie's solo career, it entered the chart in November at number 27, then soared 20 places to number 7 and went all the way to number

2. And here's another chance to see their studio performance which was recorded when they were over here on their first uk tour and that tour chaps fucking hell a landmark event of the 70s i believe i mean not only did they arrive at heathrow on the same day as the jackson five who were doing the raw variety show but both bands stayed on the same day as the Jackson 5, who were doing the Royal Variety Show, but both bands stayed in the same fucking hotel. Which is insane. Terrible planning. It must have been fucking

sheer hysteria around that place. Yeah, also in that hotel on the same night, in a bad fucking scheduling move, the Four Tops, who were doing their UK tour, the poor bastards, man. I could just see Levi Stubbs in a thick toweling dressing gown standing at a window,

holding a West Clocks timepiece and shouting, for fuck's sake, keep the fucking noise down. One room with en suite bathroom of gloom. And of course, one of the great things about that arrival at Heathrow was Chinny Chap were watching it on the TV news. And one of them said, oh my God, it's a teenage rampage. And the other one said, good title for a song. Was that in the Chinny Chap biopic or did that really happen?

Article in the Daily mirror a day later weenie rampage stops a pop visit fear of a weenie bop a riot has forced a top store to cancel an appearance by american pop stars the osman brothers the group were due to spend an hour today signing records and meeting fans at the Swan and Edgar store in London's West End. But the visit was called off after fans, many of them girls aged 11 or 12, besieged the hotel where they're staying. Extra police were called in when weenie boppers,

some armed with knives and one with a sledgehammer, stormed the Churchill Hotel on Portman Square. Yesterday, Swan and Edgar decided not to risk the trouble from fans. A spokesman for the store said, we were advised by the police to cancel the appearance. Even today, we had almost 200 Osman fans in the store. Six were hysterical and had to be calmed down. The police at the hotel, they eventually arrested eight girls, all of whom were under 13, after a plate glass window at the hotel was pushed through.

So, yeah, very busy day at that hotel. I'm wondering about that early 70s definition of calmed down as well. The thing is, that kind of hysteria, if it was just about, say, puppy love, you could kind of think, oh, that's a bit ridiculous. But if it's about crazy horses, it's totally understandable.

Definitely. This is a fucking tune, isn't it? Let's put it right out here. This is fucking amazing, this record. I've always thought this record's amazing. And I think it's basically because it's so fucking metal. That's why. Don't take my word for it. Ask Ozzy Osbourne. Yes. You know, when Donnie was on Dancing With The Stars and Kelly Osbourne was in the finals with him, Ozzy comes right up to Donnie and says,

I just want you to know that Crazy Horses is one of my favourite rock and roll songs of all time. At that pub where Gary Glitter was played, there was a barmaid there who was young and Crazy Horses came on and she says, oh, I know who's done this. It's Little Ozzy Osmond, isn't it? In a way it is though, isn't it? I'd love to see Little Ozzy Osmond, isn't it? In a way, it is, though, isn't it?

I'd love to see Little Ozzy Osmond. Yeah, it really is. And don't just take Ozzy's word for it. You know, what about Led Zeppelin? You know, Led Zeppelin invite the Osmonds on stage to sing Stairway to Heaven at Earl's Court because they love Crazy Horses so much and they invite them backstage.

And John Bonham even brings his son Jason to an Osmonds concert and brings them backstage. Believe Simon Le Bon who also asked the Osmonds to tour with Geran later because Crazy Horses is one of his favourite records or beyond all that, ask

Saddam Hussein. When the military caught Saddam Hussein they discovered he had a complete collection of Osman's records. Yes. Including Crazy Horses. Who could resist this record? I can imagine Saddam doing the fucking mud rocker in front of that massive mural he had at his swimming pool

of the Wings of Love. Yeah, listening to Crazy Horses, eating a bounty and swigging a glass of Jolly Walker Black. Well, you know what else Saddam Hussein was into, but bringing it back to Christmas and all? Quality Street. Oh, really? Yeah.

When George Galloway interviewed him about 20 years ago, first thing Saddam did was break out a big tin of Quality Street and shake it at him and say, oh, pick every one you want, mate. That's nice, isn't it even the green ones yeah i'd have thought it had been sweet enough already all the fun of this sheer as they say in iraq i'm just dead proud as well that this is the one that really starts flying up the british yes i'm not saying it's a very rocky chart that we're looking at or a rocky year

but we we're into a bit of that it's more successful in the uk than it is in america this tune it's not glam of course but you know it's a very guitar sort of heavy vibe to an awful lot of the pop songs going on in 72 and this is just a fucking sensational smoking hot record yes and what an introduction fuck it one of the best introductions to a single ever yeah which if you did it now it would get no radio play because people would say no that's so that introduction is too too aggressive and startling it's the fucking osmonds yeah it's so bizarre that this record exists yes i mean you can see pretty much how it might have happened, right? Like how a fundamentally quite crap act

with mostly crap songs could think, all right, let's do a stomper with a gimmick and go all out on the production. And through a combination of basic competence, the high standards of studio recording at the time, and a huge bestowal of trier's luck, come out with something like this. Because this is largely an Osman creation.

I mean, it's written and co-produced by members of the group, already forgotten which ones, because they're like the indistinguishable bridges of Amsterdam. Jay and Meryl. Okay, right. And it's it's also sorry co-produced by michael lloyd from the west coast pop art experimental band yeah yeah yeah but the the real thrill of this is that it should never have happened no you know what i mean it's like they really did blow a dart out of their arse and hit the bullseye and i love that because it's like an expensive version of those 60s garage

records or something or yeah those one-off punk singles like i got rabies by johnny and the lubes which is an amazing record but it's the only thing they ever did that you'll ever care about you know what i mean and there's a lovely purity to that. But the difference is, I Got Rabies by Johnny and the Lubes is also the only thing Johnny and the Lubes ever did you will ever hear about. Like it's not set against this weird background of, you know, lube mania.

Whereas the contrast between the volcanic hysteria of this record and the overall cultural and musical bromide of the osmonds it just it's an extra thrill it gives it that little extra something yeah yeah yeah and i've said it before but i'll say again what a fucking head fuck this must have been for a 15 year old head hearing this amazing sound coming out of his little sister's bedroom and thinking oh god is this hot wind or sabbath or something it's like oh no it's that band you hate and if that little sister had the album as well he's gonna hear hold her tight which is their version of immigrant song really it's fucking amazing tune the osmonds on the quiet was skill they

really were yeah it's like hearing welcome to the pterodome and finding out it's been made by bros must have been gutting for that lad but the thing is as well this performance is fucking awesome i think it's really really good it's great on this song anyway yeah that they gave the lead vocal to jay um because i always love a singing drummer and his more sort of low voice guttural voice totally suits the sound yeah and in this performance the fact he's doing his vocal live means that he gets kind of breathless and sweaty and it really really amps up the feel and of course there's that lovely daft waddle thing they do with the legs chicken dance that's the one that makes you feel strangely like you yes you're witnessing a rock show but also i don't

know it's part rodeo and part monster truck rally as well it's just it's just strange but what a bolt from the blue it is yeah this record as you can imagine this was an absolute banger at the scott home thursday dinner time disco and when i saw the osmonds perform it for the first time i was shocked that they weren't Cherokees. I thought they were Native Americans who were in a rock band. Right, right. Because it sounds like an electronic powwow. You know, the drums are proper, you know, tribal.

Yeah, yeah. The opening bit isn't necessarily, it's just an organ, but they rigged it up in the studio and surrounded it with loads of amps. And it was so loud that they had to play the organ from inside the gallery of the studio and surrounded it with loads of amps and um it was so loud that they had to play the organ from inside the gallery of the studio you couldn't be in the fucking same room as that when they played it it was too loud and ear splitting wow proper spinal tap and really hats off to them because of course you know up until this point they'd been a boy band and all of their songs were chosen for them by the record company yeah they earned this kind of slight bit of autonomy with that success but good on them for using that success to just basically freak the

fuck out and play this immensely heavy song yeah although not for the last time in this episode i'm not quite 100 sure what we're actually listening to here i think i mean it's live vocals i think over a bad mix of the backing track, which is a bit of a shame. It's hard to tell for sure, but whatever, it's a bad move because the magic of this record is precariously balanced. This is not like the Stones shambling on stage and making a mess, and it still sort of sounds great and is exciting.

Like Crazy Horses is a mini miracle yeah they can't really afford to play loose with it so it survives here but what we actually hear hasn't got the ump for the record like that whinnying organ is absurdly low in the mix yeah yeah no apparent reason which the whole fucking point of the record exactly The point of the record is the way it rears up out of the mix at you with its nostrils flaring, you know what I mean? Bearing its ugly yellow teeth in your face and giving you colic and potomac fever. Stealing your apple right out of your hand.

As soon as you mix that down, you've already taken 50% from this record so it's a bit of a shame you're better off listening to the record than watching this but no while it's here it's more than welcome oh yeah because the undertow is fucking immense and the undertow cannot be denied it's just this amazing smoking hot beat you know much like much of this episode actually and i'm sure it's not just my ears going wrong fuck me it's a bassy episode there's a it's a good low end to it a lot of these songs and that really comes across there donnie pushed to the back yeah it's a

definite power move isn't it by jay and merrill to let the young one know his place but then again he gets to fuck about with the organ and do that slidey thing which is amazing i used to do that on a table they all look so much happier as well they all look like they're enjoying it i mean they're not all great at rocking out but they all look so much more comfortable and even though donnie yeah has been shoved to the side a little bit he looks genuinely properly happy like he's enjoying this music yeah exactly yeah he's on a good record for probably the first time i mean neil from what you're saying do you like those weird later osman records oh no no for me the cutoff point is the crazy horses

album and and i do yeah you're right taylor next one. What's the concept album called from 73? The Plan. The Plan. The Plan is an amazing record. But after that, yeah, it all falls apart. See, I think The Plan is more amazing in theory than in practice. That's my problem. No, with The Plan, I know you're right. I am probably, the thing is with The Plan and with Crazy Horse is the album.

At times, you kind of, am i really digging this or am i just amazed that it's the osmonds yeah do you know what i mean and and if this was coming from a more conventional rock band would i just think oh this is mediocre but i will always stand up for crazy horses and hold her tight hold her tight it's a fucking amazing osman song the plan has definite moments of intrigue i cannot find it's a vowed avowed kind of concept about Mormonism much in it. It just seems like a set of songs. But as a sort of bit of ear candy, what it reminds me of is Turtles Battle of the Bands a little bit.

It's got a similar sound to that record. So I do enjoy that one. I do enjoy Crazy Horses. But Crazy Horses, the album, fuck me. Don't bother with anything else apart from the first track on each side. First track on side one, I think, is Crazy Horses. First track on side two, Hold Her Tight. That's all you need. If they'd have released

that as a double A, that would go down as one of the greatest singles of the 70s. I don't know that song. Oh, Hold Her Tight is amazing. As far as I'm aware, with the Osmonds, this song is their primary achievement. Their third greatest achievement is One Bad Apple,

which is an actual Jackson 5 cast-off and still better than all but one of the Osmonds records that I've ever heard. And their second greatest achievement is partially inspiring The Osmonds by Denim, which is the loveliest song about the British 70s with precisely the right balance of humour and seriousness of a sort and which should probably be in the collection of every chart music listener.

And I don't think there is a fourth greatest achievement unless this song you're talking about is as great as you say. I'll hold it tight. It's funny you mentioned Den though Taylor I was thinking of denim you know when we would talk about chickery tip that sound that chickery tip doing that is a real denim yeah I was thinking because I was thinking about I met Lawrence at a denim once or twice when he was staying around and I was talking to him once he was talking about the sound of the denim album and he said uh yeah i realized that all my life i wondered why my records didn't sound like my favorite records that i'd liked as a kid and i realized it's because they didn't put any reverb on these records they were all really dry so that's

how he did the denim album and i said lawrence all those felt records like the defining characteristic of those records is they're all absolutely swamped in reverb and he goes yeah quite ironic really yeah but this song man fucking hell the one thing that's missing from this performance that would ramp it up even more is if little jim Jimmy was there with his top off dancing like Stacia. That would have just put the fucking tin lid on everything. But yeah, we spoke earlier and we raised the question, was it just Donny that got the girls screaming or was there anything in the other Osmonds? And I'll contend there was.

Well, they all looked like him. Yeah. I mean, basically, if you fancy Donner, you're probably going to fancy the other Osmond. But the run of shows in 1974, looking back on it as I did for this episode, I mean, fucking hell, they could do anything and they'd get screamed at.

They do their barbershop routine from the andy williams show screams they have a bit of a country hoedown screams they talk about their wives screams they could have done anything man and they would have just been screamed at yeah because they've got that massive they've got that appeal that actually pushes i think beyond sexuality or anything else the hysteria just gets fixated on the band. Yeah. And it's kind of like, I don't think all the people scream that and thinking what they want to do to the Osmonds

or with the Osmonds necessarily. They just become the focus. Yeah. And, you know, because they're perfect when your world isn't, it's going to have that effect. And it is down to them being american you know these girls are reacting to the osmonds that in the same way that their aunties reacted to the gis during the war you know they just came from a better place they were better dressed uh than

the local lads and the mormonism i think does send the message that, you know, they're not going to try and fill you up. They're going to be gentlemen, do you know? Yeah. And they might already be married, but they could still marry you as well. Yes. Yeah. As I said in a previous chat, they should have held a mass Mormon wedding ceremony

on the last gig of their tour. They're offering this little house on the prairie lifestyle for, you know, British kids living in this scabby arse of a country. So Crazy Horse has spent three weeks at number two, held off its rightful place at the top by the next single we're going to hear. The follow-up, Going Home, got to number four in August of 1973, but they eventually got to number one a year later with Love Me For A Reason. Crazy Horses would make two appearances in the UK charts in the 90s

when a remix by Utah Saints got to number 50 in September of 1995, Saints got to number 50 in September of 1995 and it's use in a Virgin Atlantic advert got the original to number 34 in June of 1999 Isn't that a great song? That's from the Osmonds Crazy Horses Awesome I don't know how to sort of put this, but, you know, it's lovely to have you here, but what are you doing here? That's lovely, isn't it?

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

It just so happens you've got the everything set up over there. I've got to relate it to myself, if that's all right with you. Lovely. OK, then. And here's the record from Chuck Berry, My Ding-a-ling. When I was a wee little boy My grandmother bought me a cute little toy Silver bells hanging on a string She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling

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

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

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

But he's friendly, which is all you want as a kid. But I remember being impressed by his artwork as a child, or at least his speed in creating it. But fuck me, he's no Tony Hart. Born in St. Louis in 1926, Chuck Beret is Chuck fucking Beret. Although he was one of the most influential artists of the rock and roll era on the youth of Britain, his UK chart career was patchy at best, scoring only two top ten singles in the 60s

with Let It Rock and No Particular Place To Go. However, he re-signed to Chess Records in 1970 and underwent a renaissance on the back of the rock and roll revival boom and spent a lot of time in the UK in 1972, playing a 60-date tour, playing the set of the day at the Rock and Roll Festival at Wembley Stadium in August and recording the LP The London Chuck Berry Sessions for Chess. Side two of that LP was to be given over to a live recording, which turned out to be a portion of his set at the Lanchester Arts Festival at the Locarno in Coventry on February the 3rd of this year, sandwiched between Slade and Pink Floyd. And as an encore, and while he was running overtime as usual, and thousands of heads

were outside banging on the doors to see Pink Floyd, he gave an 11-minute encore of this single, a cover of the song based on the folk song Little Brown Jug, which was first recorded by Dave Bartholomew in 1952, which was covered by The Beez as Ting-a-ling in 1954 and covered as My Tambourine by Barry himself in 1968. When the LP came out in June, a bone-down version of this was put out as the leaked cut, and with next to no airplay, eventually snuck into the chart at number 38 in the last week of October, becoming his first hit in the UK since Promised Land got to number 26 for two weeks in February of 1965. When it jumped up 15 places the following week, the BBC put it on top of the pops. Luckily, they already had footage to go.

As they filmed an appearance on the BBC Two show Sounds on Saturday at the BBC Television Theatre in the spring and put it out in July, cutting his performance of this song from transmission. When the clip was aired, My Dinger Link soared 17 places to number six, then jumped four places to number two, was repeated on Top of the Pops again, and in the last week of November, it scared off Clear by Gilbert O'Sullivan to get to number one.

But by this time, a certain 62-year-old woman from Nuneaton had noticed and she opened up a new front in her war with the BBC. Article in the Daily Mirror from November the 28th. Ding dong, ding-a-ling!

Mrs Whitehouse in row with BBC over that top of the pop song. A campaign to have the number one pop hit, My Ding-a-ling, banned from BBC TV and radio shows, has been started by Mrs Mary Whitehouse. She

claims that it is meant to encourage masturbation. She has written to Sir John Eden, Minister of Telecommunications, asking him to stop the Chuck Berry record being broadcast. In her letter, she quotes from the song, I like to play with my ding-a-ling, and most of all, with your ding-a-ling.

Not even there, dog. And she says there is no doubt that such lines are intended to encourage mutual masturbation. Mrs Whitehouse, Secretary of the National Viewers and Listeners Association, spoke yesterday

of a film screened on last week's Top of the Pops of US rock star Beret singing the controversial song. She said, Some young people in the studio were obviously embarrassed and clearly didn't want to join in the singing. Technicians were told to spotlight them, however,

and thus they were forced to participate. This was a technique more in keeping with fascism in a totalitarian state than in Britain. It is a scandal that the BBC should allow itself to be used as a vehicle for mass child molestation

in this way. Fucking hell. Who can forget that chilling scene in Triumph of the Will when Hitler stands at a podium and screams, Mein Dingalingen! Mein Dingalingen! You will play with mein Dingalingen! The following week, with the world watching on in anticipation,

Top of the Pops dared to play the single again. And once more, the Daily Mirror was there to report. Babies playing with bells helped to cool down the ding-dong row over that song last night. The baby pictures were screened on the Top of the Pops TV show while Chuck Berry's song My Ding-a-ling was played. The show's producers, banned from using a clip of the star, rang the changers with another idea. The Pans people dancing girls tinkled bells attached to their wrists

while they gyrated in brief costumes. Wisely electing not to play the song on baby Jesus' birthday to avoid the unsavory sight of the nation's children violently masturbating over action man's face but unable to leave one of the biggest selling singles of the year out completely the bbc appeared to have struck upon a compromise with a very special guest i mean mean, before we get stuck into Rolf, what a fucking palaver over this song, man. Yeah, it's so typical that of all the reasons

you could find to censure Chuck Berry, Mary's main problem is that he said ding-a-ling. She was a kid-a-minster person for a while, Mary Whitehouse. You must be proud. Yeah, she wasn't a friend of mine or anything. Actually, she lived in a place called Far Forest, which sounds quite magical.

Like she lived in the turret of a raven black castle with bats flying out of the cross-shaped windows. But it's actually a quite genteel village just outside kidderminster where she lived at this time in fact 1972 right just safely nestled in the triangular homeland of the old school british reactionary far right you know enoch power peter griffiths yeah yeah mary whitehouse wolpton, Smethwick, Kidderminster, which is not so much where I came from as where I left.

And I can't really afford London these days. And whenever I moan about that, someone always says, would you ever move back up to where you came from? And I say, I'd rather be flatmates with Ronnie Pickering. She could have

adopted you, Taylor, fucking hell. Imagine. Yeah, well, I mean, of course, all of what Whitehouse did did the job for Chuck, because it kept the record prominent. Definitely, yeah. When Sir Charles Curran, DG the bbc writes back to

white house he does wonder and i quote whether the record would remain in a high position in the charts for such a long time without the publicity yes attendant upon the publication of your comments which is a really good point you know far from cleaning up society as she intended to do yeah she was kind of instrumental in bringing about these scenarios for herself yeah and she'd left it a bit too late hadn't she really when the song's already at number one yeah completely clearly she wasn't listening to tom brown on sunday afternoon with a notebook in hand but you know also i didn't really get what the problem is with mutual masturbation it seems one of the most anodyne sexual activities, really.

It's not going to cause any problems as such. I don't know if you want it on top of the pops on a Thursday night when you're having a late tea. Hey, look, Mary Whitehouse resigned as a teacher to devote her energies to the Women of Britain Clean Up TV campaign. That's inspirational to me. I would love to resign as a teacher but um you know not not to do anything like this and in a sense you know of course she's just doing an old game it goes all

the way back to plato the idea that artistic expression can conflict with a well-ordered society but jesus christ choose your targets um this record i mean why is it by the way with this episode that uh whenever coventry gets involved, something strange starts fucking happening? Yes. It's really odd. But, I mean, you know, 72, I mean, granted it didn't get played on the radio,

but we've had Judge Dredd big six in the charts. Yeah, he must be fuming. Well, quite. Why hasn't Mary Whitehouse said anything about him? He's just not right. He must be sat at home now, just watching this going, fucking hell, that could be me. Rolf could be doing

content of me. But that's a filthy record. That was in the charts. Yes. So why are Top of the Pops doing this then, chaps? Well, I mean, this is not the most insightful observation. I think you'll agree. But by illustrating it

so, Rolf is, of course, murdering the joke, such as it is. I mean, this is probably the single worst song in the world for a quick sketch artist to illustrate. I mean, excuse the obviousness of what I'm about to say, and a joke stops being funny when you explain it. Even the rip-snorting, show-stopping laugherama of my ding-a-ling. But the way this thing works is he says,

A, which is something very innocent, but because of how it's worded, you can't help but picture B, which is rude. So accompanying that song with a series of illustrations of A, gumming up your mind's eye and blocking the path of a joke, is effectively comic sabotage. And slightly fascinating in its illustration of the block-headed philistinism of people in positions of influence in the media, even during its golden age. And what interests me is, is Rolfe so utterly stupid that he can't see that?

Or is he just completely fine with any degree of professional humiliation, so long as it involves free entry into a room full of prey um you know he's just sniffing around the watering hole for a baby gazelle with a limp you know i don't know you just say fuck off back to animal hospital go and cuddle a hedgehog in a towel or like wash down an elephant with a broom you know because he loves animals wrong he's got the scars to prove it i'm gonna sue over that is he's like no i think that that had a negative effect on my reputation yeah right i mean he's no stranger to the top of the pops of course he was a recording artist of sorts throughout the 60s linked linked up with George Martin in 1962.

It was the best stuff he ever did, those records. It's not that long ago that he was the Christmas number one in 1969 with two little boys. At number one for six weeks and the last number one of the 60s. That's how the 60s bowed out. And by this point,

he's still a BBC regular. He's just finished the final series of the Saturday evening variety thing, The Roll Farris Show, and has nipped into the studio while he's in the building, recording his week-long run as a storyteller on Play School. So, yeah, that's why he's there. And also, apart from explaining the joke,

I contend he's also in here to cover up the bits in the film where the SS put their jack boots on people's throats for not being indoctrinated into masturbation she does have a real problem with it later on in the decade i think she writes to the bishop of southwark in 79 saying will you state publicly and quite specifically whether you are endorsing the practices of mutual masturbation common among some homosexuals and whether you expect the church to do the same and whether you see such practices as the will of god clearly it's a bit of a no pun intended a hot button issue for her what did he do to inspire that i have no idea you gotta check your bible neil is it

you know every sperm is sacred and all that. You spill your seed on the ground. It does not go down well. Of course, of course. I mean, the full-length clip of the performance is out there on YouTube, and it is a masterpiece of innuendo. While he's introducing it, Chuck gives everyone the finger, and nobody in the audience gets it because, you know,

the people of 1972 in Britain still use two fingers because they're not traitorous cunts. And there's hints in what he says about lesbianism and homosexuality as well. And all of that is fine. Yeah, Mary wouldn't have got that. No, a bit under her radar, I guess. He does a series of cartoons, which obviously have been pre-done to some extent,

just so he can finish them off. So we see Rolf in a pram, Rolf as a schoolboy, Rolf falling off a wall, Rolf underwater avoiding a crocodile, and at the end, Santa's holding a sign that reads, Happy 1973. What a shame he didn't turn the last one around to reveal that what he was actually drawing

was a Rolf Aru masturbating over Mary Whitehouse and matting up her best hand. Do you think he is essentially there as a distraction from the content of the record? Yeah, that's what I think. Because it is close to Christmas. I mean, it's not Christmas, but, yeah, that would just add more grist to her mill, wouldn't it,

if in any way it was kind of associated with this sort of period of the year. But, yeah, I mean, what a strange thing for a pretty fucking awful record. Yeah. Well, this is it. Not only does Rolf detract from the joke for the people who are offended it also detracts from having to watch chuck berry doing this yeah yeah completely i mean you watch this he's come a long way since maybelline in the same way that covid's come a long way since we could all have fun i Everybody knows that Chuck Berry is one of the greatest, right?

But I think not everyone really personally knows it, and they should, right? If you listen to a decent pressing of Chuck Berry's 50s and very early 60s stuff, i.e. not a CD from a petrol station or one of those 80s albums of old hits where some tracks may have been re-recorded by the original artist i.e the drummer and four blokes he met at faith in recovery um and it's just you you hear it and it's impossible not to feel it if you've ever enjoyed any form of rock and roll music

it's impossible not to love in the same way that it's impossible not to find Laurel and Hardy hilarious if you've ever laughed at anything, ever. Because it's that thing stripped down to the root and throbbing with the thrill of creation and the thrill of the now and the sheer delight of being there and doing it. But I mean, even then then chuck was notorious for being a

little bit money-minded um by the 70s he was mostly just touring around showing up at the venue demanding payment before the show and then going on with a local pickup band a lot of the time they were often just local kids because there wasn't a rock band in the world who couldn't play Chuck Berry songs. And it was just down to luck and the mercurial moods of an often not very nice man, whether you got

the blindingly brilliant rock and roll show that he could still do, or someone playing Johnny B. Goode like he was slinging his 90th bin bag of the day onto the back of the dust bin line. He was ruthlessly mercenary

throughout his career to be honest with you but I mean I remember him appearing on Aspel and Company in about 1987 and he was there to promote his autobiography. I'll never forget Michael Aspel just sort of genially says to him, so I understand you'll be playing Johnny Be Good for us tonight. And Chuck Berry goes,

no, for second class money, you get a second class song. And he goes on to play Memphis, Tennessee instead. But I mean, it is sad in a way that seeing this, I know it's, you know, whereas I had immense civic pride with the Lieutenant Pigeon connection, less so here. I mean, what Taylor's just said really matches up a lot, actually.

I found the Coventry Evening Telegraph review of that performance of Dingaling. And the music journalist or whoever it was for the Coventry Evening Telegraph back then, he said, I thought it was easily the worst thing he's ever done. It seems rather sad after all the great rock classics with those sly perceptive lyrics he's recorded over the years that the song which really establishes him should be this rather dubious rehashed nursery rhyme and i and i think that i think that's right um but there's a lot of myths about that night both in commentary and kind of

outside of commentary about what happened i in Coventry and kind of outside of Coventry about what happened I mean Chuck Berry himself in his autobiography he claims that there were 35,000 people in the crowd and you know the Locarno Ballroom or I mean Locarno Ballroom which is of course with my my school in a way because it became central library in Coventry, you know, certainly won't fit 35,000 people. It does take him about 20 minutes to teach the crowd the song. And that is the main trouble with this song. I fucking hate crowd participation, let alone hearing it or seeing it. Um,

yeah. Also based around innuendo. Um, my band accidentally supported a Christian rock band once that started doing crowd participation and then nearly cringed myself inside out um i want you to worship my christ alized they came out in the fucking crowd and started doing acapella shit it was horrible but um for the coventry gig i mean it's interesting who's playing with him on this you know you've got half the average white band.

Yeah. You've got... Who are not on the single because it's just him. Yeah, yeah. I think on that night as well, the bass player is Nick Potter, who actually played with Van de Graaff Generator, oddly enough. And the whole thing's recorded on the Pi mobile unit. And I would recommend, if you're going to listen to the london sessions lp there is that

fantastic bit at the end of johnny be good where i do feel a bit of civic pride just hearing cov people go mental um and hearing a cov guy on the mic trying to get him to shut up um he's like look there's about 2 000 people outside waiting for the pink Floyd. We don't have a Floyd concert if we don't clear the place. It's as simple as that. This is the management. And then another bloke comes on, just going, hold it, kids. Hold it. If you're quiet for 30 seconds, I'll tell you what's happened.

30 seconds is all I ask, and I'll explain it all. And, of course, they don't. They just keep rattling on. Another odd factor about this recording, by the way, is that one of the engineers on the sound, or part of the production crew for the gig, was Graham Lewis from Wire. He was at Lanchester Poly at the time doing a sound production course.

And he meets Chuck Berry years later and tells him, yeah, I was there in Coventry when you recorded that. And all Chuck Berry said to him, I think, was, thank God, it wasn't Croydon, which is a strangely cryptic message. But, yeah. It's odd. I mean, the Coff Evening Telegraph, every now and then, they do put out the call, were you on this record?

Yeah. You know, were you there that night? So it's entered this thing whereby in Coff, I think an awful lot of people claimed they were there and they certainly weren't. What you say about the audience participation, though, it's like in the same way that recording my ding-a-ling is an extension of his financial cynicism.

Yeah. It's like the interactive element here is sort of a way to make up for the loss of vitality, you know. And it feels a little bit calculating and insincere, you know, like he's reaching out to the audience, but only to say, pull my finger, you know. Because it's like a magic spell, Chuck Berry's music. It's like most fundamentalist rock and roll.

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

or maybe it isn't it's like to use a chuck berry appropriate analogy it's like if suddenly your car can only do 30 miles an hour so you try to distract everyone from that with a honk if you're horny bumper sticker but what i do like about this period of chuck berry is that it's the period where he looks most like my nan my nan was a white lady but she really did facially look quite a lot like the middle-aged chuck berry i don't know if it was the moustache or the duck walk or the video camera she set up in her toilet. But no, she genuinely did have the bone structure of Chuck Berry. And you only see it when Chuck gets a bit older, but this clip has always creeped me out a little bit for that reason.

He's got an amazing shirt on, hasn't he? Yeah, he always cuts a dash, Chuck. And, you know, those early singles, as Taylor says, they're elemental biblical texts in rock and roll. You know, no Stones, no Beatles, no Beach Boys without those records. And, you know, the return of rock and roll, if you like, or 50s rock and roll with 72 is a big important part of an awful lot of the things we're looking at.

I mean, bear in mind, you know, this is number one for four weeks in November and December, and the last number one album of the year, in this country anyway, is, yeah, various artists, 25, rocking and rolling greats. All this stuff is coming back, you know. Yeah, I mean, he was the star turn of that big Wembley Stadium gig. Him and Bill Haley were the stars, simply because they were the only two who were actually from the 50s

who understood that they were playing to a load of 30 year old Ted's who wanted everything to sound exactly as it should Little Richard was doing his early 70s stuff he got booed off Gary Glitter and The Move were never going to cut it

Screaming Lord Such he did his usual stuff uh but during the daytime so it wasn't as scary as usual and um you know billy fiori and all that lot pitched up and so did a few others but yeah chuck berry just went oh is this what you want oh this is what you'll have then as long as i get me money up front yeah yeah yeah and with this he's just fucking about and his record companies's decided to put it out and all of a sudden he's got a massive hit, so... Yeah, he's only number one.

Yeah, that's insane, isn't it? Yeah. It is, and it's kind of sad. I mean, it's not sad for Chuck. I mean, I hope this isn't what people remember, that's all. Well, it proved not to be. Yeah. Not from the sort of people who write letters that go,

when oh when will the so-called BBC understand that decent people have had just about enough of this torrent of bad language and sexual smut? Or sincerely, Mr and Mrs B.I.G. tits, 69 knob end, penis town. 69, knob end, penis town. I mean, she went on to say that she'd had reports from her mates in the National Fucking Nosy Cunt Association that the young children were actually getting their penises out and shaking them about while singing this song. And I can't remember doing that myself, but I knew exactly what the song was about,

and I fucking loved it I always thought I was a really nice advanced young lad but then my favourite auntie the last conversation we had before she died she said oh Al you were my favourite nephew you were such a dirty little bastard

and I went what? she said yeah you'd come round my house and you'd tell me dirty jokes really filthy jokes that i don't think you understood what they meant and every time you said one before you said it you give me this look of warning and point to me and say don't you laugh at this auntie chris because if you do you'll fall on your fan air this is a four-year-old child saying this so so yeah i blame chuck berry for everything in my life yeah do you think it starts here out with this record yeah it does it does so my ding-a-ling would spend four weeks at number one just failing to to become the Christmas number one of 1972

when it was pipped at the post by long-haired lover from Liverpool by little homunculus Osmond. The follow-up, a live version of Reeling and Rocking, would get to number 18 in February of 1973, his last tinkle of the charty bell. And Mary Whitehouse spent most of December in America on a three-week trip to study their teller,

paid for by her gullible acolytes, and would spend much of her time there trying to get Chuck Berry to debate her on a chat show about why he wants to make British kids mash their genitals. Sadly, he declined, but like Alice Cooper, sent her a bunch of flowers, thanking her for helping to keep the song at number one for so long.

And when she returned to Britain, she started the National Viewers and Listeners Association Award for broadcasters and programmes who weren't encouraging the kids to murder or fiddle with each other, which was won this year by Cliff Richard. It was also awarded in 1987 to Frank Boff for services to broadcasting. And in 1977 to...

I think I can guess. Jimmy Savile for Jim'll Fix It. One more time now. My day, my day. Slow down now. I want to play with my genie It's fabulous. Well, thank you very much. I wish I could draw like that. That is absolutely sensational.

Back we go to music with the fabulous Michael Jackson. APPLAUSE Rolf steps away from the easel to rejoin Tone, who tells him he wishes he could draw like that, and it was absolutely sensational. Rolf, looking a bit pissed pissed off gives his one finger wave almost the same one that tony used to get from barbara winter conjuring up a nightmare vision of what may have occurred in the dressing room beforehand before he walks off leaving tony to introduce rocking robin by michael jackson we've covered the bad king of pop loads on chart music and this is the year that like don air he

was spun off from his band and given the opportunity to kickstart a solo career and this is his second single as a jackson one it's the follow-up to Got To Be There, which got to number 5 in March, and is a cover of the 1958 Bobby Day single that got to number 29 in November of that year. It entered the chart at number 43 in May, then hopped 10 places to 33, then bopped up 11 places to 22, then soared 12 places to number 10. And two weeks later, it got to number three, its highest position. Unbelievably, the clip that Tony introduces has never been seen before. It was recorded the previous month when the Jackson 5 were in the UK for the Royal Variety Show

and recorded at the same time as they were in to record performances of Ben and Looking Through the Windows. So never seen before, but fucking hell, one of the landmark appearances on top of the pubs, I believe. I'm sorry, Bowie, but to me and my compatriots in the Rudy guys, this is our star man moment. It's fucking brilliant. I must say, in an episode stuffed with weirdo sex offenders, it's nice to see an innocent young face. But yeah, man, how cool are the Jackson 5 here? Oh, they look amazing.

They're cool in a way that no other boy band has ever been. Sort of genuine idiosyncrasy between the members. A true star in their midst. Diamond tight, loose and cool. Able to manage with everything. I mean, it's just odd that they're there though, isn't it? Because it's a solo tune. They're on the record.

I mean, this is why you could ask the Pop Quiz question, what similarity does this have with Maggie Mae? Another solo record where the faces came on, you know, and played it. Obviously, the best Jackson's record this year is Looking Through the Windows, but this is a delight. Yeah, because I've always been confused whether this was a Michael Jackson single

or a Jackson 5 single, and this complicates matters considerably. Because it almost sounds like they play on it, the guitar part and everything else. Yes. Yeah, they're there, yeah. But I'm pretty sure it is a solo Michael Jackson thing, jackson thing isn't it it's obviously the record is a solo michael jackson thing again this is one of those ones where it's not completely clear what we're actually

listening to because i was thinking about when this comes on at this point of the show it's kind of necessary to have something here with a lively rhythm track, which I suppose is sort of a euphemism for black. Because as fantastic as this episode is, it's very much not brought to you by Johnson Products Company, makers of Ultrashine, Afroshine and Ultrashine cosmetics. Certainly not. It's a very white pop dominated episode where even Roberta Flack is singing a ewan mccall

ballad and a double dose of the osmonds pushes those levels of whiteness up to the point where you need to wear eye protection and that's okay but it's just after this many slight variations on the shuffle beat a motown rhythm section is going to sound even more exquisite than it really is except i think that what we're listening to here is a hybrid i think this may be a certain giant cartoon dog just about rising to the occasion yes this is not the record it sounds not much like the record at all no which is good because it's credited to a different artist. And the greatest compliment I can pay is that for about 10 seconds, I wasn't sure whether this is a drummer that the Jacksons brought with them

or whether it's the top of the pop's orchestra drummer. And I think that says a little bit less about how funky the drumming is here and a little bit more about how simple this song is. But think it's the top of the pops orchestra drum partly because towards the end he's getting a bit splashy and hitting a bit bluntly in a way that you would not hear from any drummer associated with the motown organization even some guy they contracted for foreign tours right so it's either the the worst ever performance by a motown affiliated drummer or the best ever performance by a top of the pops orchestra drummer and i think it's the latter because yeah if you listen not especially closely to their live performance of

this which they did on the royal variety performance with their regular drummer this isn't that guy that guy is hot as shit right this guy no it survives it survives that's what you can say yeah but the top of the polks orchestra that you know as we've seen before you know when they did did i don't know why i love you by stevie wonder that was the top of the pop yeah they just about hung in there yeah Yeah. Well, it depends, it depends, doesn't it? I think it was a bit later after a few changes in personnel

where the bear took hold. Yeah, but I think it works because Rockin' Robin, like the original, is one of those really primitive R&B records where it's just like this basic slamming swing. Yeah. Like a loping,

sort of finger-clicking wall clicking wallet there's no proper bass on it at all it's just this big thumping beat and it's easy to play and you have to make it work with energy and and personality you know and this arrangement is a little bit updated and it's got the more sort of fluid 70s bass on it and everything. But it's still, it's really there as a vehicle for personality. In this case, Little Michael's vocal personality. And so you're barely conscious of anything else, you know, as long as it doesn't go out of time or out of tune. Really, all you're listening to is Michael showing out, you know,

for better or for worse, mostly for better. Oh, it's an outstanding performance. Yeah. Yeah, he's amazing. And the TOTP Orchestra, yeah, they're not as deft as the Thump Brothers, of course. No. But all you need is that thump and Michael's lovely face

and their amazing outfits. And, yeah, it's tremendously exciting, especially after what's come before and tito's guitar solo yeah almost the best bit because it's really clicky and trebly and horrible like on a 50s record yeah and he slightly fucks it up at one point which makes it more exciting and in fact every time i've ever heard tito playing guitar live it's always sounded great like really lean and attacking and he's like he's not like a virtuoso or anything but he's got a really fantastic feel to his guitar playing i mean one thing that never gets mentioned about

michael jackson at this time he was he was the first black male that teenage girls in britain were allowed to scream at i mean over in america jermaine's being pushed as the as the heartthrob right but over here the triumvirate of teeny lust was always donny osmond david cassaday and michael jackson i mean yeah okay in music star and mirabelle and all that lot he was more was more portrayed as a lovable teddy bear kind of thing. Yeah. He seemed like a really big deal. I mean, it is a big deal.

And also, one has to bear in mind, you know, Taylor mentioned it's quite a white episode in a sense. But one of the things that came out of my conversation with Dennis Bavell, actually, that I mentioned earlier, was that when he used to watch things like the Jackson 5 on Top of the Pots, it's so fucking important if you're a black kid you know yeah seeing those people and you know it's not like you can go back into school the next day and say stop being a racist the jackson five are on top of the pots last night but it's something you know it's a

little thing it's something and um yeah these appearances would have been massively important to the black community in this country as not only something for the kids to aspire to, if you like, but just look at this fucking band. And then, you know, especially if you're going to compare them to the Osmonds, you know what I mean? They are a cut above. I know the Osmonds are doing crazy horses on this, but in terms of performance, in terms of confidence and joy,

where the Osmonds can sometimes feel a little forced, the Jacksons never seem like that. They seem like totally natural, fluid, brilliant performers. I mean, as a matter of fact, a month ago, Pi Records put out a single by the 11-year-old Rachel Brennick under the name Weenie Bopper, entitled David, Donny and Michael. Who brightens up my bedroom wall?

Who looks at me when I sleep at night? Who do I think of when I go to school each day? David, Donny and Michael. We love you all. When boys phone me up and ask me for a date. I know it's just no good They've asked me much too late I stay inside my room

My radio turned on loud Cos David, Donny, Michael We love you all I bet Mary Whitehouse was thinking about kicking off But you know what? Having these heartthrobs Is keeping the young girls away from the scabby youths on their estate

who want to finger them behind the chip shop. They should be commended for that. Yeah. The performance of this song is better to me than the record. I'm not that into those early solo Michael Jackson records, really. Like, even this song. Oh, come on. I want to be where you are that's a fucking

tune mate yeah it's not that none of them are any good i just think sandwiched in between jackson five and like his latest stuff like you know off the wall and and so on it's just i don't know as i can't get as this too much of it is too sloppy you know or to throw away um even you know even this i mean this song which is i think about robin thick if i'm not entirely mistaken i mean who else could it be about um robin day oh yeah yeah i don't know i have to look it up but i think the thing about this as well is this particular december the existence of anything that reminds me of a thing called Christmas is a bit frustrating and annoying

you know but yeah this performance of this to me is the best version of this that I've ever heard except for the version on the Royal Variety performance which is better yeah it could have been Robin Asquith a highlight in a show studded with highlights it's ridiculous

it just gets better and better this episode yeah and the good bits they make you forget the bad bits yeah nielsen's been banished from my mind by about this time yeah you're happily watching jackson five with your cock waving in the air yes so the follow-up a a cover of Bill Withers' Ain't No Sunshine, got to number eight for three weeks in September, and he'd rammed off the year with Ben getting to number seven three weeks ago. Unlike Donnie, Michael was then folded back into the Jackson 5, and although he recorded an album's worth of solo material in 1973, it was quietly scrapped and then allegedly lost by Motown

by the time the band had moved to Epic in 1975, which meant his solo career was put on hold for seven years when he roared back with Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, which got to number three in October of 1979. And five years after that, Motown conveniently found those 1973 recordings and put them out on the LP Farewell My Summer Love, the title track of which getting to number seven in June of 1984. And Weenie Bopper went on to be the original singer on I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper

until she was taken off the record for Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip, may have been on Video Killed the Radio Star, and was a backing singer on Pink Floyd's tours of the late 80s under the name Rachel Fiore. Don't know why she changed her name. HE CHUCKLES A big hit in the early 50s for Bobby Day, and there we have the Jackson family getting it together. From one bopper sensation to another, this is T-Rex and Metal Guru. Oh! Edmund getting down with the kids tells us that that was a cover version

and tells us that we're going from one bopper sensation to another as he introduces Metal Guru by T-Rex. Formed from the ashes of Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1970, T-Rex binned off the bongos and acoustic guitars and went electric to the disgust of their old hippie audience and to the absolute delight of the pop craze youngsters. They immediately made their mark with Ride A White Swan, which got to number two in January of 71, immediately followed it up with Hot Love, which got to number one a mere two months later, and featured a performance on Top of the Pops where Chalita Secunda, the wife of

the band's manager, selected that a bit of glitter on his cheeks would go nicely with his new satiny rig out, marking the official birth of glam. Since then, it's been nothing but number ones and number twos for the band and this, the second cut from their LP The Slider, which was recorded in Paris, Copenhagen and Los Angeles, is the follow-up to Telegram Sam, which got to number one for two weeks in February. It smashed into the charts at number nine in the first week of May and a week later it banished the foul stench of amazing grace by the

pipes and drums of the military band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and here they are again in a special recording for this episode. I do believe they recorded it on the same day as they did Telegram Sam for the Christmas Top of the Pops.

Right. In the vital second to last slot, you'll notice, which is traditionally the place where the number one single resides. And it seems right that this is here. Because if anyone has single-handedly dragged pop music away from the Dave Deed creepy twat and cunts of the 60s and placed it squarely in the 70s it's this man right here isn't it oh yeah yeah absolutely i mean that's the thing and we have to you know it's it's telling that you say this man and you don't say t-rex you know for me rock and pop is about the music is about collaboration and i'm always kind of wary of foregrounding individuals you know much as with with bowie the collaborators are important in in mark boland's case visconi is really important

but i do give mark boland full credit for making himself a pop star for for turning electric and and he's he's probably uh you know i love Stones, and they'll always be my favourite band. Mark is probably the single figure individual I love the most in the entire history of British pop. You've written some lovely articles about him now. Well, I mean, I was talking with Taylor the other day online about how neither of us have been asked to write about the Beatles. And, you know, I was so glad when the quietus asked me to write about T-Rex

because because he's so important to me Mark he's he's the pop star whose death upsets me the most because I can't help thinking of what he might have done yeah the first thing that grabbed me with Mark Bolin wasn't his music in a way it was uh I remember my older sister so much comes through my older sister she had a friend called Nathan, and he had this coat whose entire lining had been transformed into a robbing kind of receptacle. And he used to go around shoplifting. And I remember he came to our house once after a trip to Cov HMV in about 83, I think it was. That would have been about 10 or 11. And he carefully lifted this kind of record from this this mega pocket in this coat

and I just remember holding it in my hand and staring and staring and staring at the cover until the image on it kind of danced with light uh it seemed full of possibility and that record you know even before I'd heard a lick of the music was Electric Warrior by T-Rex and I was I was hooked from that moment just looking at it I didn't get to hear that record straight away the thing that first hooked me musically into Mark was one of those double LP compilations that came out in the 80s it was Mark Bolden one with the white sleeve I remember it very distinctly I mean really on the radio and on sort of archive shows and stuff like that Get It On was pretty much the only Mark you heard anywhere at that time. I couldn't believe what I was hearing on that compilation in terms of, you know,

Solid Gold, Easy Action and the singles. But beyond the delight of discovering that music, he was properly inspirational at that time in my life. As somebody trying to play guitar, he taught me in a way that no other guitarist i was listening to at the time was you can play get it on you can play 20th century boy really quite easily because mark took inspiration from what we might call simple music in a sense metal guru's quite a simple song it's got about three four chords in it but what a big fucking walloping slab of wonder this record is. It probably remains one of my favourite T-Rex singles. It's a song that's all chorus.

It's he and Visconti's most wall of sound production. But as ever with Mark, it's full of those little details that always, for me, lift him a bit apart, lift him a bit beyond. But I better shut up because I could talk about Mark all night. He's so, so important to me. Yeah, this is my favourite T-Rex single. It's a toss-up between this and Solid Gold, Easy Action. And the fact we've never spoken about T-Rex before,

I think this was one of the main reasons why I went for this. Right. When I watched it, it's like, oh my God, we've got to cover this. And then when this happened, it's like, right, okay, got to cover this and then when this happens like right okay that's it yeah completely i don't know this record it's just irresistible i mean there is not a better intro phrase than oh whoa yeah the way that mark does it at the

beginning it just launches you into this thing the performance on this episode is actually a mess and mark seems a bit out of it the band seem a bit this it's got a kind of fag end of the Christmas party feel to it. But it doesn't matter because you can still hear the record. This is a victory lap, isn't it? Yeah, that's probably why he's been at the champers. It's so clear on the coke and the fry up. But some committed miming of the congas, though, is such an important part of this record.

Good to see everyone taking their responsibilities seriously. I missed this for my birthday number one by a couple of weeks. A friend of mine got it. I got Amazing Grace by the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, appropriately enough. royal scots dragoon guards appropriately enough but yeah even with mark a little bit too loose as i dare to say he is here you still get that same particular energy from this performance which is so different from slade or gary glitter yeah or any of-Rex's peers, because there's no wink, there's no grin, there's no pantomime dame moves.

There's nothing to suggest that this is a laugh or even to acknowledge that there's anything recreational happening here. It's like in his head, this is all deadly serious and dragons really do exist, which of course is what makes it work the way it does it's an entire enchanted castle held up by the imagination you know but his conviction is so strong and so appealing that you're totally confident walking up the stairs you know if somebody says hang on this whole group is just a few ancient rock and roll riffs repeated endlessly

over a basic boogie beat with like an old sid barrett impersonator off his head chanting ludicrous rhymes over the top well you can't say that they're factually wrong but you can wonder how they get out of bed every day on what is, after all, just a little round rock spinning pointlessly in empty space full of jabbering hairless monkeys. I mean, it's one way of looking at it, but you've got something missing if that's all you can see. It's, oh, you know, sex is just two or three people bumping against each other, right? And what's the big deal with a sunset i mean my word i'm a cynical man in my old age but if i ever end up like that i'll save the rest of the world the pain of of putting up with me right you look at mark's eyes sparkling

drunkenly in the studio lights here i mean he can barely stay upright in this clip and still right there is a physical representation of all the valid reasons to stay alive the thing about malt boling is if you came up to me and said well look here's this pop star that's coming on soon right he's really influenced by tolkien he goes around thinking his summer He claims to be the most important poet of his generation. He ponces about Big Star and girls really like him. I think, well, fuck off with that. Why do I need that in my life? And if the person had said, well, no, it's Mark Bolan,

I'd be like, oh, fucking yes, put him on now. Everything wrong and pretentious about pop, you could sum up with Mark Bolan. But if you think that then you're not looking at pop right yeah and also everything that's shameless and mercenary about pop in a sense i mean that was what was weird for me in 83 you know getting into this artist and then you know inevitably at the time you'd go to the locarno slash the library you'd have to read books about these people because there wasn't anything in the contemporary magazines and most of what i was

reading about mark boland in most rock literature if you like or the rock textbooks conformed to that kind of lingering perception of him in the press towards the mid 70s as kind of somewhat shameless a chaser of mass appeal like that's a bad thing like that shouldn't be the point when it so clearly nearly always should be you know and the books and the pop encyclopedias that i was was pretty much all i had to go on in order to flesh out my listening they had him down basically as a fly by night and a kind of flash in the pan whose demise and disappearance were a kind of inevitable result of his limitations um and you know bowie roxy pioneers bowling kind of a bit of a cut above

mud perhaps but not by much yeah he's always been seen as the celerity to bow his moat side isn't it totally which i would massively disagree i mean look it's not a competition i do prefer mark to david but i also found the narrative once i read further and deeper of how mark had that judas moment that you mentioned you know i found that moment when he went electric when peel disdained him you know. I found that moment when he went electric, when Peel disdained him, you know, when he appears at the Wheelie Festival just outside Clacton with the faces and status quo in August 71 and he gets booed off. Well, he gets booed because he comes on and says,

hello, you might have seen me on Top of the Pops, I'm a star. He gives a good quote. There's no denying it, Mark. He really does. He pisses off exactly the right people. But I found all of that tremendously exciting. And I mean, as soon as he starts appealing to teenage girls, that section of the audience that's basically responsible for so much of pop history,

but so disdained and seen as an instant sign of creative bankruptcy by rock critics. I just think the critics got Mark so wrong. And when my sister finally borrowed Electric Warrior and I got to listen to it, it was one of my first lessons, if you like, in how deceitful the canon can be in a way and reductive and wrong it can be. I mean, look, if you're a kid and you drop the needle on Mambo Sun or Ripoff or Motivate or anything like that,

or if we're talking about the slider and you start listening to stuff like buick mccain and chariot chigel that's going to hook you this is a guy he's natural he's weird he's beyond artifice and his music is just intensely intensely pleasurable and that's the key thing in this period in particular i do think in this early 70s period of increasing kind of wooliness and ponderousness for progressive sounds it is revolutionary what he does um an attempt to in a sense simplify or distill things much like sabbath world i mean not comparable but much like sabbath world or modern lovers or the new york dolls these are the interesting people the little

richard freaks in the early 70s who don't just like put on a pair of brothel creepers or do the kind of happy days type shit they bring back the weirdness of 50s and old music that's the crucial thing with mark i think you know all of his inspirations throughout any interview you read with mark bolan he's going to disdain everyone who's contemporary and white you know he's going to slag off slade he's going to disdain everyone who's contemporary and white you know he's going to slag off Slade he's going to slag off Bowie he's going to he's going to talk about black music almost exclusively because all he listened to was black music old R&B and blues and rock and roll and stuff but whereas a lot of white musicians at the time were taking those old forms and playing

them at a billion miles an hour to prove their virtuosity Mark just innately understood the weirdness of that music the kookiness and he populated those kind of forms with his own shape and style that's why i'll come back to the guitar playing thing the delight you have as a young player when you can genuinely play like your heroes when you can play like mark and it is easy to play like mark he's such an important teacher in that regard he is a bit of a mess in this performance and the official version i guess for even those people who like mark and t-rex is that he starts losing it pretty soon you know this is his this is his king yeah but i don't know think of the singles that are about to come

you know groover 20th century boys solid gold easy action it's difficult to see it as a moment where he falls off things are going to start falling apart for him personally soon you know his marriage breaks down next year he treats his bad really shoddily and tony visconti really shoddily and that doesn't help his sense of isolation and paranoia you can see how big his ego is getting that year i mean there's a brilliant quote from him in 72 when he's asked about you know the supposed feud with David Bowie and he says I don't consider David to be even remotely near big enough to give me any competition you know he says it's quite a long quote I'm going to read it because I think it's it's revealing at the time the feud story hit England my records were number one and they stayed number one while

David's never came near I don't think that David has anywhere near the charisma or balls that I have or Alice has or Donny Osmond has got David's not gonna make it in any sort of way the papers try and manufacture a lot of things they try to do something with Slade Slade's just a jive little group who are quite sweet and bang about a lot they're very valid for what they do but i don't think anyone can seriously compare them to me whether you think i'm good or bad i'm still the best-selling poet in england i don't think anyone in slave can write four words and i don't mean to be condescending they're nice people bowie just doesn't have that sort of quality that i do i always have rod stewart

has it in his own mad way elton john has it mick jagger has it michael jackson has that quality david bowie doesn't i'm sorry to say right now i'm the biggest selling poet in england i hope to be even bigger i mean those kind of arrogant quotes are going to piss people off. And of course, it's setting himself up for the overwhelming narrative later on in the decade to be in a sense that David won that feud. Yeah, he might as well have finished that quote with the phrase, and I will never, ever get my comeuppance. Yeah, it's setting himself up for huge hubris. is setting himself up for huge hubris. But I would actually argue that in terms of apprehending and absorbing contemporary black pop,

the moves that David Bowie and Roxy make sort of by about 75, they lag behind what Mark's about to do with Tanks and with Zinc Alloy albums. I think those albums are fantastic. And this is the thing. For me, he never made a bad record. That run from 70 to 77 isn't really spoken about like that. I mean, I'm a fanboy.

I'll even argue the toss for Bolan's Zip Gun and Futuristic really spoken about like that i i mean i'm a fan boy i'll even argue the toss for bowling zip gun and futuristic dragon and things like that things that are commonly seen as sad documents of a demise but i still get a lot of delight from them i think he stayed hungry till the end and he was making amazing music all the way through to the end well no i agree that he didn't make a bad record i think he made less good right yeah i don't think he made a bad one and i think in fact you can hear in this the beginning of what was going to begin with tanks of that sort of sludging up yeah of t-rex right which is which made them less good but it didn't make them not

good you know i mean this song is blatantly half finished um which is something that i sort of like about it um but that slackness can happen when very narcissistic people become successful because the drive for success that they had which made them try so hard because it was necessary for them to succeed which was necessary for their psychological survival um when they get what they want, can sort of go a bit. And they can just find themselves, you know, like, hey, you know, everything I do is great because I'm so fascinating. And, yeah, I mean, the whole purpose of this song is to be incredibly repetitive.

But you can sort of feel that lack of a bridge or a middle eight and the sort of the swollen confidence to just to listen to that lovely sighing and hysterical circular melody and just think well there it is there's the song yeah that's all we need you know pass the champagne um but i mean to be honest i don't care and the only thing that annoys me about that is the fact that it means there's a subsequent shortage of lyrics because the more words in a Bolan song, the better, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, of course, he wasn't any kind of poet, as he idiotically believed himself to be, because nothing he ever wrote has got any actual meaning or weight to it of any kind. or weight to it of any kind,

but he was a fabulous writer, just purely in terms of creating streams of words which were cliche-free and flowed directly from this very singular imagination. People scoff at nonsense, but there's nonsense and then there's nonsense. The lyrics of Mark Bolan, like the more elevated, artistic and disturbed lyrics of his hero, Sid Barrett, are nonsense. But they're a completely different proposition to, for example, the lyrics of Noel Gallagher.

Yeah. And it's not because they've been worked on harder. And it's not because they mean more. They probably mean less if anything uh but it's the difference between on the one hand writing that transports and disorientates you and stimulates your mind with surprises and illogical angles and unusual thought and on the other hand just just mental incontinence just dripping from a fundamentally ordinary brain you know it's like i'd said this in the past like defending monty python it's like the difference between surrealism and the kind of shit that the kids call

lol random like one of them is potent and the other one is inert. Because anyone can write down the first thing that comes into their head and get a cross between a nursery rhyme, a shopping list, and just a rerun of other people's cliches, like Gallagher style. Whereas it's the definition of talent to look inside your head and immediately see something a little bit more unusual than that and obviously a lot of it is in the delivery because let's face it if mark bolan had sung slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball it would sound visionary right and if oasis had sung you know i have never ever kissed a car before. It's like a door.

We'd all just snort, appropriately enough. But the thing is, even when Mark Bowden has got no inspiration and the song is just a riff and the words obviously don't seem to have come, you still end up with something like Space Boss, a song which I love, even though it mostly just goes, are you, are you, are you, are you, are you now the Space Boss? And if I had a load of money, I would patent one of those plastic boxes that goes under the bed,

like for storage, and down the side of a wardrobe or something, and call it the Space Boss. Whenever I used to look at the TV listings a few years ago, there was always a show on, which I never saw, called Cake Boss, and it always gave me that earworm. Cake Boss. But in a way, what Mark does with his lyrics, if they were all just kind of nonsensical mash-ups

of science fiction and 50s imagery, they wouldn't work. Occasionally, he does reach your heart in a deep deep way my youngest Sophia looks like Mark Bowling she's got long curly hair and she loves Mark Bowling and we were listening to Spaceball Ricochet in the car the other day great songs off Slider and of course there's that line me and my Les Paul even though I'm small I enjoy living anyway it's a beautiful line, man, and it touches her. The way she looks at Mark is really quite amusing, actually.

I catch her sometimes just looking at pictures of him. And, you know, clearly in love. Slight maybe narcissism because she does look a bit like him. But, you know, he does get you in the heart. And he's probably the rock death, in in a way that upsets me the most his death in 77 is for me the most upsetting rock bereavement of all time next to kind of jimmy i think not just because of the horrible random tragedy of the nature of his death but because like jimmy i still get the sense even after dandy in the underworld which i think is probably his

worst record you get the sense that there's a man who's still got a lot to offer and so much more to give. And just as it's heartbreaking thinking of what Jimmy might have done in the 70s, I feel robbed, in a sense, even if it was going to be disastrous. Mark in the late 70s, early 80s, when so much of what was going on in

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

good day try your best make us proud keep a little mark in your heart and she says keep a little mark in your heart but and if i send one message out to the to the pot crazy youngsters i think everyone should keep a little mark in your heart and if you've got mark down i don't know it's just a singles artist or you know don't get those albums all of those albums and and dig in because there's so much wonder in there 1972 really was mark bollinger wasn't it he did the gig at the empire pool which the enemy splashed all over the front page saying full report on the incredible concert that changed the face of british rock he danced he pranced danced strutted screamed seemed unquestioned lord of them all this was

mark boland at wembley on saturday love him or love him, the truth was plain to see. Bolan's time had come. And then they've got a photo of Ringo Starr, who was making the film about Mark Bolan, which is in the cinema this week, just staring on, looking awestruck, and more importantly, being surrounded by people who don't give the slightest fuck

that there's a beetle in front of them. Yeah, yeah yeah but i mean what what should happen of course is that mark's success should mean that he's accepted by that kind of tier of rock royalty a little bit but he's not you know and quite the other day oddly enough on facebook i saw a photo of mark boland with robert plant and i thought that ain't right that can't't be real. And it is shopped. When I dug into it, it was shopped. Because Led Zeppelin aren't going to hang around with Mark Bolan. Mark Bolan's appearing in Jackie magazine. And he starts, in this period anyway, 72, 73,

certainly to pick up a lot of snotiness from the music press about pretty much everything he does, precisely because he started appealing to teenage girls. So, yeah, he is kind of kept out of that tier, if you like. Have you got a favourite Mark Bolan line? I think mine is probably from Raw Ramp. I mean, almost all of Raw Ramp. You know, that was like a baby, I got metal knees.

Oh, yeah. Lady, your lips are the most. Baby, your mouth is like a ghost woman i love your chest baby i'm crazy about your breasts you think you're a champ but girl you ain't nothing but a raw ramp or that amazing non-secretor from the slider um i have always always grown my own before yeah all schools are strange no no wait wait wait my favorite one the actual transition moment between the tolkien woodland bollocks i mean i like a lot of transverse wre Rex, but it is Tolkien, Woodland Bollocks. And pop art absurdism, which is at the end of Sun Eye on the first T-Rex album. The last lines of which, let me see if I can remember them off the top of my head.

Tree wizard, the pure tongue, the digger of holes. Swan king, the elf lord, the eater of souls, Live on the Black, the rider of stars, Tyrannosaurus Rex, the eater of cars. He could do anything. It's like the sun coming out from behind a cloud,

that last line. It's like, it reminds me of when I used to take LSD and sometimes me and my friends would get pen and paper out and write for an hour or so and then do readings for each other with everyone in hysterics on acid laughing at each other's unfathomable blank verse. you see that right in the next day it's just gibberish but it's not banal gibberish because it's gibberish from peculiar places that you don't quite recognize parts of your mind you don't usually use you know the only line i can ever remember from that was uh we think of broil toilet twats retractable outlet crabs um which is basically a less terse sleaze of mods lyric. But I'd take it over Don't Look Back in Anger,

you know what I mean, or the 20th century book of English verse. I mean, it's a talent to be able to do that at will. And if you can mix that talent with immense personal charisma and absolutely zero self-consciousness and you take those skills to the one art form that really appreciates them it's astonishing what you can do in terms of miraculous achievements although you know he made so much great music when i think about sort of his charm you know for five minutes he

makes you not mind cilla black yes when they do life's a gas you know that that is testament to the power of the man and one thing i mean when i was a kid t-rex isn't in my life all i can remember of t-rex i was convinced that they had witches in their band those backing singers who were male who were just keen and howl and it was terrifying yeah i expected to turn on top of the pops and you want me out of lieutenant pigeon to be there with her mate keen in and howling if there weren't witches there were definitely some hags on this record oh definitely definitely so metal guru would spend four weeks at number one eventually giving way to Vincent by Don McLean the follow up Children of the

Revolution got to number two for three weeks in September and October held off the top by Mama We're All Crazy Now by Slade and How Can I Be Sure by David Cassadare and they round off the year with solid gold easy action as the Christmas number three

getting to number two on the first week of 1973 oh that's a banger what a fucking record Never heard of me And you Hey, hey, hey Good evening Guess everybody, you know That's T-Rex and Metal Guru And that's it, we've run right out of time

A reminder that next week, Top of the Pops at a different time At 6.45 Anyway, best wishes for the new year from everyone here Tell you what, we'll play Back Off Boogaloo by Ringo Starr. Thanks very much indeed for watching. And we'll see you next week for another edition of... Time for the Bucks! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE We cut back to Blackburn and Edmonds reunited once more

as Beardo Kunt, who has nicked that red nose off his mate and is proudly wearing it, sticks his face in between them. They remind us that next week's Top of the Pops is on at 6.45. Thank us for watching and throw us into the final single of the night, Back Off Boogaloo by Ringo Starr. Born in Liverpool in 1940, Ringo Starr was the drummer in The Beatles, a band who teamed up with Tony Sheridan for a cover of My Bonair, which got to number 48 in June of 1963. After achieving success with Sentimental Journey, a covers LP which got to number 7 in April of 1970, he was encouraged to have a go at something a bit more modern by his old bandmate George Harrison,

and his debut single, It Don't Come Easy, got to number four for three weeks in May of 1971. This is the follow-up, again, co-written with Harrison and originally offered to Cilla Black, and heavily influenced by someone Ringo was working on a film with at the time, Mark Bolan. It entered the charts at number 18 in April and scaled its way upward, getting to number two for two weeks at the end of that month, getting wedged behind the Scottish bagpipe cunts. And here it is being played while, you know, the audience has a bit of a rave up with lots of balloons and all sorts.

So, yeah, here we go. It is your Beatles bit. And it is really weird having the Beatles in there because they seem so far away and distant from this angle. Yeah, so it's a weird older person's choice to close the show with, really. But three sort of decent solo singles from ringo in three years it don't come easy this one and photograph and i've now talked about all three of them on chart music like a ringo star super fan a ringologist if you will yeah you know when

he said no more fan mail no more let us peace and love. Peace and love. That was because of me. Yeah. But look, I mean, none of those singles are as good as the Beatles, but they're all as good as anything Ringo ever sang with the Beatles, possibly better. So he at least progressed, you know.

Yeah. And it's interesting to see this right after T-Rex, because it is post-T-Rex in every sense. And yeah, he was good mates with Bolan and all that. And it's genuinely quite weird to hear an older and more broadly well-known musician copying a bit of T-Rex and writing lyrics like, you think you're a groove standing there

in your wallpaper shoes. I mean, the whole thing, it's like the words and music of T-Rex strained through the brain of a non-songwriter and then slowed... And through the beard of Ringo. Yeah, and slowed down almost to stationary with five crates of brandy, you know. And it could be a lot worse. It's better than most of what John Lennon was doing around this time. yeah you know the man who put the fist in pacifist out of his face in new york

thinking that abby hoffman and david peele were the vanguard of the fucking revolution yeah um and although this song was secretly co-written with george harrison like almost all the songs ever credited to Ringo were, is better than anything George Harrison was doing at the time or ever would again. Yeah. And, you know, it relied very heavily on the general likability and an unthreatening charm of Ringo Starr.

But so does everything he ever did, with the exception of the drumming, which stands up by itself. So I say let him have it, you know, in the good way. Yeah. I mean, you could say that Ringo has won 1972 out of all the vehicles. I mean, Lennon's done some time in New York City and his only single of the year has been War Is Over,

which is currently at number four. Paul McCartney's busy forming wings and getting his records banned. And Harrison has just shot his bolt, hasn't he? Paul McCartney is busy forming wings and getting his records banned. And Harrison has just shot his bolt, hasn't he? The thing is, Ringo was always really likeable. And perhaps at this time, two years after the Beatles split, and with George, John and Paul being all serious, basically,

it's the sheer fun aspect of what he does that's appealing. And this record's dead good. It really does sound like a track his 10-4 good buddy Mark Bowler might have made, albeit missing Mark's guitar. But the drums and the feel of it, the role of it, it's fantastic. And crucially, of course, this gives us a chance to capture it with all the friends we've made watching this episode in the audience. Balloons, we all hate them. I'm slightly annoyed that no blokes in the audience balloons we all hate them i'm slightly annoyed that no blokes

in this audience did either the pregnancy joke or the i have tits joke um it should really happen with balloons but you know um my uh diana rigg alike former crush doesn't look quite as good but i was massively intrigued by the conversation between Uber Mum, who we've already established before, and Tony. Tony and her have a very intriguing conversation. I couldn't lip read it properly, but I'd love to know what they were saying to each other. No, they're very familiar with each other, to the point where for a second I wondered if this was actually

Mrs Blackburn Senior. But then she threw him a look, which immediately made me think, ah, right, that's not his mum. mum god bless her she thought he was dishy um perhaps they shared a small sherry afterwards slipped off their slip-on shoes it's possible so has everyone seen get back the in bed with chris needham that thinks it's summer yes um or did the thought of listening to seven hours of men talking to each other about old music make you want to throw up i thought the best bit was where ringo goes up to mick jagger's room and punched him in the face and said i'm not even the best drummer in the beatles or maybe i'm mixing up two apocryphal

tales there but still print the legend no look i thought it was fascinating but of course i did you know except for the fact that it's all got a fucking instagram filter on it thanks for that peter jackson it's like the amount of processing they've done on the picture it looks like it looks like they're a bunch of 22 year old rich girls in white bikinis doing handstands on a beach in dubai i was expecting george to turn around with like an animal nose and muzzle on his face although he actually looks worse than that when he shows up at apple in a looking like a young frank mu basically, or at least one of the Murets. He's got triangular hair, a moustache, and a dickie bow, like a country doctor.

You know what I mean? He should have got together with the sorceress from Lieutenant Pigeon and told us what ozostomia means. Did you watch it all in one go, Taylor, or did you watch it in chunks? No, even I didn't watch it all in one go. Yeah.

I watched each of the three parts in one go. Right. Because I was thinking of, yeah, setting myself the test of just getting through it all in one day. But I suspect by the end of it, I'll be antagonised more than enjoying it. So maybe I should divvy it up. But yeah, I can't wait to see it.

Yeah. Even in three parts, you miss stuff. Yeah. Because there's just so much babble. You you don't catch it no i'm i'm avoiding it i haven't finished squid game yet so you know it's the beardles it's the period of their career that i'm least interested in yeah if it had been about the making of revolvolver or Sgt Pepper or even the White Album, I'd have been all over it, but no. Yeah, I must admit, at the end, I was thinking, I wish that they'd thought, wait a minute, I completely forgot we did a film like this

about all our other albums as well. That would have been great. I must admit that hearing people bang on about it on Facebook has given me some serious fucking Star Wars vibes. God has stayed my hand on many an occasion from me just flicking on the all caps button and just saying shut up

about the fucking Beatles. No way. I will not. I know. I know. I know. I'll tell you what though what this film proves yet again about Ringo other than the fact that he was permanently hung over, is that he was a genuinely relaxing person to be around

because he had so few hang-ups, as opposed to the other three. The theme running through the whole thing is that despite their relationship heading for the rocks, John and Paul's incredible closeness is obvious in every scene from the way they always speak to each other naturally and unselfconsciously even if they're disagreeing in a way that neither of them ever speaks to george who's always on the outside even when he's on side with one of them in a disagreement with the other nobody ever speaks to him in that way and nobody's comfortable with him because they can tell he's got the hump and also because they can tell he's

trying to assert himself more within the group and lennon and mccartney both know he's not as smart or talented as they are even though the songs you wrote in 1969 are as good as the songs they wrote in 1969 which is the only time that ever happened. But the awkwardness comes from that. It's the inability of George to break into a stagnant but incredibly deep alliance between two people who love him, but they know that he's not an equal. And the point is, with Ringo, that's just not an issue. Like, Ringo knows that they're smarter and more talented than he is.

They know that they're more smart and talented than he is. But none of them care. It's not relevant to their relationship at all. People always play that game of, oh, if the B-Clubs had kept going throughout the 70s, what would their albums be? And, you know, this would be automatically be lumped on because it was a hit. But you just think if George Harrison had turned up with this, here's a song for Ringo the other

two would go oh it's all right mate we've got it covered yeah maybe beyond the period detail of it I think what's probably going to break my heart the most when I do watch it is its evocation of an era in which you could just make music for a living that to me is miraculous that they have nothing else to do you know that i mean you know that to me is amazing in an era now in which virtually everyone making music has to have a day job and has to have all the rest and you know you can't survive doing it to be able to just do that and that being your life that's miraculous so i do i do yeah desperately want to see i'm penciling it in for boxing day i think yeah i'm gonna stick with the on the buses trilogy no because i know i'll just be looking at it and just shouting at paul mccartney just saying

just fucking walk away and have a decent start to your solo career mate i'll tell you what right i don't know i was watching the rooftop concert bit at the end and i don't know is this just me being unfairly prejudiced against the police many of whom are very committed public servants who do an extremely difficult job in extremely difficult circumstances or was anyone else surprised that when they finally got onto the roof while the beatles performing they didn't just immediately run over to billy preston and bundle him to the floor surprised that when they finally got onto the roof while the Beatles were performing, they didn't just immediately run over to Billy Preston and bundle him to the floor. Is this your Fender Rhodes, Sonny?

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

No pop history would just have ended there. Nobody could have topped it. Wish that happened when you two did it. So the follow-up photograph got to number eight in November of 1973. Then your 16 got to number four for two non-consecutive weeks in March of 1974. And then Ringo went off to the pub

with Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon for the rest of the 70s. And that my dears, closes the book on this astonishing episode of Top of the Pops. Nine months after this episode was broadcast, Jonny Stewart signed off as

producer of Top of the Pops after 498 episodes, passing the reins over to Robin Nash, the producer of The Basil Brush Show and Cracker Jack. Stewart moved on to a sort of music show such as One More Time, Talk of the Town and In Concert, and finished his career in 1980 as the director of Cheggers Plays Pop, passing away in 2005 at the age of 87. Meanwhile, in June of 1973, Edmonds took over from Blackburn as the host of The Breakfast Show, with Tony being demoted to the Simon Bates slot.

According to an interview with David Hamilton, bait slot. According to an interview with David Hamilton, quote, there is a tape of a handover between Noel and Tony that is so frosty you can see the icicles in the studio.

Yeah, and not too long after that, Noel for a jape decided to play a single that Tony had done with Tessa Wyatt under an assumed name and let the cat out of the bag. And then, oh yeah, the daggers were drawn after that.

I bet. I bet. Apparently Blackburn gave him a right bollocking. And that was it. That was friendship over. What a lot. A changing of the guard. I think chart music owes Alistair Johnny Stewart a tip of the hat

for creating a fucking amazing episode here. Definitely. And instigating some things in Top of the Pops that would be so important in its imperial phase. So what's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One immediately piles into Sykes, where Eric buys a transport calf and punts it up to the dismay of the clientele which includes

Fred Quilly Bent Jockey so he and Hattie Jakes make it all chatty again. Then Cliff Mitchellmore shows you some more places to go on holiday that your mum and dad can't afford or won't go to because it's all foreign muck in Holiday 73. After the nine o'clock news Robert Wagner and David McCallum try to nick off from cold hits and then Tom Jones arses about in Gstaad and has a snowball fight with Dusty Springfield in his own show and they round off the night with a documentary film The Life and Times of Miguel de Cervantes. Then it's the weather, then regional news in your area, and then they shut down at 10 to midnight. If this was really the golden age of the BBC,

as it's been sold to us, it would have been BBC One at 7.45. The big film, Gunnar Björnstrand, stars in Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light. A priest wrestles with his conscience and his doubts about the existence of God with hilarious consequences. That's the big film, Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light, 7.45 on BBC One.

I mean, what is fucking Christmas without that film? BBC Two tells the story of the making of Lily Marlaine in their Europeanan magazine show europa then it's part 14 of the dramatization of war and peace only six more episodes to go still time to catch up then horizon compares the canals of britain with their european counterparts and concludes that once again we're fucking cat shit after news on two it's the canadian tv movie the mad trapper about a real-life manhunt conducted by the mounties in the 30s and they sign off with georgia brown in concert closing down at midnight it ITV eventually get round to Nearest and Dearest, where one of Eli Pledge's mates crashes

round and tries to cop off with his sister Hilda Baker, leading to everyone at the pickling factory to assume that she must be an incredible shag, and all the menfolk start chasing her. Then it's this week, news at ten, Clive James

banging on about his films of the year in cinema, gardening today with Bob Price and Cyril Fletcher, and they finish off with the 1964 Dirk Bogard spy comedy Hot Enough for June. So, boys, what are we talking about over our rally choppers in the street tomorrow? Definitely, Mark. Definitely Crazy Horses. about over our rally choppers in the street tomorrow definitely mark definitely crazy horses jackson five probably enslaved but mainly alice i think or what a nice man that rolf harris is realistically i think most kids would have been talking about the fact that some old man did a song about playing with his dick despite the that this was actually one of the least interesting things that happened

in this episode. What are we buying with our new record tokens on Saturday? Well, pretty much all of them. Yeah. Well, let me rephrase that. What are we not buying with our record tokens on Saturday? Nielsen and Donnie. Yeah, I'm just buying 1972.

I'd have that for Christmas this year if I could. But I think someone's already got me a never-ending global pandemic, so maybe next year. Yeah, all of it. Even the rubbish, I don't care. And what does this episode tell us about 1972? That it was fucking skilled.

Yes. And mint. Yeah, basically that it was just as we imagine it from programmes like Top of the Pops. The amazing pop records, old world strangeness and sex offenders everywhere you look, you know. Britain was like a dry stool wrapped in gold leaf, wrapped in decomposing fish skin, wrapped in a sequin green jacket

it's not all great but there's a lot of layers to explore and on that note we come to the end of this episode of chart music all i need to do now is the usual promotional flange www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music podcast reach out to us on twitter at chart music t-o-t-p money down the g-string patreon.com

slash chart music thank you very much Taylor Parks goodbye God bless you Neil Kulkarni. It's been a pleasure. My name's Al Needham. You might have heard me on chart music. I'm a star. Chart music.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Cinnabon Pull Apart. आज पुराश निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव निर्भाव न Who brightens up my bedroom wall? Who looks at me when I sleep at night?

at me when I sleep at night Who do I think of when I go to school each day David David Donnie

Donnie Michael We love you all and I just can't stop dreaming about you, can't stop thinking about you, can't stop talking about you now. Yes, we love you all. Yes, we love you all David, I think of you every night

Donny, each day I'm at school You are on my mind Michael, I hope someday we'll be able to meet Perhaps that day won't be so far away. In association with the British Market Research Bureau and compiled by the Pop Craze Patreons, and compiled by the Pop Craze Patreons, we present the Chart Music Top 40 of 2021.

In at number 40, A.B. Robinson. Number 39, the Dishy Soccer Men. Number 38, the Bad Wolves. Number 37, Chip Pan's People. And this year's number 36, Backing Arse. In at number 35, Sex Vagrancy. Number 34, Spiteful armoured bollock. The number 33 act of the year, 15 hicklers. Number 32, Quentin and the Axeman.

And number 31, staircase of cock. Into the top 30, and at 30, beards of complacency. Number 29, panties. Number 28, Friar David. number 28 friar david in at number 27 tyler the xxx privately educated and at number 26 oven ready women 25 act of the year Dave D Creepy twat and cunt Number 24 Saxon finder general Number 23 James Galway's

Flute of VD And at number 21 Skin Heady Heady. Into the top 20, and at number 20, Tandori Elephant. Number 19, the Boogie Woogie bugle boys of Quality Street.

Number 18, a tip for next year, the popular orange vegetable. Number 17, the continuity Westlife. Number 16, the cuppatino kid. In at number 15, Shocks, Piss, Fire. Number 14, Fucks Biz. This year's number 13, Jarwaddy Waddy. Number 12, Romo Cop. And at number 11, The sound of the summer of 2021,

Nolan Tentacle Porn. It's time for the Child Music Top Ten. And at number 10, Concerned Mother of Exeter. He's made it all the way to number nine this year, Mario Cunt. In at number eight, C-Fax Data Blast. Number seven, Taylor Parks' 20 Romantic Moments. And at number six, Jeff Sex. Into the top five,

and at five, Jesus Price. Number four, here comes Jizzle. Number three, Bomber Dog. Number two, rock expert David Stolz, which means number one in your heart,

number one in your charts. It could only be the bent cunts who aren't fucking real. That was the Chart Music Top 40 of 2021 My name's Al Needham And on behalf of everyone at Chart Music I'd just like to say Fuck off 2021 You were shit

And we are skill