Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - July 14th 1977: Like Punk Hadn't Really Happened Just Yet

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

The debut of the podcast that takes a random episode of Top Of The Pops and breaks it down to its very last compound. It’s the Summer of ’77, and the Sex Pistols are finally allowed on. Will The Kids start gobbing on anyone onstage in flares? Will Legs & Co do the Pogo whilst dressed as giant swastikas? Will Kid Jensen point out that you have to destroy in order to create, and then tell the viewing audience to ‘Fuck Off’?Strangely enough, no. Supertramp and Hot Chocolate defiantly sport the billowingist white flares ever seen on British television, the lead singer of Jigsaw models the latest styles from C&A’s ‘Mr Humphries’ collection, there’s some disturbing Ted-skipping in the audience, and Kenny Rogers comes back from Saudi Arabia. And Cilla Black’s on it.Al Needham is joined by David Stubbs and Sarah Bee – two former Melody Maker journalists and all-round mint and skill writers – for a comprehensive blather about everything to do with this episode, amongst other things. It’s a first go, so it may be is a bit rough-arse in places, but – as a wise man once said – ‘We Don’t CAAAAAARRRRRRRRE.’(and there’s swearing) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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About heavy metal music. Come on. Surprise me. Say it's brilliant, please. Say it's brilliantly cold. It's brilliant. We don't have to. What do you like listening to?

Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey up you pop craze youngsters and welcome to the first edition of Chart Music. My name's Al Needham and I'm coming at you from a bedroom in Nottingham somewhere. Well, somewhere is Nottingham. I don't know why I said that. That was stupid. Anyway, me and a couple of very special friends invite you to sit back, open your ears and deck a family-sized bottle of cheap pop till it all comes fizzing out of our noses. This is what the podcast's all about, basically.

We take one episode of Top of the Pops every time we do it, and we just break it down until there's no more Top of the Pops to be broken. With me this week is my co-host, a Melody Maker veteran since the mid-'80s who currently writes for The Guardian and The Daily Mash, amongst others. He's also written several books, including Future Days, Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany. David Stubbs, how are you, David? I'm fine, thank you very much.

Very good, very good. I understand you've written another book as well now. Yeah, this one's, yeah, a little more so I tossed off. 1996 and the End of History. It's just a few little sort of cultural sort of essays regarding the year 1996, which of course is 20 years ago from various perspectives. Comedic, musical, political, sporting, and so on. Internet.

A bit about the internet, yeah, which was fledgling, yeah. Massive great machines that cost about 1,800 quid and had about 60 megabytes of storage, yeah. Oh, yes, the good old days, IRC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember that? No, no, actually I came out in 1997, actually, yeah Do you remember that? No, actually I came out on 1997 actually Lightweight, newbie as we used to say back in the day

Newbie, yes Also in attendance is Sarah B A recovering music journalist who occasionally stops cursing for long enough to write a children's book She started writing about music at Melody Maker And maintains that its closure in 2000 had nothing to do with her. Most recently she's been gobbing off on the Big Mouth podcast. Sarah how are you? Hello I'm not too bad thank you. I have become one of those people who drinks coconut water so I'm very well hydrated. Nice one. What's the benefit of coconut water? It does it hydrates all it hydrates all

all of your bits from you know it's really it's, you know, it's really good. Don't water do that? Not like this does. I don't know what it is. And like I said, there is some shame in this. You know, I don't want to be one of those people. I drank tree sap the other day as well. Not from the tree, but you can get it in bottles.

Yeah, in that London you can. It's not 1996 anymore. Yes, fair enough, yes. We've discovered something wetter than water, fair enough. So, Top of the Pops. Why are we talking about it, David? Oh, Top of the Pops. To me, it's a symbol of the 20th century.

It's a symbol of the extinction of pop, really. I don't think that pop exists anymore as such. You've got the charts, you've got music that is popular, or at least some music that's bought in larger quantities of some sort than other music, but you don't have pop. You don't have that kind of once-a-week

sliver of the sublime and the ridiculous that was captured in the 1970s, really. I suppose I'm looking at the 70s as the heyday, maybe the 1980s to a degree, and sort of with diminishing weekly returns thereafter. I think, you know, really it's something you understand fully if, like me, you know, you are maybe about sort of, I don't know, late 40s, early 50s, even that kind of age.

And it was all that there was it really was it was all it was of any kind i mean people thinking you know we well certainly in the 60s people mostly were not swinging and in the 70s it wasn't at all supersonic for most people you're mostly living in the kind of like the hand-me-downs culturally of the 30s 40s 50s um and in terms of the schedules this is the one little 30 minutes and it wasn't even all that 30 minutes because a lot of the pops is rubbish of course um in which you've got as we'll discover just sort of morsels of tinsel just some sort of little glam goblet um of you know some sort of hint at um a possibility of a life that might be something that was um you know had a little bit of kind of sort of you know sort of sex and gusto and

tinsel and whatever about it and that was all there was you know dave hill's top hat you know just a little glimpse of that you know to keep you going all week so top of the pops in case you're a child or you're an american uh or you're just ignorant it was launched on bbc one on january the first 1964 and it ran almost every week right up to july 2006 uh it was a chart show basically the top top 30 then the top 40 uh the original ground rules for the show went something like this the only single allowed to be played every week was the number one no singles dropping down the charts were allowed on the highest new entry and the highest climber would be automatically included and the show always ended with the number one single so it very quickly became the shop window for the pop world and it regularly pulled in upwards of 15 million viewers a week at its peak in the 70s and 80s. And it was the indication to any new bands and artists that they had officially won at life. Sarah, you're younger than us. What did it mean to you?

been four or five um and I do in the 80s it kind of settled into I think it moved around the schedules a bit but it did settle into a kind of Thursday Thursday evening slot and to this day I still get a little kind of sparkly twinkly feeling of positivity on a Thursday just because and it's because of Top of the Pops it's not because the weekend is approaching I've been freelance basically the whole time so you know you know, like weekends, weekends are nothing to me. Weekends are the time when I actually catch up on my work. But Thursday was you would sort of glide from, you know, you'd come home from school and you'd have something to look forward to. And it was just like a great snapshot of music. It was like a compressed sort of bubble of what was going on.

And there was a sort of what they would, you know, what people would say now was a sort of um what they would you know the what what people would say now is a sort of gamification because you would sort of guess at you know who was up and who was down and you know i mean like you're saying it's very brutal isn't it it's like no one who is going down is allowed on it's like oh it's like it's like life isn't it it's like you know if you're not if you're not flavor flavor of the week right now then you're nowhere but it was a very yeah it's a very intense hit of kind of glamour and um kind of weirdness and um you know and then a lot of it was just you know incredibly banal and and uh like how how these guys got on there but um yeah it was like

that was when you were a kid you know growing up with it that's where you got that and the you know and the actual the chart show on the radio on a sunday that was where you got all of your it's where you got your your pop from i was just going to say that um yes i'll just echo what sarah said um just in terms of how much you took it to heart and i mean i used to keep a little exercise book each week in which i'd um jot down you know very meticulously um each week the um new entrance if it was a you know if something had gone up it was entered in green felt it if something had gone down in the charts red felt it if it held its position gray felt it um i would do that every single week and i read it and i do and i i was kind of obsessed really i took it as the way i take football to heart

nowadays in my old age you know arsenal, Arsenal or whatever, you know. So I remember being absolutely devastated when Dawn in 1973 managed to hold off Sweet's Hellraiser, which held at number two. And I thought, and I realised, you know, I just, I knew long enough that if Sweet were going to get to number one, it was going to have to be that week. If they held at number two, I knew that the way the trajectories worked, the charts, that was the chance. It was not that week. It wasn't going to be next week. And so it came to be that week if they held it number two i knew that the way the trajectories were the charts that was the chance it was not that week it wasn't going to be next week and so it came to be i was on holiday at the time oh i was i was about um let me think i was about 10 i was on holiday in wales and it you know we put a cloud well it was on holiday well so loads of clouds in the holiday but that casts another metaphorical cloud some actually the actual clouds of a Welsh holiday. Because the first Top of the Pops I ever watched would have been about 1974, 1973, when I was about five, and my dad wouldn't let me watch Top of the Pops.

He was one of those people where, you know, you have people who, families that refuse to let the kids watch ITV. My dad was the other way. families that refused to let the kids watch ITV. My dad was the other way. And on Thursday nights, he would deliberately pick that night to have his bath in front of the fire. Still had a tin bath, one of those old houses. And he'd sit there in his bath and watch Emmerdale Farm.

And this was when Emmerdale Farm was about a farm. This is pre-mass deaths and sex and all that kind of stuff. It was the early seventies. That kind of stuff didn't happen. So anyway, I would go around to my mate's house and he was called Tony Bones and his mom would allow me to watch top of the pops. So before we go any further,

I just want to say that this podcast and all the podcasts afterwards will always be dedicated to Tony Bones's mum in ice and green Nottingham. Thank you, Doc. Tony Bones' mum. We've talked about when we started watching. When did we stop watching Top of the Pops? I don't know. I think it sort of petered out.

I mean, I can't believe it's 2006, so it's 10 years since it's been off the air. I mean, they do, they have a Christmas special every year, which I don't watch. Which isn't. No, it's not very special. But I don't know, it sort's petered out sometime in the in the in the noughts i think i i kind of held out for you know almost uh for a long time but then i just it it hadn't been a part of my life for for a while i suppose um so i can't can't

really remember when i lost interest but obviously the charts have been changing in the meantime and it just became less exciting and of course because i have um you know i may not be as old as you but i still qualify as a curmudgeon at this point i think and uh you know you do you get curmudgeonly about you go all these new or what are they doing there they're not even they they can't they can't even do what they're doing so you know that's that's kind of how it's how it's gone for me david yes i i would echo that curmudgeon point. Because when I used to watch it in the 70s, my granddad would get infuriated. I remember he saw, because sometimes he'd be doing the babysitting thing, I remember he saw Roy Wood at Wizard doing See My Baby Jive,

and he just got absolutely enraged by the kind of hairy appearance of this bloke. He said, if he turned up at the RAF like that, he'd get seven days jankers. He would. Seven days jankers. I'm going to cry. I'd have to go and work out what jankers were. That was the first episode I remember watching because that was the one where I can remember a schoolgirl being on the stage and a gorilla coming out of nowhere

and carrying her off. And I really fancied the schoolgirl. And then it wasn't until years later I realised it was the bassist or something like that dressed up. Confusing times, early 70s, weren't they, David? You thought it was an actual primate of some sort, yeah. Well, yeah, there was that as well. But, you know, thinking that a massive bloke,

probably with a moustache, was qualified as a, I don't know, as a 14-year-old girl, you know, that was... That was what I was more concerned about. But for me, the... So then obviously my granddad was all girl, you know, that was... That was what I was more concerned about. But for me, the... So then, obviously, my grandad was all about, you know, you can't tell the girls from the boys or whatever. I think I stopped watching when you could tell the girls from the boys, and that's, like, my kind of beef with my daughter now.

It's rubbish, you can tell the girls from the boys. The sudden extra normativeness of it, you know, Britpop, et cetera, et cetera, you know. That's when something died for me. So, basically, I think we're all in agreement that Top of Pop's dead important and worth talking about. So let's take one episode from the lucky bag

of randomness and see what we get out of it. This week, we're doing July the 14th, 1977. Very important year, 1977, so we've been told. Well, all years are important in many ways. They are, yeah, but musically, you know, it's seen, 1977's seen as here, you know, here comes punk

and... Here comes punk, here comes Donna Summer. Yes, exactly, yes. So, in the news on this day, Somalia declares war on Ethiopia. The Labour government are arguing with the TUC again. There's just been a 25-hour blackout in New York. Dave Sexton's just become the new manager of Man United.

And Don Reavis quit England to manage the United Arab Emirates. But the big news on this very day, on the cover of the Daily Mirror, the Sex Pistols appear on Top of the Pops. Daily Mirror headline the cover of the daily mirror the sex pistols appear on top of the pops daily mirror headline top of the punks this is a huge deal isn't it ah witty stuff that's why they get the big bucks isn't it i see us i do see what they did there everybody at the time knew about the sex pistols but if you were like my age which was nine at the time you about the Sex Pistols, but if you were like my age, which was nine at the time, you'd never actually seen them. I didn't have a big brother with an expansive record collection. So I knew next to arse all about the Sex Pistols, apart from what I've been told in the Sunday papers every week. And what the Sunday papers were telling me was not good. They were not decent

sorts. Did you have a sort of view of them then as these like cartoon goblins or sort of creatures that have crawled out of, you know, not quite human? All I knew was what the newspapers told me and what my mates at school told me. And, you know, it was really strange because here you have this band who are, you know, the most talked up band since, I don't know, the Bay City Rollers. You didn't know one lick of their tunes unless you were older. I mean, at the time I was 14 or 15,

but I didn't really understand the idea of punk was the moment that cleaved rock history in two and, you know, between modern and postmodern and et cetera like that. It was really just the sort of triumph of a sort of juvenile delinquency, really. I mean, it was the kind of, the kids who were normally in detention somehow kind of having a breakout. I do remember one time there was a kid called juvenile delinquency, really. I mean, it was the kind of... The kids who were normally in detention somehow kind of having a breakout. I do remember one time there was a kid called Kevin, Kevin Burke,

and he was in his little flares or whatever, and he had a little safety pin that he'd somehow kind of fashioned right into his nostril, and it was kind of cakey from where it had been bleeding. It went and knocked on the staff room door at our school, and the Frenchmaster, old Big Bill, Mr. Brooks, he opened the door. And Kevin Burke shouted, punk rock, and waved his fist at him and then ran off. And I think that was the essence.

To me, that spoke to the essence of punk. Anarchy. It was anarchy, yeah. So what else was on telly on this night, July the 14th, 1977? Well, ITV are halfway through an episode of Get Some In. Sarah, Get Some In, you wouldn't know this would you? Get Some In

I don't know, you can imagine that kind of being, you know, somebody coming out with that in a very long meeting at Channel 4 or BBC 3 or something going, God what can we do? Get Some In! So what I can only be disappointed by what Get Some In actually was David, Get Some In, yes 4 or BBC 3 or something going, God, what can we do? Get some in! So what in the... I could only be disappointed by what Get Some In actually was.

David, Get Some In, yes. I suppose it was, you know, they probably hoped it would have some sort of lyric connotation like that, but what you were getting in was your national service. It was set in the RAF in the late 1950s. It starred Tony Selby as the kind of... as the sergeant, I think, or was he the corporal sergeant anyway Sergeant Major Bastard type Yeah that's right and it actually featured Robert Lindsay in one of his earliest roles actually

he was a teddy boy his DA Sean as he had to enter service for a few years never really, didn't quite It was a stab at Dad's army, wasn't it, really? Yeah, it was a kind of poor man. I mean, in a way, it was a poor man's ain't half hot mum,

you know, so that's a pretty poor man. But it's a good title. I will take solace in that. You know, maybe it can be recycled into something more exciting now. Yeah, or something pornographic. Or something pornographic, yeah. BBC Two is showing part 14 of having a baby and asking why they cry for no reason and how to get them to shut up 14 part series wow

why they cry for no reason because they're because they're bastards how do you get them to shut up saying you're a little bastard and of of course, BBC One is just finishing an episode of something called The Whole Universe Show, which was essentially Cosmos without the budget. So it's in the kind of like Tomorrow's World slot, which was a perennial thing before Top of the Pops. Oh, yeah, I love Tomorrow's World. Yeah, it was great. They were all so excited about what was going on.

Look at this thing that may or may not exist. I mean, they got it right. I think once a series, they would get something right that would actually, like, you know, something that we have now. And it's like, look, tomorrow's world predicted this, and the rest of it was just kind of happy nonsense. Hoverboards and whatnot. Yeah, why have we got hoverboards yet?

Proper hoverboards. I don't mean those little wheelie things. They don't hover, do they? Oh, they're crap, aren't they? No, we need got hoverboards yet? Proper hoverboards. I don't mean those little wheelie things. They don't hover, do they? Oh, they're crap, aren't they? No, we need actual hoverboards. And we've got Skype, and that was kind of something we were vaguely hoping for. But, you know, telephones with pictures.

But Top of the Pops, it was always appropriate that Top of the Pops came after Tomorrow's World, because, you know, as you've all mentioned, Dave Hill and his top hat. Here was Tomorrow's World because, you know, as you've all mentioned, Dave Hill and his top hat. Here was Tomorrow's World today, the future for you right now in a nutshell.

But no, there was always this terrible, terrible wait, though, because, I suppose I could have looked at the grandfather clock, but the countdown of the items, and I thought, please, please, let it be 7.30, let it be 7.30, and then my item would finish. And then finally Raymond Bax would come on and do the link. And now, here's Judith Hamm with the washing machine of 1980. Oh, God.

And it's just like, time, time, press on. Yeah, we don't want the future. We want now. Yeah, pretty much. Now. Yeah, absolutely. The following few are feeling fine because they're this week's Top of the Pops. are feeling fine because they're this week's Top of the Pops.

We have the fifth and best Top of the Pops theme, which is a cover of Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, which was recorded by CCS, the Collective Consciousness Society, in 1970. We're not arguing about this, are we? This is the best Top of the Pops theme ever. Yes. Yeah.

You hesitated, Sarah. I did hesitate, but that's because, you know, in my brain, I have that, whatever jangly nonsense there was that kind of made me run into the lounge and go,

oh, it's Top of the Pops in the 80s. Was it Yellow Pearl? The one that goes, diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly-didd Yeah, probably. That's probably like deeper in my brain than, you know, but no, this is, no, you are correct, sir. It is, because the other option is, which is, that's not, that's not Johnny Dankworth or something. That's, you know, it's not good. Yeah, and there was the, what's his name, wasn't it? Paul Hardcastle one. Oh, yes.

It went, Rubbish. That doesn't say anything to me. And you've done it really good justice as well. I think you've done it more justice than it deserved in that rendition. Still rubbish. Yeah, thank you. So we get the chart countdown by Kid Jensen, which was pretty standard at the top of the pops at the time,

where you would get the whole of the top 30 in reverse order. Yeah, spoilers? Blowing spoilers? Well, you know, it's like I've seen it now. I don't need to know yet. Yeah, you could turn off and watch the end and get some in if you wanted. Yeah, I'm sure if I had somebody warn you, look away now if you don't want to know what's number one.

They never did. No, they just went straight through. It's like you've been given a menu, but then you're told you can't pick what you like and you're going to get what we give you. Because if you go through that, I mean, there's some big names in there. There's Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Exodus, Bob Marley and the Wailers, ELO, Queen, Jacksons, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Boney M.

You're just rubbing your hands together thinking, oh, this is going to be a belting show. Yeah, and they all look so great, don't they? It's like when you get that bam, bam, bam, look at all these amazing sexy people. It's like, oh, look at them. And then, yeah, and they it's like when you get that bam bam bam look at all these amazing sexy people it's like yeah look at them and then yeah and then it's like and now we're going to get down to the business of a few people that you've never heard of and we'll probably never hear of again yeah his history's jostling before you and then it's a now jigsaw so this episode is presented

by kid jensen or david jensen as as he likes to be known nowadays. He was born in British Columbia in Canada, which means he's got a genuine transatlantic accent. He joined Radio Luxembourg at the age of 18, presenting the midnight prog show Dimensions. He joined Radio Trent in Nottingham in 1975, poached by Radio 1 a year later. And at this point in his career,

he's filling in for absent DJs when they're going off on the road shows or whatever he did he did some good he did some things and he did some other things and he had his career was was was going pretty well at the time he certainly was yeah and kid jensen is seen as one of those djs of the era who kind of like he gets a bit of a free pass as he wasn't annoying oh yeah he is he is at the most as well as far as we know he is he is u-tree free but um which is always which is always good it just gives you i mean it's it's the bar is set pretty low now isn't it it's just like oh i can look at the bars thrown on the floor without it's gone through in into the basement and then through into the sewer um but yeah it it's come to a pass when people have congratulated for not being paedophiles, basically.

Yes. It's like, good job. You can go and see the queen and she'll give you a pat on the back. But, yeah, he was always quite an inoffensive, charming sort of lad, wasn't he, really? He was like a sort of lovely golden retriever puppy with his lovely hair and his nice voice. And even now it's not too grating because

there was a certain way that um there was a certain cadence that dj's had and top of the pop centers had you know in the in the 70s and 80s which was a very kind of jive ass kind of deal and you know he's he's not you know watching this now you don't cringe too hard do you because it's like it doesn't push that too far. It doesn't like jangle your nerves. He was, yeah, sorry, I was going to say, he was sincere in his love of rock music in a kind of non-threatening way

and with a little bit of that kind of 70s sleepless. I always remember, like, I had a tape for years of a show that he did and I just remember at one point he said, I like anybody with a rock and roll heart and Nick Lowe's beats loud and strong. Oh, nice one, kid. Because he does like Nick Lowe and Nick Lowe does have a rock and roll heart

that beats loud and strong. So he spoke a truth and he spoke it in a certain way. And we are all terrible postmodern cynics now anyway. So we have to kind of, you know, we have to recognise that's what we're doing and just keep a little bit of a lid on it. 1977 is seen as a bit of a turning point in both music and fashion and I think Kid is actually demonstrating this by what he's wearing.

It's a blue jumpsuit, pretty much, almost as if he's seen what The Clash are wearing and he likes the look of it, but he isn't quite ready to stencil hate and war or heavy-duty discipline on it just yet. And also he's got a very strong bladder. Has he? Yes, he would, wouldn't he? That's what you're saying. That's what you're saying.

When one undertakes to wear a jumpsuit, one is saying, I can go for hours without a piss. So Kidd has parachuted in. Yes, he must have done, yeah. That's great, actually. I was so excited to have just, you know, come through the ceiling of the studio to bring you the pop. APPLAUSE Just think of the joys of the rain I've got so much love to give to you

Oh yeah, love's such a wonderful thing by The Real Thing. Real Thing, formed by the Amu brothers, Chris and Eddie, in Liverpool in 1970. Originally called the Sophisticated Soul Brothers, but they changed their name after the manager noticed the Coca-Cola advert at Piccadilly Circus, which means they could have been called Chinzano or Wimper. They got signed after appearing on Opportunity Knox. They made it to number one in 1976 with You To Me Or Everything and then got a number two with Can't Get By Without You.

So they're still riding pretty high. But, as we've mentioned earlier with Donna Summer, there's a bit of an elephant in the room, isn't there? Because we're talking about punk changing everything, and at number two at the moment is a song that is going to change even more of everything on the dance front. Yeah. Well, we're talking about the sequencer here, aren't we?

Yes, we are, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The sequencer, not the sequins, as it were. But yes, of course, yes, and the fact thatins, not the sequins, as it were. But yes, and of course, yes, and the fact that you've got the kind of the BBC orchestra. We need to talk about the miming because in the first episode of Top of the Pops, all the bands and artists mimed to the actual single.

You know, they even had the presenters dropping the needle on the record during the introduction and presumably miming that. Musicians Union got pissed off about it. They banned it. After a couple of weeks, when bands tried to play live on Top of the Pops and fell on their arses,

the MU and Top of the Pops came to a compromise where all acts were recorded back in track, especially for the show, and mimed to that as long as all the musicians on the track were present. And if they weren't, in came the Top of the Pops orchestra and they'd fill in.

I mean, you you know from a sort of leftist standpoint all right if you were of that physical intonation you think well you know this is a good time you know the jobs for the many but the sequence was about to come along and a bit like you know this is the sort of thing that provoked the luddite revolts a couple of centuries yeah here come the japanese robots to take your job away that's right which they kind of did yeah it's like that was was the top of the pops sound. And yeah, which is a peculiar thing, as you say, because there was such a gamut of styles

and then you still have that one element. Okay, we've got to talk about the outfits because it is the 70s and it is top of the pops. So from left to right, we have gold dungarees, like, I don't know, very sparkly Rod, Jane and Fred. We have a nice blue velvet waistcoat. We have a bloke dressed up in a leather jerkin. And then we've got Chris Amu, the lead singer, kind of like wearing seashells around his neck.

And it's essentially a gold Flojo top. It's the kind of thing one of Prince's knockoffs would have worn in a video. Yeah, the outfits are definitely more, there's more to them than the song itself, which is a profoundly forgettable song that kind of, you know, it didn't even go in one ear and out the other. It kind of goes in one ear and then sort of gets lost on the way and goes back out the same ear, you know.

I mean, compared to things like I feel love it does it does sound dated it does it does pull quite a bit because you know and the outfits i think promise something that the song doesn't really deliver you know it's uh that that kind of um flamboyant racy sort of you know saucy one shoulder glittery business going on you know you you kind of need to really bring it if that's if that's how you're presenting yourself you need to have sort of more more sort of disco chops than these guys have i think um there's a man in the audience in a white dinner jacket and bowtie dancing with a woman like they're in a works dance and they're just chatting away and completely oblivious to what's going on in the background that's a bit offensive isn't it very rude but also i'm kind of with them

to be honest that's probably what i would have done but it looks it's so cute it looks like they're at prom it's like you know and he's i mean i would love to know what he was saying to her like you know is it just this isn't this isn't so great is it i feel that the outfits are really uh you know writing checks that the music can't cash. And maybe he was saying that like to impress her. And of course she would have been tremendously impressed by this, you know, because that's what girls like to hear. Hey.

But I mean, of course, with the audience, I think it was like a six month waiting list or even more. That's extraordinary that there's a waiting list because... You're that close to the stars and you're just not asking they look like they've been they're like they've been busting under sufferance in a state of confusion they really do as if they were expected like three two one or something they they really don't seem to they don't seem to know what they're doing there they're looking around in utter confusion and resentment must have been quite disorientating though i mean you know and quite anticlimactic for a lot of people because you

know tv studios as we know they're quite a sterile environment there isn't like a lot of atmosphere that's why they have to have people with with cattle prods basically come on come on look like you're having fun i think i think sarah has put a nail on the head i think that's probably what it is that confusion resentment is is having to be kind of like pushed around in what is a very anticlimactic environment and really the whole magic just being kind of taken apart before them and all their illusions just ruthlessly stripped away by floor managers definitely i think that's what it is and also of course people now are um are much more accustomed to uh we're much more comfortable with the idea of of or certainly you know those young people

they're much more comfortable with the idea of being filmed they film themselves put themselves on the internet all the time um and i think at that time it would just be like, oh, God, I'm going to be on television. And it would just be just kind of numb terror, I think, would probably descend for a lot of people because, oh, God, this is what I look at on my telly and I'm going to be on that telly. What am I going to do? Yeah, and they'd be seeing themselves on the monitors as well, of course.

Oh, yeah. And this is the time, this is the period of Top of the Pops, which was a bit strange because at the beginning, if you see the early ones, it's almost like ready, steady, go. You know, everyone's frugging away and they're on trend, as we say nowadays. And then in the 80s, in the early 80s, it was flags and balloons, Top of the Pops,

where they had, you know kind of like they outsourced the audience to uh zoo and and you know professional dancers and stuff this is a kind of like very much the middle phase where they've just herded up some kids and just dumped them and and just gone listen to this and do something and move out of my way because you're always looking at top of the pops at the audience. When the band's boring, the eyes go down to the audience and you see what they're doing. And, you know, sometimes you can clearly see them just running out of the way

because the camera's just come right up to the stage. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right, they are disconcerted. I think that's to do with the 70s. We were shy in the 1970s. And like you say, a little bit camera shy as well. We're like one of those old tribes who thought the camera would steal some of our soul, you know.

Not that we had no soul, but definitely there was a sort of reticence that suddenly goes completely out the window in the post-Saturday era. So the single would spend two weeks in the top 40 only, getting to number 33. Real good thing from the real thing, and love's such a wonderful thing. Welcome to Top of the Pops Here's a girl that knows a lot about love She's the lovely Rita Coolidge Singing a Boz Skaggs composition

That appeared on his Silk Degrees LP It's a song called We're All Alone Outside the rain begins Kid points out that Rita Coolidge knows a lot about love Bit much, Kid, isn't it? What are you saying? That could be. Is he slut-shaming her?

Good Lord. I think he's saying that she's felt a lot of pain and she's, you know, she's moved through many phases and sings about them. You see, once again, Sarah, I'd remind you that this is a more innocent age. When we talked about love, we weren't talking about doing the deed.

No. We were just talking about sort of amorousness and frocks and and romantic liaisons and candlelit dinners and things like that i know that sort of thing yeah rita coolidge was a former backing singer for jimmy hendrix joe cocker eric clapton and bob dylan and when kid was saying she knew a lot about love maybe he was referring to the fact that she was accused as a Yoko Ono of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when she left Stephen Stills for Graham Nash and split the band up. Well done, Doug.

She won two Grammys in the mid-70s with her then-husband Chris Christopherson, just released her most successful LP, and this pretty much is the one song that we know her for in the UK. What do you think about this song, Sarah? Do you feel the knowledge of love emanating from Rita Coolidge's mouth into your ear?

It's quite a pleasant tune. It really, really reminded me of The Greatest Love of All. I wonder if that, but also, yeah, you see, this is me being a child of the 80s. Also, similarly, Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You by Glenn Medeiros. Right. It's quite... It's in that ballpark, isn't it?

So I couldn't really get those out of my head. So I was, you know, I was failing to focus on the kind of the great wisdom of the ages that was coming through. But it's pleasant. She's got a good voice. of the ages that was coming through. But it's pleasant. She's got a good voice. It's quite a sort of mysterious,

mysterious wandering tune as she's sort of wandering through a garden and sitting in a window next to a giant cactus. Yes, she is. I mean, David, this is one of the rare occasions where there's a film. This is long before the days of the promotional video, of course, but even so very special to us deprived children of the 70s. course but even so very special to us deprived uh children of the

70s the film was you know before freddie laker and his kind of transatlantic you know flame revolutions i mean america might as well have been a moon basically and there's something about the kind of the graininess of these films that really seemed like a transmission from from eons away basically um so yeah and obviously you know and it was not possible for them to come in as well and so that added to the kind of otherness however this song obviously adds sort of other qualities like a certain kind of blandness really i mean considering a sort of pedigree and and background whatsoever and their ancestry this does kind of drip with the kind of pure white milk of carpenter's ca Caucasian-ness somehow, this tune.

I mean, we can go through it. I mean, it begins with Rita at home, sat on a window ledge next to a massive cactus. It's huge. It's huge, isn't it? She doesn't seem very comfortable. That cactus does a lot of symbolic work. I mean, it symbolises the prickliness of the thing we call love of course love as opposed to

and the pricks we fall in love with and don't deserve our love perhaps that never occurred to me and so we cut from that to Rita walking about in a back garden that's a lovely garden essentially Rita Coolidge is having a day off work and she's just gone you know what there's things i could do but i'm just gonna piss the day

up the wall and have a bit of a sing and a walk around and a and a sit next to me cactus david when she says we're all alone does she mean we're all alone on her own or we're together all alone yeah it could be the you know it's the kind of profundity of solitude that we find expressed in the music of Miles Davis, for instance, that, you know, no matter how much we try, we are utterly in a kind of, you know, in this kind of depthless dungeon of solitude. Or, I mean, you know, but it is kind of soaked in the sort of carnation milk of saccharine moroseness, though, really, I mean. So it's the, you know, slightly less sympathetic, I suppose. And she's got a nice garden as well, so what's she complaining about? Maybe it could be, look,

you know, your ex has fucked off and they're not coming back, so, you know, go over here and dip your bread in. Yep. You just don't know. I think the most profound line from the whole song is close the window, calm the light, because who the fuck is calming a light in 1977?

This is long before the dimmer switch. I would have thought that calming the light in those circumstances would just be blowing out 30% of the candles that you had lit at the time, because that's where love happens, is in places where there are candles. So the record would peak at number six, spend 13 weeks in the chart. That was pretty much her done in the UK.

She'd have a minor hit with a cover of the Bee Gees' Words in 1978. Little magic stuff there for Rita Coolidge, and we're all alone. Covering just outside the chart is a band from Australia, currently in this country, The Saints, and this is called This Perfect Day. This Perfect Day by The Saints. Formed in Brisbane, Australia in 1973. Began their career by playing Dale Shannon

and Connie Francis songs dead fast. Their first single, I'm Stranded, was released a full month before New Rose by the Damned and was described

as single of this or any other week by John Ingham in sounds. This led to them getting signed to EMI for three albums and this is their third release which is currently

at number 41 in the charts. They're bubbling under as we used to say. This is great. This is a bit more like it, isn't it? It's something with a bit of lead in its pencil. But I mean, really, this could have been recorded last week. Because when you start looking back at these old episodes,

some of them are so incredibly dated. You could tell the year even if just a song that's come and gone, you can still tell what year more or less it was. And this is really, it could be all over the place. That's when you really prick up as you go, this has that slightly timeless thing about it. Absolutely.

I mean, it seems it's not just, I mean, as people talk about it, just anticipating the punk deluge is about to happen. It anticipates things like grunge. It anticipates that kind of sort of timeless sort of like, you know, scruffy male indignant sort of volcanic guitar style that, you know, that sort of rolls out from like the late 80s onwards, really. Yeah, it's remarkably ahead of its time. And it does, yeah, The sound really stands up.

I mean, sometimes things that are supposed to be really kind of rock hard and, you know, in Metallica or whatever, sound a little bit tinny, but this has got a really, really full sound to it. It's extraordinary. Two girls are more interested in trying to chat up Kid than witness the birth of Punk. What the hell is that all about?

Oh, bless them. No, they're just... You do have to remember that, it sounds funny now, but Radio 1 DJs were pretty much, you know, at the forefront of male attractiveness in the 70s. Seriously, I've seen one episode of Top of the Pops from about this era. Noel fucking Edmonds is presenting,

is introducing a song and he passes the mic onto a girl to say the name of the song and she just grabs him and kisses him. Ah! Ah! Seriously? What? Seriously? They both look quite terrified though, really, don't they?

And that kind of, you know, like I was saying about, oh God, it's a TV camera. Ah, what am I going to do? And, you know, they don't look like they're having the best time. They're sort of frozen, frozen grins. You know, maybe it was look like they're having the best time. They're sort of frozen grins. You know, maybe it was, maybe that was actually the best moment of their life and they're going to be telling their kids about it now. Oh, look, I was on top of the pups, but I don't really envy either of them.

I mean, first and foremost, it's clearly obvious that no one in the band is wearing anything by Vivienne Westwood. I mean, this is certainly true. I mean, you know, there's a sort of style bypass there. You going to say you know that that means that as sarah said you know there is a sort of timelessness about it they look like perennial scruffy blokes with a lot of attitude and um pent-up sort of indignation um they could have come from any era from there after one of the things i always loved about top of the popsops, of course, is the spectacle and the sheer, you know, the craziness. These are things that you wouldn't see.

You know, I lived in the north. I didn't live in London where you might see that sort of thing in the street. And they were kind of these extraordinary aliens that just sort of crashed in and they'd wear the most outrageous things. But the reverse is also true. And I really admire people who can just go on TV dressed in whatever they woke up in or whatever they got in wearing last night and just went, do you know what?

Getting changed is a bit of a hassle. I'm just going to show up like this. And these guys are really pushing that. It's just like they've discovered kind of new shades of brown and grey. Yes, yes, yes. Fifty shades of brown. Yeah.

Which, of course, you know, is one of the key colours of the 70s and somehow they've managed to reinvent it or un-invent it in some way. And transcend it, if you will. Dressed in what they woke up in and dressed in what they probably wake up in the next morning as well. Yes. I can identify with that sometimes as a freelancer. And of course, the other thing is they look bored as fuck. Oh, we like that.

Not thrilled at all to be on top of the pubs. That's great. But they don't also, they don't look like they're trying to look bored, which is, you know, you can never do that. Basically, trying too hard is to be avoided in all senses. So if you are if you are but just you know there is a genuine sort of insouciance there isn't there and just uh you know kind of slight slightly lip cut you know slightly curled lips slightly resentful you know which is which of course i which i hardly approve of i think you know really cool bands can have that feeling that you should feel like apologizing for having detained them basically and i think yes they definitely exude that you know, really cool bands can have that feeling that you should feel like apologising for having detained them, basically.

And I think, yes, they definitely exude that. You know, they're performing this chore for us, yes. But at the same time, they generate tremendous excitement. Not with certain kids on the front of the stage who leave to go to the other stage. Did you notice that? Oh, no. They couldn't handle it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Couldn't handle the truth. Yeah. When the Saints go marching in, they didn't want to be in that number, did they? No, they didn't. No. And, of course, at the end, the lead singer, Chris Bailey, contemplates the thin silver 70s BBC mic with bored contempt

and holds it away from himself, breaking the miming rule. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a nice move, that. There's something elegant about his just kind of complete lack of give a shit at the end there. Yeah, I mean, those microphones are fucking horrible anyway, aren't they? They're the kind of thing Charles Aznavour and Max Bygraves use. They're not rock. Yeah, they are.

Nobody looks good because, I mean, you know, you get the kind of the old, the 50s ones, and you can sort of, you can, you can, you get your whole hand, you get your whole hand around them. Like you're going to just chomp into it like an apple. But with those, it's a very, nobody looks good with sort of, that sort of pincy, pincery sort of pinchy. It's like you're about to start knitting or something. It's like nobody looks sexy doing that. It's the kind of microphone you get at the karaoke and you instantly crook your little finger. Yeah, this is, you know, this is pop.

It's no place for crook little fingers, you know. No. No, not at all. Not at all. Hi guys, it's Angelo Cipoffimio here telling you to please listen to the Brian and Roger podcast. Now, I don't know who's written it but whoever it is is probably a genius so i think you should give it a listen because it's

such great stuff this is the first radio ad you can smell the new cinnabon pull apart only at wendy's it's ooey gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. And of course, at that time, everyone was aware that they were miming, unless you were very young like I was. What do you do in that stage? You'll see some bands and it's like, okay, we've got a

mime and it totally goes against everything we believe in. So we're going to pull out the stops to look as if we're playing live. And other bands will go, oh, look, everybody knows it's miming and we're real, so we're going to just show everyone that we're mime-ing.

We see a lot more of that as time goes on after 1977. So it's interesting to see. This might be the first time when there's been a deliberate this is mime-ing thing. Yeah, that'd be interesting to see if this was, if they were pioneers of that, because that does take some balls, actually, is to go on the telly and you know that you're

supposed to be doing a certain thing and you know you you maybe you'll get into some trouble if you don't do it um you know and so that is it's quite a it's quite a ballsy it's quite a ballsy thing really because you are sort of peeling aside the artifice and going do you know what this is a lot of you know this is a lot of nonsense taking a sledgehammer exactly well done uh the thing that's always got me about that though is is what do you do when you're a drummer? You've got to mime. How do you mime drumming without looking a total knob? I don't know.

It's a good point. I hope as the episodes go on, we're going to find out. I'm going to pay close attention to the drummers and see how they deal with it. Because, I mean, yeah, you can do it with the bigger drums. It's cymbals. I don't know. If everybody out there is a drummer and has mined,

how do you do it without looking a knob? Yeah, I want to know. Siren and sound from the Saints in this perfect day. At number 21 in the charts this week, a very mellow sound from the Commodores. And here to dance to it are Legs and Co. And they make it look so easy. Crumpet time!

The fourth dance troupe to appear on Top of the Pops after the Go-Joes, Pans People and Ruby Flipper, Legs & Co made their debut in November 1976. Legs & Co, Sarah's an independent woman of the new century. What do you think to that name? Which one? Legs & Co. Legs & Co, OK. I thought you said Ruby, what was it? Ruby Flipper.

Ruby Flipper. Ruby Flipper, that justlipper. Ruby Flipper. That just sounds like something out of the Profanosaurus, doesn't it? I don't know what it would be. It does, doesn't it? Legs & Co, though, is... Get your Ruby Flipper on this, dog. But, yeah, Legs & Co, it's sort of...

It is rather reducing the highly skilled female dancers to their component parts, really. It's, I don't know, it is very odd. It does come to this image of these sort of disembodied pins sort of jumping about the place. And very corporate as well, which was kind of groundbreaking for 1977. I suppose it was. But, I mean, I think and co was used in that.

It was sort of a suffix that anybody could use just when you couldn't think of anything else. It's like and some people, there are some people here, they amount to a company, let's put and co with an ampersand. Ampersands are always nice. But yeah, I always find legs and coants People all just a very peculiar thing. It's a very odd business. Because they sort of do, you know, so if you didn't have a film and you didn't have a live performance,

you would have to dance. And there was always this sort of odd dissonance between the song and the dance routine. Even if they could be very, very literal and really sort of do interpretive dance and really kind of act out the lyrics and then the rest of the time they try to sort of evoke the mood of the song and it would just never it would just never be right because it it just you know it just doesn't it just doesn't really work and i just i would always even to young age i would always find it a bit embarrassing it's like these are the it's not

that they weren't female singers as well, but it's like, that's like the main representation of women on top of the pops at this time. And it's just a bit... Probably even as a nipper, I thought, gosh, we've got a long way to go. Yeah. So you didn't want to be a leg and co? Not even slightly, no.

Or look like way too much hassle. And all the tiny skimpy costumes as well that were not something that I ever fancied getting into. David, skimpy costumes hey ho ho yes yes i wouldn't mind having it off with no it's uh i know it was a ridiculous kind of slavery into which older men were supposed to go into it was um really but Because there's something strange about... I suppose Legs & Co. was thinking, I suppose, it's like... And Co., it's like a company. This is a company with a difference.

We're a dance company. What about Legs Limited? Legs Limited would have been a lot better. So you've got the alliteration. Ah, but it's Legs Unlimited, because those legs go all the way down to the floor. Oh, Legs Unlimited. I mean, I always thought with legs and pants,

people before them, that there was something, they were kind of sexist and sexless at the same time. It's very strange because the movements, if you actually look at them, they're not really particularly suggestive or sultry. They're almost like this kind of sort of, I don't know, gymnastic or eurythmic type routines that grammar school girls would have done in the 1950s.

You know, they kind of sort of waft and sway and move elegantly about the place. So it's bizarre then that this kind of sort of sexual connotation is then sort of rather jeebusy, sort of attached to them by things like daily travers or whatever, and all kinds of deeply, yes, especially retrospectively, deeply unpleasant ways. As we've mentioned, they were there to basically fill in, to provide visual content for foreign singles

that didn't have a promotional video. But also, just as importantly, they served as dad bait. You know, for a lot of dads, that was one of the things that, you know, that was one of the reasons why you'd be able to watch it with your dad. Which was really embarrassing because, you know, your dad would go, oh, look at that, she's a bit of all right, isn't she? Yeah, it's a grim story, you know, like Thursday nights in Nottingham,

fried bread, tea, father getting too messy in his tin bath. So it was, as the new chart would come out on a Tuesday at that time, choreographer Flick Colby would have practically one day to work out a six-person routine and to get suitable costumes in. So, you know, let's not forget that. No, that's pretty hardcore. We're going to find that they had just an absolute ragbag of shit to dance and be sultry to.

But this one, they're dancing to Easy by the commodores formed in tusca g university alabama in 1968 they were signed to motam primarily as a support band for the jackson five and the saxophone player lionel richie assumed the role of lead singer and songwriter and this is the first time they've been in the uk charts since machine gun in 1974 they've changed the style up haven't they david this is a serious slab of soul, I reckon, is this song. And it's got that little kind of slightly supersonic 70s futuristic touch, of course,

you know, with the little kind of reverb bit towards the end and that kind of slightly kind of airborne guitar solo. It's a bit of class, is this? It is, isn't it? And it's one of those songs that even though there was an advert using it that you hated, it still endured.

You know, there was that Halifax advert in the late 80s with some twat in the docklands. Kind of like buying a load of papers with his cash point card, which was newfangled even then. Honestly, if your song can survive that, then you know you've got a good song. I mean, of course, the other

example is Night to Remember by Chalamet, which survived a Harvester's advert. Oh. Wow. Yeah, that is a test. Do you not remember that? I very clearly remember the Halifax advert, though, because I quite enjoyed it.

Because he's there, he's living his best life with his cat in his loft apartment, and he goes strolling out to buy something. He gets some milk for the cat, even though, as I understand it, cats don't actually really like milk. And then he's just there chilling. And it goes perfectly with the thing. So it didn't ruin it for me, but I was young and naive at the time.

But I think this is a great tune. It's one of those tunes where I am a bit suspicious of people who don't like it. It is one of those litmus tests. Because what's not to like, really? Yeah. I am a bit suspicious of people who don't like it. It is one of those litmus tests, you know. Because what's not to like, really? Yeah. Yeah.

So what are Legs & Co doing to this, anyone remember? Well, as my boyfriend described it, it's synchronised swimming without water. Very good. So it's kind of slightly, you know, there is that slightly, that kind of weird, wavy, wobbly sort of thing. A lot of flouncing about, really. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is it.

I think that sometimes, as Sarah mentioned earlier, the Legs & Co interpretations could be a tad literal, but there isn't a sort of literal... I mean, so with Gilbert & Sullivan, Get Down, obviously there are dogs in that performance and there is lots of finger wagging, there's no getting down, what have you, but there's nothing really they can...

There's no peg like that they can sort of pass on for this one. And so, yeah, there is a sort of certainging, there's no getting down, what have you, but there's nothing really, there's no peg like that that they can sort of pass on for this one. And so, yeah, there is a certain amount of kind of abstract, you know, close formation, swaying. And the outfits, I would describe them as, it's a sort of stringy negligee that Pocahontas would wear on a dirty weekend somewhere. You know, it is kind of sexy and sexless,

as has been put before. This song got to number nine on the chart, kicked off a late 70s run for the Commodores. Lionel Richie left the group in 1982, and the band were last heard off chart-wise in 1985 with Night Shift. I think we have something for everyone in this edition of Classical Pops

the next piece of music a bit of rock and roll from Dave Edmonds' rock pile and I knew the bride I knew the bride I Knew The Bride by Dave Edmonds. Born in Cardiff, former member of Love Sculpture. Did Sabre Dance, which was his top five hit in 1968. Christmas number one in 1970 with the cover of I Hear You Knocking, which he nicked off a band whose LP he produced earlier in the year,

Shaking Stevens in the sunsets and of course by 1977 he's seen as one of the prime movies in the pub rock movement with nick lowe david rock and roll is is here to stay in 1977 why oh no no this this this was pretty valid i mean he did um i hear you knocking as he mentioned but this was like the kind of perhaps the last knock into the whole sort of mid-70s pub rock scene that really was helped kind of clear the clear it was very much of a sort of piece with the whole punk thing because a similar sort of thing it was like going to studios bashing out singles for about 100 quid no video um a fairly kind of basal sound played in rocks as you know the playing pubs i should say as you know as as suggested in in the title of the genre um and so there's a kind of affinity really between people like dave ed and some people I should say, as, you know, as suggested in the title of the genre.

And so there was a kind of affinity, really, between people like Dave Eddins and people like Nick Lowe. You know, they were very much sort of favourites in places like Enemy and Melodomaker, especially as they were tremendously funny interviews. So there was no sense that this was the kind of force of reaction to which, you know, people like Sex Pistols were kind of militating against. Far from it. I mean, yeah, it was much more kind of sort of, you know, it was kind of basic and serviceable

or whatever, but it was, but it wasn't like status quo or anything like that. It had a kind of, you know, it was part of the new world. But, I mean, of course, you know, TEDS was still a thing in 1977. I mean, the cover of the NME that week

was about the violence between punks and TEDS on the King's road. And from our perspective, it's, it's very strange that that thing is still going in 1977. And this is, this is just before Elvis dies. Elvis dies a year, a month later.

Um, we're, we're still a year away from Greece, which was probably the peak of all that. And, you know, happy days is on the telly. So,

you know, we're, we're, so you know we're still obsessed with America in the 50s even then Yeah that was something that had been going on for a few years from about 1973 onwards it was almost as if like the whole rock history had just about found time to kind of catch its breath and it was the first time it was almost like a kind of post-modern moment where it's looking back

at the mid 50s and the kind of beginnings and sort of you know which is suddenly over you know which is all of you know like 18 years previously and it just seems like a kind of eon away and so this tremendous wave of nostalgia um in terms of like movies in terms of series like i mentioned happy days and a whole route of groups notably people like shawadi wadi um just you know there's a huge you know early rock and roll revival goes on in a big way from 73 onwards. Pub rock is sort of tangential, I think, slightly tangential to that. But it's, but yeah, it was definitely very,

and so, yeah, you did have the kind of Ted's resurgence or whatever. And then, of course, like you say, you know, the clash between the Ted's and the punks or whatever. I mean, at this time, being a nine-year-old, you know, Show Waddy Waddy was one of the biggest bands at my school you know because we were still that age where we still wanted to be our dads and our dads were all old teds so at the school disco you know if Return to Sender by Elvis came on or Hey Rock and Roll there'd be loads of lads dancing together and chucking themselves on the floor to do that press up thing and then chucking themselves backwards to land on one hand and then and then we'd all go off to the toilets and you know we weren't you know we weren't dancing with girls and spinning them around or anything because girls are but you know we go off to the toilets and chuck water all over ourselves and come back and make it look as if we've been sweating. That was... Yeah. There were new variations, new dance variations.

Like, you had your thumbs and your belt loops. The mud rocker. Two young men. That's right, the mud rocker. Of course, mud was part of all of that with your brothel creepers and all that, yeah. And it, like, you know, sort of set each other, set against each other like stags and bouncing into one another.

It's, yeah. But, you know... This sounds brilliant. It was. I mean, you know... I'm sorry thinking watching this it's kind of who you do you get that sense of incredulity just going okay who who was into this in 1977 but of course you you you it's easy to um it's easy to forget there's a lot of um there's always a lot going on in any given year and it's like history will um you know there there um it takes a while for the true picture, for the sort of the strong, the significant stuff to rise to the top.

And then there's, but of course, there's so much other stuff going on. There are, at any one time, there's, you know, things that are on the way up, things that are on the way out, things that are kind of just bubbling, bubbling along as they always have done. bubbling along as they always have done. And, you know, so then I chastised myself for my own foolishness because, of course, there were plenty of people who were still into this in 1977 because theirs was a different 1977. And the thing is, of course, this is still a time where practically everyone is still buying records. You know, we see records, you know, as something that the kids would buy.

But non-Oz would go into Boots and buy records. You could buy records anywhere. You could buy them at Boots. You could buy them at WH Smith. There was loads of record shops in your local town. You could even buy them at the paper shop after they'd been deleted or something. And this is one of the great things about Top of the Pops because you are

going to see just a lot of ramble and you will look at it and go well who the fuck bought that but you know someone did yeah yeah and i tell you what it has to be said that the the audience are reacting more to this song than anything else there's some really bad ted skipping going on in the audience i mean you know you i mean top, you, I mean, this is it, Top of the Pops in 1977, it's probably catering part of its audience is people born in the Edwardian era. There's no doubt about it. You know, yeah,

who might still buy, purchase the odd disc. And again, and again, this is dad bait, isn't it? This would come on and my dad would be sitting there and going, oh,

this is proper music. This is, this is what you want. Yeah. There's quite, quite a lot for the dads, really. I mean, when did it become, lot for the dads really i mean when did

it become uh you know when did it uh when did we rest it from them you know when did we uh when did we get top oh it'd be it'd be the sin theory that's when they got really confused and angry that's when we banished them when they actually you know got out of the tin bath and there's water slopped everywhere and they ran naked into the room yeah the, the boy George wars of 1982. That was a key moment. Yeah. And then when Legs & Co disappeared in Zoo, which had men,

that's when it got, that's when it, you know, that's when the dads just turned away. That's like a menage a trois with another man. It's not on, is it? Yeah. Anyway, this is one of the very rare examples where a Top of the Pops appearance did nothing for the record.

It dropped down two places the following week, and we'd hear nothing more from Dave Edmonds for another year or so with Girls Talk. So, yeah. If you've been wondering what happened to Jigsaw, puzzle yourself no more, because they've been putting it all together again with a new 45 release,

If I Have to Go Away. Here I am with my head in my hands With a dance each day of the week Formed in Coventry and Rugby in the mid-60s, Jigsaw started as a blues and then a progressive band and their gigs included fire-eating, drum kit demolition and in one instance putting a hole in the ceiling of a club when one of them decided to leap off the top of the organ they calmed down a

lot after that and they wrote who do you think you are for candlewick green who won opportunity knocks that's the second reference to opportunity knocks they had a top 10 hit in 1975 with sky high and this is their comeback single currently at number number 47. I don't know, I mean I know this was, yeah this was again, this was the real 1977 for most people, but I mean you know, what are they doing? I really did you know, there's a lot of this episode

which is, you know, not to my taste but I can see something in it and you know, I can see what other people might have seen in it and this is just, you know it really is you know, really, really trying too hard and um you know and and producing very little of any any substance just sort of you know just just kind of sitting there going what what are you what are you doing mate you should probably stop you're just twatting about at this point as the camera pans in on the band from the side we notice there's no drum kit. And that's because the drummer, Des Dyer, is singing.

David, I've got my notes here. Fucking hell, what is he wearing? Well, yes, indeed. I mean, strangely, at the time, it would have washed over me. I would have just immediately... Oh, this would have been normal, wouldn't it? Oh, it was absolutely normal. I mean, it wouldn't have seemed...

I would have just poo-pooed it. I would have considered it extraneous to my listening requirements. normal. I mean, it wouldn't have seemed, you know, I would have just pooh-poohed it, I would have considered it extraneous to my listening requirements. However, now, yes, it does strike me as a kind of staggeringly surreal artefact, you know, of the day. It's like picking up some sort of plastic fossil and thinking

my God, this is how we live, this is how things work. At the same time, I mean, it's, you know, that falsetto it's quite ambitious. It does remind me, do you remember Barry Biggs, contemporary artist Barry White, the side show and everything like that. You could sense it like, there was an honourable attempt to kind of,

literally, you know, scale those heights. Barry Biggs was like the polar opposite to Barry White, wasn't it, on the Barry scale? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had Barry up there, Barry down there. You had White at the bottom and Biggs right, right in the stratosphere. He was right up there, yeah. Des Dyer is wearing a white slip-up blouse,

which is open to the belly button. He has a white scarf tied around his neck like Mr Sheen. And he's got a gold medallion with a D. And on my notes here, he looks like if Timbrook Taylor and the Goodies did the Naked Civil Servant, that's what Timbrook Taylor would look like. He looks comedy, Dick Emery. Except, I know, but he wasn't.

That was not what he was looking for. That hello, haunting, that John Inman stuff. I mean, this was considered to be a combination to knock out the ladies. Yeah, but to our eyes, it looks all ducker.

Yeah, yes, it is. Yes, yes, the word ducky does sort of spring right up to my mind. That's what the D was actually for. Yes, it is. Yes, the word ducky does sort of spring right into my mind. That's what the D was actually for. And I think he's ducky. So, yeah, and he sings in a castrato voice about having to go away. I mean, to me, it sounds, this song, you know, I'm not as down on the song as Sarah is.

To me, it sounds like a, if that was on a Stylistics album, you'd go, yeah, that's all right. But it's, it's like the stylistics in Batley Variety Club. It's like chitlins

in a basket, I think. It is a bit. But it was, you know, but, sorry, I should tell you,

the, you know, in terms of the, you know, the dress, the sartorial aspects, the male of the species, it's like mallards

and female ducks or whatever they are. Sorry, my duck knowledge. We've just taken a short tour to the dress, the sartorial aspect, it's the male of the species, it's like mallards and female ducks or whatever they are, sorry, my duck knowledge we've just taken a short tour to the end of the cliff of my duck knowledge, but you know it's the male that has the kind of the plumes and the flamboyance and the female of the species is relatively sort of, you know, sort of beige-y and whatever in colour, and I think

there was a bit of that kind of duck spirit really about like males, like the chap and the zigzag, you know, you really were kind of like, you you know sort of blossomed on your plumage and your flamboyance in order to attract the women folk and i think that's what he was thinking you know the best you can do though is like you know if you can't be a peacock at least you can be a duck yeah you know that's not come on aim higher you know you're on top of the fucking cops well and you make you know yes i pitched the defence to the bloke

and that's as far as I could do I mean David you do make you make a very strong point David but you have to realise this is like

this is four years after like 1973 and Starman and all that kind of stuff we're moving on to the kind of like the Mr. Byright

Man at C&A version of of the of the of the Mr. Humphreys collection. And he looks a bit too old to be wearing that sort of thing, doesn't he? He's got this really bad kind of like Dennis Waterman,

Circa the Sweeney, feather cut, Spaniel thing at the side. And he wears this look of absolute, I don't know, he just doesn't want to be there, does he? No. No, I almost feel sorry for him. Well, and then it gets to a point where he's singing the chorus and out of nowhere, a totally uncalled for, proper uncle wink. Do you see that?

I can't unsee it. Oh, he pulls this. It's like he's just seen Legs and Cone. He's just gone, oh, look at the crumpet, eh? And then he does a really bad turn and kick as well that's just really half-arsed, and it's just killed the song for me, I have to say. I have to say, you know you have those appearances

that on top of the popsicle absolutely make a song. This one's just broken it into smithereens for me it is interesting though isn't it because that is kind of what you would you know what used to be considered stagecraft I suppose you know there is a whole book in this kind of what is acceptable in you know these are the things you do

you have a bit of flair you do you move your leg a bit and you you know look as if you're having a stroke a bit and then you know it's like that's that's what you're supposed to do some of that you know but it's it's interesting how some of these things kind of might they may have been cutting edge at one point now they've kind of they're going further and further towards like the end of the pier or into the kind of yeah you know further and further into the nightclubs of the north. The song, why does he have to go away? Do we find out?

I think that's self-evident. I think he has to go away because his court case has come up. He was in the pub in his new togs and someone's going, oil pairs, bloody Quentin Crisp, a summer old ducker. And he's just kicked off and it's all gone terribly wrong and now he's going to have to leave his missus and she's probably going to cop off with a lorry driver or something like that.

Yeah, but if he kicked off in the way that he kicked off on stage, then surely they should let him off. I mean, how much damage could it possibly do? Yeah, yeah. But this song, this is why punk had to happen. It's like punk hadn't happened yet

as they don't say. Yeah, half of this episode of Top of the Pops really is why punk had to happen. Yeah. It really wasn't just prog actually, that's something about it. I mean, punk was reacting against a whole raft of sort of barrenness and pop tedium and what have you.

Yeah. The song got no higher than number 36 and this is their last appearance on Top of the Pops. The band split up in 1980 and pieces of them kind of like disappeared down the side of the sofa or something. I don't know. I'm just picking up on those really bad Jigsaw related puns that Kid Jensen started

with. Des Dyer was last seen on telly in the 1985 song for Europe, which finished fourth but he later ended up working with boy zone and bad boys inc possibly not as their stylist bad boys inc i remember them my mate always used to call them boys in a bag which i thought was such a great such a great catch-all term it's such a kind of brilliant pejorative term for all boy bands it's great It's a great catch-all term. It's such a brilliant pejorative term for all boy bands. It's great. In musical terms, one of Britain's biggest exports must be Supertramp.

And here they are from their album, even in the quietest moments. Formed in London in 1969, Supertramp were originally known as Daddy. Oh, God, no. Yes. It wasn't until 1975 that they had their first UK hit, Dreamer. They're currently touring in Canada, so we have to make do with concert footage. And the first thing that strikes you looking at this film, billowing white flares. Oh, yes. Sarah, were flares as incredibly amusing to your generation

as they were to us uh yes because i do believe your lot brought them back uh yeah sorry about that well you know it's uh yeah but we we did it with with with much more you know style and poise and everything i think yeah i think that the actual billowing you know that that was something that was not really seen again after the 70s and you know there was something magnificent about it you know kind of um that that sort of you know from from the knees down there's this kind of cloud of fabric just kind of the the excess of that as well is just like i don't need all this fabric but i'm gonna put it in there anyway because it's the 70s and also the fact that they're white players as well.

That's top of the range, isn't it? Because it's basically saying, look, I know I'm going to get these players fucked up because it's the 70s, but I don't give a shit. I'll just buy some new ones. Absolutely. Really, the subtext of those keks, there's quite a lot to unpack there. Yeah. It's like, you know, if you get ketchup on those, you know,

any of us would be horrified. Oh, you're fogged for the day, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it was like flares were like modernity, was the idea that, like, flares were just going to get wider and wider and wider and bigger. And, you know, the idea that that thing was ever sort of tapered back was unthinkable, really.

So there's a metaphor between flares and modernism really david when was the what what year was the last time you wore flares well frankly 1980 sadly oh me too but they didn't die without a fight didn't flares yeah right through tonight 1980 i wasn't the only one so anyway let's let's avoid talking we're only talking about players to to avoid talking about the song i like this song what's nice it's all right isn't it it's not bad yeah there's a sort of blue-eyed quality to super track that's actually been revived um um if you listen things like digital love by daft punk it's definitely referencing super tram um and maybe that's what a part of the attraction is, there is something absolutely

sort of it reduces the 70s about them, they don't really, I mean I think by that point they made so many actors, they're like white flares could double up as sails on their probably had a white flare rotor just looked after them quite possibly

so this song did have a kind of afterlife I think, it did think it was usually a year later in Superman it's what Lois Lane is listening to in the car before she gets swallowed before the earth opens up I have a soft spot for certain things like this and Toto and certain sort of

soft rock of a certain strife actually I think there's a certain something I'd hate to say guilty something, I should say, that, you know, I'd hate to say guilty pleasure, because I don't feel guilty about any of my pleasures. Tell it, brother. Certainly not musically, yeah.

Yeah, no, it's a little bit, it's a bit whiny, it's a little bit up in the nasal passages, but, you know, that's, you know, it's to a manageable degree. I mean, you could interpret it, a little bit, that's, you know, it's to a manageable degree. I mean, you could interpret it a little bit. Go on, go on, come on, what are you doing? So it's a little bit whiny, a bit whingy, but that's all right.

But then you're just getting into it. This was a very annoying thing that Top of the Pops used to do, of course, is they would start, you know, it's almost as if they hadn't timed things right. They were, oh, shit, we've got to, you know know we're running out of time we need to lop this very we need to guillotine this just as you're just as you're starting to enjoy it in the middle of a chorus they did it with easy as well didn't they oh come on i was enjoying that but now we've got to we've got to deviate something else which may or may not be better going back i mean i think that you know that that wine is it's the white wine of male entitlement, isn't it? It kind of rang throughout Pop and Rock,

throughout a certain era. Yeah, give it a little bit. A little bit. I want something and I deserve it. Give it to me. Give it. So this appearance on Top of the Pops did absolutely nothing for the single.

They didn't get any of a bit. It stayed where it was and then it slid out of the charts, and they had a couple of hits later, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was released in 1992, re-released in 1992, in order to raise funds for ITV's Telethon, but it didn't chart. And they'll be back two years later with the LP Breakfast in America and two Top 10 singles off that. And also predict 9-11.

Oh, yeah. That album cover. Apparently, if you reverse it, if you reverse the cover, two of the words that form Supertramp spell out 9-11 over the World Trade Centre. Yeah. Well, they knew a thing or two, or maybe not. Yeah.

Well, they knew a thing or two, or maybe not. Yeah. Getting more than a little bit super-tramp. Right now, Cilla Black, and this is her brand-new single release. This is called I Wanted To Call It Off. MUSIC PLAYS I started to call it off I searched through all my thoughts Kid Jensen is seen with two young ladies draped on his shoulders while he introduces a song which is very conservative by Top of the Pops presenter standards. He must be on a diet or something.

He has both hands where we can see them. Yes, well done, well done, Kid. It's almost as if he anticipated the scrutiny that would be to come. or something. He has both hands where we can see them. Yes. Well done, kid. It's almost as if he anticipated the scrutiny that would be to come. You do get to the point now when you're watching Old Top of the Popses and you're just looking for where the hands are and you're looking for reactions on young girls' faces and stuff like that. Anyway, Cilla is standing on a podium wearing a peach gown with an embroidered butterfly on the front and a matching scarf of the type that killed isadora duncan

maybe she's got a love bite or something hey maybe her and um and des out of jigsaw had a bit of a uh love bite session just before and they've had to cover up maybe that's it it's horrible cilla black's musical career hit a rough patch in the 70s at the time this was broadcast. This was the 10th single she released since her last hit in 1971. She's pretty much a television presenter by this point.

She's doing a Saturday evening show called Cilla and she's also presenting Cilla's Comedy 6 and Cilla's World of Comedy for ATV. Cilla's World of Comedy, that sounds like a Star Trek episode that needed to be made well it's like it's a terror a terraform somewhere where um you know it's just it's a world populated only by by uh by clones of Scylla Black like just poking you in the eye until until uh until they jump out and surprise you oh yeah

yeah and try and hook you up with people you don't really like yeah yeah and you can never and you know there are no once you're once you're there you can't get out again yeah all the big british girl singers of the 60s had a rough old time in the 70s didn't they i mean but why why do you think that was there was? There was a place, you know, where they entered what was probably considered like, you know, sort of, you know, sort of senility by the kind of 70s pop standards, you know, 29, 30, wherever it was.

But I was going to say the place was usually like in intervals in the Two Rhymes or something like that, Barbara Dixon, people like that. And for some reason, when they had a big comedy show like Two Rhymes or even Tommy Cooper, they felt that people couldn't stand like 10 or 15 minutes of mirth without kind of having a break

with some M.O.R. singer of the day. And people like Dana and Barbara Dixon, as I say, in the end, still a blackboard occasion. Patty Boulay. Patty Boulay, and they'd have to be kind of wheeled on to give you a kind of chuckle muscles arrest. And that seems to be kind of the function of a certain sort of ladies of a certain sort of ladies of

a certain age in, you know, during the 1970s. And this seems to sort of belong very much to that kind of, you know, that, that sort of particular kind of MOR genre, basically.

And it's not as if they're being replaced by newer female singers. Because the only singers, the only female singers that were coming up were all your American kind of like singer-songwriter joni mitchell type so yeah very strange very strange i think also but once somebody was a name like cilla black it's almost so you get similar benevolence with carly minogue in her career that like you know they're pretty much allowed to do anything and sort of you know seem to have an extraordinary long life just because people know who they are and um you know i mean it's supposed to be a kind of cruel, cutthroat business, you know, the music business.

But it's actually not if you're in a particular kind of position. If you're Cilla Blackett, it isn't. And if you can't even know, it's one of the most kind of benevolent institutions, you know, since history began. But I don't think that was by accident. I think Cilla maxed that out, really, because her career was, I think everything was secondary to her. I mean, she's quite sort of, she sort of, she was the shape of things to come really in that way it's it's the

sort of um she really kind of milked the um famous for being famous thing it's not that she she she lacked talent but um although i suppose it is debatable but everything was everything was secondary singing presenting whatever it was all secondary to um the the overarching plan which is just to be as as um as known as possible by as many people for as long as possible for anything which is why i don't enjoy this performance because um that's all it says to me it just seems to me that it's like it's any amount any you know getting air time by any means necessary in in by using whatever tools you have it's a nothing performance it's nothing song it's it's terrible around and yet and we think that's still black is that like they had this survey um probably just around the time that she died actually of people that worked in the air industry no air students people like, like who were the rudest celebrities.

And she came number one, hands down. She was definitely not a very nice person. And I think it's ironic that somebody who made such a thing as a common touch or asked, so they're out this, how that, was a real kind of martinet in real life. You know, she insisted that the people working for her called her Mrs. White or whatever, something, or Mrs. or whatever Bobby, her husband's name was.

You know, they weren't allowed to go. Maybe she just liked Ludo. It was a real kickdown. It was very kickdown when it came to anybody that considered to be working for her. In a very short way with servants, as it were, as she would have seen them. And very hierarchically minded. But I would actually say that she is talented on two fronts. I think she was talented as a TV presenter.

I don't think you could sort of, like, I was like, mindset all of us years. No, you can't argue that. She faked the column touch very, very well indeed. I mean, it was completely fake, I'm sure. And as a singer in the mid-60s, you know, there were certain hits, some of the background David stuff that she does. I mean, she's got that kind of way of turning her voice and getting that kind

of rather flat, abrasive quality that's kind of really, really clever. I think she could, you know, in her time, just now and again, she could deliver a really good song. This is not an example of that. No, and I want to say, if you're sitting there waiting for the Sex Pistols, you must be chewing your fucking arm off by now. And like all boring songs like this,

your eyes immediately go off to the audience. And in the background are two youths who look like extras in the Sweeney, and they're swaying along. But next to them a spotty herbert and a union jack top hat it was linked toms with a girl who's clearly out of his league and the rest of the audience look bored shitless did you notice there's always one there's always one blur giving it loads isn't there really it's like they've kind of i mean it's his big day out isn't it yeah you know and he's got his silly hat and he's there you know kind of um just thinking why isn't everybody else why isn't everybody else enjoying

pretending to enjoy themselves as much as me look at me enjoying myself it's that kind of performative i don't know maybe he really was having a brilliant time but you know he looks as if he did yeah it was that girl next to him didn't though no she was and of course by the end of the song she's yeah by the end of the song she's broken free but he's he still dances alone unaware that the song has ended he was he was happy enough maybe he's just off his tits yeah yeah that's always a possibility you know yeah the song didn't chart unsurprisingly and cilla would appear one more time on top of the pops a year later entering a disco, but it didn't chart either, and her pop career was done, but as we've mentioned,

she's got other things, other irons in the fire. By way of a contest, this week's highest new entry is at number seven. It's the third single release from the Sex Pistols. Their new one, it's called Pretty Vacant. This is one of the first original Sex Pistols tunes. It's been in the set list as early as November 1975, and it was written by recently arsed-out bassist Glenn Matlock, who claimed it was inspired by ABBA's S.O.S.

Can you hear that in that song? Hmm. No. No. Not even now that you've said it. Not remotely. So, I mean, at this point, you're expecting all kinds of chaos and anarchy

and swearing and spitting and all that kind of stuff. But, of course course we get another promotional film. It's a pre-record, isn't it? They're not going to risk having them in the studio. Recorded two days before in the ITN studios. Shame they couldn't get Reginald Bozenkay on

but never mind. Yes. Yes, you won't remember, sorry, but Reginald Bozenke was a rather slurry ITN newsreader with a fondness for the booze who consequently died rather early. Oh, funny. But I remember, I did, anyway, this text was, I remember watching at the time.

So, I mean, clearly I've managed to sort of zone completely out my memory the rest of the contents of the show. And this is absolutely seared on my memory I remember everything you know from the kind of the old world microphone that he's wielding the Sid Vicious' shock of hair etc etc

the sound I remember seemed much much heavier and it actually seems slightly tinny now in a way that the guitar in now compared with the Saints oddly enough but of course I mean above all they can't you know the saints, oddly enough. But of course, I mean, above all, they can't, you know, the way they're able to kind of like, they've found a none too subtle way of like, pronouncing very loudly that particular syllable to, you know,

prime time audience. And of course, the next day in the papers, the headline was pistols keep it clean. No, they didn't. They said cunt loads of times. I know. Well, people were innocent then. I mean, like the fact that the village people, it was amazing, extraordinary, like the village people were able to kind of be so, so, so camp. And no, you know, they flew completely under the radar, such as the radar was then. Nobody suspected that anything remotely homosexual was or related to sodomy of any particular strong was going on here. to sodomy of any particular what's going on here.

I mean, in the Navy, they recruited, in the Navy, the US Navy recruited them to kind of get them in and like, you know, to encourage young men

to join up with this band of young men. It was extraordinary like how piss poor the radar was at the time. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, yeah, the pissers

were keeping it clean. Absolutely weren't. But it tore through the fabric. I mean, like I say, I remember this performance very, very vividly. I mean, of course, Malcolm McLaren was dead set

against the Sex Pistols appearing on Top of the Pops and so was Johnny Rotten. But then he was taken out to a Greek restaurant by Top Brass at Virgin while Malcolm McLaren was on holiday.

And he was talked into doing a couple of things. The first thing we'll talk about later. Second thing was to go on top of the pops. And someone from Virgin actually said to Johnny Rotten, it'll be right next to Cilla Black and Des O'Connor. It's going to be fantastic. And Johnny Rotten liked the idea of that.

And lo and behold, it was. Maybe that's the only reason they put Cilla on, to please Johnny Rotten. Of course... But there's something... But the way that it's presented, I think that what they kind of managed to do is Kid Jensen maybe as a safe pair of hands,

you know, if it had been Tony Jack... Tony Jacklin. Tony Jacklin presenting, that would have been even stranger. But Kid Jensen doesn't miss a beat, you know, as he presents it. It's all part of the kind of seamless tapestry of pop in 1977. You've got Cilla, you've got Jigsaw, and you've got the Sex Pistols, and you know that.

And, you know, I think they did it very well. The fact of being Tony Blackburn, I think, was difficult, because he found it hard to kind of suppress his emotions. Dead Kennedys had a hit two or three years later, Too Drunk to Fuck, and I remember him reading out the charts. You know, he was doing the type of rundown that week and said, and at number 17 is a song by a group who choose to call themselves the Dead Kennedys. He could not conceive his contempt upon a grot for a second.

Sarah, what's this doing for you? Yeah, I mean, it's really fascinating, of course, to see it from, you know, having not seen it at the time and trying to sort of, and then seeing it in the context of their Top of the Pops performance. I mean, they do, you know, because of course we're all very used to it now, but you can imagine at the time they would sort of look and sound like the apocalypse in a certain way. You know, they are so, so different to everything else that's going on.

And yet there is, you know, there is a linkage, there is a lineage because it is you know it is a sort of it is pub rock basically um and um yeah it's i mean the thing is that my sort of experience the only thing that i can relate it to i suppose is when um when the prodigy first had fire starter on top of the pops and this caused this tremendous there was sort of a little echo of of this response where it was in the papers it was like what the fuck is that what just happened who is that guy is he actually is he you know who is this sort of weird devil man who has just sort of sprung out of nowhere and so i can you know and i i it's incredible that people were still shockable in uh you know whenever whenever that uh whenever it was that came out instead of um you know it's sort of almost 20 years after.

I mean, it's certainly the first time the top of the pops have had a swastika on it. I mean, unless a Horse Vessel song got into the charts, but I can't remember that. But the swastika when the swastika to punk wasn't some sort of far-right gesture.

It was to hack off their parents who were always going on about how England won the war and what have you. That's what it meant. And, you know, you've got to remember that, you know, when you were a kid in the 70s, you saw a lot of swastikas. You know, you'd be reading Battle Comic and Commando and stuff like that.

World at War was on every Sunday tea time. So, yeah, you saw... You must have seen about 30 swastikas a week. Yeah, so maybe it kind of went under the radar. That was our ration. Yeah, you were so kind of used to seeing it. What would the Sex Pistols be wearing nowadays then to shock people? A bikini?

Or an ISIS T-shirt or something like that? Yeah, possibly. Yeah, that's probably the only thing I can think of. And it just simply wouldn't be allowed on. I mean, that's the thing. That's the strange thing, that they would permit a swastika. But, you know, sort of checks and balances of securities are in place that would ensure that it just simply wouldn't happen.

I mean, you know, so it's... I think that anything comparatively shockable, it's just there isn't really anything that you can put in place there. You'd have to do it. You'd have to be really nifty about it. You'd have to do some sort of invisible ink thing or some sort of like you have to take some water on stage with you. And I'm just trying to figure out how you could do this.

If it was like something that only showed up when your shirt was wet, you could like just dump, you know, at the end of the song, just dump the water over your head. But then, of course, health and safety wouldn't let you do that either. So, you know, God, it's boring now, isn't it? Isn't it boring? It's terrible, isn't it? Isn't it boring? It's terrible, isn't it? Isn't it rubbish?

It's terrible, isn't it? And also, I mean, after all the build-up the Sex Pistols have had in the press and everything, are we disappointed by this performance? I think there's probably a certain kind of low-level menace and a certain danger about them, you you know because it's not what they're doing right now it's sort of the potential and it's because they've become this sort of lightning rod for everybody's uh you know for sort of outrage and and and real fear you know and it's like well these are still you know and they um well it's not that you know they're young it's

not that they're necessarily healthy but it's yes, they could do some damage in some way. You can kind of see that that potential is there waiting to come out, that they're going to, you know, shake things up. And so I don't know. I think some people are going, oh, is that it? But, I mean, I can imagine it putting the willies up a lot of people as well. So Pretty Vacant stayed where it was the next week, and then it got no higher than number six.

It only jumped one place in the end. Two days after this, though, Johnny Rotten appeared on Capital Radio with Tommy Vance and played some of his favourite music, including Captain Beefheart, King Tubber, Gary Glitter, and Fleance by the Third Ear Band, which was sung by 14-year-old Keith Chegwin. You ever heard that? No.

The radio show, that's all on YouTube. You must listen to it. It's amazing. And then, of course, it was followed up by the last proper Sex Pistols single, Holiday in the Sun, three months later, and they were effectively done of sorts. Well, at least John Lydon was with them anyway. It's with a great deal of pleasure that I have on the programme to introduce to you tonight a former number one artist

by the form of Kenny Rogers. Welcome. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Welcome to Britain. What are you doing over here? Well, I'm actually on holiday now. I'm coming back from working in Saudi Arabia for the last two weeks. And to get out of Saudi Arabia in the 120 degree weather, believe me, it was great to come here and find what was moderately warm here, I understand for you. Any chance of any future dates you may have in this country for us? I was told today on telephone that I will be here November

for about eight days and throughout the United Kingdom. So I'm looking forward to this. First time in about seven years I've worked here. Kenny Rogers picks us up and has a bit of chit-and-chat with Kidd. Lucille was number one four weeks ago. One word, Saudi Arabia. What the hell was Kenny Rogers doing in Saudi Arabia? He certainly won gambling, that's for sure. I don't think there was a kind of consciousness about Saudi Arabia and its malfeasance at that particular point.

But ultimately, I think the only purpose of this item was pure. I think it was just purely trundled on to soften the blow of pretty vacant, actually. Yeah, calm down, everyone. Kenny's here. Everything's all right. With his comforting beard. You know, it's all right. You can just lose yourself in Kenny Rogers' beard and, you know, everything's going to be just as it was. I was just saying he's trundled on the way they trundled on the governor of the Bank of England after the Brexit thing, you know, to offer a sense of calm, stability, reassurance, don't worry. Have you seen Kenny Rogers after his plastic surgery?

Yeah. He's more terrifying than any of the sex pistols. Yeah, he overdid it a smidgen, I think. Just a bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I love that they talk about the weather. It's like how, you know, how British is that? You know, let's talk about, that's a comforting like, how British is that? Let's talk about...

That's a comforting thing, isn't it? Ooh, it's really hot. Yeah, it was, yeah. And they're not even British. More British than the British. I know. Yeah. Well, when in Rome.

He didn't say anything about how nice our policemen were, though, but we'll let him off. It's so awkward, though, isn't it? Because it's like, well, what is he doing here? What's the point of this? I think it was to promote his gigs and the BBC was probably filming

or he just thought, you know, fuck it, BBC bar, they'll let me in. Let's get pissed up. I've been in Saudi Arabia. I just want to get fucking battered. We can't say goodbye without having you, a former number one record holder Introducing this week's number one record That's right, Hot Chocolate, So You Win Again

And you will, here they are For week number three in the number one position The fabulous Hot Chocolate, isn't it? Hot Chocolate So You Win Again, Hot Chocolate, formed in Brixton in 1968, signed to Apple Records a year later when John Lennon heard their reggae version of Give Peace a Chance. They became the only band to score a chart hit in every year of the 70s. And this is pretty much, well, it's the third week that it's been at number one,

but to me, this is the archetypal mid-70s number one, isn't it? You've got strings, you've got electric guitars that sound like sitars. You know, this is all right, isn't it? Yeah, it's lovely. It's lovely. I mean, this is kind of everything that you wanted the real thing to be, I suppose. It's just, you know, this is where you really notice the difference in kind of songwriting chops and just kind of musicality. You know, it's just, yeah.

I mean, yeah, like you say, it's a band absolutely eased themselves. And the country was absolutely eased with Hot Chocolate and Errol Brown it's almost like and genuinely perhaps forgetting about the whole race thing considering that Hot Chocolate started off with what was like kind of the love thy neighbor pop sequence to love thy neighbor with his brother Louis wasn't it and all this stuff about no honkies in my house and all that kind of stuff and totally no sort of mournful song about racial antagonism. I mean, Errol Brown just completely transcends that and he just becomes, you know, once and forever this figure in his own right.

Excellent. So this was their final week at number one and replaced by I Feel Loved by Donna Summer. They go on to have a chart every year up to 1984. Errol Brown left the group in 1986, sang Imagine at the Tory party conference, which, you know, we could have an hour

long discussion about the merits of that and the pros and cons. Deconstructing that. I mean, I'm glad because it kind of like destroyed a horrible song forever.

But anyway, the group eventually replaced him in the 90s with someone who did Errol Brown on Stars in Their Eyes, underlined in my notes according to

Wikipedia. That sounds too good my notes according to Wikipedia. That sounds too good to be true to me. Yeah. And so endeth another week of Chart Toppers. We hope you've enjoyed it and that you'll join us again next week for more Top of the Pops. From me, Kit Jensen, have a good week and good love. APPLAUSE Have a good week BBC One afterwards.

ITV's Halfway Through Charlie's Angels is the one where the killer's extorting massage parlour owners and the angels end up having to rub oil into various overweight perverts. And it's also the last episode

with Farrah Fawcett Majors because she, her character goes off to become a racing driver because that's what women did in the 70s. And then, Yeah.

And then it's the episode of the cuckoo waltz where Fliss wants a new washing machine. Oh, the entertainment. So, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow about this episode? Well, pistols, obviously. Would have to be, wouldn't it, really? Absolutely, absolutely, sex pistols.

Would you have remembered anything else from that episode by the next morning? I might have been, because I actually was talking in an actual playground, and it was all about Sex Pistols, because I think that the astonishment, now I'm utterly astonished by Jigsaws, I'm deeply impressed by The Saints, but no, Sex Pistols, absolutely. Would have been a bit of a badge of honour, surely, to have no, Sex Pistols, absolutely. Would have been a bit of a badge of honour, surely, to have seen the Sex Pistols, because maybe, surely some kids

would have been prevented from seeing it, like, oh, no, you can't. Oh, but maybe their dads kicked the telly in before. Yeah, yeah, or just tipped the bathwater over it, you know, just to make sure that you couldn't see it. So it's extraordinary. You say the Pistols, and then next week you say Donna Summer,

and they were the two things. So there was the dual revolutions of 1977 are just about there. This is almost like these are the kind of the calm blue skies before the kind of the dual sort of catastrophe, as it were. I think it's what's represented by this particular top of the pops. This is what both the Sexpits and Donna Summer came to smite in their very different ways. Yes.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. But pretty good that we chose this episode, you know. It was chosen at random. Okay, so that is pretty much it for this episode of Chart Music. If you want to get in touch with us, we've got a Facebook group, facebook.com slash chart music podcast fuck twitter i'm not arsed with it and yes there'll be a video playlist on youtube i'll probably end up going on twitter but i really don't want to um and as uh and as kid jensen said

um when he he wishes uh our parents um that they have really good sex tonight after the show all it remains for me to say is thank you very much, David Stubbs. Thank you very much, Sarah B. Thank you very much, everyone who's listening to this. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you enjoy the next one. And good love. Love.

Nice love. 70s love. None of this modern love. Sharp music. There's no point in asking You'll get no reply Just remember That you'll decide I got no reason It's all too much. You'll always find us out to lunch.

We're so pretty, oh so pretty. Bacon. We're so pretty, oh so pretty. Bacon. We're so pretty. Oh, so pretty. Bacon. Don't ask us what we're doing, because we're not all there. GreatBigOwl.com

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Well, there's Rule of Three. That's us. There's Brian and Roger. Hi, Roger. It's Brian. There's the The One Show Show. There's nowhere else you would find a four or five minute film about pine martins. Yes.

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