1974 Carl Douglas: Kung Fu Fighting

And speaking of crazes, few came bigger in the mid seventies than Kung Fu. Bruce Lee's death the previous year had done his career no harm at all and cinemas were full of cheap chop socky knock-offs hastily imported to cash in on 'Enter The Dragon', while on the telly, David Carradine walked the American West as Kwai Chang Caine in the popular series 'Kung Fu'. Big business indeed - even that vile juice Hai Karate aftershave shifted by the gallon so why not write a pop song to cash in? Why not indeed, because that's exactly what Jamaican Carl Douglas did.

As a song, 'Kung Fu Fighting' always balances precariously on a ledge between affectionate homage and comedic pisstake. In truth it's a bit of both, and I'm not sure Douglas himself ever definitively knew which he was aiming for; 'Those cats were fast as lightning, in fact it was a little bit frightening' - the tone fair drips with sarcasm, and his (albeit sketchy) tale of funky Chinamen Billy Chin and Sammy Chung 'chopping back up' and 'chopping them down' always puts me in mind of Ernie's fight with Two Ton Ted. But then the sight of Douglas decked out in full martial arts gear and red headband, busting moves as he sang showed a dedicated attention to detail and suggested he was aiming at something a bit more serious than acting out his Jackie Chan fantasies in public.

This duality carried over into the music too. Those 'Woh-ho-ho-hoooo's on the prologue and the audacious Chinese musical motifs are predictable genre clichés that still make me smile, yet underneath all the Wishee Washee pantomime gimmicks, 'Kung Fu Fighting' bustles along on a seriously funky blaxploitation guitar riff and clipped bassline that's no less danceable now than it was in 1974 and it brings an edge of urban grit to the disco dancefloor. 'Kung Fu Fighting' is a novelty song for sure, but it's a Kinder Egg quality novelty rather than one out of a cheapo Christmas Cracker, and it's sheer good naturedness (I mean - what's not to like?) has given it a longetivity that it perhaps doesn't really deserve but has nevertheless garnered through the cheek of it all.