1977 Baccara: Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

Back in the days when I used to be a pub quiz regular, I once set a question "What could Julie Andrews have done all night and still have begged for more?"* It raised a few titters (which let's be honest, was my intention - I never claimed to be less than easily amused) yet I can't help thinking I could have generated a similar entendre laden question from this too - what could Baccara do all night long if they have a certain song?

Of course, in the first example, Ms Andrews (or rather, Lerner and Loewe) are totally innocent of all charges of innuendo, but the same can't be said for the Baccara girls. Because what they are selling here is sex, not just in the lyrics, (which are themselves almost direct enough to not even be a single entendre: "If you know what you're looking for. Baby I wanna keep my reputation, I'm a sensation. You try me once, you'll beg for more") but in the whole 'two Spanish women with sexy accents' set up.

This flimsy device was enough to get seventies man's blood racing with a "you know what them foreign birds are like, cor!" nudge and wink followed by a Sid James yak yak yak.** Then again, it's not just sex - on a less....basic....level, Baccara and their Spanishness would have been another Eurotrash souvenir of a two week package deal in the Med, just like one of those odd and chunky shaped bottles of liqueur that are brought home and destined never to be opened. A slightly more sophisticated souvenir than 'Y Viva Espana' maybe, but it's cut from the same cloth. Sex, sun and cheap holidays - sounds like a winner to me.

But away from my cynicism, 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie' is a disco romp at heart and, like most disco romps, it's all about the groove and the chorus. 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie' scores highly on both counts, but it's further elevated by a swish of sophistication in a string arrangement that floats effortlessly behind the girls seductive cooing and groaning of the lyric that in part tips its hat to 'Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus'. A bit.

A veneer of class then, but it's the lyric that's the lead weight keeping this sack of kittens at the bottom of the canal. The very title sounds a product of another age and the repetition of 'Sir' throughout sounds slightly demeaning; if it was meant to be sarcastic then the message hasn't travelled well. Maybe that's fitting - 'Yes Sir, I Can Boogie' is as seventies kitsch as a lava lamp, and like those lamps it can be seen as making a statement of some kind to profess a liking for it. But as long as you take it with a healthy spoonful of playful irony then there's much to enjoy here.

* The answer, of course, is 'danced'.

** Step forward twenty six years and TaTu pulled the self same trick, but by then some nice frocks and a promise needed an underage schoolgirl lesbian makeover to get the Sids yakking. How times change.