1972 Little Jimmy Osmond: Long Haired Lover From Liverpool

So what's left to say about the runt of The Osmond's litter and his number one? Chubby of chops and squeaky of voice he may have been, but long of hair and scouse of origin he was certainly not; 'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool' is a terrible song from start to finish, the opportunistic sound of an irritating, hyperactive child being given a platform and encouragement to perform his party piece. It's the sort of thing that usually goes on behind closed doors when the relatives are round, only this one was very public performance and it stayed at number one for five frikking weeks.

There's nothing much to like about this at all; the tune is repeated verse after verse by the very excitable Jimmy who churns through them oblivious to what he's singing, all the while grinning like a simpleton and happy enough to take his turn in the spotlight away from his brothers. The trouble is, he's no prodigy in the vocal stakes. Tuneless, untrained and out of control, his voice is pretty much how you'd expect any average nine year old to sound and there's no hook or gimmick to hang this on other than the surname Osmond. Maybe the sight and sound of a nine year old singing was a novelty akin to a dog walking on its hind legs in 1972, but thanks to the likes X Factor such a trite proposition doesn't cut the mustard anymore. Praise the lord that some elements of modern life have changed for the better.

1972 Chuck Berry: My Ding-A-Ling

A few years ago, I remember reading an interview with REM prior to them setting off on a world tour. The interviewer asked if they were going to play 'Shiny Happy People' and one of the band replied along the lines of 'If The Beatles reformed and toured, would you expect them to play 'Yellow Submarine'?" You can see what they are getting at can't you? (apart from audaciously equating themselves with The Beatles); the idea that both these songs stand outside of their respective canons like lepers and should be hidden away like the idiot son in the attic.

Which reasoning leads me nicely to 'My Ding-A-Ling'; there's no doubt that this too stands apart from anything else Berry has ever recorded, and it's ability to wind up the critics is legendary. And you can see why - while it's a fact that Berry has never been above injecting a little humour into his songs, it's generally in the form of wry observations on American teen life rather than the entendre laden ribaldry of 'My Ding-A-Ling', a song that makes the humour of the Carry On team look positively Rabelaisian.

To be fair, he didn't write it and, on this live recording, Berry sounds like he's having a right old time playing the fool and goading an audience who are in turn happy to play along and laugh like drains at the various fates that befall his ding a ling. And that's just it - I guess you had to be there to appreciate the yuks properly because on record the one dimensional joke soon wears anorexically thin until you're willing it to wrap itself up and be done with.

Unlike the audience, we suffer the song in isolation and don't have 'Reelin' And Rockin' and 'Johnny B Goode' sandwiching it to deaden the pain that the audience had. Though in saying that, singles buyers should be grateful - the full version that Berry played at that concert (and which appears on the parent "The London Chuck Berry Sessions" album) is, at eleven minutes, three times longer than this edited version. This does not in any way make the experience any more enjoyable, but even then rather that than 'Shiny Happy People'.

1972 Gilbert O'Sullivan: Clair

There are two things you can say about Irish singer/songwriter O'Sullivan without fear of contradiction; one is that he has a distinctive voice, and the other is that it's a flatly monotone honk. Prior to 'Clair', O'Sullivan's biggest hit was 'Alone Again Naturally', a maudlin, introspective ballad of a would-be suicide looking back over his life. There's not many laughs to be had within it, and intentionally so, but what amazes is that O'Sullivan delivers 'Clair' with exactly the same dour tone of voice.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was another maudlin, introspective ballad, but it's not. 'Clair' is in fact a more jaunty affair all round, something akin to what Paul McCartney at his most saccharine would come up with to the extent that I was minded to compare it with The Beatles' 'Michelle'. On sober reflection though, I think that's doing McCartney a disservice (for reasons I'll go into later).

As flavourless as his vocal may be, by a twist of fate it's his passionless tone that saves 'Clair' from being something downright creepy; see that girl on the cover? Well that's the 'Clair' he's singing:

"Words mean so little when you look up and smile
I don’t care what people say,
To me you’re more than a child"

to. When you realise that 'Clair' is in fact a 'love' song to the infant niece he's babysitting, then those lyrics are enough to stop anyone in their tracks with a 'what the.....????'. Even if you wanted to blot out the implications and try to imagine it's directed at someone older, the girly laugh at the very end brings you back down to earth with a bump. It could have all gone so horribly wrong couldn't it?

Of course it could, and had this been an early hit for Gary Glitter, then it would have been Exhibit A at his trial, but it's the sheer innocence and genuine expression of affection from O'Sullivan that rescues the song from itself. And yet on the other hand, it's also what damns it - 'Clair' is too innocent and cutesy by half. And more than that, it's popularity is inexplicable in that O'Sullivan has nailed down tight what the song is about, and this is why I considered my initial McCartney comparisons to be wide of the mark. McCartney at his best would never be so specific in his writing to limit the scope of his subject and potential audience in this way. Even the sentiment in 'Michelle' could be taken and applied to any girl you please whereas O'Sullivan is definitely singing to a little girl called 'Clair' and absolutely nobody else.

And the expression of feeling is so personal that listening to it borders on the uncomfortable. It's feels almost as if we're hiding behind the curtains spying and listening to his every word as he babysits making its taste slightly questionable in that O'Sullivan is happy to air his personal feelings in a private situation so publicly:

"But why in spite of our age difference do I cry
Each time I leave you I feel I could die
Nothing means more to me than hearing you say
I’m going to marry you"

It's obviously a heartfelt song that would have meant the world to Gilbert and Clair, but I'm at a loss to explain why the public at large bought into it so readily. It's a pleasant enough listen, but it gives no sense of participation or fulfilment at all beyond those 'Ahhhhhh' noises people make when they see a dog wearing glasses or a baby in a pram. But then again, if they were willing to buy into bagpipes playing hymns then it shouldn't come as such a surprise - 1972 was an odd year for number ones after all.

1972 Lieutenant Pigeon: Mouldy Old Dough

Written by Nigel Fletcher and Rob Woodward then recorded in their front room with Ma Woodward on piano, 'Mouldy Old Dough' always reminds me of the after effects of a bunch of methed up tramps wandering into a studio where Mungo Jerry had left their instruments lying around and then having a quick bash while no-one was looking. It's ramshackle enough for that scenario anyway, almost to the point of amateur and the only lyric (a growled repeat of the title) sounds like it's coming from a mouth more used to begging for change in dark alleys.

'Mouldy Old Dough' moves at a deliberate and lurching pace with every note a singular event that gets a spotlight of it's own. Hilda Woodward (looking like Mrs Mills but with less attitude) hammers on her joanna like some old time ragtime performer with their fingers in splints while a tin whistle picks out a jig over the shuffling drumbeat. Odd? Yes it's odd, and it stands out from the rest of its contemporaries in the charts like blood on snow, yet there's a timeless jollity to the tune that's almost impossible to date. Which leads me to pet theory #1: is it just me or does 'Mouldy Old Dough' sound like the troika theme from Prokofiev's 'Lieutenant Kijé' suite as played on a piano with two keys out of every five missing? It would explain the name and sleeve picture anyway.

Not quite so hard to place though - there's a definite air of olde tyme music hall about 'Mouldy Old Dough', a comedic front and singalong spirit that sweeps you up and along in its wake, defying you not to join in. Which leads me to pet theory #2 regarding the popularity of something so off the wall (second highest selling single of the year after those bagpipes); to my ears, it would have recalled something of the blitz spirit, of a time of getting along when the rest of the country was busy striking or shutting off the power at a moment's notice (don't forget, this was a time when everybody bought singles and the charts didn't just cater for the young). It's a theory, though whether it's true I can't say. But what I can say is that 'Mouldy Old Dough' is a novelty record that works just as well if you take it dead seriously. And there's not many tunes you can say that about. Delightfully weird.

1972 David Cassidy: How Can I Be Sure?

After The Osmonds, the 'other' famous pop family of the early seventies were The Partridge's, a fictional clan of musicians in which David Cassidy played Keith Partridge and was one of the few family members to actually play on their records. Cassidy had always thought of himself as more your traditional rock star than the role suggested and was resentful of the bubblegum tunes the family recorded. Tackling a song as mature as 'How Can I Be Sure' was his 'Big Statement', a bid for credibility and a marker that put clear ground between himself and Donny Osmond.

Wistful in tone ("How can I be sure, in a world that's constantly changing") and very much a singer's song, 'How Can I Be Sure' has proved an incredibly popular tune to cover since The Young Rascals original in 1967; Harry Nilsson, Dusty Springfield and Gloria Estefan (amongst others) have all had a crack, but while their individual interpretations brought something new to the song, it's fair to say that Cassidy's plain and flat voice, although workable enough when singing some of the bubblegum associated with his TV family, is badly out of it's depth here.

Not that that's intended as stinging criticism - after all, you wouldn't have a go at Frank Sinatra for not being able to sing 'Ace Of Spades' like Lemmy, but the lyrics demand a lightness of touch that Cassidy can't provide and he (over) compensates for his shortfall in traditional style by layering on the vibrato in the hope the emotion will shine through. But it doesn't, and it's not helped by this heavy handed approach extending to the backing music too until it's almost dueling with Cassidy's voice for prominence, a battle that only destroys the song's inner sense of confusion and uncertainty - nothing this forceful can be give the aura it's unsure of where it's going.

Bottom line - by no means a disaster, it's a decent enough stab and Cassidy's heart is in the right place. But to modern ears the only lasting value is one of kitsch, and Dusty's version remains the one that everybody reaches for.

1972 Slade: Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Slade's third number one and the first time where it all came together. Both 'Coz I Luv You' and 'Take Me Bak 'Ome' displayed flashes of the tracks and traits that would become Slade's stock in trade but, as Eric Morecambe once said, they weren't always in the right order. 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' doesn't do anything radically different to those two songs, but it takes time to file off the rough edges and present a more finished article.

The guitars still grunt and the drums still crash but now it's all to a purpose rather than noise for the sake of noise and that's largely because Slade now have a proper song that they can proudly push to the fore instead of burying it away under a cacophony of sound - 'Mama' moves away from any notions of love, devotion or a quick shag to the semi-meaningless nonsense that Slade did so well. And that was fine; the blast of the music and the hook of the chorus combine to disorientate like shellshock until you kind of know what Noddy's on about (getting pissed up on whiskey till he's crazee like a fule apparently) but kind of don't know too (a trick that Oasis, once learned, ran with 'till they dropped).

It's not fully realised - the shift of key and time signature between verse and chorus doesn't quite make for a smooth gear change, but it's not enough to derail the forward momentum of the song and it's easy to ignore because when Noddy tells you "I had enough to fill up "H" Hill's left shoe" then you'd better bloody believe him! 'Mama Weer All Crazee Now' is a blast from beginning to end.

1972 Rod Stewart: You Wear It Well

Rod Stewart's previous single 'Maggie May' had him pondering his future outside of a dead end relationship:

"I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school,
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool,
Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helping hand"

In many ways, 'You Wear It Well' is a kind of sequel to that song, a snapshot of what happened next a few years on. Essentially a postcard home from Minnesota where he's working (school, poolhall, recording studio - Rod doesn't say), it's possible to square the circle and take it as being addressed to Maggie herself, though no doubt Rod had plenty of women on the go to make it 'about' somebody else entirely. It's up to the listener.

And the 'Maggie May' similarities don't end there - 'You Wear It Well' is another incredibly wordy, character based song that's hung on a nodding rock backing from The Faces. Except this time that backing is more subdued, more low key and more laid back. The sparkling mandolin that ran through 'Maggie May' is absent and there's a tired, worldly wise feel to the song that befits its tired, worldly wise lyrics.

Like 'Maggie May' there's no chorus as such, save the recurring shout of the title and a follow up line of reassurance that the woman he's singing/writing to could never do any wrong in his eyes. Again, the complete absence of a laddish put down gives 'You Wear It Well' a tender edge, one that casts Rod as the rough diamond with a good heart and which makes the song impossible to dislike.

Virtually everything I said about 'Maggie May' applies here also except....well except that 'You Wear It Well' is the lesser song of the two in my eyes. And it's the lesser because it's less interesting; 'Maggie May' vividly sketched two characters and breathed life into them by describing their circumstances in the style of a short soap opera. By contrast, the insight in 'You Wear It Well' is basically one way traffic; Stewart's caught at a low ebb feeling home and heartsick - there's no indication of why the couple split or if she feels the same way or it the letter will ever get to her: "After all the years I hope its the same address. Since you've been gone it's hard to carry on"

It's a far more insular, self contained track than 'Maggie May' - more personal too, but although there are some smart and evocative observations ("Remember them basement parties, your brothers karate. The all day rock and roll shows") there's not quite enough in there to make us care about the outcome. You kind of expect Stewart to sober up and carry on as normal, but if he doesn't then the only reaction I can generate is a shoulder shrug; Rod doesn't give enough away to make me believe this is anything other maudlin self pity that he'll snap out of as soon as another pretty face appears to take his mind off it.

But I'm picking at the loose thread on a fine cashmere coat now - 'You Wear It Well' oozes literate intelligence and honest emotion, two qualities you don't normally find paired in a number one single. That Stewart managed it twice on the bounce is an achievement that suggests a talent to make any 'Greatest Hits' album a rare treat. And as long as it limits itself to 1970-1975 then indeed it is, but any compilation that casts its net wider leaves you wanting to give Stewart a damn good boot up the arse.

1972 Alice Cooper: School's Out

Ah, now then - in remembering my previous life as a young lad growing up in the seventies, there are two songs that just hearing the opening bars draws back the curtains to a much simpler time and opens the memory floodgates like when Proust scoffed his madeleine cake. One of these is Simon Parks' 'Eye Level', while the other is this - 'School's Out'.

I've been searching the memory banks but I can't pin down where I first became aware of 'School's Out'. I can't remember where I was first indoctrinated into reciting the Lord's Prayer either, but I do know I was word perfect on both from an early age. I don't think there was ever a copy of it in our house - not the album anyway because I know I'd have remembered its school desk cover, but I do remember seeing them on TV and being struck by what a scary proposition Alice Cooper was (I know the name still referred to the band en-bloc at this stage, but Alice has always been frontman Vince Furnier in my eyes). I mean, blokes just didn't look like that 'round our way', or if they did then they didn't venture outside too often.

I do know why it's memorable though - because (ah! fond memory) I used to sing the chorus to myself every Friday afternoon in class to mark the approaching weekend, a personal tradition I carried on till I was old enough to know better. I sang it out loud to my mother too whenever school had broken up for a holiday and I did all this because it brilliantly captures the joy of leaving school behind for a few days at least, a feeling that's never revisited in anything like the same intensity whenever I'm on leave from work. And so 'School's Out' (if ever a title should have come with an exclamation mark it's this one) is one of those songs that will be forever clouded in a mist of dewy eyed sentiment that makes it hard to be objective.

Not that nostalgia is going to cause any problems here (and enough of my 'when I were lad' witterings) - 'School's Out' is a fine song whichever way you cut it. Much like the Donny Osmond song it displaced at the top, 'School's Out' has a specific audience in mind (i.e. schoolkids), but it doesn't negate the whiff of nostalgia it can generate within anyone who ever walked out of a school gate in July with the whole summer holiday ahead of them and you can enjoy this at any age with your head held high (at 24, it had been a while since Furnier himself had heard a school bell).

From the opening chords to the slo-mo grind to a halt close, 'School's Out' is pure rebellion in subject, but with a cartoon feel to take the edge off:

"Out for summer, out 'til fall
We might not come back at all"

The kids chanting on the verses might not need no education, but they don't sound half as sinister or nihilistic as those on 'Another Brick In The Wall'. These ones were just glad that the holidays had come round; they weren't offering a social critique or out to dismantle the state and it underlines the faux danger of the song:

"Well we got no class
And we got no principles
We ain't got no innocence
We can't even think of a word that rhymes"

How could anyone take offence at something as brilliantly dumb as that? It's pantomime writ large, the Ramones five years early and Alice Cooper to a man were playing a role of Grand Guignol crossed with amateur dramatics. All the while the guitars crunch with just enough grease and dirt to set it apart from the sparkle of the Slades and Sweets, but are bouncy enough to keep it fresher than the low rent junkie sleaze of contemporaries like New York Dolls and Hackamore Brick - serious as far as it goes, but you just knew they'd be quick to wipe the crap off their faces as soon as they got off the stage whereas you suspected Johnny Thunders always looked like that, even in bed. The chunky opening riff ricochets off the beat like a flywheel spinning and ensures 'School's Out' retains an urgency lacking in a great many modern rock acts who mistake speed and volume for power.

Though Alice Cooper went on to release singles and albums that I love almost as much as this, I sometimes wish 'School's Out' had been their sole effort, a one hit wonder straight from the top drawer. The rest of their output is either too loud, too comic, too knowing or too something else that makes it fall short of this spot on hybrid of Black Sabbath and the Banana Splits that nails a pivotal moment in almost everybody's lives and is proof positive that you can sometimes go home again. At least for the three and a half minutes this lasts anyway - while it plays, I can still see the chairs stacked up on the desks for the weekend and it gives a warm feeling that's the yin to the yang of the re-curring nightmares I still have about my maths O level.

1972 Donny Osmond: Puppy Love

I was going to start this off by describing Donny Osmond as 'Robbie Williams of the seventies', but I paused for thought;. that wouldn't be accurate, would it? (I'll explain why shortly). Nevertheless he's still a usefull point of reference because, whatever you make of the continuing success of a Robbie or a Peter Andre or a someone else of their ilk, it's a fact that their popularity amongst the women (and no, that's not being sexist - it is mainly women isn't it?) crosses generations. An audience from nine to ninety loves Robbie, and each will have their own idea of what they'd like to do with him. Ahem.

Yet despite that, you couldn't for one second imagine Robbie Williams ever covering a song like 'Puppy Love'. His public image is too mature and sophisticated to allow that and besides, large sections of his fanbase simply wouldn't stand for it; 'Puppy Love' is a song aimed at teens and pre-teens, pure and simple, not a multi-generation demographic. The string pullers behind Donny didn't have these worries, they knew exactly who his audience was (those teens and pre-teens) and that the only older women who lusted after the virginal boy child Donny were slightly disturbed ones who didn't really care what he sang.

'Puppy Love' was originally written and recorded by a nineteen year old Paul Anka, but he manages to sound too mature and sophisticated on his own song for such a teen orientated lyric. His voice has tasted too many cocktails in too many nightclubs to make the words sound plausible, and the "Oh I guess they'll never know how a young heart really feels" sounds more like a predatory grooming in his mouth than an adolescent crush.

To that end, Donny's squeaky, not quite broken voice should be an absolute boon with material like this. And to an extent it is, but his stuttery delivery and cracked anguish on "someone help me, help me, help me please" sounds forced and false. And that's because he's pretending, or at least guessing at how a broken heart must feel and Osmond never manages to convince he has experience of any kind of love whatsoever, puppy or otherwise. 'Puppy Love' is cutesy and sweet when the lyrics are written down, but Donny's innocence sounds genuine enough to make his version a slightly exploitative affair, both for himself and his audience.

And as for that audience - well, I think there's a line to be drawn in the sand here. If you can go into a sweet shop with a handful of coppers and ask for a 10p bag of penny chews without a second thought, then you can listen to and enjoy this with a clear conscience and my blessing. If however you'd find the above scenario more than slightly embarrassing and yet would still confess a liking for this, then I'd suggest it's time to sit down and take a searching inventory of yourself.

1972 Slade: Take Me Bak 'Ome

'Coz I Luv You' was the start, but by 'Take Me Bak 'Ome' there was no denying it - Slade had fully embraced every Glam cliché in the book. A fuzzy, two chord guitar lead, a stomping drum and handclap beat a monkey could follow and a chorus designed for nothing else except shouting out loud, it was all there. Everything except a decent song that is - Slade's tale of trying to pull a woman pissed up on brandy, only to be thwarted by her boyfriend(?) who 'looks twice the size of me' has a certain earthy humour, but it's a lyric that's trying to be sledgehammered into a tune that simply isn't there.

Noddy is game as ever and yells this one like the odds on favourite in a 'Sing Yourself Hoarse' competition, but his exuberance can't hide the fact that 'Take Me Bak 'Ome' sounds more like a rough demo or a half written chorus that's been given a studio gloss rather than the finished article. As a final throw of the dice it gets louder and wilder as it moves toward the end until the beat sounds like a sampled industrial press, but the effect is more one of desperation that genuine excitement. Even Glam Rock needs more than that to hold the interest. Probably Slade's least memorable number one.

1972 Don McLean: Vincent

The first of two number ones this decade 'about' painters, whilst Brian & Michael were content to summarise Lowry's life at arms length on 1978's 'Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs', Don McLean has rather more empathy with a certain Vincent Van Gogh. Though 'empathy' doesn't come close to describing Don's admiration for the man - on first name terms from the off, McLean has an interchangeable father/son, psychiatrist/patient, critic, lover and confidante relationship with the artist that elevates Van Gogh to an untouchable Christ like figure out to save the world with a pot of paint. It almost makes the listener feel guilty just for being alive; it's all 'our' fault apparently:

"For they could not love you, but still your love was true
and when no hope was left in sight on that starry starry night.
You took your life as lovers often do"

Of course, McLean himself is blameless in all this, he clearly 'could' love Van Gogh and his song maps a definite 'us' and 'them' separation between the tortured artist and the beer swilling Philistines who can't appreciate the way a sensitive soul can:

"But I could have told you Vincent
this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you".

Heaven save us from those who don't know much about art but know what they like eh Don? I'm sure Vincent would have appreciated your shoulder to cry on, but as he lived his life with a passion and intensity I doubt he'd have had too much time for this sentimental, awkward and ultimately hollow thumbnail biography, in much the same way that 'us' listeners don't much care to be patronised by a songwriter intent on creating his own mythos by borrowing somebody else's.

This may have worked to some extent with 'American Pie' (a song I have my own love/hate relationship with), but then he was tapping into a (by 1972) long tradition of rock stars checking out early. It doesn't work quite so well when transposed to Dutch Post-Impressionist artists and though 'Vincent' fair drips with a cloying sincerity, it makes for a dreadfully dreary four minutes. "La tristesse durera toujours" indeed, but McLean would probably shake his head and give me that condescendingly smug look he wears on the cover:

"They would not listen, they're not listening still
perhaps they never will".

Perhaps. But sorry Don, it really doesn't feel like any loss of mine.

1972 T Rex: Metal Guru

Not their loudest single ('that would be 20th Century Boy'), but certainly their fastest: 'Metal Guru' plays it's hand from the off with the 'Metal guru, is it you' hook nailing it four square to the Glam tidal wave without pause for breath until the end two and a bit minutes later. From the opening 'AaaaawhYeahOaaaaah' shout, it's a breathless rush of piled on thick guitar and 'Yeah Yeah Yeah' backing that dares you not to get caught up in its shiny grandeur, but the pummelling also serves to distract from the honest observation that Bolan's well of inspiration was starting to run dry.

Whilst 'Telegram Sam' 'borrowed' the main 'Get It On' riff, 'Metal Guru' reprises 'Hot Love's 'la la la' coda and tarts it up with added slam and a set of lyrics that for once sounded like they meant something. And although it is a far better song than 'Telegram Sam' and has Bolan going for the throat, his voice is slightly too fey to do shouty properly and his distinctive squeal doesn't help disguise that we've been here before.

As with most Glam Rock, there's a relentless stupidness to 'Metal Guru' that makes it seem like two minutes of banging your head against a wall. But I don't mean that in a negative way - there's a relentless stupidness at the heart of most Heavy Metal too, and I'm a big fan of the genre. Bolan's "silver-studded sabre-tooth dream" could have come straight out of Spinal Tap, but while that film was piss-take writ large, Bolan (and the Glam movement en masse) were never above self referential piss-taking of their own. 'Metal Guru' has just the right mix of style and substance to give it the legs to escape the twin traps of idiocy and pretension that a lot of the Glam bands got caught in, and by the time the song fades out, Bolan sounds like he's just along for the ride like everybody else.

1972 The Pipes & Drums & Military Band Of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards: Amazing Grace

You know that hymn 'Amazing Grace'? Well this is an instrumental version of that. Played on bagpipes. That's what this is - it's 'Amazing Grace' played on bagpipes. At number one.

I've been trying to find out if there was any film or TV tie-in that could explain its popularity but I've drawn a blank - I know that Scotty played it on his bagpipes at Spock's funeral in 'Wrath Of Khan', but 'Amazing Grace' seems to have got to number one in 1972 on its own merits (though I vaguely remember a public information type film on TV at the time featuring a Scottish regiment, a castle and some fog that may or may not have had this as its backing).

What you make of it all will depend on what your views on:

a) the hymn itself
b) the sound of bagpipes.

While I've no beef with a), I can't say the same about b) and so this rather leaves me cold. In it's defence, it pleases in its purity and lack of gimmicks (you can't imagine this being released in anything other than 'dance remix' form with a 120bpm backing today), but it confuses in its presentation - just who was buying this and what did they do with it in the privacy of their own homes? It would kill any 'record party' stone dead if you spun it in-between the Marcs and the Rods, and yet it's hard to imagine someone fancying a bit of 'Amazing Grace' and then playing it in isolation. But plenty did, because not only did this get to number one, it was also the biggest selling single of 1972.

As Spock was wont to say, 'Highly illogical'.

1972 Nilsson: Without You

Everybody knows that 'Without You' is a cover of a Badfinger track written by two of its members who both wound up committing suicide, that's just pub quiz fodder, but how many have actually heard the song as performed by them? Nilsson's version has passed into the canon as the definitive uberballad par excellence, a performance that builds like ripples from a light piano pebble that become a tidal wave of orchestration on the shore by the end. Badfinger's original is different, a far straighter rock number that goes balls out on the chorus from the off, making this more of a re-working than a straight cover.

There's no getting away from the fact that Nilsson puts the song in a more complimentary setting than the original, with a lush string arrangement that brings out the shine with a slow polish. He's a better singer than Peter Ham too (who lives up to his name on 'Without You' with some overwrought vocalising). True, the potential for vocal gymnastics has ruined many a version of this (take a bow Mariah Carey), and Nilsson's fists clenched, eyes shut wailing too walks the high wire between pantomime and heartbreak, but to credit he always manages to stay on the side of the sincere.

And he does it through restraint; rather than directing his threats to the back of his departing ex, Nilsson sounds like he's howling them to himself in an empty room. It could have made for a slightly chilly interpretation had his voice dominated at the expense of everything else, but Nilsson is too classy to milk it to the dregs and he's content to stay either beneath, alongside but never over the top of Richard Perry's arrangement and to fade the song before it starts to bore.

But no matter who's singing, I've always raised an eyebrow at the overall 'message' of 'Without You'; not so much the chorus, but the lines that precede it: "And now its only fair that I should let you know, what you should know". But why is it fair to apply an emotional blackmail that boils down to 'If you leave I'll kill myself'? It's a petulant boast that, if you pick up on it, undermines the pleading of the chorus and reduces it to self pity.

And the line between self pity and an empathetic emotion is a fine one, the mishandling of which has sunk many a modern power ballad (or a 'power ballading up' of an old song - just look at what Nazareth did to 'Love Hurts'). Sure, big chest baring statements in song are nothing new (the first ever number one 'Here In My Heart' by Al Martino is a classic example), but Nilsson's 'Without You' is far removed from the 'moon in June' heartache of tin pan alley, its rock setting elevates it above all that and in turn sows the seed that led to Diane Warren, Phil Collins and their ilk, very few of whom had Nilsson's grip of restraint. Not that I'm blaming old Harry for the likes of "Keep On Loving You", "The Power Of Love", "I Want To Know What Love Is", "Broken Wings" et al, but by god it's tempting.

1972 Chicory Tip: Son Of My Father

A quick look on Amazon reveals you can find a great many Chicory Tip compilation CDs invariably called 'Best Of' or even 'Very Best Of', suggesting that some careful separation of the wheat from the chaff has been going on in putting them together. But come on - there's only one Chicory Tip song that anybody knows, and it's this one. The one that's usually song one on those compilations and the one that even people who've never heard of Chicory Tip can hum along to.

What's perhaps less known is that 'Son Of My Father' is a cover version of an earlier Giorgio Moroder single. Everybody knows that strident, pre-techno synth riff that drives it, but this was lifted lock, stock and barrel from Moroder's version. In fact. Moroder's song is if anything more 'techno' again; the vocal gains a metallic, Teutonic shimmer and there's some crude phasing effects on the chorus that bloat it out of commercial contention. Chicory Tip trim the worst excesses and tame the beast by corralling it into a more traditional rock mould that emphasises the thumpy back beat over those darn new fangled synthesiser things.*

Lyrically, I've always regarded 'Son Of My Father' as a pop art re-write of Larkin's 'This Be The Verse' - can anybody else hear:

"They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you."

in

"Son of my father, moulded I was folded I was preform-packed.
Son of my father, commanded I was branded in a plastic vac"

Maybe, maybe not, but regardless of any 'child is father to the man' hypothesising, 'Son Of My Father' is blessed with a shouty, arms aloft chorus that is once heard, never forgotten. Chicory Tip may well be operating outside the Glam Rock framework, but it's a Glam headslam in all but name - Gary without the Glitter if you will. Had this been an original recording then I'd be hailing Chicory Tip as unsung founding fathers of electronica and its offshoots, but it's not. Their main contribution is to add a smart commercial edge, a go-faster stripe on someone else's car that proved so effective it buried the band under it the weight of its success. I mean - can you name another Chicory Tip song? I rest my case.

*Interestingly, the Moroder version sounds like a song pulling itself in two. One way was heading down the cheesy Europop route that Aqua, Baccara, Ace Of Base, etc would travel while the other heads toward pioneering an electronic dance sound that would explode in the eighties. There are plenty who would damn Moroder to hell for both of these developments.

1972 T Rex: Telegram Sam

My least favourite of T Rex's quartet of chart toppers, 'Telegram Sam' finds Bolan embracing Glam Rock (and all that Glam Rock entails) with a great big hug that laid a curates egg of a song. We've been here before. Sort of. The 'Get It On' riff is recycled and beefed up until it crunches with a glam rock fizz, an adrenalin rush that tries so very hard to gloss over the nonsensical lyrics by making it's volume a statement by itself. Tries, but nobody is passing the cigars around on this.

Gone is the seductive billing and cooing of 'Hot Love' and 'Get It On' itself and in it's stead come 'Jungle Faced Jake', 'Golden Nose Slim' and the rest of the gang, a roll call of in jokes that deprive the song of any emotional anchor or point of reference. True, the self effacing "I ain't no square with my corkscrew hair" raises a wry smile, but even a Bauhaus cover that put it through their twitchy Goth machine couldn't disguise the fact that these lyrics are by and large horrid.

Being workmanlike pop that's as disposable as a Bic,'Telegram Sam' is the sound of Captain Bolan partying with the cabin crew while the plane is left circling a holding pattern on autopilot. What was it I said about complacency?

1972 The New Seekers: I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)

Like Robin Beck's 1988 number one 'The First Time', ' I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing' owes its genesis to a jingle originally written for a Coca Cola television advert ('I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke'). And not just any old advert either - Coke's short film of multicultural teens singing on a hillside outside Rome is one of the most iconic images from the decade and has been called "one of the best-loved and most influential ads in TV history"*

There's no doubt that the tune is a strong one (strong enough for Oasis to steal it for 'Shakermaker' in 1994 anyway), and the ascending layers of vocal carries over well from jingle to song proper. And though sappy and drippy, the re-written lyrics work far better than those of the advert - there's something faintly ludicrous about glassy eyed teens looking to bring about world peace through sugary pop, especially when some of the thousand yard stares on display look like they'd just escaped the Manson Family and were en-route to Jim Jones' compound.

On the other hand, like the Beck track that was to come, the ad trumps the song conclusively with its brevity; a full cycle of the verses is all that's needed to display everything the tune has to offer. The advert, in effect, leaves you wanting more whereas The New Seekers reveal that what you want isn't necessarily what you need. The jingle origins of the song are laid bare when stretched out and its limitations are revealed through repetition - the ever spiralling verses are never satisfactorily resolved in a hook or chorus, and piling on layer after layer of vocals and treacly lyrics bogs it down into a dead end paralysis that the prettiness of the initial tune can't hope to rescue. As I've said before, less is often more. Why won't people listen eh?

* Incidentally, watching the blonde girl singing the opening lines is one of my earliest ever memories. It might even explain my one time addiction to the stuff - after all, a brew that could bring about world peace surely couldn't be bad for you in any way. Could it?