1978 Boney M: Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord

When it comes to Christmas tunes I'm something of a traditionalist. Not to the extent that I demand fifteenth century madrigals sung by monks, but there are certain parameters that must be maintained lest a frown reaches my brow. Boney M's version of 'Mary's Boy Child' makes me frown, and that's because you kind of expect something more from the combination of Boney M and Christmas than this single actually delivers.

Harry Belafonte sang the original and he treats the lyric with a slow and sincere reverence as befitting a hymn, but Boney M do virtually the exact opposite and fashion it into a disco shuffle with Caribbean steel drum backing. Not that this would be too much of a problem if there was a party vibe a la Slade going on here, but the beat is a ponderous one with Liz Mitchell treating the lyrics no less respectfully than Belafonte did. It's an odd combination and one that's neither prayer nor party and, at five and a half minute long, it outstays its welcome by at least half its running time.

And this length is chiefly due to one of Frank Farian's own compositions - 'Oh My Lord' - being tacked onto the end in a kind of festive medley. Not that this is a good thing in itself you understand; too slight to stand by itself, it adds little to the parent track except secure half of the royalties for Farian and make everyone else long for a good blast of Jingle Bells, even if it's just from the urchins down the street demanding money with veiled menaces on your doorsteop for the privilege of hearing it.

1978 Rod Stewart: Do Ya Think I'm Sexy

In 1978 disco was a bandwagon just waiting to be jumped on. Acts as unlikely as Kiss and the Rolling Stones were happy enough to climb aboard for the ride, but there was surely no more unlikely a passenger than Mr Rod Stewart. And it's apt to namecheck Kiss here because Paul Stanley had obviously been paying close attention to 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' (no question mark) when he wrote 'I Was Made For Loving You' in that it follows the same low key verse leading into a hook of a chorus, and in so doing paid heed to the missteps of Stewart's attempt and deftly avoiding them.

That 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' fails to spark is down to many failings, but it's useful to start at the actual structure. The verses therein follow the familiar Stewart device of a story in song but they're far too fussy for this genre; boy meets girl in a bar and they go back to his place for sex. Not much of a story granted, but Stewart takes three long verses to tell it and with it comes the impression of an old, half finished demo of a song rescued from the vault with a disco beat and chorus melody stolen wholesale from Jorge Ben's 'Taj Mahal' plastered over the top with the rather crass repetition of "If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, let me know" on the chorus. And it's a chorus that fits ill with the lack of confidence from both parties that Stewart gives the pair in the verses "He's so nervous avoiding all her questions, his lips are dry, her heart is gently pounding".

But in saying that, you can look at the lyrics every which way and never be sure if it's the boy, the girl or both who are making that "If you want my body......." statement, and that's because neither of them are really - it's Rod himself speaking. He knows he's not all that good at this disco thing but he can still pull the birds right? RIGHT??? The medium itself is almost secondary to taking the opportunity to test the water to see if he's still got it, but that cover picture speaks volumes and the lack of attention is telling.

Stewart's voice is naturally geared toward blues/R&B stylings and it comes as no surprise that he makes no concessions to the genre here which makes his vocal not so much out of its depth as swimming in a different pool to the tune. And as far as that goes, the music is a clueless wooze of disco by numbers with blaring synths announcing a half hearted fanfare that amounts to not that much really, just chippy guitar lines and a loose bass that's more dull than sheen and the sum total fails to sparkle any glitterball; it's not that 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' isn't very good compared with 'Maggie May', it's just not very good. Full stop. Rod always had ego to burn, but to see a mid life crisis laid out so nakedly and opportunistically is all rather unsavoury - how sexy do ya think that sounds Rod?

1978 The Boomtown Rats: Rat Trap

Throughout the eighties and into the early nineties, whenever a successful act or band came along that wasn't to the liking of the critics, there'd usually be an arms aloft exasperated statement from them along the lines of 'It's as if punk never happened'. But a quick glance at the charts between 1976-1978 shows you could be forgiven for thinking that punk wasn't actually happening at the time. As far as this blog goes, the whole movement may as well have been a vicious rumour. The Sex Pistols should have got there but didn't, and no other footprints were left at the top of the charts.

Not that the Boomtown Rats were in fact a punk act. They weren't part of the first phase of bands that had long since split, burned out or changed course before late 1978 but were instead part of the more radio friendly post punk assault that commentators lumped together under the banner 'New Wave'. Which was a bit of a misnomer by itself as far as 'Rat Trap' goes as there was precious little that was new about it. Geldof may have believed he was providing a genuine rebellious alternative to the mainstream (my own remembrance of this is outrage at Geldof ripping up a picture of Liv and Trav on Top Of The Pops), but from the wailing saxophone solos to the claustrophobic story/song of small town unrest, Geldof and his band came across as a bunch of shamrock Springsteens too busy equating their Ireland with dusty Americana to bother about musical movements closer to home.

Geldof's lyrical observations have obvious parallels with 'The Boss', so much so that 'Rat Trap' is little more than a pessimistic re-write of 'Born To Run', but without the sharp observation of the latter. The main character of the song 'Billy' is an already trapped rat, he's not born to run anywhere. He can make it if he wants to or if he need its bad enough, but whilst Springsteen wants to guard his Wendy's 'dreams and visions' with a promise that they'll both walk in the sun one day, the Billy of 'Rat Trap' has no such hope for him and his 'Judy'. In fact, he's such a hopeless case that she even has to make the first move on him because he's too pissed to even speak, and when he does it's only to scream "It's a rat trap Judy; and we've been caught...." Judy's own dreams only reach as far as leaving school to get a factory job, so with future plans that reach no further than the end of their roads then maybe they deserve each other in the song, but it gives the impression that Geldof doesn't really care for the characters he's creating; they're there as mere misery ciphers existing solely as a means to an end, but even in that the song is flawed.

Springsteen at his best could summon up a lifetime of despair in a single line that played in Widescreen imagery whereas Geldof's writing is flabby, overwritten and resolutely monochrome - "hope bites the dust behind all the closed doors, and pus and grime ooze from its scab crusted sores" - it's trying too hard camp violence dressed up as social commentary and hitched to the punk bandwagon to inject some much needed credibility that Geldof' and his over earnest, over the top mugging could never provide, mainly because it lacks a certain urgency; 'Rat Trap is a busy song that never manages to lock into its own identity. At almost five minutes long it has plenty of time to, but Geldof is too busy playing every hand in his possession in the hope of finding one that wins.

There's some 'West Side Story' type finger snaps at the start, a jerky Devo-ish section on "In this town Billy says" middle eight while the close runs out into everything Dion and the Belmonts ever recorded playing simultaneously at distortion level. In this case the dense pile up actually helps in that the relentless, no hoper depression of the lyrics never finds a permanent surface to settle and cling to until it overpowers. Ultimately, while I can confess to having a soft spot for 'Rat Trap' and have done since 1978 (his crimes against Grease were soon forgiven), I can't help thinking that the spot would have been a lot bigger had Geldof employed a decent editor to trim off the fat here into something more punchy.

1978 John Travolta & Olivia Newton John: Summer Nights

The second 'taster' single from the (then) forthcoming film though from the opposite end; 'You're The One That I Want' was more or less the last song of the movie while 'Summer Nights' is one of the first. And that's key here, because as 'bad Sandy' on the previous single, ONJ was allowed to shred Travolta to bits with her vocal, but as 'good Sandy' she can't - she's contractually obliged to keep the lid on and sound sweet and virginal, and in so doing she offers up nothing for Travolta's white bread vocal to bounce off.* She only manages to let rip (with a very Australian twang) on the "He was sweet, just turned eighteen" line, but that's probably down to the incredulity of suddenly realising a thirty year old woman (her) and a twenty four year old man (him) were playing high school teens.

It's fair to say that 'You're The One That I Want' was a duet whereas 'Summer Nights' is a song for two voices and it's a tough one to divorce from its original setting - if you're not familiar with the story then all the humour of Liv's innocent remembrance of the summer past compared to Travolta's attempt to look big in the eyes of his mates by sexing it up is going to be lost. It works well enough in the context of the film with the visual prompts and the rest of the cast larking around in the background, but it's not a lot of fun when taken by itself. Because by itself, 'Summer Nights' is flat lemonade with precious little in the way of fizz or energy about it with the music always threatening a crescendo that it consistently fails to reach. Fitting then to say that 'You're The One That I Want' has aged as well as Liv herself while 'Summer Nights' has aged about as well as Travolta.

* 'You're The One That I Want' (and 'Hopelessly Devoted To You') didn't actually appear in the original stage version of Grease, they were written by John Farrar to bring the musical up to feature length. And as a long time ONJ collaborator it's no wonder they both sound tailor made for her voice - they were.

1978 10cc: Dreadlock Holiday

The concept of smug white men playing reggae is not something that's going to whet too many appetites, but what about men playing ironic reggae? Now there's a niche genre. 10cc had never been a band to play anything with a straight bat, but by 1978 they had split in two after Godley and Creme quit to leave Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart as the core of the band augmented with whatever session musicians happened to be knocking about. 'Dreadlock Holiday' was to be the last hit from a band in decline.

Mention it to anyone and like as not the first thing they'll shout is the 'I don't like cricket, I LOVE it' refrain from the chorus. Amusing yes, but in the context of the song it has it's own purpose - 'Dreadlock Holiday' is the (supposedly true) tale of a hapless tourist getting out of his depth on the bad side of Jamaica and being robbed by four locals. The love of cricket cry is intended as a way to get on the good side of the muggers by identifying a common interest, the idea being that all West Indians are obsessed with cricket and they wouldn't do harm to a fellow fan (he also goes on to claim 'I don't like reggae, I LOVE it' for the same reasons). You can take this one of two ways, which is quite neat because it also sums up the two ways you can take the song; either with a good humoured amusement, or as an offensive display of outrageous racist stereotyping.

The case for the prosecution is a strong one. For a start, the song seems hell bent on not portraying Jamaican folk in too flattering a light. All have 'dark voices' with the men engaged in robbery with menaces, the women deal in dope and everybody, when they aren't mugging or getting high, are out playing cricket. Presumably with reggae blasting over the PA system. To compound this injury, Gouldman and Stewart adopt cod-patois accents throughout that hark back to the Typically Tropical affair with their "Don't you cramp me style, don't you queer on me pitch" jive. But what sounded fresh and effervescent in the mouths of Althea and Donna now sounds smug, piss-taking and yes, vaguely offensive when coming from some middle aged, middle class white men. And to make sure these voices are heard, the reggae backing is a subdued chink chink affair instead of the genuine article's chunk chunk, suggesting that the band are parodying both Jamaicans and their music.

In its defence, 'Dreadlock Holiday' is a well crafted song and, to be fair, the sheer unexpectedness of that 'I don't like cricket' yell is still amusing even when you know it's coming. At heart though, there's a mean and spiteful edge to it all that both belies and negates the sunny, feel-good nature the song aspires to. The humour lands wide of the target somewhat, making it the sound of a clever, clever band being not quite as clever as they think they are. Reggae fans will hate it on sight and if non reggae fans are looking to dip their toes in the water then there a better places to start than this.

1978 Commodores: Three Times A Lady

A mate once convinced me that the 'Three Times A Lady' of the title referred to mother, lover and whore - the three component parts of every man's ideal woman. It sounded plausible enough to me and I believed it for years. Writer and lead vocalist Lionel Richie spoiled the party a bit going on record to say it was about the three women he loved most - wife, mother and daughter. That sounded plausible too, if a little less fun. But then Richie is also on the record as saying it was inspired by him overhearing his father saying 'I want you, I need you, I love you' to his mother. Which is slightly less plausible and a lot less fun, but I think it all puts down a marker as to the main problem with the song - what the hell is it about? And does it matter?*

Well yes and no. No in that, as I've said before, complete understanding of a lyric is never a pre-requisite to enjoy any given song, but when you're working in the medium of soul then it's always an idea to know what you're being soulful about. Richie's song seems to be about the end of something "The memories are all in my mind, and now that we've come to the end of our rainbow", and his vocal is suitably maudlin, but the song is a somnambulistic sticky treacle topping with no sponge pudding underneath to give it substance; I bet those cover photo's didn't capture them playing this live. Richie's vocal is sincere, but its sincere dullness has never managed to engage my interest, neither then nor now.

* A different mate had a theory that the once, twice, three times was a reference to the three....ermmm....orifices of a woman that Richie liked to make whoopee with. I have never found this explanation even remotely plausible.

1978 John Travolta & Olivia Newton John: You're The One That I Want

As I intimated back on 'Night Fever', I was a Grease fan in 1978. Hell that's an understatement - I was a HUGE fan, and all my mates were too. Dammit, the whole school was. That's the effect it had - the film was a nuclear explosion that radiated a blast area that few could escape and the countdown until it arrived in the cinemas 'over here' was like waiting for Christmas in the middle of summer. To help feed my own obsession, I managed to persuade my parents to buy me a black leather jacket, and when I wore it around my junior school I managed to convince myself I was as cool as, if not quite Danny Zucco, then Kenickie at least.

Looking back, 'You're The One That I Want' was the song that lit this particular fuse. It's kind of easy to see why - screwdriver straight, 'You're The One That I Want' bursts with verve enough to transcend its finale context within the musical to give it an identity in its own right. Powered by a Johnny Cash 'boom-chika-boom' rhythm, it's a song that's meat and potatoes to a singer with the country chops of ONJ - she could sing the guts out of this at a canter and her vocal here toys with the lyric mercilessly. In the film, a leather clad Liv pussy whips Travolta until he howls and begs on his knees and her delivery is no less dominant of Travolta's thin yelp; even though it's mixed lower and rides restrained just behind the beat, she still manages to blow up a storm that strangles everything a 'trying his best' Travolta can throw back at her.

Weddings, parties, bar mitzvahs - 'You're The One That I Want' is everybody's karaoke friend with the added bonus of its own hardwired pantomime routine that only gets better the drunker you are. It's short enough to leave you wanting more too, and in 1978 I wanted more. A lot more. I was only ten, but 'You're The One That I Want' is the song that made me want to grow up fast. I'd seen the film clip nine weeks on the trot on Top Of The Pops and I couldn't wait to start the 'big school' the following year. It was to be my version of 'Rydell High' and I was convinced there would be a leather clad siren waiting for me there and we would hang around the bleachers in our respective gangs, hiding from coach and making fun of the geeks.

Sadly, as I was to learn, confessing a liking for Grease at the 'big school' in 1979 was no barometer of local coolness, and all the Sandra Dee's (and they were there) turned out to be loaded for bigger game than me. And that's when the chills really started multiplyin'. There would quickly follow a Stalinist purge of my recent past where John Travolta would be replaced with John Rotten as the name to drop, but that's another story. But even at the point of most denial, I always had a soft spot for 'You're The One That I Want', and whenever I hear it now at whatever ironic theme bar or club, my singing along is irony free.

1978 Boney M: Rivers Of Babylon

Ubiquitous in the late seventies UK charts, Boney M were a manufactured band cooked up by German record producer Frank Farian. That sentence alone is enough to get many music fans reaching for a revolver, but one thing Farian was stupendously good at was taking some unlikely source material and turning it into palatable juggernaughts of songs that negated any hint of possible danger or bad taste through an overwhelming arms linked, knees up party vibe. Russian mystics ('Rasputin'),1930's American gangsters ('Ma Baker'), home-grown religious conflict ('Belfast') - Boney M were fearless in what they sang about, and even their cover versions like The Creation's 'Painter Man' and Bobby Hebb's 'Sunny' were highly unpredictable on paper but were nevertheless given a Hi-NRG, Eurodance makeover that made them sound like they were always meant to be played that way.

'Rivers Of Babylon' is a cover version too, and an unlikely a one as any. Originally recorded by The Melodians, 'Rivers Of Babylon' takes the bulk of it's lyrics from Psalm 137, detailing the suffering of the exiled Jews after Jerusalem was conquered by the Babylonians. When placed in this reggae setting, the 'Babylon' and 'Zion' references take on a more charged and respectful meaning as the ying and yang of good and evil, but as far as Boney M are concerned it's all just a good tune. In fact, with their campy image and bacofoil outfits, Farian's band would be the essence of Babylon to any Rastafari though I doubt he'd have seen the irony (or even cared if he did).

For me, 'Rivers Of Babylon' is one of the least interesting of all Boney M's singles. The tune is a strong one, but its sheer in your faceness is wearing, particularly as there's little heart or depth enough to warrant anything other than a cursory surface listen. What is (after all) serious religion is reduced to the lowest 4/4 denominator until all meaning is diluted in the Eurobeat the way English rugby fan's singing of 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot' exorcises all trace of the song's roots in slavery. There's a time and a place for both, but we perhaps shouldn't be surprised when people get pissed off with the lack of reverence being shown.

And as if to neatly illustrate what I mean, flip the disc over for the just as famous B side 'Brown Girl In The Ring' and you get another simple clapalong, only it's by far the more interesting proposition of the two simply because, being based on a Caribbean nursery rhyme, it's not meant to have any depth and Boney M can go to town on it safe in the knowledge they are not trivialising something that anyone can take offence at. And it takes a particularly humourless kind of music snobbery for it not to put a smile on your face.

1978 Bee Gees: Night Fever

Two facts to start with - John Travolta was a big star in 1978 and I was a big fan. Most people were really - with two major films cleaning up in the cinemas and his profile going supernova, Travolta and his grin exuded an air of easy cool that I could only aspire. I'll go into my love of 'Grease' in the next post but one, but suffice it to say that Saturday Night Fever was far more a piece of forbidden fruit to me than that film; Grease was racy enough, but Saturday Night Fever came with an X certificate which put it way out of my reach. Hence, all my eggs of interest marked 'Travolta' were placed firmly in the basket marked Grease; Saturday Night Fever and everything surrounding it barely caused a blip on my radar. Apart from the music, which was pretty inescapable in 1978. Inescapable enough to puzzle me anyway as to what scenes of X rated raunch and violence could be soundtracked by those squealing, pants too tight vocals; if Kate Bush's voice was a prime target for lazy mickey taking in the seventies, then the Bee Gees were the absolute bullseye.

The brothers had always sung falsetto true, but their work on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack ramped it up to a level that was borderline parody, and along with their open shirt/gold medallion look they managed to define not only what the average 'disco man' should aspire to when he scrubbed up on the weekend, but also sealed an image of themselves in aspic that came to define not only all their work that was to come, but also everything that had already been. Listen to 'New York Mining Disaster 1941' or 'Massachusetts' now and you still picture the trio singing them in their disco get up on a multicoloured dancefloor.

Which is ironic in one way, but fair enough in another; the Bee Gees in 1978 were no musical virgins. Already songwriters of note with an impressive back catalogue of hits written for themselves and other people, in turning to disco they weren't about to abandon their craft to adopt the pure dance trance of Giorgio Moroder et al. Rather, disco would come to them. In fact, it already had - they had already more than dipped their toes in the water with 'Jive Talking' in 1975, which was ahead of the game as it also appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The brace of songs they wrote following it could have been played straight in their own right, only now they were presented dressed up in the sheen of genre bells and whistles. And while that may make it all sound like a cynical cash-in, the end result managed to breathe life into a genre that was dying through it's own clichéd inertia amid a blizzard of generic recordings that sounded like the backing to some Philly soul B side run through a beat box and stretched till the elastic snapped.

'Night Fever' is a good example as any of the Bee Gees disco makeover. Sure there's the usual slick strings of disco drama, but also some timely electronic swells and throbs that punctuate the predictability with a wonderfully low key wah wah guitar chattering away in the background the whole time that keeps the groove on a slow drip like molasses from a can. And underneath beats a human heart that's simply "Prayin' for this moment to last, livin' on the music so fine" - in other words, it's 'Dancing Queen' as told from the first person instead of a bystander watching.

On that front, 'Night Fever' is a more direct and immediate song, but one that's narrower in its appeal and more difficult for non genre fans to admire. I'll be the first to admit it took an awful long time for me to overcome my initial prejudices with the whole Saturday Night Fever caboodle that had set hard as concrete since my first exposure all those years ago. And while I still don't have an awful lot of time for the film, I'm now happy enough to acknowledge a rush of hedonistic joy created by artists at the top of their game when I hear it, moreso now that the passing of time has barely taken anything away from it; 'Night Fever' sounds far less dated than the Bee Gee's last UK number one 'You Win Again' and it will retain an urgency and relevance for as long as people continue to live to cut loose at the weekend.

1978 Brian & Michael: Matchstick Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs

Ah now, I warned you a few entries ago that my life and the number ones I write about would start to fuse until it becomes hard to reconcile objectivity with pure sentiment didn't I? And so it goes here, so bear with me as I meander off piste for a bit and tell you that during the summer of '78, a mate of a mate's father converted their garage into a club house where us lads could hang out. There was an old three piece suite in there, a tiny snooker table, a record player and a few singles borrowed from his father's own collection. And an eclectic bunch they were too; that garage was where I first heard The Moontrekker's 'Night Of The Vampire', Deep Purple's 'Never Before' (amongst others), and 'Matchstick Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs'.

Because we didn't have that many singles, we tended to play the same ones over and over and over again. And again. And then the B sides. Which must now make me one of the few people in the world who could sing along word perfect to the song about a dead Granny's rocking chair that appeared on the flip of ''Matchstick Men'. It also means that there can't be too many people still breathing, apart from Brian and Michael, who would have heard this song as often as I have.*

So where does that leave it? Does familiarity breed contempt? Does this prolonged exposure torpedo any chance I have of being objective about the tune? Not necessarily. But for a start I'll point out that, following 'Vincent', it's the second number one of the decade about a 'misunderstood' painter, in this case L.S.Lowry. And as far as songs about painters go, it's infinitely preferable to Mclean's tune simply because it can be enjoyed in an innocent kind of way that's childlike simple and doesn't trowel on the guilt - when Lowry dies of pneumonia at the end ("The fever came and the good lord mopped his brow"), 'We' aren't accused of collusion by leaving a window open.

Brian and Michael sketch out Lowry's life in the lyrics as simply as one of the man's own paintings; there's not much meat on the bones here - Lowry paints, nobody cares, Lowry paints a bit more, people notice, Lowry dies. Fin. While I'm generous enough to infer some intent in this on the part of the writers (and, dear reader, this is me at my most charitable, albeit charity filtered through the rose tinted hue of fond remembrance of summer's past), I'm not quite so content to forgive the relentless 'eee it's grim up North' stereotype imagery and colloquialisms that pepper the song like the kids either wearing clogs or 'nowt on their feet' who are then roped into some frankly awful rhyme and forced metre. One example will do;

"Now canvas and brushes were wearing thin
When London started calling him
To come on down and wear the old flat cap"

Not only does this run as smoothly as a bent axle, I have idea what this means - try as I might, I can't find any reference to London calling in Lowry's life or what the 'flat cap' refers to. Because if it's some academic honour, then in point of fact his honorary degrees came from the Universities of Manchester, Salford and Liverpool, not London. Not that a complete understanding of lyrics is ever necessary to enjoy any particular song I agree (and as a Dylan disciple, how could I not?), but in one presented as popular biography then such shortcomings are fairly unforgivable.

Not that this is enough to bury it - 'Matchstick Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs' is not an awful song, but neither is it a good one. There's foundation enough there for something stronger, but Brian and Michael are far too content to rely on a catchy chorus and overt sentimentality at the expense of everything else when a little more attention to what's around it would have made all the difference. And to continue my generosity further, I'm even prepared to meet it more than half way by saying that even though the children's choir (St Winifred's no less) of 'ally ally o' on the finale may be a spoonful of sentiment too far for many, to my mind they recall the same chant that plays over the closing credits of Tony Richardson's film version of 'A Taste Of Honey', a link that at a stroke gives the song a hint of gritty 'angry young man' realism.

I'm not suggesting for one second that either Brian or Michael intended this association, (more likely they were thinking of Keith West's 1967 hit 'Excerpt From A Teenage Opera' - Lowry's death here "This tired old man with hair like snow, told northern folk its time to go" certainly recalls the demise of Grocer Jack) but sometimes a little schadenfreude can go a long way. It can with me anyway. But then maybe I'm still remembering summer's past....

* Now that I'm on a roll, fast forward two years from this and I exchange this gang hut for the local Youth Club. There was a similar three piece suite/record player set up there too, only this time it was the bigger boys who commandeered it with their own singles. On my first night as a member, there had been some kind of mix up that meant they only had two singles that were played alternately all night long. One was Peter Gabriel's 'Games Without Frontiers', the other was AC/DC's 'Touch Too Much'. It was the first time I'd heard either. The Gabriel song is still a favourite, but 'Touch Too Much' has gone down as one of my most played songs of all time - I've played it at least once a month every single year since and it will be a perennial on any 'Desert Island Discs' list I compile. See - there's no such thing as over exposure where quality's concerned.

1978 Kate Bush: Wuthering Heights

If you want to look at this through one end of the telescope, then Kate and her creepy squeak could be dismissed as a novelty hit on par with The Wurzels. After all, both are telling a story that's inherently reliant on funny voices to get their point across. In Kate's case, it was a voice that caused no small amount of amusement in 1978. Contemporary reporting usually prefaced her name with 'helium voiced' or some suchlike to the point that most commentators seemed to think there was nothing else worthy of focussing on (The Not The Nine O'Clock News team were still taking the piss as late as 1980). Such was the interest I think it's fair to say that, had she had fallen under the wheels of a bus (or perhaps, to be more charitable, had retired) in April 1978, then like as not then that's how she would now be remembered - as a one hit wonder with a hard wired gimmick no better and no worse than Aneka and her 'Japanese Boy', a summation that would have been sealed by Kate's own wildly over the top performances of the song using a mime/dance routine that even Pan's People may have rejected as being too literal.

That's one way of looking at it all anyway, but to turn that telescope 'round the right way then 'Wuthering Heights' by itself can be seen as a stand alone single that can only be dismissed as novelty by lazy folk with their ears half cocked. And by 'stand alone', I don't mean just through its own inherent strangeness; by one definition, 'Wuthering Heights' can be regarded as the first and last recording by Kate Bush Mark 1, and 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' being the first release proper by the Kate Bush we've all come to know. And that's because 'Wuthering Heights' barely seems sung by 'Kate Bush' at all - far from a simple third party précis of Bronte's novel, this tale is told from the viewpoint of Catherine Earnshaw's ghost, and Bush adopts this persona of 'Cathy' as completely as if she were acting as a medium for the latter's voice.

Bush doesn't normally sing in that register, in fact she rarely did again (she in re-recorded the song in 1986 for her 'The Whole Story' compilation in her more conventional range and it loses far, far more than it gains), but on 'Wuthering Heights' there's method in her madness, and that method is madness. The vocal keens and swoops throughout the song, adopting and then discarding emotions at the turn of every word conveying the idea of a woman who no longer knows what to feel - "How could you leave me? When I needed to possess you? I hated you, I loved you too".

Bush's gothic treatment is soaked through with a helpless tragedy of a woman who can't find peace even in death*, a lost soul still pining for a happy ending that can't possibly come; "Too long I roam in the night. I'm coming back to his side to put it right". Throughout the song, her delivery is pitched at such a self absorbed and unhinged level that the "Oh it gets dark, it gets lonely, on the other side from you" suggests even all the other ghosts are too sacred to talk to the mad woman with the Heatcliffe obsession and leave her well alone.

The brittle persona of Cathy is further carried over into the music with the dominant high key piano runs sparkling like shards of broken glass, giving the song it's own 'Twilight Zone' aura and so it's a shame (to me at least) when a conventional rock guitar solo on the outro brings the whole thing crashing back to reality. But no matter - 'Wuthering Heights' is a startlingly evocative debut, a song as rich and deep as the novel it's based on. Off the wall yes, but there's a lot more to it than simply surface kookiness and in an arena somewhere in my imagination Kate herself is forever doomed to slug it out with Donna Summer as part of a tag team against 'Dancing Queen' for the title of 'Best Number One Of The Seventies'.

* As an aside, this reminds me of Bob Dylan's 'Death Is Not The End'

"When you're sad and when you're lonely
And you haven't got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end"

Dylan presents it as a song of hope, a message that no matter how shit things are here on earth, it's not the be all and end all and that there's better to come. The song was covered by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds on their 'Murder Ballads' album where Cave and his merry men skewed Dylan's meaning 180 degrees until he's telling you that no matter how shit things are here on earth, there's an eternity of it to come after you're dead. Perhaps the most chilling example of this kind of reasoning comes in Tom Waits' 'Poor Edward', an allegedly true story of Victorian era Edward Mordrake, a man born with a second, female face on the back of his head. According to the story, the extra face could neither eat nor speak, but it could laugh and cry, but in Waits' telling "at night she spoke to him of things heard only in hell". With operating not an option, Edward sought peace through suicide, only to find that the face followed him to hell:

"Some still believe he was freed from her:
But I knew her too well
I say she drove him to suicide
And took Poor Edward to Hell"

Makes you realise that Cathy got off lightly!

1978 Abba: Take A Chance On Me

After the middle aged angst of 'The Name Of The Game', Abba perform an effortless volte face back to the disco with their most direct single in ages. 'Take A Chance On Me' is one of the most danceable tunes in the Abba catalogue, perhaps moreso than the high class drive and shimmy of 'Dancing Queen' or the follow up to this 'Summer Night City'; no need for any fancy footwork with this one, it's a tune tailor made for even the most awkward and uncoordinated down at the tackiest club in the land to jig along to.

Once again, love is on the agenda, but there's no hint of the uncertainty of recent past; the girls know what they want and they know where to get it. And if it means being second best ("If you're all alone when the pretty birds have flown. Honey I'm still free") then they ain't fussy. Which doesn't mean that they are going to be anyone's doormat - the confidence of "You don't wanna hurt me, baby don't worry, I ain't gonna let you" is quite startling following the reluctant suitors of 'The Name Of The Game'.

The 'go out and get 'em' lyrics are complimented by the music which, though it jumps around excitedly never loses that the danceable thread. Whenever the centre threatens not to hold, it reverts back to the homebase of that wonderfully spongy keyboard riff that rings out as the aural equivalent of a bright yellow smiley face. I wouldn't place 'Take A Chance On Me' in the premier league of Abba songs, but it's a tune to be cherished nonetheless if only for the act that Abba sound as if they're truly enjoying themselves, a commodity that would be in short supply from here on in.

1978 Brotherhood Of Man: Figaro

From one three syllable name ending in 'O' to another, the Brotherhood were on a roll though Figaro is a less involved affair than 'Angelo'; the titular character is no longer a doomed Mexican shepherd boy but some Club 18-30 rep-cum-lothario forever on the pull:

"Every morning when sun is dawning
You'll see him down on the beach.
Look out girl better beware
Better take good care, keep yourself out of reach."

Which just about sums it up quite nicely, only leaving me to say that 'Figaro' is a bland, British, bakelite Butlins chug of forced gaiety that's powered by the theme tune from a C grade sit-com as played on the horn from Noddy's car. It's quite the most jaunty song about a serial sexual predator that you are ever likely to come across, but is that by itself any cause for celebration? (Does that question need an answer? I think not. On both counts).

1978 Althea & Donna: Uptown Top Ranking

And from one song that confused me no end as a boy to another, albeit for different reasons. But before any of that, some history will be useful; 'Uptown Top Ranking' borrows its backing track hook and line from Marcia Aitken's 'I'm Still In Love With You', which was itself a re-recording of Anton Ellis' 'I'm Still In Love' from 1967. To add another layer to the cake, Aitken's tune was then 'liberated' by toaster Trinity on 'Three Piece Suit' for him to brag over about how sharp he looked in his new whistle.

Anything the men can boast about the girls can boast about better and 'Uptown Top Ranking' is a recorded response to Trinity where Althea and Donna themselves brag about how good THEY look as they strut around turning male heads ("See me 'pon the road I hear you call out to me") in their "alter back'" and "heels and ting". Such a patchwork of mix and match influences could have easily resulted in a curates egg of a song, but the fact is they don't. And the fact they don't is mainly down to simple youthful exuberance.

Not that you need to know any of the above to enjoy the song, but I think the history is important because not that many listeners in 1978 would have known what was going on here. I know I didn't - the patois slang was a code as foreign to me as Esperanto and I had no more idea what they were on about than I understood the popularity of 'Mull Of Kintyre'. But while the scales have fallen from McCartney's ditty, my gender, race and age mean that 'Uptown Top Ranking' remains a closed book to a certain extent. And that's fine, because my ignorance has not dented my enjoyment of the song one iota.

And enjoyment is very much the key word, it's why 'Uptown Top Ranking' works so well. Youthful exuberance see? On one hand you can take the girls as a novelty act peddling another Jamaican one hit wonder a la Millie that manages to crossover to people who don't normally listen to reggae. And on that level it's harmless enough. But flip the coin and it's an uplifting celebration of black youth mixed with an awareness of feminine sexuality and the power it holds - subjects that perhaps weren't that high on most people's agendas in dour late seventies Britain. Certainly not topics most would have appreciated being shoved in their faces on prime time television.

But there's no danger here, nothing malicious or manipulative about the song. Althea (17) and Donna (18) had the street smarts, but they were more inclined to slay you with a sharp put down ("Nah pop no style") instead of pulling a knife. At heart here are two young girls enjoying their youth, not looking for trouble - after all, "Love is all I bring inna me khaki suit and ting". Neither is there any of the gender confrontation of, for example, their contemporaries The Slits, four girls of similar age and musical persuasion who scared the life out of me when I saw them perform on video footage.

Watching this duo on Top Of The Pops clips, they come across as gawky, giggling schoolgirls and not militant Black Panthers sowing seeds of unrest or the hard nosed super confidence of latter day rap stars - 'Uptown Top Ranking' is as much the authentic sound of the streets as anything (to pick a usual suspect at random) Lil Kim et al rapped about, but it comes wrapped up in sunshine rather than bitches, bling and beefs. Another time and another place maybe, but there's a joyous innocence about the whole that's infectious, and it's this infection that makes this such a sheer delight.