Slade’s third chart-topper in well under a year – a mean feat that not many other artists can boast of. And it enters with all the swagger you’d expect from a band well on their way to being the biggest in the land. As Noddy sums it up in the intro: Awooooooooo!
Mama Weer All Crazee Now, by Slade (their 3rd of six #1s)
3 weeks, from 3rd – 24th September 1972
The riff could never be described as sophisticated, or revolutionary, but it’s perfect in its own way. A riff that does the DJ’s job for him, by announcing ‘Here’s the latest single from Slade…’ Meanwhile the drums are deep and beefy and the bass kicks. We’re all set up for a good time.
Similarly, the lyrics aren’t going to change the world; but they are a statement of intent. Holder is at his sneery, husky best as he announces: I don’t want to, Drink my whisky like you do… The kids are going to do things their own way. I don’t need to, Spend my money but still do… Did someone say ‘teenage rebellion?’ Think ‘Son of My Father’, but in the simplest, Sladest terms.
I said mama, But we’re all crazy now… the band hollers as mum bangs on the bedroom door, wondering what this noise is. A year so ago, the top of the charts was full of easy-on-the-ears, grown-up pop – ‘I’m Still Waiting’ and ‘Woodstock’. But 1972 has seen the #1 spot reclaimed by the kids: teeny boppers and glam rockers. It’s like the fifties all over again, but with more make-up.
Is ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ a little basic? Probably, but that’s the point. It’s a song about having nothing but a good time. Another drop now, come on… I want the lot now, come on… About being young and reckless and not giving two shits. Jim Lea, the bassist, was inspired to write it after looking out on Wembley Arena after the band had played a gig, and surveying a hall full of broken seats and empty bottles. Plus he wanted a chorus – a chant, even – that the audience could sing back to them at full volume.
The record ends with that line repeated over and over, until it’s reduced to a stutter: Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-woooooooo! Glorious nonsense. (Isn’t that the perfect description for glam rock?) Actually, I’ve just had an idea, a way of categorising the glam rock acts of the early seventies, using British supermarkets as gradients (Apologies to any non-British readers who will have no idea what I’m on about, please skip ahead if you like…) If Bowie was Harrod’s Glam, then T. Rex were Waitrose Glam. Slade? Slade were Tesco glam: no frills and popular across the land. And LIDL Glam? That was Mud.
Anyway, nothing wrong with being the Tesco of glam. Whenever I’m back in the UK, Tesco’s one of the first places I go. And it didn’t hold Slade back any. ‘Mama…’ was their 3rd of six #1s, and the last not to enter at the top of the charts. Very, very few records entered at #1 before the mid-nineties. Slade will go on to do it three times. Enjoy the video below, then, as the sound of a band just about to go stratospheric…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
You know I really love Slade’s music…They were such a fun band…glam yes but a great rock and roll band also! His voice is incredible. I still would have liked to hear him sing one song with AC/DC…I wonder if he really seriously considered joining when they asked?
Great Post.
I’ve heard of Harrods and Tesco but not the other. Entwistle loved buying things from Harrods.
What? No Grace Brothers? lol
Technically Grace Brothers is a department store, so… Though Mrs Slocombe was clearly a big influence on glam rock fashions
That hair…yes yes she was…Her and her… nevermind.
Ha! 😂
That’s Mary Elizabeth Jennifer Rachel Abergavenny “Betty” Yiddell Slocombe. 😉
Wow. That’s some expert knowledge there… Had no idea ‘Are You Being Served?’ was known at all in the US until recently!
That show is a damn scream! 😆 It showed up about the same time Doctor Who was imported in the 70s. I remember seeing both as kid & young teen. I appreciate them both even more as an adult.
Another show I fell in love with, that Tom Baker showed up in, was Monarch of the Glen.
We got a lot of stuff on our PBS stations.
‘Monarch of the Glen’! That was cosy, Sunday night viewing in the… late 90s or so? Takes me back
We got the re-runs. I remember being sad when it was cancelled. It was great but, I sometimes needed the rewind button. “What did she just say?” LOL! A Scottish accent should come with subtitles.
You don’t have any Lidls in TN?
I’m always going to like both versions. I grew up listening to Quiet Riot and loving it. Discovering Slade afterwards was just icing.
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While I much prefer the Quiet Riot version of “Cum On Feel The Noize”, I much prefer Slade’s version of “Mama Weer All Crazee Now”. Noddy’s vocals are freaking killer here. Great gritty rough and dirty vocal. Slade should’ve broken through in the States because sound-wise they would fit with all the hard rock that was happening, but I guess their image didn’t fly with the yanks.
I’m only guessing here, nkadu, but did Slade come across as just too British for US tastes at the time? T. Rex had the very English Cockney-meets-hippie flower child ethos that perhaps was too Anglicised and didn’t really travel over the Atlantic properly. Status Quo likewise seemed to have the ‘Made in England’ badge stamped all over their denims. Sweet, if I remember rightly, were much more successful than any of them for a brief period in the 70s, because they sounded more, well, international. Fast forwarding a decade or so, Slade had a second coming in the UK in the early 1980s after having fallen off the radar for a few years and coming very close to disbanding until they unexpectedly stole the show at a monster festival appearance on what had been planned as their thank-you and goodnight. Their 1983-4 comeback hits ‘My Oh My’ and ‘Run Runaway’, which sounded a little more as if they had been made with the American market in mind, were not just Top 10 in the UK (one narrowly missing out on hitting No. 1 at Christmas), but also both helped them crack the US Top 40 at last.
Rating: 5/5
My favourite Slade song. Noddy’s vocals are so great, the guitar work is killer, I think the drumming is also really solid. Slade just sneaks in a legit hard rock song onto the top spot, and I’m a sucker for a good old-fashioned hard rocker.
Yeah this is their heaviest number one, I’d say. Real beefy guitars and Noddy destroying his vocal chords. Great stuff!