If writing blog posts on the past five hundred and twenty-six UK #1s has taught me anything – and I’m not sure that it really has – then it is this: I like reggae…
Red Red Wine, by UB40 (their 1st of three #1s)
3 weeks, from 28th August – 18th September 1983
I was never that convinced by the genre, having spent too much time in beach bars on holiday, where the same dull ‘reggae chill-out’ playlists are looped year on year. But tracking the genre’s progress, from Desmond Dekker, past ‘Double Barrell’, Johnny Nash and Althea & Donna, to last year’s Reggae Autumn, I realise that I’ve enjoyed most of it. And when this record’s slow-shuffling rhythm kicks in, my heart does a little flip…
Red, red wine… Goes to my head… It’s a song about drinking, which is usually a good thing, even if it is about drinking away your misery… Just one thing, Makes me forget… Red, red wine… It’s laid-back, it’s cool, the chimes in the background sound like my school bell. It’s a bit lightweight, I guess, if you wanted to nit-pick, but it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
The video ties in with the theme, set as it is in a pub. The band order beers, though, not red, red wine. I suppose it would have been a bit of a stretch, in 1983, to have a bunch of Birmingham lads ordering bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Sadly, though, this #1 isn’t heralding a second consecutive Reggae Autumn. Unlike in 1982, when we went from Musical Youth, to Culture Club, to Eddy Grant, this is an isolated outbreak.
UB40 had been around since the end of the seventies, and were no strangers to the Top 10 in the early eighties. Their name famously derives from the form used to sign-on for benefits at the time (Unemployment Benefit, Form 40). I suppose their early fans might have viewed their first chart-topping hit as a bit of a sell-out moment, lacking the edge of some of their earlier hits, but I have no such history with the band and am enjoying it!
I have to admit, though, my shock in discovering that this isn’t the original version of ‘Red Red Wine’. OK, the fact it’s a cover doesn’t shock me… The fact that it was written in the first place by the famously un-reggae Neil Diamond, does. UB40 didn’t base their cover on his country-ish ballad, but on Jamaican singer Tony Tribe’s version from a couple of years later. Diamond, though, loves these takes on his original, and often performs it live in a reggae style nowadays.
There is an six-minute, extended version of this record, featuring an extended toast/rap from band member Astro (who sadly passed away just last year), but I doubt many people have heard it. That version does start to outstay its welcome… Perhaps, though, it explains the record’s belated success in the US. (It wouldn’t reach #1 there for another five years, until UB40 performed it at a concert for Nelson Mandela.)
They’ll be back on top of the charts shortly, UB40. In fact, they have a pretty impressive span between their three chart-toppers (almost a decade), and are tied with Madness for the most weeks on the UK charts in the 1980s. Impressive longevity. I’ll finish with a joke (not an original one, sadly, but still…) If you were one year old when this record came out, UB40 now…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Right away, “Red Red Wine” annoys the hell out of me with Ali Campbell’s nasally and whiny singing voice and the cheap reggae production that sounds like a karaoke backing track. The whole story is honestly much more interesting to me than the song itself. The song’s journey is already weird before you get into its delayed success in America as a #1 hit in October 1988 so much so that it was the inspiration for the first episode of one of my favorite podcasts Hit Parade. The Neil Diamond original charted at #62 while UB40’s cover peaked at #34 upon its initial 1983 release which is pretty solid considering how reggae-adverse the Hot 100 usually is. But the real spark for its rise to #1 five years later is a DJ in Pheonix refusing to play their “Breakfast In Bed” cover with Chrissy Hynde feeling “Red Red Wine” should’ve been a bigger hit so started playing it leading to other stations catching on and UB40’s label A&M reissuing it as a single in the US. In Tom Breihan’s review, he points out a big part of its renewed success is Americans in 1988 being very into tropical sounding vacation considering it hit #1 in the same fall when the two songs from the Cocktail movie, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” and “Kokomo,” were #1 hits. From there, “Red Red Wine” kicked off a weird late-’80s trend of radio people reviving songs from the recent past with some becoming bigger hits including another #1 a few months later with the six-year-old power ballad “When I’m With You” from the Canadian band Sheriff, a band already broken up by then. Breihan also points out that in terms of the US charts, “Red Red Wine” was probably the most reggae #1 up to that point, ““Red Red Wine” is a distinctly pop version of reggae, made by a half-white band from the UK. But reggae was always more closely entwined with the British charts than the Hot 100, and UB40 were a full-time reggae band. They were fully immersed in the genre, and they never tried to venture outside it. Instead, they brought pop sounds — and, increasingly, actual mainstream pop songs — into reggae. The success of “Red Red Wine” helped clear the lane for Jamaican artists to score American chart-toppers, something that would start happening in the ’90s.”
I like this one…is it Bob Marley? NO…but who is. I like this song.
Yay! I like this too, but I know it rubs a lot of people up the wrong way…
I don’t care if a white guy plays reggae or a black guy plays heavy metal… why the hell does it matter?
Of course I’m the one that doesn’t like a female Doctor Who lol… it’s like Johnny Depp as Wonder Woman..it doesn’t fit.
I got side tracked! I do like the song!
It doesn’t matter, as long as the music is genuine and not taking the piss…
I’ve never been a Dr Who fan, so can’t comment on female doctors. I’m just waiting for a female James Bond to really put the cat among the pigeons…
As long as it’s genuine… that is the key. That is the perfect answer.
Well I was raised by my mom and sister so I have nothing against women… and I would feel the same if they replaced Dr Who with an American… same with James Bond… i think they would do it JUST to do it because of pressure.
I love your sayings… the cat among the pigeons … we don’t have those kind of sayings. I also love cockney…
I don’t know if you saw the latest film, but the new 007 was a woman. James Bond was retired but still James Bond… That was quite a clever way to play with things. I don’t think they’d ever cast a woman as ‘James Bond’ though.
Haha, I’m far from being a cockney. I’m always surprised by what we say that Americans don’t… I just found out yesterday that you don’t call a lollipop a ‘lolly’!
I would not put it past them… hey The Doctor is an icon also… like I said… I would be just as pissed if it was an American.
I’ve heard Lolly from… Beatle books lol. That’s where I learned most of it.
A lot of it is clever… like a phone is the old dog and bone…plus the dirty ones are hilarious.
Phone is the old dog and bone?
Cockney is a London ‘dialect’, specifically east London. But most Brits would know the lost famous slang… There are lots of music ones: a Ruby Murray (curry), Hank Marvin (starving), an Eartha Kitt… you can work that one out for yourself haha
Oh. A dialect. I was thinking it was just an accent…remembering My Fair Lady.
Dialect might be stretching it I suppose… It’s pretty unique though. The classic American version would be Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins 😄
Ha. Yeah. The American version of cockney. Cute movie.
Speaking of accents/dialects, I have a lot of trouble with think Irish brogues and some Scottish accents. I can understand Gerard Butler & David Tennant but, I struggled watching Monarch of the Glen. Duncan, Lexie and Archie were hard to understand. It always reminds me of this:
Haha yes. Even other Brits struggle with a thick Scottish accent… Not unknown for Scottish TV shows to be subtitled in England…
LOL! I was also tickled to discover that “Mac” was voiced by Craig Ferguson’s sister.
A phone… the receiver and phone part
Ohhhh K. *scratching head*
Think they’d change it to “Jane Bond?”
We call lollipops “suckers.” I’m not kidding.
An American Who? Oh, my… Hollyweird would screw that up, too.
I think cockney is British.
Yea it is.. I love it
Cat among the pigeons?
As in to cause a bit of a scene, usually intentionally… Like releasing a cat into a bunch of pigeons 🙂
Ah. Thank you. I think our saying “fox in the hen house” might be similar.
Yes probably
Amen. The Doctor is supposed to be a dude. And, the retcon of her “originally” being a young female “found”… *facepalm* It is totally ruined at this point.
Depp as WW. LMAO! I really shouldn’t laugh. Hollyweird will eventually make WW a dude. They made Captain Marvel a woman. Carol Danvers was Ms. Marvel, not Captain. *more facepalming*
That said, there is a Marvel Wonder Man:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Man
I knew you would like this! Lol… I never heard of Wonderman…
I’m assuming it was Marvel’s answer to DC’s WW…but, just guessing.
I was never a comic guy except Mad and Cracked
I wasn’t into comic books much, either. I vaguely remember looking at some of them as a young teen. No, my curse was getting into non-sport cards with an ex. I got fascinated with the X-Men, particularly Woverine and Phoenix (Jean Grey). Those cards had a wealth of information, especially if you hadn’t read the comics for years.
Baseball cards were my thing… I had all of 1977 and 1978 topps set
Embarrassingly, I got into the cards in my 30s. Second teen-hood, I guess.
Nothing wrong with that! I started to collect 70s stuff in my 30s
I don’t feel so bad, now…😁
It’s not bad at all. It took me a while to get used to it.
Funny enough there’s a video of “Red Red Wine” credited to Bob Marley even though he was already dead by the time the song came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej1Kpv0WScw
Yea that would be quite a trick!
I was going to point out that he could have potentially covered the 60s original… But yeah. That’s just UB40.
In their day, they were one of my favourite bands an have seen them ‘live’ a few times. It’s so sad, the brothers going their separate ways and in that manner. But even though Red red Wine and other covers that followed weren’t as ‘hard reggae’ as their own early stuff, it provided an easily accessible route into the genre for others.
(I have too say though, that Astro’s ‘toasting’ on the extended version is fantastic. I was sad enough to learn the words myself!) 🙂
Red Red Wine inna Eighties style… I did like it, but it goes on a bit…!
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I’ve also seen UB40 live a couple of times and with Chrissie Hynde to boot. Good throughout their career and as they all grew up in the same area on reggae music its totally fine they would be inspired by it and do a covers album of their fave oldies. Yes im a purist who prefers their own songs up to this point of their career, the fab Food For Thought the political One In Ten especially but I never begrudge them a bit of global pop reggaecover promo. Even if I prefer Many Rivers To Cross to Red Red Wine of the hits off Labour Of Love m’self…
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