a cappella

Random Runners-Up: ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin

/ UK #1s blog / 16 Comments

Our 3rd random runner-up for the week, and I have to admit I smiled when the date generator threw up this #2 single…

‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin

#2 for 1 week, from 16th – 22nd October 1988, behind ‘One Moment in Time’

I smiled, because I would be able to tell the world how much I detest this song. To say the date generator threw it up feels apt (as does calling it a ‘number two’ single….)

Childish name calling aside, I really do struggle to find anything likeable about this song. Which is strange, because there are few pop songs that have tried as hard to be likeable. The whistling, the finger clicks, the spoken asides… It’s all so folksy, so cute. An a cappella song for all ages – from five to ninety-five – to enjoy.

Except, no. It genuinely makes my skin crawl. And that’s before you get to the lyrics. One critic at the time described it as a ‘formula for for facing life’s trials’, but Bobby’s formula is to simply smile like a lunatic at whatever problems life brings… No money, no partner, rent’s due and the landlord is taking you to court…? Don’t worry, be happy! Why? ‘Cause when you worry your face will frown, And that will bring everybody down… So shut up and smile, you whiny prick!

Maybe I’m reading the song wrong, and am missing a layer of cynicism buried within. Maybe it’s a satire of this sort of life-affirming nonsense. But I doubt it. I’m pretty good at spotting cynicism. No, for me, this is the musical equivalent of a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ poster, a song for those who refuse to ‘adult’. Plus the song’s crimes go beyond the pop charts: it helped spawn Big Mouth Billy Bass, the mounted fish toy that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ on demand.

While I think it’s bad enough that this made #2 in the UK; it made it to the top in the US, Canada, and Germany. It stayed at #1 for seven weeks Down Under, which confirms every suspicion I ever had about Australians… It was released on the soundtrack to the Tom Cruise movie ‘Cocktail’, which features another all-time classic in The Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’. Bobby McFerrin is a one-hit wonder thanks to this tune, but to his credit he moved pretty quickly away from uplifting novelties, and started working in TV and film sountracks, as well as classical, jazz, and musical education in colleges and schools.

581. ‘Caravan of Love’, by The Housemartins

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

Reintroducing that most niche of chart-topping genres: the festive a cappella #1…

Caravan of Love, by The Housemartins (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 14th – 21st December 1986

Following on from the Flying Pickets’ ‘Only You’ from three years before, The Housemartins give us more warm and fuzzy feelings for Christmas, using only their voices (and some finger clicks). Hand in hand we’ll take a caravan, To the marvel land… One by one we’re gonna stand up with pride, One that can’t be denied…

The lyrics are uplifting – everyone being free, the young and the old, love flowing – vaguely religious, but not preachy. The harmonising is beautiful, led by a spectacular lead vocal from Paul Heaton (imagine an angelic Morrissey…) My judgement may be clouded by the fact that I’m literally listening to his honeyed tones as I type these words, but is this the 1980’s best chart-topping vocal performance? The he’s my brother… line is the pick, up there with the finest fifties doo-wop.

Every woman, every man, Join the caravan of love… Stand up, stand up… It’s a clarion call, but is it for a revolution, or for God? The song had been written by one half of the Isley Brothers (Isley-Jasper-Isley) the year before, with religion in mind. The video for the Housemartins’ version makes the religious intent very clear: Heaton plays a preacher in a pulpit, and the band have crucifixes shaved into their heads… I’m normally one for the separation of church and pop; but this I can just about stomach, because it’s about love rather than sanctimony.

Speaking of Morrissey, this single-week number #1 represents one of the very few moments that ‘80s indie made the highest reaches of the charts (much like Europe flying the flag for hair metal last time out…) The Housemartins had made #3 earlier in the year with the jangly ‘Happy Hour’, and their albums had pithy titles like ‘London 0 Hull 4’ and ‘That’s What I Call Quite Good’. They were clearly going for the Christmas #1 here, ticking all the feel-good boxes, gaining support from both indie kids and their grandmas, but were foiled at the last by an even more unexpected hit… More on that next time.

They split in 1988, but this is just the start for two of The Housemartins… Heaton went on to form ‘The Beautiful South’, before going solo. In a fun coincidence, he is literally on top of the UK albums chart as we speak… Meanwhile bassist Norman Cook became a DJ and producer with Beats International and then as Fatboy Slim. And I can think of at least three ‘90s chart-toppers that he’ll account for…

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529. ‘Only You’, by The Flying Pickets

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

And so we hurtle towards the end of 1983, with our latest Christmas number one. And, yes, it’s a novelty record. But wait! No! Come back! This is a ‘novelty’ in the sense that it’s different and interesting; not in the sense that it’s a bunch of gap-toothed schoolchildren singing about their grandma…

Only You, by The Flying Pickets (their 1st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 4th December 1983 – 8th January 1984

The novelty here lies in the fact that this record is (almost) completely a cappella. The only bits that aren’t a cappella are the two drum beats which follow the intro. There might also be a non-human synth right in the background, but I can’t be sure. You wonder why they didn’t go the whole hog and make it completely a cappella, but it was enough for this to go down in the record books as the first a cappella #1. (I’m now going to try writing the remainder of this post without using the term ‘a cappella’, as I keep mis-spelling it.)

All I needed was the love you gave, All I needed for another day… You can see why this was a big festive hit: it’s unusual but still accessible, it’s melancholy, it sounds like a festive choir… It’s got a romantic-sounding title, though it’s actually a fairly miserable break-up song if you stop and listen to the lyrics. All I ever knew, Only you… Plus, the original had been a #2 hit for Yazoo only a year or so earlier, so it may well have appealed to trendy young types too.

The Flying Pickets were a vocal group from London, with a background in fringe theatre. The band’s name would have had a particular resonance at the time, and may have helped them to a few more sales, with the country on the verge of a huge miners’ strike. The Pickets were radical socialists, and the members had been on the front lines of earlier strikes in the seventies. Once ‘Only You’ had made number one, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher displayed either supreme ignorance or shamelessness (both are quite feasible) in naming it her favourite song of the time.

The video adds to the gritty, socialist vibe, shot as it is in a North Shields pub. The band members play darts, pool and the fruit machine as they harmonise. Once you see them, it’s a bit of a shock trying to reconcile the angelic voices on the record with these fairly grizzled looking blokes. They definitely have a ‘fringe theatre’ vibe to them – I think I might have given them a wide berth had I been at the same pub – and all the a cappella-ing does feel a little ‘community centre am-dram’ at times.

Still, it’s a fun record: a ‘novelty’ in the best sense of the word, and a welcome addition to the festive canon. It’s one of those Xmas #1s that, despite having nothing to do with the season, still feels very festive. And it’s another retro-sounding chart-topper to list alongside the doo-wop, disco and reggae tracks we’ve featured in the latter half of 1983.

The Flying Pickets aren’t quite one-hit wonders (the follow-up to this gave them one further Top 10 hit), but their chart success wasn’t sustained beyond the mid-1980s. They are still around and recording to this day – their latest album saw them covering Sia’s ‘Chandelier’, as well as re-recording this #1 hit – although none of the members who feature on this song have been a part of the band since 1990.

That’s it for 1983, then: the year in which it felt like the eighties truly began. Up next, we embark on a year described more than once as the best year for pop music… ever. I may have to take exception to that…

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