bananarama

687. ‘Young at Heart’, by The Bluebells

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

If we thought ‘Oh Carolina’ was an unpolished step away from the usual sounds of the early nineties, then what to make of this folksy jig…?

Young at Heart, by The Bluebells (their 1st and only #1)

4 weeks, from 28th March – 25th April 1993

We need to sound the ‘random re-release’ klaxon, one that has been honked fairly often during these past few chart years, for the success of this record was not completely organic. ‘Young at Heart’ was originally a #8 hit, in 1984, for Scottish jangle-pop act The Bluebells. It was their biggest hit, from the only studio album they released before disbanding in 1985. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and the song is being featured in a commercial for Volkswagen (not Levi’s, for once!)… Hey presto. Number one.

And aren’t we glad that it was! It’s distinctive, bordering on strange, and yet oh so catchy. Banjos, harmonicas, and most of all violins – the solo has to be one of the most ‘out there’ moments in a #1 for many a year – come together at the barn dance for a tale of young love: They married young, For love at last, Was their only crime…

It’s always hit me as a sort of ‘Come On Eileen’ Part II, both in terms of the Celtic sounds and the subject matter. Plus at its heart, despite all the country dressing, it has a pure pop bridge and a soaring chorus, which hint at an interesting origin story. I’ll let you in on a secret, one that raised my eyebrows when I found it out barely five minutes ago… The reason this song has such strong pop credentials is because it was written, and originally recorded by, Bananarama! I know, right…!

They recorded it for their debut album in 1983 – it was actually co-written by Siobhan Fahey (sort of giving her a second non-Bananarama number one) and the band’s guitarist Bobby Bluebell (not his real name) – and, if we’re honest, their version is fairly bland. In fact, The Bluebells’ take is a lesson in how to do a cover version right: changing the tone, the tempo, the genre, to the point where you’d have to be listening pretty closely to notice that they were the same song.

The Bluebells reformed especially for the TOTP performance brought about by the record’s unexpected success, and have continued to come back together on and off over the years. One of their former members is a lecturer in music business, while another is a golf correspondent for The Guardian.

Sadly, I make this the final ‘random re-release’ we’ll see, for a while at least. There are plenty more to come, especially in the 21st century, but this is the end of that golden spell in the late-eighties and early-nineties, when Ben E King, Jackie Wilson, The Clash, The Righteous Brothers, The Hollies and The Steve Miller Band all scored belated, sometimes posthumous, chart-toppers thanks to films, TV shows and, more often than not, adverts for Levi’s jeans. Let’s salute them, then, these random re-releases, for spicing up the charts, and breaking up all the SAW, the dance, and the movie soundtrack power ballads.

674. ‘Stay’, by Shakespears Sister

/ UK #1s blog / 2 Comments

Our next number one follows nicely on from the first chart-topper of the year, Wet Wet Wet’s ‘Goodnight Girl’. At least at first…

Stay, by Shakespears Sister (their 1st and only #1)

8 weeks, from 16th February – 12th April 1992

The opening two minutes are paired-back, moody, and again almost a cappella. If this world is wearing thin, And you’re thinking of escape… The voice is memorably kooky, a slightly higher-pitched Cyndi Lauper, to my ears. It lulls you, draws you in, takes you a moment to realise that the lyrics are pretty dark: When your pride is on the floor, I’ll make you beg for more…

It’s not ‘Stay’ as in ‘please stay, baby’. It’s ‘Stay’ as in ‘stay… or else!’ So, darker than first anticipated. And then things get very dark indeed, when one-third of Bananarama comes crashing through the doors, and the song flips to grungy, industrial rock. You better hope and pray, That you make it safe back to your own world…she crows, relishing her pantomime villain role.

The two contrasts – the soft, gospel opening half against the heavy final two minutes – are complemented by the two very different voices. What could have been a nice but fairly run-of-the-mill ballad (like, say, ‘Goodnight Girl’) becomes something else altogether. Towards the end the first voice takes over again, much more frantic now, begging their lover to stay.

‘Stay’ really has to be listened to in conjunction with its bizarre, award-winning video. One Shakespears Sister – Marcella Detroit, very pale and panda-eyed – sits by a dying man’s bedside while the other, Siobhan Fahey, barges into their hospital room looking like a slimmed-down Ursula from ‘The Little Mermaid’. The two women wrestle over the man, before he finally comes back to life in Detroit’s arms, and Fahey shuffles off with a roll of the eyes. It’s every bit as melodramatic as the song, and very camp.

By the end, this has turned into one of the stranger chart-toppers of recent years. It’s very hard to pin down, and whoever described it as ‘a weird sci-fi ballad of gothic-gospel electronica’ for PopMatters is pretty spot on. It was written by both women (managing to chart higher than Bananarama ever did), alongside Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, who was then Fahey’s husband.

Shakespears Sister was Fahey’s post-Bananarama solo project, with Detroit joining a bit later. (This was one of the only songs on which Detroit sang lead, and its success apparently annoyed Fahey.) The duo’s name was a misspelling that stuck, inspired by the Smith’s song of the same name, which had in turn been inspired by Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’, which eventually leads us all the way back to William himself. A fittingly literary heritage for a song that packs an epic story into less than four minutes. They’d had one Top 10 hit before this, and would have one more after, but it is for ‘Stay’ that they are to this day best remembered.

Never Had a #1… Bananarama

/ UK #1s blog / 11 Comments

The final part of this look at acts who’ve never made top spot in the UK… and it’s the biggest girl group of the eighties. Bananarama managed ten Top 10 hits between 1982 and 1989, but never got beyond #3 (in fact, none of the other acts I’ve featured this week – Bob Marley and Tina Turner – charted higher than #3 either…)

Interestingly, Bananarama have a US chart-topper to their name – ‘Venus’, in 1986, which only made #8 in the UK. It doesn’t feature on this list, which kicks off with their debut smash…

‘It Ain’t What You Do (It’s the Way That You Do It)’ – Fun Boy Three and Bananarama – #4 in 1982

To be honest, Bananarama are almost reduced to backing vocalists on this reimagining of an old jazz standard, that had been recorded by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald back in the thirties. But it’s quite a modern way of introducing potential new stars, getting them to feature on a more established act’s song. Fun Boy Three hadn’t been around long either, but they were three ex-members of The Specials, so had the potential to take this high in the charts. The trick worked, and soon Bananarama were having hits of their own…

Shy Boy – #4 in 1982

Starting with this… It’s another throwback, with some classic girl-group shoop shoops… Though the lyrics are slightly spicier than your average Shirelles tune: He gives me lovin’ like nobody else, I love the way he turns me on… He used to be a shy boy, until they made him their boy. He is a shy boy no longer. I love this one: an underlooked eighties pop classic. There’s also a very modern, feisty, girl-group energy to the video.

Robert De Niro’s Waiting – #3 in 1984

A song about the pressures of fame, and of how watching movies can be an escape from the stresses of real life. In fact, the verses took on an even darker aspect when Siobhan Fahey said that the song was about date rape (something the other band members have denied at various points over the years). I’m assuming they’re singing about ‘The Godfather Part II’ – apologies if I’ve overlooked any other films in which Bobby De Niro’s talking Italian…. Other names of songs featuring film stars? ‘Bette Davis Eyes’, and…? Answers on a postcard, please!

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Love in the First Degree – #3 in 1987

We skip forward a few years, and are now in the late eighties. Slap-bang in the middle of the Stock Aitken Waterman years, and it was SAW who produced this pop beauty (could that synth riff have come from anyone else…?) Apparently the girls had to be persuaded to record a song as poppy, with a dance routine as cutesy, as this, but I for one am happy that they did. It’s my favourite Bananarama tune.

Help – #3 in 1989, with Lananeeneenoonoo

In 1988, Siobhan Fahey left the band, meaning that their days as a chart force were numbered. They still had one last Top 10 hit left in them, their joint-highest in fact, thanks to this Beatles cover for Comic Relief. Back on my regular countdown we’re in October 1984, and are yet to encounter our first charity single. But they are on their way… They’ve been a pretty constant chart presence since the mid-eighties, often combining music and comedy (and often turning out neither funny nor particularly listenable…) Here Bananarama are joined by their delusional alter-egos Lananeeneenoonoo AKA French & Saunders with Kathy Burke, and all manner of zaniness ensues…

So there we have Bananarama, another act with lots of hits but no number ones. I hope you enjoyed this break from the regular schedule. Up next, we’ll be resuming our journey through every single #1 single…