i love you love me love

Cover Versions of #1s – Joan Jett & Oasis

/ UK #1s blog / 25 Comments

For my last two covers of the week, I’m going back to the age of glam. I do miss the days when every second chart-topper was a glam-rock stomper…

‘I Love You Love Me Love’, by Joan Jett – originally a #1 in 1973 for you-know-who.

The only problem with ‘the age of glam’ is that one of its biggest stars turned out to be a prolific sex-offender. Despite trying not to, I did enjoy the first two of Gary Glitter’s three #1s. How to listen to them these days, though, without feeling a bit icky? Luckily, Americans have no idea who Glitter is/was, and are happy to use his music at sporting events and in the soundtracks to major Hollywood movies. Joan Jett made a habit of covering old 60s and 70s tunes and giving them a power-rock feel in the eighties. (Yes, I know, he probably still gets royalties. I didn’t say it was a perfect plan…)

‘Cum on Feel the Noize’, by Oasis – originally a #1 in 1973, for Slade

I have complicated feelings towards Oasis. They were once my favourite band (if you were a teenage boy, growing up in suburban Scotland, in the late 90s, you had to love Oasis, it was as good as law). But I don’t listen to them much these days. Liam and Noel are as moronic as they are funny, and they attract a certain type of ‘fan’… And yet, watching this performance at Maine Road, at the height of their popularity, you can see why they were so huge, and it proves anyone who thinks Liam couldn’t sing very wrong. Obnoxious lines like: So you think my singing’s out of time, Well it makes me money… might well have been custom-written for him. Oasis are famously mocked for copying the Beatles, but I’ve also heard them described as ‘Status Slade’. I think whoever said that meant to be bitchy, but I can’t think of a more fun sounding hybrid band. Anyway, I’ll have plenty of time to reassess Oasis when I cover their eight #1s – ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ was a ‘B’-side to their second (and best…?) chart-topper, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’.

Next week it’s back to the usual countdown, starting with chart-topper number 501.

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340. ‘I Love You Love Me Love’, by Gary Glitter

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

Anyone fancy a slow dance under the mistletoe, with Gary Glitter…?

I Love You Love Me Love, by Gary Glitter (his 2nd of three #1s)

4 weeks, from 11th November – 9th December 1973

While that mental image takes its time to fade… We settle into a woozy, oozy, slightly boozy, electronic sax riff. (Do electronic saxes exist? If they do, then that’s what leading us on this romantic mystery.) The trademark Glitter drums are there, but slowed right down. They lumber, they plod, they drag you down into the treacle.

Gary’s girl’s parents don’t like him much… We’re still together after all that we’ve been through, They tried to tell you I was not the boy for you, They didn’t like my hair, The clothes I love to wear… Or maybe they were just good judges of character, Gary? Once again, it’s proving difficult for me to judge the man’s music without remembering what he was deep down…

It’s glam rock, but stuck in quicksand, or on strong, strong Quaaludes. I’m not sure I like it all that much, but it’s kind of mesmerising. By the end, it’s basically smothered you into submission. The distorted saxophones and the over-dubbed guitars give me hints of Wizzard but, if they were going for what Wizzard achieved with ‘Angel Fingers’, they’ve fallen well short. In fact, I think we can pinpoint here the exact moment that glam rock started edging from Bowie and Bolan to Mud and Showaddywaddy’s fifties pastiches.

I love you love, You me love me too love, I love you love me love… Adding to the hypnotic effects is that chorus, that title. ‘I Love You Love Me Love’… I mean… It’s like a magic eye picture. You stare at it, trying to work out what it means, where the comma should be, but you go around in circles… ‘I Love You, You Love Me… Love?’

Whatever. You can bet that boys and girls around the country were sidling up to one another in school gyms around the nation at the Christmas dances of 1973, for a shuffle and a snog to this disc. This record entered the charts at number one and, if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll know how rare an occurrence that was back then. It means Glitter joins Elvis, Cliff, The Beatles and Slade. We might want to forget he ever existed; but we have to note how big he was in this moment.

He has one more chart-topper to come in the new year, before we can move past this slightly awkward elephant in the room. ‘I Love You Love Me Love’ was the 6th best-selling single for the entirety of 1973, despite only being released in early November… But you won’t be hearing it on a radio anytime soon. (Though, if you did enjoy this song, as I think I did – I still can’t quite make my mind up about it – and want a guilt-free means of enjoying it, Joan Jett does a pretty faithful cover, with a video that is peak-1985.)