showaddywaddy

Random Runners-Up… August 17th

/ UK #1s blog / 13 Comments

Welcome to the latest installment of Random Runners-Up, where we celebrate the records that came close, but no cigar. Three records, all sitting at #2 on this date in history…

‘We’ve Gotta Get out of This Place’, by the Animals – #2 for 1 week in 1965, behind ‘Help!’

Some classic sixties R&B to start us off. This is gritty stuff, with a winding bassline, snarling guitars, and the gutteral yowl of lead singer Eric Burden telling a tale of hardship and poverty. It was written by Brill Building duo Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, intended for the Righteous Brothers. The Animals changed the lyrics slightly, to reflect their childhoods in Newcastle. Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’, Watch his hair been turning grey… And then out of nowhere springs a very upbeat, pop-leaning chorus. It is a positive song, despite the misery of the verses. The singer will get out of this place: Believe me baby, I know it baby, You know it too…

This was the Animals’ second-biggest hit, after their 1964 chart-topper ‘The House of the Rising Sun’, and was one of seven Top 10s the band enjoyed before fracturing in 1966. ‘We’ve Gotta Get out of This Place’ was released right at the start of the Vietnam War, and became an anthem for US soldiers stationed out there in the late-sixties.

‘You Got What It Takes’, by Showaddywaddy – #2 for 1 week in 1977, behind ‘Angelo’

The seventies were a time of great musical innovation… They were also a time of Showaddywaddy. Not that I’m complaining, because I can’t resist Showaddywaddy and their rock ‘n’ roll revival schtick. They had one number one in the UK, ‘Under the Moon of Love’, but were a constant presence in the charts during the latter half of the decade. ‘You Got What it Takes’ was the third in a run of seven straight Top 10 hits, and one of the band’s four #2s.

Like their chart-topper, this was a cover of an oldie: a 1960 #7 hit by Marv Johnson. Musically it owes a great debt to Lloyd Price’s ‘Personality’, and lyrically it tells the tale of a girl who doesn’t doesn’t live in a beautiful place, doesn’t dress with the best of taste… Nature didn’t give you such a beautiful face… And yet she has what it takes. What exactly that is isn’t specified, leaving our imaginations to run riot. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and the Dave Clark Five also had hits with this tune, which makes it all the more surprising that I had never heard it before today!

‘Macarena’, by Los Del Rio – #2 for 1 week in 1996, behind ‘Wannabe’

For some reason I had visions of ‘Macarena’ being lodged in the Top 10 for months on end, but in truth it spent just one week at number two and didn’t have a chart run out of the ordinary. I guess I thought it must have hung around like a bad smell because it was the bane of my existance for endless school discos. This, and Whigfield’s ‘Saturday Night’. Both dances looked so simple, and yet… I could never quite get them right. Any dance that involves alternating left and right, or turning, and I short-circuit.

This hit version is a remix of a 1993 original, from Los Del Rio’s 18th studio album. They were (are, in fact, as they’re still going!) a Spanish duo from the sixties, and by the time this made them UK one-hit wonders both men were almost in their sixties. And no, the Macarena is not the name of the dance, but the name of one of the men’s daughters. Britain was one of the few countries where this didn’t go to #1. In the States, it stayed on top for fourteen, presumably very long, weeks…

397. ‘Under the Moon of Love’, by Showaddywaddy

/ UK #1s blog / 17 Comments

In my last post, I wrote about how Chicago had forced me to take soft-rock seriously, to appreciate the subtlety, and the craft. ‘If You Leave Me Now’ was such a lovely, well-made song that it was beginning to work…

Under the Moon of Love, by Showaddywaddy (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 28th November – 19th December 1976

But here come Showaddywaddy to undo all their good efforts. There goes subtlety, flying out the window. In comes thumping, rollicking, primary-coloured rock ‘n’ roll. The 1950s, reimagined by a toddler on a sugar high. Without seeing a picture of the band, you can instantly imagine the comedy quiffs, and the colourful teddy-boy suits.

Let’s go for a little walk…! Under the moon of love…! I offer you these lyrics as lead singer Dave Bartram delivers them, with an emphatic exclamation mark after each line, after each word even: Let’s! Sit! Down and talk! Under the moon of love…! He’s having a great time with this song, which means the listener – as long as they’re willing to leave their musical snobbishness at the door – enjoys themselves by the same measure.

I hate the concept of ‘guilty pleasures’. But, yes. ‘Under the Moon of Love’ is prime guilty pleasures material. ‘If You Leave Me Now’ is an objectively better piece of music, but I am enjoying this record ten times more. It’s fun, dammit! What I wouldn’t give for Showaddywaddy to invade the po-faced charts of 2021!

You were lookin’ so lovely… (Uh-huh-huh)… Because nothing says late-fifties doo-wop-slash-rock-n-roll like a well-placed ‘uh-huh-huh’… Under the moon of love! If you were being unkind, you could claim this as the final nail in glam rock’s coffin, the final fart of the corpse. The sound that can be dated right to the very start of this decade, in ‘Spirit in the Sky’ and ‘I Hear You Knocking’s fried guitar, through the huge-hitters like T Rex, Slade, Wizzard and The Sweet, down through Mud’s dancing, Gary Glitter’s prancing and The Rubettes’ falsettos. To this silly slice of rock ‘n’ roll revival.

Though to be fair, Showaddywaddy had been around since glam’s heyday, when their debut ‘Hey Rock and Roll’ peaked at #2. Since then they had revived Buddy Holly’s ‘Heartbeat’, and Eddie Cochran’s ‘Three Steps to Heaven’, while this, their only #1, kicked off a run of seven straight Top 5 hits lasting well into 1978, long after most of the big glam acts had fallen from the charts. They are still a-rocking to the this day, after a few line-up changes, on the oldies circuit.

As well as Eddie Cochran, they brought back the Kalin Twins’ ‘When’, and ‘Blue Moon’. But perhaps ‘Under the Moon of Love’ was the one that went all the way to the top simply because it wasn’t a big hit first time around. It was originally recorded by Curtis Lee in 1961, making #46 on the Billboard 100. It’s slightly better, in the way that originals usually are, while it was produced by an up and coming chap called Phil Spector.

Finally, Showaddywaddy’s turn at the top means we’ve now had a seven-piece (Pussycat), and two eight-pieces (Chicago and Showaddywaddy) atop the charts. Late ’76 seeing a reinvention of the term ‘big band’. But that run is about to come to an end, for the year’s final chart-topper is by a solo act. And I know it’s April, but we’re about to get a little festive…