Savwinkle and Turnerhopper - Your Mother Thinks I'm A Hoodlum/ Dirtyin' My Thing

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1970

When a record has a title like "Your Mother Thinks I'm A Hoodlum" and is by a pair of artists known as Savwinkle and Turnerhopper, it's hard to walk past. If it's bad, it's bound to be ridiculously bad, and if it's good, chances are it's going to live up to its title in all manner of interesting ways.

And indeed, it doesn't really disappoint, especially as a social document. Lyrically it's themed on the topic of a man's significant other's mother disliking him due to his long hair. Throughout the track, reasons are listed as to why this is a ludicrous stance - after all, he pays his taxes, he doesn't drink heavily… in all respects, he's an upstanding member of society. And of course, by 1970 long hair on men was increasingly common in mainstream society and about to become the norm (though try telling that to my mother's elderly neighbours in the mid-nineties - perhaps there's room for another single in this world entitled "Your Elderly Slightly Bigoted Neighbours Think I'm A Hooligan"). This could have been a cross-over novelty single about the tipping point in men's hairstyles, a song for all the hairy fellows out there with respectable day jobs and unexciting social habits.  

Musically this is fairly stripped back and raw, rattling along like an acoustic freakbeat single or a particularly agitated Mungo Jerry session. Meanwhile, over on the flip, Messrs Savwinkle and Turnerhopper rant about the negative habits of all would-be critics out there on "Dirtyin' My Thing". This probably isn't the place to suggest that it's considerably weaker than the A-side, then…

The excellent Purepop blog covered this record many years ago and managed to identify the artists responsible. The duo were Steve Turner and Derek Savage of a Battersea, South London based act called The Saturday Band. They ceased playing live at the cusp of the sixties and opened up their own talent agency, but still harboured dreams of writing and performing themselves - step forward producer Ray Hammond who shared office space with them and arranged a one-off deal with Pye. It seems to have been their only recorded output before finally throwing in the towel, though I'd be delighted to be proved otherwise.