Flight - What Am I To Do/ Is This The Way

 

 

 

Bizarre reminiscence about childhood misdemeanors from seventies glam group

Label: BASF

Year of Release: 1974

 

I only bought this one because of the cheap asking price and the Geoff Gill production credit, and blimey what a strange record it is. With a backing consisting of that much-loved oompah bounce which seemed to haunt many an early seventies single, the lyrics consist of a man reminiscing about getting his arse spanked and being generally admonished by his mother throughout childhood. 

 

"What am I to do with you my boy/ oh what am I to do with you?/ What will I tell your father when he comes back from the loo?" she asks throughout the three minute song, suggesting perhaps that the boy's Dad was hiding in there for the duration (nobody's ever that constipated). With this much of a rumpus going on in the household at all times, though, I can't say I blame him. The bathroom can be a safe space sometimes.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, hit songwriter Lally Stott was behind this piece of work, and was most famously known for penning the monster hit "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep". We've covered his solo version of that track, with the faintly psychedelic "Henry James" on the flip, before on this blog.

The precise membership of the group Flight is somewhat vague, but we do know that bass guitarist Kevin Nixon was a member, who later went on to work with Francis Dunnery, as was the vocalist Mick Adamson who went on to join eighties metallers Maineeaxe. 

Flight had one other 45 out on Buk Records in 1975 called "Overnight Sensation" which took a much more satirical bent, sneering at the dominant glitter trends of the time. I'm trying to dig up a reasonably priced copy of that as we speak.

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