Whisky & Sofa - Dirty Den/ Dirty Rag

 

Yet another Eastenders themed novelty record from the mid-80s

Label: Spartan

Year of Release: 1986

Given the current indifference being shown to "Eastenders" by the British public, with viewing figures tanking and BBC Executives furrowing their brows, it's easy to forget just how much of a phenomenon the soap once was. The market for spin-off singles alone was immense - no sooner had actress Anita Dobson hit the top ten with a sung version of the theme tune than scores of other Enders related discs dropped off the production line.

Not all of these were successes. "Left and to the Back" has bravely dealt with some of the odder fare, such as Lofty's attempt at covering Bob Dylan and Gramps' well-meaning festive single, but to be honest I thought I'd heard them all now. Then one day, the "Top Of The Pops Facts" stream on Twitter alerted me to the existence of this unofficial cash-in novelty record.

"Dirty Den" is unusual in being a raucous novelty record which also feels slightly threatening. That's appropriate enough - Dirty Den was, of course, the soap's resident geezer, a no-nonsense man of a certain age with an abrasive personality and criminal associations. Despite the fact that his wit and charm frequently seemed several rungs below Lord Alan Sugar's, he nonetheless found his way into many ladies' boudoirs, including (most troublingly) the one of sixteen year old character Michelle Fowler who he impregnated. 

The tabloid press love a soap opera villain, and Dirty Den was prime gutter rag content. Given the character's utter ubiquity in British popular culture, a novelty Den-themed single from somebody was therefore inevitable even if Den himself (or at least the actor Leslie Grantham) was unwilling to step into the recording studio booth to do it. 

The resulting unofficial output "Dirty Den" attempts to go for a slight dancefloor edge, utilising those squelching bass keyboard notes every low budget record from 1986 seemed to have, and being influenced by slightly more straight-ahead novelty discs of the past. The "whoops!" elements are straight out of John Inman's "Are You Being Served?", while the Den imitating vocals owe a debt to those old impersonator's 45s from the seventies which still clutter up charity shops to this day.

You'll be hard pressed to find a copy of this record in any charity shop though, as it sold in meagre quantities. While the subject matter seemed like a sure-fire winner, the jokes on here are almost non-existent (unless the cry of "Whoops! Whisky and Sofa!" is flying above my head in 2023 - it sounds more like an incident that's escaped from a Frank Spencer themed record than anything else). It's a character outline sketch set to a slight melody, and while the beats and keyboard sounds on this are pretty urban for a novelty effort, there's nothing here to set either radio playlists or club dancefloors alight. 

So who was responsible for this folly? A certain C McCourt is credited as writer, and I would happily bet big money it's not eighties star Carmel McCourt (of "More More More" fame) but the work of producer and songwriter Colin McCourt, who worked with The Weltons and Our Kid in the seventies. Barry Mason, meanwhile, was an absolute songwriting monster throughout the sixties and seventies, co-writing "Delilah", "I Pretend", "Last Waltz", "A Man Without Love" and countless others - God alone knows what he was up to here, but a gig's a gig, and Denmark Street veterans tend not to be fussy about where their next fee stems from. 

Most entertainingly of all, the female vocals are handled by none other than future UK Eurovision contestant Nikki French, who would have to wait another eight years for her first hit in the form of a cover version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". I doubt "Dirty Den" features in her live repertoire much. 

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