Reupload - The Saucers - Spring Has Sprung/ Major Breakthrough

 

Cheggers and Philbin on a New Wave tip

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1982

The curious thing about fluke novelty hits is that the performers seldom accept their fate as flash-in-the-pan artists.  Instead, they have a tendency to try to milk their limited template dry - hence Lieutenant Pigeon spent years releasing (actually quite entertaining) singles with honky-tonk pianos that nobody really bought, The Firm's attempted follow-up to "Star Trekkin'" entitled "Superheroes" was just more squeaky sci-fi/ fantasy stupidity which didn't get played enough to even annoy anyone, and the less said about Edelweiss' attempts to go for a second gold the better.  

Noel Edmonds had spent years hosting "Top of the Pops" and watching the limited fortunes of actors and TV presenters attempting spin-off novelty singles; therefore, you'd have thought he'd have been sceptical about Brown Sauce having another crack at the charts after "I Wanna Be A Winner" got into the Top Forty.  Perhaps he was, and perhaps it's for that reason that he fails to appear in the video or the credits for this particular effort - but nonetheless, Saturday morning Swap Shop regulars Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin feature, and his old chum BA Robertson is back on songwriting duties again. In all other respects, this is business as usual.

Unsurprisingly, this single completely failed to chart.  More interestingly, perhaps, it's actually quite good, even better than its predecessor.  Whereas "I Wanna Be A Winner" was essentially a silly, off-the-cuff joke created for the "Swap Shop" TV show which was only released as a single to cater for public demand, "Spring Has Sprung" is actually a reasonably classy piece of early eighties synth-pop, complete with hushed vocals, atmospheric fills and a similar demanding, stomping chorus.  You can tell that a lot more thought has been put into this - obviously, Philbin's hushed monologue about starched clothes and Chegwin's wittering about vests does threaten to push the whole thing into the realms of parody, but had this been issued by a serious pop act such as Dollar, it might have been a minor hit.  This does actually sound as if Robertson was taking the prospect of the celebrity couple Chegwin and Philbin having further hits seriously and had decided to push the concept as hard as he could.  The video for this single even features Philbin pouting moodily whilst dressed in new wave garb, looking like some kind of proto-Donna-out-of-Elastica.  

The B-side, to my amazement, is also a proper song rather than an off-the-cuff instrumental.  "Major Breakthrough" is a strident piece of marching New Wave which involves Chegwin pleading with Philbin's (presumably fictional) army father for his daughter's hand, whilst Philbin coos "Ooh Daddy, ooh Daddy dear!" girlishly in the background.  This has just the right level of bizarre, angular tweeness to bear vague resemblances to a nineties Teen C B-side.

Ten Years of Left & To The Back - Things That Make You Go "Hmmm"

Over the last ten years this blog has covered songs which, while not awful, have certainly been unusual and unexpected. Perhaps they've featured a celebrity from children's television apparently singing about masturbation, or the singer of the "Rupert The Bear" theme going on about the wonders of the space age in a pie-eyed manner for ICI Pharmaceuticals, or a sixties garage band screaming their tribute to a particular brand of socks...

Here's six entries which, for one reason or another, took me aback when I first found them.

1. Mick Robertson - Then I Change Hands (CBS)

"Magpie" presenter Mick Robertson was something of a poster-boy for British children's television in the seventies, and it was solely as a result of this - and certainly not, by anyone's confession, his vocal talents - that CBS Executive Clive Selwood signed him to his independent production company to immortalise his essence on wax.

Unfortunately for Robertson, various other executives at the record label weren't enthused about the project, and didn't put their all into the marketing and promotion of his singles. Their enthusiasm might perhaps have been more notable if "Then I Change Hands" didn't appear, on the surface at least, to be a ditty about compulsive masturbation. It's actually a creepy and compelling listen, which sounds more like a nineties effort by The Auteurs or Baby Bird than a 1975 single made by a "TV dreamboat". The arrangement, managed by production genius Richard Hewson, is also extremely well done. But a hit single? While the early seventies had a greater than usual tolerance for interesting art rock ideas, this didn't stand a hope. Not until Pulp's "This Is Hardcore" was put out as a single in 1998 did such a rich arrangement accompanying such an uneasy idea bother the mainstream again.

2. Lemon Men - I've Seen You Cut Lemons (Polydor)

"I've seen you burn children... and leave them to diiiieee..." Right you are then, mate.

All is not really as it appears with this single, and its morbid and uneasy atmosphere probably only makes sense within its intended environment. The Sean Connery directed play of the same name - about a man who lived with his unstable bi-polar sister - was playing at a London theatre at this time, and the tune was released in conjunction with its launch.

Connery's influence really couldn't make the play a hit, though, and it closed after five nights, meaning this single was irrelevant and severed of all context within days of its release. Its sole purpose since seems to have been to confuse record collectors like me who have unexpectedly found a single about someone's unstable sister scalding children nestling in the remainder racks.

3. Carpetbaggers - Sorry (Page One)

The Allied Carpets jingle "Allied for carpets for you!" burst its way out of many a television in the seventies and eighties, its instantly recognisable cheeriness helping to make the carpet retail outlet a huge success.

By 1982 Larry Page seemed to think that it might be a good idea to create a hit single around the jingle, and for reasons known only to themselves, a group of session men bashed out a version that sounded as if it had been covered by Sparks. If you've ever envisaged the Mael brothers stalking around carpet warehouses on industrial estates pulling faces at the browsing customers, this single is probably for you. Apparently that wasn't a huge demographic in 1982, though, and it completely flopped.

4. Don Crown - Budgerigar Man (Orange)

"Budgerigars they are my friends!/ You may laugh but they understand me" Don Crown informs us at the start of this single, and as openers go, it's tricky to top that one. Absurd and self-aware all at once (he seems to understand immediately that the first line is going to meet with mockery, so references everyone's pshawing with the second) he's already got us by the short and curlies. The rest of the song is a bit psychedelic as well as slightly Disneyfied and Bob Dylanised all at once, making for a unique and yet actually surprisingly enjoyable brew.

Until he recently retired, Don Crown was Britain's premier budgie busker, working with his birds at sites across England (and, in particular, London). An eccentric and fascinating man, he arguably deserved more fame than he got, but his act was possibly rather too niche for mainstream consumption.

5. The Saucers (aka Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin) - Spring Has Sprung (BBC)  

Strange though it may sound to 2018 readers, Cheggers and Maggie were no strangers to the charts, having had a hit (with Noel Edmonds on gurning duties) with "I Wanna Be A Winner" in 1981.

"Spring Has Sprung" attempted to capitalise on that early promise, and BA Robertson penned this song for them which - amazingly - is actually quite good. Filled with catchy synthetic twittering noises, a nagging chorus, and Maggie Philbin sounding rather seductive, it sounds like a slightly less elaborately produced Dollar record and was a very unfortunate flop indeed. Had it charted, who knows where their pop career might have gone next?

6. Dora Hall In General (Various Vanity Labels)

I'd like to think of Dora Hall as being the Queen of "Left and to the Back". Married to a millionaire disposable picnicware mogul in the USA, he threw an astonishing amount of money into her dreams of superstardom, issuing giveaway records and (later on) videos. No money was spared on the production and arrangements, which usually featured musicians as notable as the Wrecking Crew. As a middle-aged woman her moment for popular music stardom had obviously passed, but hundreds of discs were issued regardless.

While Dora Hall's voice isn't something of incredible strength, the records are often better than you'd expect, and some are actually pretty damn good. In particular, "Pretty Boy" and her cover of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" - both featured on the blog - are fascinating. It's only when you see video footage of Hall hobnobbing with stars like Frank Sinatra Jr on her own paid-for cable TV special that the cringeworthy elements of the exercise start to kick in - but even then, there's not an absence of fun.

Before the internet or vloggers were even 'a thing', Dora Hall barged her way on to people's screens and record players on her own terms and seemed to have a whale of a time doing so.

The Saucers - Spring Has Sprung/ Major Breakthrough

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1982

The curious thing about fluke novelty hits is that the lucky performers seldom accept their fate as flash-in-the-pan artists.  Instead, they have a tendency to try to milk their already limited template dry - hence Lieutenant Pigeon spent years releasing (actually quite entertaining) singles with honky-tonk pianos that nobody really bought, The Firm's attempted follow-up to "Star Trekkin'" entitled "Superheroes" was just more squeaky sci-fi/ fantasy stupidity which didn't get played enough to even annoy anyone, and the less said about Edelweiss' attempts to go for a second gold the better.  

Noel Edmonds had spent years hosting "Top of the Pops" and watching the limited fortunes of actors and TV presenters attempting spin-off novelty singles, so you'd have thought he'd have been sceptical about Brown Sauce having another crack at the charts after "I Wanna Be A Winner" got into the Top Forty.  Perhaps he was, and perhaps it's for that reason that he fails to appear in the video or the credits for this particular effort - but nonetheless, Saturday morning Swap Shop regulars Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin feature, and his old chum BA Robertson is back on songwriting duties again. In all other respects, this is business as usual.

Unsurprisingly, this single completely failed to chart.  More interestingly, perhaps, it's actually quite good, even better than its predecessor.  Whereas "I Wanna Be A Winner" was essentially a silly, off-the-cuff joke created for the "Swap Shop" TV show which was only released as a single to cater for public demand, "Spring Has Sprung" is actually a reasonably classy piece of early eighties synth-pop, complete with hushed vocals, atmospheric fills and a similar demanding, stomping chorus.  You can tell that a lot more thought has been put into this - obviously, Philbin's semi-erotic monologue and peculiar mid-Atlantic vocals do threaten to push the whole thing into the realms of parody, but had this been issued by a serious pop act such as Dollar, it might have been a minor hit.  This does actually sound as if Robertson was taking the prospect of the celebrity couple Chegwin and Philbin having further hits seriously and had decided to push the concept as hard as he could.  The video for this single recently emerged online and even features Philbin pouting moodily whilst dressed in new wave garb, looking like some kind of proto-Donna-out-of-Elastica.  

The B-side, to my amazement, is also a proper song rather than an off-the-cuff instrumental.  "Major Breakthrough" is a strident piece of marching rock which involves Chegwin pleading with Philbin's (presumably fictional) army father for his daughter's hand, whilst Philbin coos "Ooh Daddy, ooh Daddy dear!" girlishly in the background.  This has just the right level of bizarre, angular tweeness to 

bear vague resemblances to a Bis B-side, a fair fourteen years before that bunch saw the light of day.

Still, let's not go overboard.  Both sides of this are ultimately disposable and inessential in the grand old game of pop, but the fact that they provide any pleasure at all is still a shock to the system.  I'm actually quite glad they did attempt this single, even if BBC Records and Tapes are probably sorry they bothered to spend any money pressing these up.

One Hit Wonders #5 - Brown Sauce - I Wanna Be A Winner

Label: BBC

Year of Release: 1981

Noel Edmonds... so much to answer for.  Readers outside the UK may not be familiar with Noel, and for the benefit of those folks I have to reveal that he was (and arguably still is) the cuddly bearded Uncle of the airwaves*, dominating the popular culture of the seventies and eighties in particular, and even most of the nineties until he decided to get "dangerous", "dark" and "edgy" on our asses.  And he did, too - the last series of the Saturday early evening extravaganza "Noel's House Party" saw him tormenting small children with fake 'aliens', losing his patience with surprised members of the public, and generally wheezing his airy laugh all over the place in a demonic fashion.  That was my favourite series, incidentally, but everyone else had tuned out by then.

Way, way before all that, however, he presented a morning show called "Swap Shop" where children would phone up and attempt to swap their unwanted gifts with other kids all over the UK.  In case this sounds too dull, the show was interspersed with celebrity banter, and interviews and japes from co-hosts Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin.  And that, really, is where this single comes in.  Written by Noel Edmonds and BA Robertson (of "Bang Bang" and "I Knocked it Off" fame) it is actually a passable ditty sung by Keith and Maggie, and not dissimilar in its stylings to Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz who were extremely popular at the time.  Featuring some of the worst rhymes to grace a pop song ever ("Don't want to rule like President Reagan/ or kick a ball like Kevin Keegan" they blurt hopefully) and some of the most joyful, sugary riffs, it really shouldn't be treated as a serious product.  Indeed, it was originally supposed to have been a one-off song on the programme, but public demand lead to its release on BBC Records.  Listen once and you'll find an earworming little pop song, twice and the appeal will begin to wane, then three times and you'll be sick to death of the simplicity of it.  You can't help but wonder if BA "Kool in the Kaftan" Robertson would have added a few more twists, turns and melodic diversions to the disc if he'd known it would actually become a single.  

Whilst a few extra frills might have given the single Top Five status, public demand still took it to a creditable number 15 on the charts in January 1982, but that was the best it could hope for, and a follow-up single credited to The Saucers (also penned by BA Robertson) barely registered in the public's consciousness.  Keith Chegwin went on to appear naked on evening television instead of Maggie Philbin as the Cosmic Ordering of all heterosexual male teenagers everywhere got terribly mixed up, Maggie Philbin herself did (and still does) numerous pieces of television presentation work, and Noel, of course, presents the ridiculously popular "Deal or No Deal" quiz show.  But you'd have to be from Planet Zog not to have noticed that.

As for BA Robertson, his solo career had stalled by 1981, but he eventually co-wrote "The Living Years" - not with Noel Edmonds this time, but Mike Rutherford out of Genesis for his Mike and the Mechanics project.  Beyond the beards, one has to wonder whether Rutherford and Edmonds have much in common, although I find it hard to imagine Rutherford doing prank phone calls to all and sundry.  But you never know... perhaps Peter Gabriel dreads the phone ringing at some unearthly hour...

(*Footnote fact - Despite his cuddly Uncle image, Edmonds has made it known in interviews that he's a tough person to work for.  Read into that what you will.)

Download it Here

And watch it below.