Ten Years of Left & To The Back - "Where Do You Get This SHIT FROM?!"

Hello readers. We're continuing our journey of some of the most interesting moments on "Left and to the Back" over the last ten years. What? Did I hear someone at the back mutter "self-indulgent"? Of course it is. I don't get paid for this, you know.

The title of this blog entry is borrowed from one of my wife's catchphrases. She tends to shout these words out when she walks into a room while I'm playing a record featuring a falsetto singing German clown, or a fictional Finnish death metal band, or a cheesy disco cover of a Beatles classic. The delivery of the line tends to change depending on the nature of the song. Sometimes it's shocked, sometimes despairing, sometimes downright angry (in these cases, it will be followed up with the line "Just... just take it off, for Christ's sake").

While the "World's Worst Records" blog should always be your prime go-to source for howlingly terrible discs, I'd like to think I've done a little bit to spread some misery into the world too. It's been a constant source of fascination to me over the years how much absolute shite executives at record labels have signed off as suitable for the public at large. Indeed, some of this stuff possibly shouldn't even have been thought up, never mind recorded, which brings us neatly on to our first single.

1. Pierre Cour - Letter To A Teenage Bride (Charisma)

Words almost fail me. On the surface, this appears to be a single about the rough marital rape of a reluctant teenage bride pining for her parents, with the monologue delivered by someone who sounds like Kenny Everett's character Marcel Wave. Well, I say "on the surface"... if you think further listens reveal hidden artistic depths, subtle satire or perhaps a joke lost in cultural translation, you'd be mistaken.

I'd never heard this single in my life before I played it on my stereo, and after the first listen I stayed rooted to the spot in a state of shock for about thirty seconds wondering if I'd really heard correctly. It's as if Pierre Cour heard Peter Wyngarde's "Rape" and felt the track was far too subtle for its own good, and needed a decent narrative and some extra layers of vulgarity to really hit home.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, female staff at Charisma Records refused to handle the publicity or marketing for this one, and it didn't get a proper release as a result. If you don't want to listen to it, I frankly wouldn't blame you.

2. Derek Jameson - Do They Mean Us? (Polydor)

With its sleeve apparently depicting a dishevelled and seemingly drunken Jameson masturbating outside Number 10 Downing Street, you'd expect some sort of political message from this record, however basic and coarse. You'd be disappointed, though, as "Do They Mean Us?" just features Jameson ranting and rambling indecipherably across three minutes while occasionally demanding "Show us yer British bottle!"

As I said at the time: "It's like being drunk and tired in the back of a black cab, dozing off while the cab driver shouts his various grievances to you, then waking up again only to find that you've lost the thread of whatever the fuck he was talking about in the first place, and he's moved on to something else... then repeat to fade."

The B-side "Yes Virginia There Is A Santa Claus" shows Jameson's sensitive side and at least makes some coherent sense, but is no less odd, not least because by the time it finishes his quivering, emotional tones force you to suspect that he really does think Father Christmas is real. What a strange man he was.

3. Grahame Lister - Fish 'n' Chips In Spain (Bark)

Conceptually, there's nothing all that wrong with "Fish 'n' Chips In Spain". It's just a harmless novelty record about a fun holiday abroad, filled with daft quips ("Si Si señorita Monty Pyfon is me bruvva-in-law") and a bit of a line-dancing groove.

For some reason, though, I've found it particularly potent in its ability to irritate, not only due to its naff jokes and nudge-nudge-wink-wink-say-no-more atmosphere, but also the bar-room musical arrangement (just wait to hear that "b-dum bum bum" bass guitar solo as the song reaches its crescendo). Lister had been involved with The Firm's "Star Trekkin" so you could argue he was no stranger to irritating records, but this doesn't so much take the biscuit as push an entire family pack of Party Circles down your throat all at once without taking off the outer wrapper. Rumour has it that Lister presently works for Putin and is successfully composing songs so teeth-grittingly annoying that they cause the heads of Russia's enemies to explode.

4. Buster Gobsmack Eats Filth - We Wanna Be Famous (BBC)

For some reason, the studio audience of "That's Life" found punks hysterically funny in the late eighties, hooting with laughter whenever one of Esther Rantzen's smiling stooges vox-popped them in the street. In fact, by 1987 the only time you seemed to see non-celebrity punks on mainstream television would be when Adrian Mills asked one of them to yodel outside their local Woolworths, which caused one spiky young man to tell him to piss off and stop being so silly. ("Good, I'm glad somebody's actually told him" - my Mum).

Perhaps mindful of this, Mills and his cohort Grant Baynham recorded this point-missing monstrosity for an episode, which doesn't really sound like a parody of a punk single so much as two drunken tramps bashing around on some random instruments they've found while shouting about Terry Wogan and Sue Lawley. It does feature the inspired but faintly inexplicable line "We're gonna spit at the camera-man!", though, which is its sole saving grace. Otherwise, one of the most diabolical records I've ever heard, and the fact that it achieves that status partly by design doesn't excuse it.

5. Jimmy Cross - I Want My Baby Back (Wanted)

No real surprises here. "I Want My Baby Back" won Kenny Everett's World's Worst Records programme in the seventies, and it hasn't aged well either. However, in my opinion the four records above it are worse, proving that the more time passes, the more dross miraculously escapes from record company headquarters.

"I Want My Baby Back" is about the tragic death of a young man's girlfriend in a vehicle crash, and takes the death disc concept to a whole new level with its ghastly punchline. Like "We Wanna Be Famous", this single clearly wants to be disliked for humorous effect, but what's seldom mentioned is how much of a one-play wonder it is. Once the joke is revealed, there's nothing here to really make you want to play it again. It's a slightly trite, bad taste comedy sketch committed to vinyl, the sixties equivalent of an attention seeking sicko YouTube video.

6. Nadine Expert - I Wanna Be A Rollin' Stone (CBS)

If your wish is to hear an ex-associate of Bill Wyman's seductively yelping and purring her way through a disco medley of Rolling Stones songs (including an absurdly joyous rendition of "Paint It Black") while struggling to hit any of the right notes, then everything you could possibly want is here. The sleeve of this single is arguably the most tasteful thing about it.

Derek Jameson - Do They Mean Us?/ Yes Virginia There Is A Santa Claus

Label: Polydor
Year of Release: 1986

I'm really not a morning person. If you're going to try to start a conversation with me in the morning, especially before caffeine, it's best to keep it a bit light, humorous and convivial. Don't bark orders at me. Don't get on a soapbox about something in the newspaper. Don't be loud. It's DAWN outside, goddamn you, we're not in a nightclub at two in the morning. I feel delicate.

Perhaps given that this is my general temperament - always has been, probably always will be - it's probably no surprise to you all to learn that Derek "You've Got To Get Up Early In The Morning To Catch Me Out, Mate" Jameson is officially my least favourite breakfast show host ever. His stint on BBC Radio 2 ruined so many school mornings, from his grizzled bark of "MAWNIN'! JAMESON 'ERE!" onwards, that I suspect he may have buggered up some of my education.  Here was a man who could discuss a news item, snarl "I THINK WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, DON'T YOU!" with an exclamation mark on the end rather than a question mark (he was big on demands, low on questions, was our Jameson) then plonk some soothing Frank Sinatra on the stereogram. It was almost frightening as the show careered from one extreme to the other.

Whatever I felt, and I surely couldn't be alone, Jameson was a late eighties broadcasting behemoth, and a man who seemed to succeed at everything he set his mind to. From having TV series of his own, to guest-hosting Wogan, to being given the country's most prestigious Radio Two slot, he really commanded the airwaves during that strange period.

Jameson's life had actually been absurdly eventful even up to that point, with his very humble beginnings in a children's home, and some time spent begging on the streets, eventually leading to trainee reporter work at Reuters and then a slow climb up the career ladder in Fleet Street. He documented all these details in a book entitled "Touched By Angels", so titled to reflect his beliefs that Guardian Angels watched over him at all times. You can even see an advert for the Sun's serialisation of the tome over on YouTube.

Jameson held numerous impressive editorial positions, including editor-in-chief at The Daily Star at the point of its launch, which he allegedly promised would be "Tits, bums, QPR and roll your own fags" (which sounds like a line from an Earl Brutus single). However, he wasn't always completely blessed. A large amount of rot set in when BBC Radio 4's "Week Ending" comedy programme cracked the gag that Jameson was so ignorant "he thought erudite was a type of glue", and Jameson promptly decided to sue. He lost the case, and most of his own personal fortune, when the jury decided this was fair comment. Naturally, more people have since retold this joke than ever heard it on its original Radio 4 broadcast, so not only did he effectively burn an enormous stack of money on a pointless court case, he also spread the insult further and wider than ever before. Rupert Murdoch also removed him as editor of News of The World in 1984 after a disagreement about a newspaper article. A career at the BBC, ironically the very institution which wronged him in the first place (in his eyes, at least) was presumably one way of making some money back quickly.

But what has any of this got to do with "Do They Mean Us?" Good question, and no doubt Jameson, if he were still alive, would be rapping me around the knuckles with a ruler and asking me to make that point a few paragraphs higher ("AND CUT OUT ALL THE GUFF ABOUT ERUDITE!"). Well, in truth, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever why this single needed to be released unless it was a desperate bid to top up his post-court case bank balance. An odd spin-off single from his BBC series set to a jaunty music hall melody, it's a truly ridiculous piece of vinyl, featuring Jameson's cackling ramblings about a cornucopia of disjointed "issues", ranging from the state of the Labour Party to the EEC. "SHOW US YOUR BRITISH BOTTLE!" he barks in every chorus. It's like being drunk and tired in the back of a black cab, dozing off while the cab driver shouts his various grievances to you, then waking up again only to find that you've lost the thread of whatever the fuck he was talking about in the first place, and he's moved on to something else... then repeat to fade.

More disturbing still is the B-side, which was once played by Chris Morris on Radio One purely to bemuse the nation. Jameson's reading of the age-old chestnut "Yes Virginia There Is A Santa Claus" (we've covered Neil Spence's version elsewhere on this blog) is soft and woolly and reveals his sensitive side, and is a little like sitting on Uncle Del's knee and being told a story when he's slightly sozzled after the Queen's speech. "Uncle Derek, why are you crying? And why is there onion and sage stuffing secreted in your shirt pocket?" you would probably ask him.

Once Jameson's radio career came to an end, he settled down in Brighton and led a rather more sedate life, penning weekly columns for the Brighton Argus. In one of these, he hinted that should such a position ever be created for the town, he might like to become a directly elected mayor. "I'd sort the police out. No excuses from officials! No statistics! No saying we can't do it, there's not enough money! I'd say, 'Just get on with it, mate!' Yes, I think I'd like to be mayor!" was the general gist of the piece. Say whatever else you want, but you could never describe him as being anything less than fascinating and possibly a tiny bit ahead of his time. 2016 would have loved him, and he probably would have become mayor of somewhere, though probably not Brighton.