TOTP 26/5/77 (tx 14/6/12): Japan to France via Cornwell

I really hope BBC Four have some sort of strategy for this run, we're a good few weeks behind now with only two wiped shows for the remainder of the year and The Sky At Night remaining in that monthly slot, with that double from last month seemingly a one-off.

DLT, sitting behind a drumkit, introduces with his usual verve a chart remarkable for the breadth of its many new entries. There's the Muppets, who'll we'll see on the show soon enough, and the Ramones, who we won't, plus...



They're no oil paintings, haw haw haw. One can only assume their handlers decided actually seeing a photo yet would be somehow transgressive. They could have at least paid more attention to their big printout of the chart. They wouldn't even appear on the show until Jeffrey Daniel walked against the wind five years later (that's coming up very soon on On This TOTP Day, for what it's worth)



We'll come back to what this was, but the focus has not been tampered with in any way. Is that Emlyn Hughes and Kevin Keegan bottom left? It's hard to tell. Clearly what Liverpool had in prestige and silverware they lacked in photographic ability and string. Nice wallpaper.



Rule Lenska, more successful in her acting career than her sisters Eraser and Protractor. This of course is Little Ladies of ITV's, and presumably thus BBC LE verboten, Rock Follies Of '77, with OK, featured on the show literally the week before release. Then half the series got delayed til November due to industrial action, so that was that nipped in the bud. Bob Stanley tells us he bought this very 7" last week for 25p. The B-side is called B-Side.


Blue – I'm Gonna Capture Your Heart
You again. Not often a song gets to open the show twice, much less that it's one with as undynamic an opening as this. This time the piano is so far forward on the stage someone could easily pull at it and bring the whole thing crashing to the floor, though note that would be quite dangerous and all told I'm glad they don't. Already before we're seconds in modernity is making a mockery of studio soft rock, as someone self-consciously jigs about at three times the speed of the song before sharing a laugh with his friend right in front of camera. The bassist is pulling rock poses, the drummer looks like a lost member of Gabriel-era Genesis and Hugh Nicholson begins giggling two thirds of the way through at apparently nothing but a very private joke with the bassist.

Olivia Newton-John – Sam
Grease being a year (to this week, in fact) away, it's easy to forget how long before then Neutron-Bomb had spent performing doe-eyed ballads while seated, in this case on some steps left over outside the prop cupboard from Deneice Williams' visit. DLT, flanked by two girls wearing T-shirt bearing the legend 'DESERT', calls it "lovely" and the orchestra seem on safeish ground with a country lament, but it's been a rather crowded field for this sort of thing of late.

Piero Umiliani – Mah Na Mah Na
Those who've been fearing how DLT might introduce this, luckily he restrained himself to inviting a call and response. Again, have to ask whether Sue was choreographed individually or just told to do whatever the suit allowed in the overlaid single shots.

Frankie Miller's Full House – Be Good To Yourself
"Sensational number", no less. Well, clearly the work of people au fait with the Faces, as much with their positioning and stance as their rollicking rock'n'roll strut. Clearly over time the audience has learnt, as by now when the camera charges through the middle of them towards the stage they get out of the way sharpish. "Was that fantastic or was that fantastic?" DLT enthuses.

Kenny Rogers – Lucille
"Stop pushing! I get nervous, I tell yer!" warns DLT before referring to this not by name but as being "one of my favourites at the moment". After the reception he gave the last one? Seems like damning with faint praise even more. Same video as last time.

Liverpool Express – Dreamin'
"It's going right up there" DLT confidently predicts, and sure enough it stalled at 40. This would be the last we'd see of the 76-77 hardy perennials with the mid-tempo locked down, all with their Richard Beckinsale hair. In what may constitute an attempt at forging an image Billy Kinsley, looking more and more like an exact scientific cross between Eric Idle and Jasper Carrott, has a very thin and ragged looking scarf on, while the guitarist has brought his motorbike jacket and the keyboard player has gone for the white suit jacket and Dave Hill hair combination. None of this makes it sound less country-Rubettes-could-have-this-any-day like. There's a fading away fish-eye lens shot to end, and then DLT wanders onstage. "Just one thing, I want to apologise for the fact Manchester United whacked your team on Saturday" he offers, in reference to the FA Cup final. Then the band make to beat him up. This they do by having one of them growl and two grab lightly hold of his arms.

Bryan Ferry – Tokyo Joe
Legs & Co, under some Chinese lampshades - well, close enough geographically - struggle here only because the lighting is only on the back of the stage so they spend almost all the routine in elusive shadow. Because this is the era of Mind Your Language everyone (bar an absent Lulu) is in too short kimonos with at least one set of permanently visible knickers, doing a bit of bowing and a lot of that shuffling-with-hands-clasped thing, and everyone has their hair in buns or side ponytails. In fact pretty much the entire routine is based around the prayer gesture, with few exceptions including a wide swinging running motif on which one member is noticeably leading with a different arm to her colleagues. "That was not Legs & Co, that was Legs Ah So" remarks DLT, laughing at his own joke. At least he didn't do the slitty eyes.

The Stranglers – Go Buddy Go
"Watch out for this lot coming in the charts next week" DLT says with some confidence in front of a man wearing a fez, before growling something like "they are supremmmmmme!" like that means anything to anyone, most of all himself. So, more of this new music called New Wave. Or something. Taking the glam band adage of three out of work bricklayers and their hard looking mate and pushing it into new frontiers, Hugh Cornwell and Jean-Jacques Burnel are, frankly, having a bit of a lark. Cornwell is playing his riffs on Burnel's bass, while Burnel 'plays' attack rhythm on a guitar sans strings. Burnel, wearing a T-shirt with the Triumph motorbikes logo in the Ford style, is leaning forward like he wants to chin someone, anyone, but as we've seen on this show on pre-punk occasion it's more straightforward rock'n'roll than anything too far ahead, especially when the overjaunty pub piano solo kicks in. The audience are, as last week, stunned into silence. One man looks directly at the camera, glances back as if in late realisation, then decides that's enough of that and resumes looking back. The two people right at the front between the lead two are having a conversation during Cornwell's vocal part. Burnel just gives up pretending long before the end, which clearly comes long after he'd anticipated, ending up gathering up his guitar cord.

Marie Miriam – The Bird And The Child
"Something completely different, as they say in musical circles, for you now". No, DLT, that's Python you're thinking of. This was the French entrant that beat out Rock Bottom at Eurovision, presented here in a typically Eurovision Second Language translation which in its open line refers to its singer as "a child of creation" as opposed to a couple of lines later "a bird flying in motion", presumably as opposed to flying by osmosis. Miriam, decked out in varying shades of brown, including a scarf with a massive knot, can only try in getting it across, helped by the orchestra having a whale of a time building up the brass fanfares and getting a big showbiz finish, much as the Ladybirds try to take over the thing. Miriam then just neglects to sing the last bit, standing back and admiring a relatively lively crowd. "Ooh la la!" says DLT, of course.

Electric Light Orchestra – Telephone Line
"That famous Yorkshire group", with comedy pronunciation, are on video, all second hand half washed out colours, slightly dry iced string section and meaningful close-ups.

Brendon – Rock Me
"And now we have a few words from our sponsor... he's been eating at the BBC canteen!"



I'm not even going to try. It looks slightly blurred because DLT is bouncing both and his croak-emitting friend up and down in time to the intro. Surely this is what friend WeddingSuit, this time all in white, meant by "an unexpected intro"; presumably it isn't Brendon and band leading the the audience in a clapalong to begin this Abba B-side cover, as he did that last time to similar acclaim, and almost throughout hands clapping, unclear whether superimposed or reflection, appear in silhouette on the big round set design screen next to the stage. See, punks, look and learn. Looks like Brendon's got the same denim shirt on too. See, Liverpool Express, that's how you go about building a lasting image. (Not that it worked, this is his last appearance on the show too, but nevertheless) That all said, despite visuals this clearly isn't a three guitar song, though by the second verse one of them, in a Rubettes cap, seems to be 'playing' the brass section instead. "A bit of fun music" is the best DLT can come up with.

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
And back to Rod's guitar soloing gluteus maximus. For once the last link and credits song are really quite interesting, as is DLT's body language: "We must add from all the team here on Top Of The Pops our congratulations to Liverpool (thumb up) for winning the (screws face up) European Cup (makes funny circular hand gesture) final!" That final was played on Wednesday night, so during the recording of this show. One assumes two endings were recorded, one with a straightforward goodnight message followed by Good Morning Judge. What we get instead is We Can Do It, Liverpool's Cup final song, a lyrical rewrite of a Rubettes song ("do you remember '65, we really had the place alive!") to charging glam riffs. Now that's who should have been performing in the studio next week. (Apart from that the single immediately started dropping down the chart, but you know what I mean)

TOTP 13/1/77 (tx 19/1/12): it gets better

And we're properly off as we mean to... no, not go on, David Hamilton's presenting presence isn't indicative of a go-ahead attitude in and of itself. The first new chart of the new year reveals a whole host of new photos, including Donna Summer in a furry hood, all of Status Quo except the drummer looking off to the left of camera, a snapshot of a Cortina going through a suburban car wash for Rose Royce - that may not even have been a file photo - and most notably John Christie, because a) it means enough people liked Here's To Love to send it chartwards and b) he's wearing a T-shirt with a golliwog on. We've seen a golly before on the reruns, there was one on Marmalade's bass drum skin, but even given the unfortunate associations since those days it's a curious thing for an earnest singer-songwriter to be donning in his big promo shot.


Gallagher & Lyle – Every Little Teardrop
As with Sheer Elegance last week, this would be the last we'd see of the duo of MOR punchiness, new brooms and all that. They weren't to know, which was why they splashed out on a two man brass section, one a saxophonist in a big hat and Hawaiian shirt of low advisedness who seems to be miming along to a trumpet part. The presence of an organ as well as Lyle (or Gallagher)'s electric keyboard means they can spread out right across the front of the stage, but all the bopping on the spot in the world can't make it sound like someone heard a Steely Dan record I can't quite place right now, probably one from 1977's future for all I know, and decided to recreate it in a toned down fashion. Diddy reckons it'll be "a big one for '77". It reached number 32.

Barry Biggs – Sideshow
Performing under a spotlit spider, Biggs has left the pink ruffled shirt at home this time in favour of a soberly coloured suit but he's still wandering awkwardly up and down a very small area of a big stage. At the end a big pan out crane shot gives us a glimpse, sequestered away in a corner behind some loosely held in place boards, of Johnny Pearson and a couple of his orchestra, for the first time in this whole repeat series. Union demand?

Rose Royce – Car Wash
"And the splendid chassis you see belong to Legs & Company!" So put Diddy down as one who uses the full name. We start with Sue and Lulu Gill in Smith & Jones head to head fashion, albeit they never wore caps, stuck their tongues out at each other (ad lib?) or were generally female. The pan out reveals they've blown the month's design budget on an illuminated 'CAR WASH' sign, some arrows on the floor and four rotating brushes, while the girls are outfitted in small fringed ponchos, leotards and knee socks-cum-woollen legwarmers. Give or take a tiny skirt or six, this is pretty much what you imagine Legs & Co wore every week if you didn't have direct documentary evidence. The ensemble is, helpfully for people like me who get confused, topped off by a hat with each dancer's forename on. It's a quick way of garnering individual personality, I suppose. The routine is the kind of ensemble piece Flick always did for disco, involving a lot of work in parallel lines, wandering in and out of the middle and general jumping back and forth before a spot of synchronised movement from the elbow upwards. "A bunch of cheeky girls" adds Diddy, both referring to the amount of gluteus maximus on display and accidentally opening a mind portal to a very different future form of female pop interjection. If only he'd known.

David Parton – Isn't She Lovely
"There's a very controversial record out at the moment - I don't know who started the controversy" says a man who must have somehow been aware that Anarchy In The UK had only the previous week been withdrawn by EMI and so on balance someone rush-covering Isn't She Lovely because Stevie Wonder wouldn't put it out as a single. Then again, we are talking about a middle aged man with a chicken in a basket cabaret circuit type walrus tache and largely pink striped jacket with clashing half-open shirt underneath whose facial expression as he sings suggests he's also in the middle of a bad bout of constipation, eyes closed and everything, though in this context that looks a trifle mocking. And he's not so much singing as shouting to a tune, not entirely capturing the subtlety and swing of Stevie's vocal style. Like Paul Nicholas, his idea of filling the break is to run round in a circle. He then blows a kiss to the audience, absolutely fails to get them to clap along with him and then picks out two unfortunate girls to kiss the hand of. At this stage he resembles a politician trying too hard to look populist at an overlit rally. By the end he's pointing at the camera.

Status Quo – Wild Side Of Life
Or "Wild Wild Side" as Diddy calls it. Same video clip as last time, Quo obviously being far too big for the show at this time. Unlike the 80s, when they became really successful and would pop in at the drop of a key change.

Liverpool Express – Every Man Must Have A Dream
Billy Kinsley, here bedecked in one of Slik's castoff US college jackets, was wearing the band's own T-shirt in their rundown shot. "There are quite a few new entries in the chart this week" commends Diddy, introducing a song we've already seen. Different performance, because all the festive touches wouldn't have made sense this far into January. The drumkit doesn't seem to have moved since Gallagher & Lyle set it up. Still, kit sharing makes it easier for visiting bands. Somehow the massive ending seems even more jolting against the rest of the tune this time.

Pussycat – Smile
Oh, they're back alright, for one last curtain call. It's much like the big hit, except less so. Everyone looks slightly more scary, we get better shots of the frontwoman's gap in the front teeth and there's lots of fringing on yellow dresses going on. Nowhere, however, is a gun used as a slide, and that's where their studio work falls down.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
Soul had a big 1977 and didn't come over for single promotion once. It's as if he had a big hit TV show to film or something. Lots of baleful looks to camera and overlaid shot fades going on, as well as a still photo of a man on a horse halfway through for no reason at all. Back in the studio the audience has formed a gangway in front of their beloved leader Diddy for the final link, although they're not so respectful that he doesn't have to admonish someone for pulling on his trouser leg. After he's made a very strange high pitched "woo!" noise waving us goodbye, I Wish under the credits gives Stevie a PRS double.


EDIT NEWS: Ah, an old friend. The video to Julie Covington's Don't Cry For Me Argentina was all that we lost, strange when there was a video we've already had on the show kept in the edit. We should see it again anyway, at Christmas if we don't contemporaneously.

(By the way, 1977 is the year on Pick Of The Pops this Saturday)

TOTP 23/12/76 (tx 19/12/11): the last Noel (except he does one of the Christmas shows)

As the first, and in fact only, of our pre-'76 Christmas surprises... Noel's Gas Disco II - This Time It's Warming Milk.

"Hellooo!" Noel jauntily begins, assuming a level of excitement unbecoming. He reminds us there's "just over a day to go", so BBC4 are keeping the timing in some sort of curious order. Steely Dan have crept into the top 30 with Haitian Divorce and are duly noted by a photo that makes them look exactly like the sort of studio workmen they are. We note from the Kursaal Flyers picture that the bloke in the Panama seemingly always wears it - and the guitarist's garland, actually, and the singer seems to have a very rectangular, short at the base and top head. Then David Soul appears at 11 and we spy 1977 hovering in the distance. Speaking of which, Anarchy In The UK was at 38. It didn't get any further as EMI dropped them in the first week of January and withdrew all stock.

Thin Lizzy - Don't Believe A Word
Ah, vintage Lizzy, that'll see us through with their Marshall stacks and the director's fades into green-tinged CSO effects. Phil's rocking the less vintage pink neckerchief/open shirt combination. It's a very studious performance bar Scott Gorham's long haired grinning charm, Brian Robertson refusing to make any sort of rock solo faces which might be why it passes without a single proper shot of his guitar. Couldn't they fit a camera in down that side? That's just bad set design if so. Noel can be seen nodding along on a piano-bedecked stage off to one side as if he understands and afterwards warms up his celebrated powers of prediction; "just been having a shocking argument with those guys cos I think that'll get to number one and they don't think it will. I reckon that'll be about the second number one in January of '77". It peaked at 12. Can you imagine, though, the entertainment of seeing Noel Edmonds having a row with Thin Lizzy? Not least because Noel really didn't want to be getting into a shocking argument with them given Brian Robertson had weeks before broken the leg and collarbone of different men before suffering artery and nerve damage to his hand and being knocked unconscious, both by bottles, in a backstage brawl with another band. So surely he couldn't play if he was that badly off? but clearly that performance was filmed in the same session as Noel's links... I don't know.

Barry Biggs - Sideshow
Not the same as the Chanter Sisters' Sideshow, let's say that first off, but a loping reggae cover of Blue Magic's US hit by Biggs, who for his big showcase has chosen an all pink version of the sort of ruffed outfit being exhibited over on ITV's The Comedians, albeit they'd have other reference points for all pink suits. Must be said, while the organ solo isn't exactly Ansell Collins the orchestra give reggae a better going than they gave Althea & Donna just over a year later, but Biggs without the record's production effects is just a large man with a receding afro and huge bow tie pacing back and forth singing in awkward falsetto. Halfway through, as it's Christmas, the director lets the cameraman plough right through the thick of the audience just like he used to, mowing at least six people down on his way. "Congratulations to Barry" Noel says afterwards for no good reason. It's his job to sing like that.

Status Quo - Wild Side Of Life
A video of very much standard three chord blues rock Quo, even if they don't get down to synchronised guitar neck action at any stage, although there is face to face playing-off and Alan Lancaster sporting the sort of shaggy perm that must have made him the envy of the nation's footballers. Huge, it is. Proper horsehair sofa atop.

John Christie - Here's To Love
Right at the end of the year Noel pulls out his greatest prediction yet. "If you get tipped for the stardom bit and you're called face of '77 or something, it can be a bit of a lumber, but I'm prepared to lumber this guy because he's come over from Australia, he's had a good '76 but '77 is going to be marvellous for John Christie." Now, I've been trying to work this out as he's not got a Wiki entry and as far as I can tell his most notable release is a 1974 album after he was discovered by Dave Clark (of the Five). He went on to sing and write for Clark's Time musical, and that's about the size of what Google throws up. As you can probably gather, this turned out to be his only UK chart hit, peaking at 24. All this folderol, however, is far from the story, as watching it might explain why he went no further, and give one in the eye to those who thought Elton's appearance a couple of shows back would see the end of chancers at the piano. Already comfortably in a Lidl Gilbert O'Sullivan groove, things start going wrong at the end of the first chorus when, in his white jacket over T-shirt and having already performed through a fixed grin, he sings the last line straight down the camera to his side before jerking his head back and pulling so self-satisfied a smirk, again directly at camera, that it becomes clear that he's not so much channelling Elton as Richard Stilgoe. Much more wobbling his head and entire upper body like his seat is covered in barbed wire and smirking at camera follows before from nowhere a chorus of Auld Lang Syne strikes up at the end of the bridge, which Christie starts miming along to and then gives up on. And just when he starts elongating his notes and you think it's finishing, a drum fill is followed by another round of Auld Lang Syne, an even creepier closed-mouth expression and... the entire audience wandering in in one line behind Christie in the crossed arm Hogmanay celebration singalong style, despite it being eight days ahead of proper time. Not many of them know how to do it or what they're doing. At this stage, especially when he breaks into falsetto over a ludicrously extended coda passage that merely suggests he couldn't think of how to climax the song without all the crashing cymbals, violins, falsetto notes and production weight he could find, you fear it may never end. Even then it fades out. God. Imagine being in the audience that week having to play along to this man's whims.

Stevie Wonder - I Wish
"What a strange thing over my left shoulder" says Noel, who's popped up among the throng only to be surprised by a light. He then manages to come up with another way of introducing Legs & Co without actually introducing Legs & Co. You know that whole thing about how some moments in pop mean as much in our current climate as they did then? "One of the most influential groups of individuals to come to this country. For the very first time, we present the men from the International Monetary Fund." No it isn't, it's Legs & Co in suits, another full covering after the Grandma's Party cameo which brings the mean average of body cover up after the Maid In Heaven skinfest. In which of Flick's fevered imaginings did she see old-school stereotypical City banker's suits - no umbrellas, mark you - as the best interpretation of prime Wonder, unless they were ordered in for a Money Money Money runthrough that was ditched when the video arrived? Actually, they begin with a Charlie Chaplin walk, which may have been the true intention, in which case it's even more inexplicable. Just to add a further layer of end of year madness, there's a screen behind them onto which is projected a seventh dancer, clearly masculine, strutting his own independent disco moves. He even gets a shadowy solo. What's that about? In fact... ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back to Top Of The Pops, albeit in reduced circumstances, your becostumed friend and mine Mr Floyd Pearce! You'll see him a few more times in 1977 and 1978 too.

Paul Nicholas - Grandma's Party
Noel seems to have got distracted by the title. "It'll be the usual thing, stale doughnuts and elderberry wine that tastes like cocoa". That famous Christmas foodstuff, doughnuts. Silver topper this time, plus cane and robe, but no extraneous dancers this time which makes him look a little lost. The cameraman runs over something/somebody before he's even started. That may explain his attempt to cover during the harmonica solo, which involves Nicholas walking out in front of his mike, turning 270 degrees anti-clockwise, then indulging in a few seconds of frantic running on the spot and leg waving before the time honoured pretending to have pulled a muscle gag. Noel suggests he rub himself down with a Radio Times, a classic old school BBC way of, um, quelling lustful thoughts. What does Edmonds think the song's about exactly? Oh, one other thing about this song. After referencing his previous hit - "the bells are ringing and the captain's here" - he suggests - "Mr Sax is swinging from the chandelier". Mr Sax? Would that be one of those who plays reggae like it used to be, and if so has Paul or anyone at the party checked he hasn't merely hung himself out of desperation at what Paul assumed his type to be?

Liverpool Express - Every Man Must Have A Dream
Again, so much airtime for a band nobody now remembers, even if Noel makes time to claim the song is "really growing on me so quickly it isn't true". At least they're costumed in the festive spirit with singer Billy Kinsley, seen at first in the middle of a kaleidoscopic image, in a huge woollen scarf and the pianist sporting a Santa outfit, suggesting he won the short straw draw backstage. Kinsley, it turns out, is wearing a baggy all-red outfit, which may well have been the best he could muster in a hurry. The guitarist is playing a twelve-string but only the top half. At the end out of nowhere arrives a crescendo drowning the thing in strings, timpani and a huge horn crescendo, which seems a little like the coward's way towards grandiosity when the rest of the song is built on so little. "Horribly overacted at the end but what a fabulous song" remarks Noel, which causes some background ruffling. Yeah, Noel, you show 'em!

Mike Oldfield - Portsmouth
No ribbons, gifts or parrot in the video. Instead some lithe young women do a Morris dance routine that's not that far from the meat of Legs & Co's, in Oldfield's huge studio as he sits impassively by playing bodhran. And acoustic guitar. And tambourine. And accordion. And kettle drums. Alright, Mike, you're a multi-instrumentalist, we get it. Look like you're having fun at least.

Johnny Mathis - When A Child Is Born
Deep in the heart of the plastic potted jungle Johnny, your Christmas number one hitmaker, gets out his director's chair, hums along with the music for what seems like minutes to start and eventually tells of how everyone will feel great upon the Second Coming. With meaning, too. The new number one is back luck for the girl at the end who's holding a Showaddywaddy album, who when we first see the final link is dancing with Noel to an undanceable song ("thank you for the dance" "That's OK!" No, of course she never seemed comfortable). The woman to Noel's other side holding a cracker is less lucky, but both of them fall victim to a hasty director when they start singing happy birthday to Noel, who would have been 28 (yes, really) the day before, and hence the day of recording. We don't even hear them get to the end of the first line. Instead it's Jethro Tull audio and a kaleidoscope pan shot of the lights, the old style credits sequence we've not seen for a while. Meanwhile John Christie is back in the dressing room imagining all the glory and wonders sure now to come his way in 1977.

1976 Christmas Day tomorrow!

TOTP 14/10/76 (tx 27/10/11): apocalypse Flipper

Should do open threads every week. But I won't.

What's with David Hamilton climaxing his intro about "number one sounds" with a heroic air punch? And anyway by Blackburn's lore they can't all be number one sounds.

Tavares – Don’t Take Away The Music
And we start with... a video. Would have been weird enough in the video age, here it just makes you wonder who pulled out too late to properly replace. Instead we get a video clip filmed in a right pea-souper of dry ice, Tavares' five members mere shadows in the mist from the opening angle. This despite the light refraction safety consciousness of wearing bolero jackets festooned with sequins. They can't quite decide whether their moves should be synchronised or not, leading to awkward moments where some are spinning and some ski-shuffling. They then approach the mikes a bar early and their shadows can't save them from awkwardness. With their afros those are some shadows too. The lead singer gets to hold his mike. That's how important he is. Diddy sticks his arm out at the end as if they were just across the studio, grin of gratification writ large.

Sherbet – Howzat
Or as Diddy and his starched collars pronounces it, How's Dat. It sounds like he's approximating an Australian accent, though of course it sounds more West Indian. Maybe he's channelling a concerned Pluto Shervington. This is a repeat from two weeks ago, which Diddy still animatedly clicks his fingers to before the beat has started.

Simon May – Summer Of My Life
Someone shouts something unintelligible over the applause, to which Diddy remarks "yes, more indeed". Didn't sound like anything that concise. According to David "it's always nice to welcome a newcomer to the top 30, especially when it's somebody who has written the song that they sing". REAL MUSIC. A pan out reveals Diddy is on a massive platform well above May's piano on the studio floor. It's little man syndrome. Spotting an audience very much in the shade and for the most part watching the monitor instead is more interesting than the Crossroads-originating song (which May's Wiki claims was "one of the best selling singles of the year", which I suppose is true if you count down far enough) which starts as a poor man's Gilbert O'Sullivan until a truck driver's gear change which turns him into a poor man's John Miles. The director has realised it needs spicing up so has wedged Lulu into a blue taffeta dress and got her to twirl round and fling her arms about a bit in overlay. Between times... well, you can see why May largely stayed off screen.

Wild Cherry – Play That Funky Music
Ah, time for Diddy's Tony Blackburn jibe. This time it's a crowbar in for the line "you've got the body of a 20 year old man". You know the rest, but it still gets huge laugh from techs and a decent one from the man who's just told it. So overwhelmed is he he forgets to namecheck the artist. So this is the final fling for Flick's dream of a mixed sex Top Of The Pops dance troupe (until Zoo, but not even their members remember them) and if you didn't know, which is likely given as expected we're given no hints, that Floyd and Philip's days were numbered the fact they're in casual gear and the girls are in nothing more than midriff/bra exposing shawls and dresses slit to constantly expose the stocking tops, and by the three second mark all three females have flashed their knickers at camera, might just give a hint. After an opening which invents vogueing a decade or so before it was ever necessary to do so there's some tight choreography going on on a massive stage. Go on, guess which member the first "play that funky music, white boy" is implicitly addressed to. Ah, you'll miss his boggle eyes to camera, admit it. As for the boys' only dual/solo moment they seem to be re-enacting, of all things, the Tiger Feet shoulder-lean back-other shoulder routine. Floyd does get a lengthy solo, his conditions for being in the mother goose costume presumably still being enacted right at the death. And off they sail into a forgotten status that will befall their unique presence in the show's storied history until a station the existence of which they surely could not have anticipated back then resurrects their entire oeuvre 35 years later. Wonder if they've deigned to watch themselves. "Some fabulous outfits there" Diddy approvingly nods, presumably not of the T-shirts. Or indeed Philip's jacket, which has something written on the back. From freeze frame I can make out 'WHEEL & BRAKE' and half a phone number. A fallback job already set up?

Liverpool Express – Hold Tight
"If you want more music on Top Of The Pops"... well, yeah, that's the idea. Kids must think Liverpool Express were one of the biggest bands of the era. On the set that some say looks like Blockbusters but I reckon looks more like giant Duplo bricks they've come as a slightly seconded Pilot. What the bassist has physically come as in a broad brimmed hat, wide lapelled black jacket with white lining over black shirt and big cream coloured bow tie one can only speculate. The person who's brought their Wolves scarf is keen, at least.

David Essex – Coming Home
"This is Bev and you can all see who Bev likes - who is it, Bev?" Diddy enquires of a girl in big glasses, Rubettes cap and, tellingly, Essex monographed pink scarf. "About to do his new tour" Essex's chirpy charm, aided by a large red with white spots handkerchief rakishly tumbling from his breast pocket and silver musical note brooch on the other lapel, has every effect in the book without resorting to effects thrown at it - fish eye, overlay, picture-in-picture (capturing David in the throes of elbow dancing) turning the lens round, unforgiving extreme close-up. Then at an appropriate moment the director finds a girl singing along to it. The producer threw a lot at the song too, incorporating both sleigh bells and two clarinet solos, both played right down the camera. If only TOTP76 was 3D retrofitted. (FAO BBC: never do this) The player is wearing shades and sports a tache too. Still the song feels like it lasts hours. David Essex and Simon May on the same show. Who'd have thought, so far down the line, there'd be a more direct connection.

J.A.L.N. Band – Disco Music (I Like It)
You'd think such shows would have standard audience waiting list procedure, but along with a bunch of early 30s women surrounding Diddy for his link, two of whom start it by indulging his desire for an arm in arm jig as if he'd been listening all along, are two sailors. What was it with sailors and these links? Had they been waiting around all week just in case? Did Jimmy invite them and they got the dates confused? One of them looks about eleven years old. As the disco funk drops the women get their dance back on while Diddy graduates to pretend clicking with both hands. The Brummies are really not bad at the fat grooves thing either but the attention is taken by their huge scarf-wearing singer's perpetual motion, running back and forth, sometimes on the spot, his bandmates that can move vainly attempting to do so in the style of a good soul revue. It's supposed to get across the restless energy of the genre. Instead it reminds the modern viewer (me, anyway) that Buster Bloodvessel also moves like that, though he was less keen on the jumping from left to right the singer has broken into by the end. Also worth noting is the saxophonist using a break to put in the least effort ever put into playing bongos.

Pussycat – Mississippi
"I'll see you on Radio 1 and Radio 2 tomorrow afternoon" - ah, those were the days - says Diddy before announcing the new number one, receiving a snatched kiss from a woman and reacting with the time honoured swoon and faux-faint. Where would you stage a video for a Dutch country band with harmony female vocals? Yeah, on a paddle steamer, thought so - 'Crazy-BOAT', in fact. To mix the visual metaphors even further cowboy hats and pretend guns are in evidence. The slide guitar player ends up using one of the latter's barrel in close-up. One of the men, presumably the drummer, basically spends the video sitting around looking distant. More interestingly, so far there's been two rundown pictures and two performances by Pussycat and they've had a different look in each. You'll never gain a lasting image that way.

TOTP 29/7/76 (tx 18/8/11): anything can happen in the next half hour (but it's doubtful)

We're getting well into the summer slowdown on the show now, best exemplified next week where in an original programme featuring twelve songs only four haven't been on the show before, and those are portrayed by a video, a Ruby Flipper routine and two exclusives, one of which didn't chart. Then it's a wiped show, then one with 11 performances of which five songs are new to the show, two of those being videos and one a Flipper. By the time we get to 26th August 1976 there's a complete clearout and it's all newly minted, and a really quite fascinating selection too. We'll get to that, I reckon, on 15th September 2011, but in the meantime there's some songs we're getting to know very well. Just the half hour in its original form this week, but even then more than half the records aren't new to the show.

David Hamilton's back in charge this week, in a T-shirt that shares a red hooped design with a cartoon swimming costume - white jeans too - and against quite some background noise. He has his own obsession to work through too, the Olympics giving him the opportunity to claim "some racing certainties", himself "for the high jump" and "plenty of discus". Except that doesn't work unless he's lapsed into pig latin. Is 'discus' meant to sound like 'discs'?

Thin Lizzy – Jailbreak
Ah! Now this is a way to break a show in, even if like so many it ended up falling short of the top 30. Such is their profile they've managed to get a backcloth of their logo up, while Lynott can get away with entirely mirrored shades that reflect the lot. Meanwhile the rest of the band get to amuse themselves, one cutaway showing Brian Robertson grinning manaically at Scott Gorham as they share a backing vocal mike. The audience react to rock by awkwardly moving very slightly quicker than usual. During the instrumental break the director decides he hasn't done much yet and as the camera pans from one side of the stage to the other he brings in a solar flare effect fading in and out to no great effect. Still, it's a day's work. Right at the end a man with similarly long hair walks to the side of the stage with arms folded. Why did they need a roadie? It's mimed on a single use TV soundstage!

Dr Hook – A Little Bit More
"A man who is a member of the medical profession but he is not a psychiatrist and it's not your mind he's interested in, it's your body". Such is Diddy's convoluted introduction to the hirsute and homoerotic video, as previously discussed. Really he's not a member of the medical profession at all, is he, he's just a carnival huckster. And it's not a 'he' either. "What a naughty man!" Diddy concludes afterwards, having only just been given prime evidence that it's several people.

The Chanter Sisters – Sideshow
Rum girl groups seem to be an occasionally recurring feature of these shows, and to prop up a week of songs we know all too well here's a pair for whom sophisticated style is other people. We've come across the song before, it was playout a couple of weeks ago, but actually seeing the none more rock'n'roll named Irene and Doreen brought home the fashion low comedy that has always hovered just under the surface of this repeat run. Irene sports a large curly perm and a dress seemingly made from some huge, unliked Christmas novelty curtains tied to a ribbon round her neck. Doreen has taken to the crimpers and has donned an all-in-one. She also favours the full-on hair flick during her solo dance, where she sways gallantly from the hips with feet planted to the floor while Irene is on vocal. She's clearly the more confident performer, giving it some enormous held notes, and certainly the more confident dancer given Irene seems to be mimicking the audience's own uncertainty. As if to compensate for unexpected vocal volume, after the instrumental break the soundman has clearly turned her mike down, only for her to come in at normal pitch for once and sound strangely distant. "Great! Fabulous!" Diddy says with no conviction before making a "flown over from Nashville/very hard on the arms" joke. They're British, by the way, why they'd need to fly over specially is unrecorded. The Sisters, should you wish to know, went on to sing backing vocals for everyone from Elton John to John Cale to Justin Hayward to the Undertones before Doreen split off to work with Bryan Ferry, sing in a chorus at The Secret Policeman's Ball and back Roger Waters, Meat Loaf and Van Morrison. She also wrote Kiki Dee's Star. And that's more than you ever hoped to know about Doreen Chanter.

Walter Murphy – A Fifth Of Beethoven
One of the issues always raised with Ruby Flipper is that Flick really had no idea what to do with the male members. By this stage, neither did the male members. This is one of those routines that has to be seen as words are not enough (it's on YouTube too, but with the soundtrack replaced at WMG's insistence) Basically it's intended as a Flipper leg show in tiny hotpants, crop tops and some sort of headwear with a feather on. What that means is we must look at it as anything but a sop to the dads, for instance to the air traffic control arm movements and the fact the whole thing is performed seated, which makes it look more like a music and movement class in overcoming collective limitations. Note how TOCG and Patti can hardly take their eyes off the camera (and the first closeup is of TOCG, despite her being the shortarse of the team, and she gets to work in some of her prime 'yeah, I know which one you're watching' faces) Of course the secondary routine, assuming we don't count the overuse of CSO completely different while parallel to the live action, is the switches between Philip and Floyd in the conductor's umpire hat, Einstein wig and big overcoat (overexcitable men in overcoats getting worked into a frenzy by underdressed young women? Did Mary Whitehouse know about this?), only for it to turn out they're both behind their own music stands. Philip, if you watch closely, does appear to be giving Floyd some in-character dagger looks, it's just we don't get to properly see them except in profile. The ending between the two is a welcome reminder that these were the days of high farce comedy.

Jimmy James & the Vagabonds – Now Is The Time
A new performance, and some people in the audience have brought scarves! Or toilet roll. Seems to be a similar density of material, in any case, and long enough to require three people holding them aloft. Such was the evident popularity of James and his far too high waisted mustard coloured trousers. If anything, his eye-popping routine in the breakdown is even more full-on.

Status Quo – Mystery Song
The video again. See Rick's open shirt in a very unmanly pattern! Watch Francis' hair in the indoor breeze, revealing a pair of mighty sideburns! This, of course, is the superior Mystery Song.

Liverpool Express – You Are My Love
Not the same as the previous two showings, as there were tight regulations on solarisation overuse. Instead our visual effect comes from the shape of the keyboard player's hat, pretty much Puritan in dimension. The guitarist has swapped his twelve string for something proper and some leather jackets have been broken in, but instead of being in a big open space they're hemmed in at the front and the comparative lack of comfort shows a little.

Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Oh, you know by now. Diddy revels in the detail they've "done the double - they're in the top ten in the States, they're number one across the nation in this country". In what way is that a) a quantifiable double and b) proper syntax at the end? Once the awkwardness has subsided, having referred to their being top "across the nation" for the third time in three sentences Diddy bades us farewell, in the style of a kids' presenter, with the Bee Gees' You Should Be Dancing and the news "we'll see you on Radio 1 tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock", which isn't accurate in either time or visual sense.

TOTP 15/7/76 (tx 27/7/11): look what the 'puss dragged in

First off, if you haven't clocked the sidebar or just didn't care, this blog has itself a Twitter account, not only with a feed of new posts on here but also daily (unless I'm away) On This Day In TOTP History YouTube posts. Go follow.

Here, then, is the sight and sound of someone who thinks they're clever about television. Noel is on the back of a camera gantry, headset and all. "I thought tonight's proceedings were going to be held in camera but in fact we're just mucking in" he explains. Presumably it meant something at the time, it's just with 35 years' hindsight they seem like a jumble of words. Is it to do with industrial action?

Sunfighter – Story Of The Drag Race Queen
Something we've heard a lot of in the shortish number of weeks we've been following 1976 is bands who heard one lot making a radio breakthrough three or four years earlier and thinking they can follow suit. Sunfighter and their hair metal coiffured singer (and 1987 Eurovision contestant) Rikki Peebles, proving they were ahead of their time in one respect if still the sort of cut one shouldn't be using near the word 'queen' lest it cause gender confusion to the near-sighted, obviously followed the Faces and Queen closely but once their big exciting power chord intro, uncomfortably close to that of the Manic Street Preachers' Australia, is over it might as well be a different song, one which Roger Taylor wrote, perhaps. The song is about a drag race driver, one who seems to enter every race convinced he's about to die in a crash which can't be good for positivity, and the sort of loose broad that generally only exists in 1960s coming of age B-movies. One of the surely overmanned three guitarists - maybe the one who is Sarah Harding off Girls Aloud's father, it's not implausible looking past his Noel Edmonds hair - gets the middle eight vocal. Maybe he won it in a bet. Tellingly, the band are all in white except the bass player, whose hooped T-shirt and jeans suggests a sessioneer ringer. Still, the audience are moving well, especially the five members dressed as sailors. Hamilton would have had them up on stage with him in no time.

Liverpool Express – You Are My Love
Them, and those visual flares, again.

The Beatles – Back In The USSR
"We Moscow, I'm sorry to Russia but we're off to see the Cossacks" Noel deadpans, or perhaps in retrospect finds as bemusing as the rest of us even if that sort of conceit is pure Edmonds. Doesn't work in print, obviously. Ruby Flipper time, and with something of literal heft to work with the costume department come up trumps - hammer and sickle flag, fake snow, barbed wire, big fur coats and woolly hats for the men, headscarves and big peasant dresses for the women with TOCG* grabbing the predominately/significantly virginal white dress. Beyond that it's a freeform version of lyrical expression, and yet again Floyd cops the worst of the first verse as he has to get across the concepts of reading and putting something on a knee while simultaneously prancing and - perhaps artist's own interpretation, this - expressing facial shock. The various chorus routines are wonders of combined movement, including some very decadent western twist-like moves. There's some pretend dragging to the gulags and a little chorus line hoofing but it's a full two minutes before Philip gets to unleash some cossack dancing before getting tired quickly. Sue gets to be Jojo, for the record.

* The Omnipresent Cherry Gillespie

Bobby Goldsboro – The Story Of Buck
Noel tells us that after Bobby's big hit Honey he'd been "sent many others in a similar vein". So much for diversifying. He also tells us this, which is also commonly known as A Butterfly For Bucky, is "a real heartstring tugger", which given we've only just got past the not all that dissimilar in lyrical tone No Charge is a bravura statement. It is admittedly hard to take in the emotional pull of a song when you're witnessing a camera charge through a group of people dancing much like they danced to Sunfighter - one gets a visible tap on the arm and makes off like it's a fire bell - but we're too cynical here in 2011 to really fall for a song about a blind child gifted sight by being landed on by a butterfly in a hospital, the moral being about the dreams of children or somesuch. Noel may reckon it's "as bad as peeling onions" - reaction, presumably, not the act - but the sailors are notably standing right behind the stage absolutely stock still for half the song, two of them eventually joining in for the clear sake of it. One hesitates to ever give Steve Wright the time of day, but there's a TOTP2 upload on YouTube and after Goldsboro has finished singing he bluntly notes "he lives in a world of his own, doesn't he?" Noel reckons with Tony Blackburn-like unerringness that this "could be very successful". It wasn't.

Dr Hook – A Little Bit More
"I fell for this song hook, line and sinker. I got rid of the line and sinker, here's the Hook". Oh bloody hell, Noel, just learn when to stop. Dennis Locorriere's beard is at ridiculous levels of length and depth, virtually two-tiered and topped off with shoulder-length hair that when put in a woodland glade as he is in this video makes him look like a native. Then at the end Ray Sawyer gets homoerotic with him, which nobody called for.

Glamourpuss – Superman
See, Arthur, they did manage it. Well, Noel's clearly got in tonight.



WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN. Making the Surprise Sisters look like Destiny's Child, this didn't chart and perhaps wisely there is nothing at all online about who these people were, unless the lead singer really is a bewigged Carol Vorderman. It's not all their fault, the backing is too brusque and someone's mixed the backing vocals over Carol, but someone decided that their best move would be for two of them to change places before the big finish. This might be why prime-time variety died.

Status Quo – Mystery Song
A live clip! The wind machine goes on full! The chords keep on changing between the three for basic boogie! Rick Parfitt shows some manly chest! Repeat to fade. It's not as good as Hugh Laurie's Mystery Song.

Jimmy James & The Vagabonds – Now Is The Time
The supper club Vagabonds are still in place, this time proving with a wah-wah guitar pedal and a disco hi-hat they can really coast along. For his part James is a consummate performer with a fine eye-popping expression, enlivening some slightly second division funk and enthralling suspiciously many kids in huge white caps.

Demis Roussous – Forever And Ever
"What is the really big thing in Greece at the moment? No, not a BBC hamburger". That doesn't even work, you don't get grease on hamburgers unless you're very clumsy. Interestingly it's not the same video as a couple of weeks ago, this one shot close in - very close in at times - at head height so we don't fully get to see what mighty outfit the genetic spawn of Danny Baker and Geoff Capes has on. Noel unsportingly calls him "the Greek Womble" before the Chanter Sisters' overtly blockbusting vocal on Sideshow sees us off into the night.

EDIT NEWS: Two moments of great interest. Second one first, there's Tavares' Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel as essayed by Ruby Flipper as angels and devils. Here it is, and note TOCG has the best fake crying in the business before later managing to stare out Floyd, who having had so much practice at becostumed indignity is on fine threatening form. For that he gets to take the last dance with TOCG and Lulu. All works out well in the end. Except, that is, for the Paul Nicholas-a-gram of television pop interpretative dance Gavin Trace, for whom this was his last show. According to Philip on the old TOTP2 site "Gavin, I think, was finding it hard to keep up, because of the pace and quick turn around. Flick again didn't make a big thing of it, she just asked whether he was happy in the group. He then just volunteered to leave. She dealt with it really well."

The other song not included in the pre-watershed version (and whether it was in the late night one I don't know at time of publishing, but let's treat this show as a fait accompli) was a cover of a Tavares US hit from the previous year, though it wouldn't chart here until 1986, which the more famous version of would be released much later by Take That. Now.. how are we going to tackle this? Bluntly?



Odd thing about that intro, which is largely why it's embedded here, is a suddenly reticent Noel is presenting this as King being revealed as the man behind the record, but in the rundowns both last week and this there's been a big photo of him and the 'band' have been referred to with his name in brackets afterwards. Not entirely surprising, that footnote's presence, King having gained the level of fame which meant Noel could introduce him as a mystery (despite the vocal style being recognisable) knowing the viewers would instantly know who he was through a certain level of projected self-regard running through his prolific work as recording artist, A&R, manager, producer, label boss and general man about town. Lulu gets a backup dancing gig still in her Back In The USSR gear. This was his last appearance as a singer on the show, though in the early 80s he'd occasionally pop in with a US chart update. And a million letters to Paul Dacre remained unsent.

TOTP 17/6/76 (tx 30/6/11): Boogie down production

The big news of the week on this particular corner of the TOTPsphere is a repeat-specific Twitter account - not me, but unofficial and with the mission statement "Who wishes Top Of The Pops 1976 had pop-up captions like TOTP2? (Puts hand up) Well, we're gonna fix that via the magic of Twitter!" Actually, no, the good thing about this run is it doesn't feature captions that are either bone-dry or too postmodern for anyone's good. Luckily, this is neither. Unfortunately, it has far more readers and, thanks to tweets from the likes of Gideon Coe and Pete Paphides, far more awareness than this blog has ever managed. And while I'm championing the competition, another recap blog has popped up.

Did you see that interview in which Aung San Suu Kyi criticised the way the BBC World Service has been marginalised and turned into a rolling news and current affairs network, dropping the vast majority of the entertainment and interest programming that provided succour to her during her years of captivity and in doing so running down its core services? No, you didn't, as BBC Enterprises span it into a "DLT LOL" story. Suu Kyi clearly has no concept of snooker on the radio but merely grabbed onto something where "the listeners would write in and I had a chance to hear other people's words. It made my world much more complete". And it might not have been his show after all, although that Suu Kyi partly remembered Travis' name in the interview and specified the music requests element (and that the letter is from the producer of the other show) suggests otherwise.

DLT, anyway, reading the name off a medallion - a medallion - around his neck, with unhilarious consequences. Notable point in the chart rundown is the reappearance in The Wanderer's wake of Leader Of The Pack at 21, illustrated not with a Shangri-Las shot but with a stock photo of a moped. Not a particularly raucous machine either.

T Rex – I Love To Boogie
Fronted by the man the EPG called Marc Bowland - though it was the name he used when first recording, so maybe they were onto something. T Rex were doing better critically than commercially at the time and Bolan wasn't in the best of health, positively anaemic in appearance with shorter hair and no great commitment to the vocal delivery cause. Sounds slightly Dylanish in his vowels, actually, plus the odd sheep noise. He's got the rest of the look nearly down pat, though, a wide tie with no shirt over a luxurious velvet jacket and widening face augmented with cyan eyeshadow. It's just the energy was being saved up so Billy Elliot could expel it.

Gallagher & Lyle – Heart On My Sleeve
On the other hand, a look that always ages. Not the beard, the cloth cap, and doubly the swept back mullet and accordion. It's the latter's deathly bellows that puts the colour in a slip of a slow song's cheeks but also means it can never attain whatever emotional touch it was going for, not with that always going on in the background. Gallagher and Lyle clearly believe in filling a stage, though, as while the drummer seems to be in an adjoining postal district the bassist has to share a backing vocal mike with two blokes of indeterminate use, one in polo shirt and floppy hat, looking for all the world like they work in lighting and got called in to stop the wide shots looking so barren. The audience are up for it this week, though, swaying like it means something to them. Two are prominently wearing gypsy bonnets.

Peter Frampton – Show Me The Way
"Some amazing, amazing things done with a tube in the mouth and all sorts of goodies" DLT promises of the video clip as seen on the full version a couple of weeks ago without ever specifying what those goodies might be once the appeal of a talkbox has palled. Maybe he means the massive red lighting sign above the band spelling out 'FRAMPTON'. What a manly 70s man Frampton really was, with his aftershave commercial open shirt and glorious mane.

Brotherhood Of Man – My Sweet Rosalie
First band to have two songs on the TOTP repeat run, if I'm not mistaken. Having apparently topped "all the charts around the world" they have a new single which DLT thinks will "go right to number one". (SPOILER: it didn't. It went right to number thirty. This, though, was not the last we'd hear of the band, not by a long chalk, but we'll cross that flagrantly Fernando-shaped bridge when we come to it) It's probably fair to say that having lightning strike twice was foremost on the minds of songwriters of both songs Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden and Martin Lee, though. It starts with a xylophone melody followed by a Martin Lee solo spot while everyone else takes part in synchronised light movement. Then there's some collective arm swinging on the chorus as Lee seems to be telling us in the light variety harmony style about his undying love for... hang on, we've been here before, haven't we? And so on the last line the music winds down, one of the girls makes "me?" signs at Lee's shoulder and "she's the only one for me, the cutest little puppy dog you'll see..." Bloody hell. Brotherhood Of Man - the M Night Shyamalan of 70s lounge pop and with a similarly wayward quality detector. It's not even a cute dog. Though how they got the dog on stage, given the other two had it in their arms for the climactic pose immediately and surely the music and movement would have scared it away were it untethered on stage, let alone risk being spotted by the camera and the end ruined, remains a mystery.

Mud – Shake It Down
"Mud stands for Maniacs Under Demolition..." Hang on, what's this? The admittedly piss-in-the-wind two plays unless you're number one rule for the edited version has been broken! Admittedly there's much less worthy songs it could have been done for than Disco Mud - and it wasn't falling as everyone seems to think, it was heading down but then rebounded to 12 for no good reason before resuming its stately progress out - but we lost a Ruby Flipper routine for this. And then to compound matters the second verse is completely edited out, meaning we lose a bit of fresh comedy business involving bassist Ray Stiles (see the whole thing here - the green trousers are back, then). Then the reason why we've got it again becomes clearer as DLT lumbers onto the stage, only Stiles dealing him a brief glance, and heads behind the drumkit. Once there, while Dave Mount makes excellent confused faces, he finds he can't think of anything to do. Join in? Sway? Pretend strangulation with his mike cord? It's a dilemma. Oh, Les has taken his shades off. He means business. So does the director, if business is good in giving the unwary photo-sensitive epilepsy. Don't mind telling you, I'm going to miss this song. Were it up to me I'd launch a BBC supportive campaign to get it up the charts on downloads. Les Gray certainly missed it as he re-recorded it with his solo band, and it's on Spotify and various download sites (some of which credit it as a 2010 release but in fact it came out in 2002, Gray being detained by rigor mortis well before last year)

Murray Head – Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat
Earnest man, Grand Old Opry shirt, song that's delivered in the style of the Inkspots, largely because it's a cover of one of their songs and Head clearly has no better ideas about arrangement, essentially dreaming of being Robin Sarstedt. He does rescue it with the single most awkward looking backing band of all, ageing jazz men mixing with a Bob Carolgees-a-gram on over-florid double bass playing. Eventually Head puts his guitar down and goes for the jazz standard extemporising while a man with 'GET UP AND BOOGIE' on the back of his cardigan is being a traitor to himself. By close he's threatening the audience with a large pot plant. That's one way to make an impression if all seems lost.

Candi Staton – Young Hearts Run Free
Oh, he's got Ruby Flipper's name right at last. This is a right dog's dinner even by Flipper standards.



Yeah, maybe they were right when they said it should never be done on TOTP. Cherry on lead again, you'll notice, taking the lead in interspersed clips of her and the Paul Nicholasalike as the titular young hearts, but clearly BBC4 are going all out to annoy the PC BRIGADE message board, um, brigade. Floyd Pearce actually finds a role more off-beam than the TVC15 jockey, seemingly dressed as the housekeeper from Tom & Jerry. He doesn't lift up his pinny to reveal multicoloured stockings at any stage, but maybe that's being saved for the routine for the 12" mix. He's giving the literal interpretation a good going over, though, as are two of the girls in bonnets ("you'll get the babies but you won't have your man") and the third bloke in flat cap and blacked out teeth ogling a clearly visible Page Three ("while he is busy loving every woman that he can"). And yes, Floyd "just can't break away" when his ankle is grabbed. It's a story of many layers, this, the dream (of a completely different looking woman) to return to the days of youth when nothing else mattered. Cleverer than it looks after all, and they got six of the seven in for once. TWEET OF THE WEEK: "i want ruby flipper on.totp 1976 to.do a similar dance routine to a lady gaga song!" That'd be prescient of the show.

Liverpool Express – You Are My Love
"We have some nurses from Great Ormond Street here". Yes, Dave, they were the people in nurses' uniforms grabbing onto your elbows in the last link and you forgot to specifically mention them then, didn't you? This one "could well be a monster hit sound" - closer this time, it reached number eleven. That might be because the image of the performance was burned onto the retinas of a generation of viewers, the VT editor having been granted a solarisation effect and been overkeen to use his new toy. More of an impression than the record, which sounds like someone not quite understanding 10cc.

The Wurzels - Combine Harvester
Of course DLT introduces it in a pirate voice, with the suggestion we "get out to the garden sheds, get hold of the tools, throw them around". He does know what the country is, doesn't he? Doesn't he? It's the first performance again, if you're keeping notes, Pete Budd giving it so much suggestiveness to camera he felt moved to comment on it. Yeah, the Wurzels are on Twitter. I think I may have stumbled across social media's black swan event. Say what you like about the logic around these lyrics, but at least a combine harvester and its key have more in common than a key and some rollerskates. He's still not properly playing that sousaphone. DLT does a poor Tommy Cooper impression that's more growling than catchphrases apropos of nothing, visibly delighting the girl next to him for quite some time, before Rod Stewart's Tonight’s The Night plays us out.

EDIT NEWS: the Dolly and Lizzy videos again plus a Ruby Flipper routine to Sold My Rock ‘N’ Roll by the unrepossessingly named Linda & The Funky Boys that looks like this. Basically, many and varied ways of going round in a circle.