Britain in the 1970s is beset by rising inflation, national strikes, angry debates about European integration and fears of an environmental apocalypse – a bit like Britain in 2020, in fact. In the midst of it all, Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody was the anthem of the 1974 three-day week, the Wombles responded to the punishing drought of 1976 with the eco-disco hit Rainmaker, and the Brotherhood of Man’s 1970 ballad United We Stand was the rallying cry. about an emerging gay rights movement. They were socially important, in other words. Here are 10 more sociopolitical crashes.
1. Middle of the Road – Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep (1970)
Middle of the Road: Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep – video As package holidays opened up the continent to working-class families for the first time and Ted Heath pushed for Britain’s entry into the single market, a former Scottish hotel lounge complex found itself in Italy, entrenched and forlorn. In desperation they recorded this happy story of parental neglect. It sold 10 million copies. Why; “Remind people of their holidays,” suggested drummer Ken Andrew, a transcendentally fluffy piece of nonsense that represented the British dream of European integration.
2. Millie Small – Enoch Power (1970)
While serious blues rocker Eric Clapton was drunkenly supporting anti-immigrant activist Enoch Powell at a 1976 concert, Jamaican teenage pop sensation Millie Small had made a comic response to the Conservative MP’s racist condemnation six years earlier. Against a cheery shriek, Millie sings about leaving Jamaica to work in Powell’s Wolverhampton constituency while dreaming of a time when “all men shall be brothers”, turning the dreaded Tory hardliner into an object of derision.
3. Edison Lighthouse – Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) (1970)
After songwriter Tony Macaulay realized that the biggest problems in rock were the rockers playing it, he came up with Edison Lighthouse. a made-up band led by session singer Tony Burrows – who also fronted other bands Brotherhood of Man, Pipkins and White Plains. Macaulay and co were pop’s equivalent of the aliens in the legendary Smash instant mashed potato ad who burst out laughing as one of the crowd describes the idiot earthlings’ old fashioned potato concoctions. Pop, like food, was processed.
4. Lieutenant Pigeon – Moldy Old Dough (1972)
Confused by home recording enthusiasts Rob Woodward and Nigel Fletcher in Woodward’s parents’ living room in Coventry – and with his 59-year-old mum Hilda on piano – this pub ringer turned Lieutenant Pigeon into Britain’s first mother and son No 1 graph effect. It also represented the closing of the generation gap forced open by the counterculture of the 60s in being loved by kids, moms and dads and grandparents. By the way, Lieutenant Pigeon is an anagram for genuine potential – something Moldy Old Dough had in spades.
5. Paul’s Lynsey – Sugar Me (1973)
Lynsey de Paul: Sugar Me – video North London de Paul was a glamorous figure who was so outraged by ex-boyfriend Sean Connery saying it was okay to slap women he kissed that she donated the money to Erin Pizzey’s domestic violence charity Refuge. She and fellow mainstream songwriter Barry Green wrote this piece of sensual, escapist pop influenced by 1940s Gypsy jazz for one simple reason. “The ’70s were depressing,” Green said. “Well, we used to do big mainstream songs that looked at the past with rose-tinted glasses: those were the days, my friend.”
6. Hector – Wired Up (1973)
In the 70s, pop singles were aimed mainly at kids for the first time and Portsmouth’s Hector was duly marketed as the world’s first naughty schoolboy rock sensation. It went horribly wrong when, during a performance of the old school classic Wired Up on ITV’s children’s show Lift Off With Ayshea, singer Phil Brown’s dungeons split in half. “I was praying the kids at home wouldn’t see my underpants,” she said. “It was purple with green spots.”
7. The Sweet – Teenage Rampage (1974)
Moral activist and seasoned self-journalist Mary Whitehouse was looking for a new crusade when this one fell into her lap. Whitehouse wrote to the BBC’s Lord Tretowan to call for its immediate ban, claiming that a raucous rocker about children across the country gaining the upper hand would incite revolution at a volatile time in the nation’s history. He replied that Teenage Rampage was completely harmless due to it being “completely empty of real content – like all excessive pop music”.
8. Jonathan King/The George Baker Selection – Una Paloma Blanca (1975)
The George Baker Selection: Una Paloma Blanca – video A multi-year holiday package and hit for both one-man pop factory King and Dutch MOR group George Baker Selection, Una Paloma Blanca is a reflection on the price of freedom dressed up as an innocuous summer favourite. It was playing on the radio when Gary Gilmore, an American double murderer who became a cause celebre after seeking his own death sentence, was led to his death by firing squad in 1977. None of that stopped the comedy from having the Wurzels steal the tune for ode to West Country life, I Am a Cider Drinker.
9. Tina Charles – I Love to Love (1976)
The second half of the 70s saw the rise of suburban disco – dance music for stressed-out adults needing a break from a climate of national strikes and economic hardship. An early example was this huge success for east Londoner Charles, who two years later went on a promotional tour of The Stud, the ultimate suburban disco movie starring Joan Collins. “It was two worlds,” he said. “An IRA bomb went off outside Harrods just where I had parked my car, just as Joan Collins was telling me: ‘Always wear a hat in the sun, my love. It stops skin aging.”
10. Dollar – Shooting Star (1978)
The dollar is proof that credibility is based on image, not content. After being fired from the Guys’n’Dolls cabaret group, Thereza Bazar and David Van Day reinvented themselves as a hot blonde duo who looked like they’d just stepped out of a salon. They were critically derided, but on this dreamy concoction Bazar layered her backing vocals up to 50 times, creating a heavenly haze of sound that set the standard for 80s electro-pop. Bazaar was creatively brilliant, but she was never going to be paid the dues in the way of, say, Kate Bush. Such is the lot of the singalong star. In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop in 70s Britain by Will Hodgkinson is out now from Nine Eight Books (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply What’s your favorite 70s mock mass market hit? Let us know in the comments.
