Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #78 (Pt 2): 16.2.78 – Paint Along With Nancy Spungeon

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Simon Price, David Stubbs and Al Needham begin their odyssey through this episode of The Pops, and what a opening! We get a blast of a tune none of us have heard before, followed by Tom Robinson not being allowed to self-admit his Gayness upon the nation, and then we get the British television debut of Kate Bush, trying to beguile the surly youth of Albion as the TOTP Orchestra demonstrate they’re more than a red-hot Reggae band...Video Playlist | Facebook | Twitter| Bluesky | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like this in time? Um, chart music. Chart music. You pop craze youngsters, and welcome to part two of episode 78 of chart music. This is me. I'll need them. That's Simon Price. Hello. And over there is David

Stubbs. How do? And chaps, you'll recall in part one of this voyage into the February of the 16th, 17th, Top the Pops. I advanced a theory that the absolute best age to taking the glory of top of the Pobbs was round your 10th birthday. We're going to dig into that theory as time goes on, but I also have to ask, what do you think? the worst ages to watch Top of the Pops? Well, I think for me, a choice between two, being very young when I first watched Top the Pops, it wasn't actually a kind of liberating experience. It was a bit scary, really.

Yeah, yeah, Rolling Stones capering about. Absolutely, yeah, the Rolling Stones Caping about. And I think it was all a bit hippy and chaotic and hairy and wild. You know, it was a bit much more a little lad from Barrack and Elmit. Oh, man. I was already a bit of a nervous wreck from watching Doctor Who, and this was even worse. So, yeah, definitely being about six or seven. Well, yeah. And, of course, the other age is the age that I'm approaching now,

which is the age of my late departed grandfather, seven days jankers. Yes. But, you know, it occurs to me now that, you know, I'm approaching that age. I mean, obviously, I will never know what it's like to watch chocolate pops at that age, tragically. But it does alarm me to think that actually sitting there, fulminating over Roy Wood, sent him to an early grave because he died in 1975. Oh, man. I'm sure that like this weekly kind of boost to his blood pressure aren't really of health.

He had a heart attack. Why am I laughing? I'm an evil. I know. Well, he's all right. He's long gone. He never got to experience punk. No, he didn't. No, God. I mean, well, that would have definitely done for him. Just as well, really? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Simon, your thoughts?

Yeah, I reckon the worst age to watch Top of the Pops is probably between 18 and 20. And I'll give you my reasoning here, right? Please don't. Because I think any age up until 17, you're still a pop kid, you're sort of passively consuming it, or, you know, your active role is limited to voting with your pocket money. in terms of what records you buy and, you know, getting things into the charts that way. Yeah. But you basically think that pop is something the grownups are doing for your amusement,

and you either like it or you don't, but, you know, particularly I was lucky enough to grow up in a time when the music that led me up to the age of about 17 in the charts was pretty fantastic. It just so happened that my late teens coincided with the late 80s and the music going absolutely shit. And you're sort of looking around at that age thinking, well, first of all, I didn't sign up for this. And you start blaming people younger than you.

You start blaming younger kids. Like, what the fuck's happened to the generation coming up behind me? That they're buying this absolute bollocks. But you're also blaming the older generation for kind of cracking down on fun and cracking down on the good stuff and flooding the charts with all their dreary bollocks, right? And you're also, I mean, I'm not saying everybody that entertains this fantasy, but you're sort of thinking, well, maybe I could be a pop star myself.

And maybe I could change it. Maybe I can improve things. but you're frustrated because you just somehow haven't got the way with all. You haven't got the talent. You just haven't got the time. And it's sort of dawning on you that it's never going to happen. And I guess by the age of 20, it's clear that your life's not going to go that way. And maybe you've got a bit more perspective and you've got different interests.

But I reckon between, yeah, certainly about 18, you're still basically stuck in your room, watching it on TV and thinking, fuck, just fucking fuck. So I reckon that's probably the worst. Bruno Brooks is never going to introduce Mary Brenel Boy's Murder. Well, he missed out. This is interesting because we've come up with three different time periods, because I'm going to say late 20s, early 30s. Okay.

You're out of that age of optimism and openness to pop music. By that time, you know exactly what you like, and you just want that. And you know what you're automatically going to give short shrift to. But more importantly, it's also the age that you realize, you know what, pop music isn't making pop music for me any. more. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But of course, you know, let's be positive here because all that turns around a bit when you get to the age where your kids start watching it. And then you could be that dad sat in the armchair making noises that you'd rather be watching Emmerdale Farm and having a lovely half an hour or so coating down your child's wrong opinions on what good music is or claiming that this has been done before but better by your generation before you get your coats on and go to the public. Yeah, David, you're right, a dream that has been denied to our generation.

Absolutely. All right, then, pop craze youngsters, it is time to strap in and go all the way back to February of 1978. Always remember, we've made Coatown your favourite band or artist, but we never forget. They've been on top of the pops more than we have. Tom Robinson band, Sweet and Aba, just three of the names we have lined up for you and another star-studded edition of Top of the Pops! It's past seven on Thursday, February the 16th, 1978, and Top of the Pops, now into its 726th episode,

is cruising through the choppy waters of the late 70s, holding its own in a ratings chart absolutely dominated by ITB. There has been a warning sign on the horizon, however. A pay claimed by studio engineers at Television Centre in January resulted in 162 engineers refusing to work between midnight and 8 in the morning, which resulted in a mini strike that took sports night nationwide and the January 12th episode of Top of the Pops Off the Air, denying the Pop craze youngsters a rear screening of the video.

of Mull of Kintyre. But in an age where the old grey whistle test plods on in its flares and petulily centred clogs, the demise of so it goes, and the only musical offering for now on ITV being getting together with Roy North, it's still the only game in town. And Robin Nash, the producer who looks like Geoffrey Four Miles even Posh a dad, knows it. A week from now, he's going to give an interview to. the stage to talk about being the supreme overlord of pop television. And after pointing out that he doesn't pick the artists, the singles buying public do,

and having a bit of a brag that he got Boney M in to perform Belfast before it was even in the charts, while Radio 1 were getting the knickers in a twist about it, he takes the opportunity to tell ITV to get its ass in gear and give him some competition. Quote, I used to be asked, to look at certain artists on a program on a commercial station. I found that because the presentation was exciting with the visual side

all bubbles and feathers and smoke, I often had not heard the artist I was supposed to be watching because my eyes were so busy being entertained that nothing went into my ears at all. My brain was incapable of coping with both at once. That's obviously supersonic, isn't it? I'm inclined to push my directors towards simpler presentation because taking in sight and sound simultaneously is difficult.

That is one of the reasons I like to pick on records that have already been heard. People then taking the visuals more easily. Well, I don't know about that. I can see and listen at the same time. How about you? Not that hard. I can listen here and smell at the same time. Oh, but you're the anti-Tommie, aren't you, David?

So, yeah, there we go. Just like the music scene in 1978, Top of the Pops is going back to basics, or just being mingy with the budget in the full knowledge that youth will happily watch the pop stars of the day, performing in a skip with all dirty nappies and broken fridges. Very basic, Top of the Pops in 1978, but who gives a fuck? I mean, you know, they refer to the dark recesses of the studio at one point.

Yes. Yeah, that was, you know. You need that darkness to bring in the light, though, David. It's always darkest before Tony Orlando and Dawn remember. Your host this evening is Kid Jensen, who's currently working as Radio One Saturday, lad, doing the 10 to noon slot as the meat in an Ed Stewart Paul Gambaccini sandwich. But he's also been the host of the pop trivia show Quiz Kid 78 on Sunday. there just before the top 20 run down. Not only that, but he's been flitting all over the radio on schedule as the utility man.

When Tony Blackburn had a breakdown over the collapse of his marriage, or to use modern-day parlance through a wiety in late 1977, kids stepped in to cover his daily afternoon slot, and only last month he stepped in to cover Travis's post-school slot, while Mr. Cunt Blake was on holiday. And not only that, but he's been cutting a sway through the discothex of the land, making appearances at the likes of Ditton Community Centre's Valentine's Disco, the Trubador at Port Talbot, the Mayfair Suite in Sunderland, yogis disco in Farnham, and Mops Disco Bistro in Leamington Spa.

not only as the spokesperson of the T-Counsel, but also as the overseer of the Britain's top young disc chocky competition. And if he appears to be a bit nervous or distracted tonight, there's very good reason, boys, because in the wake of the recent abdication of Noel Edmonds from the throne of Radio 1, there's a vacancy for the breakfast show slot. The interviews have been conducted,

the announcement is due next week and Kid is on a short list of four chaps Would you care to take a guess At the other three contenders I bet there's an Andy Peebles in there isn't there No, you'd be wrong Well given that he eventually got the job Mike Reed

No, okay Well obviously Dave Lee Travis Paul Burnett Oh yeah And Mr Wu Hay himself Peter Powell Ah Yeah I think I'd be more than happy

to wake up with Kid Jensen every morning, don't you? Yeah, I mean, he's all right, isn't he? He's a safe pair of hands. Yes, he's nice and zippy and puncher and bright and optimistic, but not too much. Yeah, that's right. I think Peter Powell in the morning would be well too full on. Yeah. As for Paul Burnett, no, mate.

Never, never, ever. No chance. I've got to say, it's not kids' best performances at Top of the Pops presented this week, but infinitely preferable to who they could have had on. I mean, he does offer something. I mean, first of all, you know, there he is. His cowboy shirt and his centre-parted blonde buffon. He's like the kind of Robert Redford of UK radio and TV,

like a sort of cut-price version, you know. And I do wonder, I'm projecting a little bit here, but was he a bit of eye candy for the mum's? You know, was he providing a bit of... I'm sure he was. Yeah, a bit of mummisfaction, I would have thought. You know, he's a good-looking guy. And you sort of breathe a sigh of relief

when it's someone like the kid, don't you? Because he might not set the screen alight with his... charisma, but you know he won't do anything that makes your rectum turn inside out with embarrassment. And he's not going to make you feel like you're witnessing a crime scene involving historic sex offences, which is a low bar, like a Daxon steeplechase. But it's the bar we've got. Yeah, he's a gentleman and they are pretty thin on the ground, aren't they? Yeah, 70s and DJ. As you say something, he's not going to set the screener like, but also he's not going to set large chunks of the BBC archive.

a light either in a big brazier. And he's in a talent pool which currently consists of Noel Edmunds, Dave Lee Travis, Tony Blackburn, Ed Stewart Still, Peter Powell and Jingle Nons OBE.

I mean Tony Blackburn, fine. Peter Powell, slightly annoying, but, you know, basically fine. The rest of them, fuck off. We get a cold open of kids in a white cowboy shirt with blue trim, stamping a little foot and clutching the mic in front of a wavy display of light bulbs.

He immediately spoilers three of the acts on tonight's Bill of Fair and then throws us into the top 30 rundown to the sound of Which Way is Up by Stargard. Formed in Los Angeles in 1975, Stargarde were a female trio consisting of Rochelle Runnels, Deborah Anderson and Janice Williams. They all had solo careers of their own, but were welded together by Norman Whitfield, who wrote too many fish in the sea, needle in a haystack, and I heard it through the grapevine, and was pretty much the producer and songwriter for the temptations until 1973. In 1975, he left Motown to start his own label, Whitfield Records,

and Stargard were one of his first signings. A year later, Whitfield Records scored big with his other early signing, Rose Royce and their soundtrack to Car Wash. So when Universal Pictures approached Whitfield with an author to do the theme song for Richard Pryor's next film, a remake of the 1972 Italian Comedare, The Seduuction of Mimi, which came out in America in November of 1977, he banged out a tune and gave it to Star God. This week, it's enjoying its second week at Northern.

number one on the Billboard R&B charts and at its peak of number 21 in the American chart. It's entered our charts three weeks ago at number 50, then soared 23 places to number 27, then dropped two places to number 29. But this week it's jumped up 10 places to number 19, so here it is, slapped over the chart rundown. And because it's 1978 chaffs, we've got to. to get into them chort rundown pictures haven't we? Well, say what you see, boys. The Kate Bush photo. It's cropped.

Now, that same photo uncropped features in an advert in Music Week with the words, the face you'll be seeing everywhere. And it's fair to say nobody's looking at the face. No. So there is that. And I can see why the BBC made that call.

This is the colour version of that publicity shot of it. But yeah, tastefully cropped to make it Let's nipple then. Yeah. But there's a weird quality to these pictures. Like any decent human being, I am sickened by AI, not just ideologically sickened and worried about the environment and job losses and all that, but just on a really primal level physically sickened,

the images it creates genuinely turn my stomach. They make me feel a bit wrong, right? That whole kind of eerie, uncanny valley thing you get with AI. Strangely, I felt a bit like that watching this chart rundown, even though it's a long time before AI was a thing. All the photos have this weird quality to them. Everyone looks a bit AI. I guess it's airbrushing, but something's been going on there.

AIR brush. Yeah, exactly. I started wondering as well, once I thought, something's a bit off. I started wondering if some of the acts are made up because there are acts here I've never heard of. I've never heard of tonight, for example, at number 15. Yeah, the drummer man.

Yeah, well, it turns out they're this new wave band from South End on Sea, who are indeed having their one-only hit drummer-man. I love that song. Do you? Oh, man. Well, I had a look at their Top the Pops appearance from a few weeks earlier

and discovered that they're basically Doctor Feel OK. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The singer wants to be Roger Doltery, but falls similarly short. He's finger adultery. So those are my observations.

I have to think about that one. Anything jump out of you, David? Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking about that Kate Bush thing. And there is a photo in an enemy at the time where it's a white t-shirt and the sort of the nipples are erect as it were and she's really looking seriously under sufferance. But then you see Charlie XX in the video for 365.

I just don't know if it's a coincidence or if it was an actual pot reference on her part but she's wearing the same white t-shirt with the same erect lip-ls. Obviously, we're doing it with a lot more kind of assertiveness and empowerment, etc., etc., whereas in Kate Butch's case she really, really sort of looks deeply reluctant about the whole thing. Well, Charlie X-CX is actively trampling all over Kate Bush's legacy as we speak.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's another weird coincidence, yeah. Well, what I saw was Tom Robinson band, that photo looks like the chemistry teacher who's kept three of his pupils back for detention. There's a photo of a photo of three who all looked massively fucked off about it. A very early appearance of that photo of the BGs, which isn't all scratched up yet. Right. Yellow Dog, the one more night hitmakers, with their guitarist in a homemade t-shirt consisting of a yellow dog. Sweet with a very quiffy Mick Tucker,

and Andy Scott sporting a rexom-fccee Rozette, fucking another celebrity getting on the Welsh football bandwagon, I know it is. Scott Fitzgerald and Yvon Keele with the caption, obscuring half of Yvon Keeley's face, and Rod Stewart looking like a prostitute. in the Sweener. Paul McCartney looking about 12.

Yes. There's some serious A-I-R pushing going on there. Anyway, chaps, which way is up? The new Richard Pryor film, which came out in America four months ago. Supposed to be coming out in March over here, but I'm not sure it ever did. I've scouted the newspaper archives for the adverts. Can't find it anyway. Anyone's seen it?

No. No, no, I haven't. And I think you're right. I don't think it did come out. No, no. I think I saw it on satellite about 30 years ago. Yeah. He plays three parts in it.

An orange picker, his own dad and a Randy preacher. The orange picker gets forced out of his own town, ends up copping off of the sexy union activist in Los Angeles while his misses ends up having an affair with the preacher. So he comes home and starts giving the preacher's wife one. And yeah, that's it. Not one of his best films, but, you know, it's been made by the people who gave us car wash.

So you know the soundtrack's going to be mined. And here's the title track, and it's all right, isn't it? Well, it is all right. But I've got to say, I love disco, okay, I've never knowingly heard this in my life. Do you know what? Me neither. It's mad, isn't it? Yeah, so it's the theme for this Richard Pryor vehicle, which weighs up, which I haven't watched.

I didn't watch it for the purposes of this podcast. I've got to admit, don't have time for that. I'm a busy stay-at-home dad. But I did watch the trailer. Yeah, congratulations, Simon. I don't think we've made mention on that, have we? Yeah, well, she's two now. so, you know, you took your time.

So, yeah, yeah, I did watch the trailer and I did a bit of reading around the film. So you've summarised it pretty well. Wikipedia says, when he falls into a union action by mistake, Leroy Jones is forced out of town. The only option given to Leroy was a one-way bus ticket to Los Angeles

where more jobs are available. While he's away, Leroy becomes smitten with Veneta, a beautiful labour activist. When he returns home, he has to juggle his wife, his new romance with Veneta, and his new job. Meanwhile, the Reverend Lennox Thomas takes advantage of Leroy's absence to cavort with Annie May, leading Leroy to take revenge with the Reverend's wife. So, fucking,

I mean, basically a pretty standard slamming doors farce by the sound of it. I guess one thing that does make it quite progressive for its time is that it has a mainly black cast. But that's because it has a mainly Richard Pryor cast. He plays the lead. He plays the lead. He plays the lead. He plays the lead's father and also plays the Reverend. It wasn't well received. TV guides gave it a one star out of five. I also found this review from Denny's M. Holt of Associated Press. Richard Pryor's profane brand of humour used to be funny,

but in his newest film, which way is up, he stooped to downright degradation. At least in Pryor's previous films, he managed to maintain a certain amount of ethnic dignity. However, yes. However, in which way is up, not only does prior exhibit a reckless disregard for his own self-respect, but so do many of the other actors. Now, I'm not sure how I feel about a white critic, lecturing black actors on how to maintain their ethnic dignity. I don't have conclusive evidence that Denise M. Holt of Associated Press is white, because the only photos that come up on a Google image search of her name are stills from which ways are.

But let's just say that she probably is. The trouble perhaps was this. Richard Pryor coming off the back of films like Car Wash, Silver Street. So he probably thought he could do anything at this point. Not that the low quality of this film has much bearing on the music, because even bad films had good soundtracks at this point. And it's put together by Mark Davis and Paul Reiser. And yeah, the theme tune composed by Norman Whitfield.

So just to have a quick breakdown of that pedigree, Paul Reiser was a trombonist with a funk brothers So basically any great Motown single You've heard with the brass section Paul Reiser was on it He's on what becomes the Broken Hearted by Jimmy Ruffin Which is obviously one of the greatest records ever made Mark Davis was a teenage piano genius

Who started off working for the chess label And recording with people like Minnie Ripperton, Curtis Mayfield Then he was headhunted by Barry Gordy and signed to Motown firstly as an understudy to Norman Whitfield and went on to produce records by Motown and non-Motown acts including Marvin Gay Diana Ross, Earthwind and Fire Temptation Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder

Lionel Richie, the Jackson 5 and Sly and the Family Stone and he's had over 30 platinum and gold albums so you know he's not to be sniffed at It's not bad no and Norman Whitfield is Norman fucking Whitfield Yes so this team

Norman Whitfield Mark Davis Paul Reiser have achieved incredible things. The previous year, for example, they created another of the greatest records ever made, which I'm not going to mention by name, because we might be talking about it in a few minutes time. But I can't make any bold hyperbolic claims for this track. Stargard, okay,

obviously a vocal trio of no great consequence, the fact speak for themselves. They've been hired to do a job here, it feels like, to me. I watched a clip of them performing this song on Soul Train, and they're all in gold sci-fi gear, like a poundland label. And they barely matter to the record itself. There are some great vocoder do-doos on the BVs.

But apart from that, they're incidental and so is it. It's the very definition of incidental music. It's so minimal and basic. It almost makes it avant-garde. I don't think there's even a chord change. I didn't notice a chord change all the way through. It's just a bad baseline. That's bad with 5A's meaning good, you know.

It doesn't really go anywhere. But that's fine for a theme song. It doesn't need to go anywhere, which also makes it perfect as the backing track to the top 30 rundown photos. Does its job. There are so many films about this time involving American labour activists. You know, labour activism was as big as disco at this time, definitely. Sexy labour activists as well, David. Yeah, yeah.

Well, Sylvester Stallone was one of them as well. But, yeah, like Simon, I don't remember actually having heard this before, you know, he put in Stargard into Wikipedia and you get one of Poland's oldest city. you know, which is about as funky as it gets. But it's seriously fucking good. And I go so far as to say that this is probably the greatest ever bit of introductory music to Top of the Pops. You know, going straight into a song like this.

I mean, it's a hybrid of the Isley Brothers, Rose Royce, and a bit of the kind of muscular, funky end of, you know, mid-70s Stevie Wonder. And of course, you know, it's a normal Whitfield song, so that's a Pixar-style guarantee of quality in itself. And what an absolute treat to get this in lieu of the regular theme. Because for me, the regular theme never really tried. triggered unbridled excitement, but a sense of probable disappointment tempered with the occasional flash of accidentally trespassing brilliance or whatever.

I mean, top of the pops is like football. It's mostly disappointment. You're a fucking Arsenal support. What the fuck you going on about? Even if you're an Arsenal supporter, it's mostly disappointment. The fucking Arsenal supporter telling a forest support of that, man. The brass neck of you, Stubbs. Al, they haven't choked yet, but we know they're going to choke.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's like Dick Darsely, yeah, in the lead right until the end. Yes, it's not. Forrest is saying, now, man, which ways up? Yeah. Let's leave the casting vote to the platter chatter column in the Alcester Chronicle. Because they describe Stargall's album, what you waiting for, thus lay. Okay.

Disco music for the mindless. Two coloured girls, one white girl, with anonymous voices and personalities. Up-tempo disco tracks. with string-laden, meaningless ballads, make it an extremely predictable and boring mixtape. Well, as long as everybody involved maintain their ethnic dignity. Yes, exactly. Yes.

But yeah, this is all right, man. You could say it's a poor man's car wash, a hosepipe and a sponge, if you will. But, no, even a poor man's car wash is better than most of the shit we're going to hear tonight. I think it's a rich man's car wash. Oh, a valet service. Yeah. So the following week, which way is up, dropped two places to number 21,

and three weeks later fell right off the top 50. The follow-up, love is so easy, got to number 45 in April. They rallied somewhat when what you're waiting for made it to number 39 in September, but they never troubled the charts again. Over in America, though, they moved to Warner Bros. and made the occasional raid on the dance charts, but Anderson left in 1980, and the other two carried on until 1982.

I don't have to think about it's right. Number 30 in the top 30 this week, a new EP release from the Tom Robinson band under the title of Rising Free, TRB. A no mood to fuck about tells us by a voiceover that there's a new live EP out, and excitedly introduce us don't take no for an answer

by the Tom Robinson band. Born in Cambridge in 1950, Tom Robinson spent his early teens taking up an interest in music and realising he was gay. The former encouraged him to form a school band called the Inquisition, but the latter forced him to have a nervous breakdown

and a suicide attempt at the age of 16. After his headmaster, arranged a transfer to a therapeutic community in Kent, he attended a recycle by Alexis Corner, which gave him a severe kick-up-the-arse to pursue the music career. After leaving that community in 1973, he moved to London and became part of an acoustic trio

called Cafe Society, who had been mentored by Corner. And after taking up a residency at the Trubodore Club in Earl's Court, they were spotted by Ray Davis. of the kinks and signed to his label, Conk West. They were immediately hustled into a studio to record their debut LP, but Davis's other commitments meant it took nearly three years to finish, and a spat developed between Davis and Robinson, not only over the production, which he hated,

but also the contract he'd been signed to, which meant that Davis owned the rights to Robinson's publishing and would get 10% of every penny he made, made until two years after he left Café Society. And when the LP finally came out, it only sold 6,000 copies, and Robinson walked out on them in October of 1976. When he went back to the London gig scene with a sort of pickup band's three things happened. He played music for a New York theatrical troupe called Hot Peaches,

when they did a residency in London, who were very gay and didn't. give a fuck who knew about it. He was in attendance when the Metropolitan Police raided a gay bar and he caught an early gig by the Sex Pistols. This led to him putting together a full-time band, all of whom were straight by him and getting properly militant. After spending 1977 gigging on the punk scene and being one of the few musically proficient bands on the circuit

and playing any anti-racism benefit going, they were pursued by every label in London and eventually went with EMI. They put out their debut single, 2468 Motorway, in the first week of October, and a month later, it spent two weeks at number five. This is the follow-up,

a live EP called Rising Free, recorded during their recent UK tour at the Lyceum, Sussex University and High Wickham, which features this song, Martin, an update of Terry Scott's My Brother with more violence, joyriding and borsetal, and the non-more 1978, Right on Sister.

But it also contains a song he wrote and demo with Cafe Society called Glad to Be Gay, which rips into the Met, the media, queer bashes and society in general. And it is this song that Robinson wants to set before the living room. rooms of Albion this evening. Also, because it's 1978, Robin Nash has refused point blank. So

tonight they're playing this song, which is also the lead off track on the EP. He's entered the charts this week at number 30, the second highest new entry this week behind the free EP, which of course contains all right now. And here they are in the studio. So chaps, yeah, mid-February 1978 and the pop world is finally coming to terms with the death of the sex pistols. And the music papers are pretty much scouting round for new champions. And they appear to have narrowed their search down to two people,

Jimmy Perse and Tom Robinson. Yeah. It's fun actually to look at the way that he's dressed Tom Robinson in this. Because people are talking punk and they think of like the punks that used to hang around the King's Road with a big mohicans and everything like that. And of course, punk was really more about this look that Tom Robinson got, which is the big school tie, the flares. I mean, look at the Lionels on Tom, I mean, and that big sort of Glenn Huddled sent the parting.

And that's probably what, into Tom Robinson, that's his constituency, and he's kind of reflecting back at them, you know, what they look like. Also, he took about, like, the death of the sex pistols. And I think a lot of people feel, well, that's it. You know, there's no more punk. Punk was just a moment. And I remember at the time, somebody's saying,

I wonder if boogie-woogie's going to be the next big thing. The reason for that was that, like, you got people like Johnny Fingers, Jules Holland, Dave Greenfield, like the Strangler, And this fellow here, you know, like, at Emerson Lake and Palmer. You know, it's amazing all these kind of sort of keyboard warriors that you were getting at this time. But the thing is, if it weren't for other aspects of like the Tom Romson Band, which I would get on to, I think I'd probably complain about a track like this, about the sort of the un-reconstructed rockism, you know,

as masquerading as punking. It's kind of rugby-shirted rock in lots of way, in and of itself. Yeah. I mean, the title itself, don't take note. It reminds you, never about a fresh meet, you know, about the students. And there's a, and they'd rock up there's this club, and there's this sort of. a nerdy Scottish bloke and you know they adjuned themselves up you know to be on the pool and there's Joe Thomas's character and they like it and then the Scottish student says and we

will take no for an answer and Joe Thomas's character says we will take no for an answer just a little bit like that really so yeah Jimmy Percy and Tom Robinson seem to be the new standard bearers of whatever punk is nowadays but Tom Robinson's obviously the safer bet for many reasons, you know, signed to a big label with none of the grief that the clash got, already had a massive hit with their Yorkie advert of a single, and they've also been voted Best New Act in the NME Reader's poll, but obviously we need to talk about the pink elephant in the room, don't we? Because everyone knows that Tom Robinson is the gay singer with the gay song, and he clearly wants to fill your kids' heads with gay. Yeah, well, he's wearing a very important

symbol on top of the pop. Yes, he is. The logo. of the Fawr's Motor Company. No, it's the pink triangle from the Nazi death camps. I don't know what the Ford logo is about. It's not to the Stranglers, isn't it? Is it?

As we've mentioned in chart music's passive, Stranglers got done by the GLC for wearing a t-shirt with the word fuck in the style of the Ford logo, and they were banned from playing gigs in London. So, JJB wore an actual Ford logo T-shirt on top of the Pops

in the summer of 1977. presumably in order to stick it to the man or summer. I don't know. There was a lot of industrial action involving the forward company, but that was much later in the year. Oh, maybe it's that. Oh, see, he's saying his side of win management then. It's not very right on, Tom.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's not a sexy labour activist, is he? No, certainly not. No. Yeah, but yeah, the pink triangle, and this, of course, years before Bronski B adopted it. Yes.

Yeah, he's 28 here, and his status as a representative of the new wave was always a little bit tenuous, you know. And I guess they were in some ways sort of visually presented themselves to being part of all that. That stencils logo with the fist and the military font, you know, and singing about taking speed, 357, 9 Little White Line and all that. But yeah, there's a guitar solo,

and there are the Lionels that David mentioned. The guitarist, he cracks me up so much. He's one of those side men who's bigging up his role, do you know what I mean? Danny Custow, whenever I see Tom Robinson band, Danny Custow cracks me up, constantly mugging and gurning and pulling angular punky shapes, you know, just sort of desperately trying to say, we're part of that, we're part of all that stuff. But Tom Robinson, obviously, five years was an enormous difference in the 70s, and most of the punk musicians were at least five years younger than him. Yeah.

But clearly his heart was in the right place, and he just comes across as one of music's genuinely good guys. But, yeah, the elephant in the room, please do carry on. Well, yeah, the gayness has been baked into the coverage of TRB right from the off. I mean, article in the NME dated 20th of August, 1977. EMI say yes to gay power. The Tom Robinson band have been signed by EMI, and the deal could prove to be as controversial for the company as its relationship with the sex pistols was last year.

A self-confessed gay, Robinson distributes pamphlets at his concerts, publicising Rock Against Racism, the National Abortion Campaign, gay switchboard, and the Free George Inns campaign. Because of the causes he openly supports, a number of venues have previously been reluctant

to book his band. And already there is a, quote, minor boardroom drama at EMI, he claims, because executives are reluctant to release his homosexuals. Chal Anthem, glad to be gay, as a single. But the signing has been interpreted as a political move by the company's record division, who reputedly wished to demonstrate their strength and prevent boardroom interruption in artistic policy, as was the case during the pistols Farago.

The record division was like a naughty dog who'd got a nice juicy bone with the sex pistols, commented Robinson. but their master made them drop it. Now they'd got another and they're growling. It's strange really because sound-wise, appearance-wise and tone-wise. I mean, Tom Robinson band are about one of the least queer bands that ever existed. And that's the thing about Tom Robinson, because, you know, as people of a certain age,

we would have seen loads of performative homosexuality on top of the pops in the 70s, all performed by and large by straight men. but we're seeing absolutely none of that here. And that would have fucked with people's minds. No one at EMI appears to be leaning on him to tone it down or completely hide his sexuality. And yes, he is wearing a pink triangle, but that would have gone right over my head.

In 1978 to me, pink triangles would have been a team on We Are the Champions. It's one of the strangest top of the pop's appearances, as opposed to performances. And what I mean by that is the performance itself is fine, it's pretty straightforward. It's sort of, you know, like pseudo-punky, as I was saying. But it's all about backstory to it

and why we're hearing the song that we're hearing. All right, don't take no for an answer. It's a song about somebody who got Tom into a shitty contract. And as you mentioned, that someone is Ray Davis, you know. You've got the other tracks, you've got Martin, who Nairdo well, who Tom got into scrapes with as a kid.

They could have performed that. Right on Sister, as slagged off by the enemy, about women's lib and lesbianism. Lyric, she's a right-on sister and she knows what she likes. She needs you and me, man, like a fish needs a bike. It's a strange appearance

in that what's far more important than the song we're hearing is the song we're not hearing. And anybody who reads the music papers is probably really aware of that when they're watching this episode of Top of Pops. It really is a massive pink elephant,

pink triangle-shaped elephant in the room. So glad to be gay, it's being called. the UK's gay anthem, but it's a gay anthem in the least celebratory sense. It's the anti, I'm coming out. It's the anti, you make me feel mighty real. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I'm stopping in. Yeah, yeah, because, you know, from that bitterly ironic opening line onwards, the British police are the best in the world, brilliant, bitterly ironic opening line. It offers no hope at all. It depicts the grim reality of life for gay men in 70s Britain. And we're not even

a decade after decriminalisation, I think, at this point. The book is illegal now. What more are they after? Exactly. Yeah, it gets to that, doesn't he? In the lyric, still having their pubs raided, having their magazines shut down, getting beaten up by the police, getting queer-bashed in the street, and what thanks do you get for that, you get demonised by the press. Well, all that's going on. Yeah. It just feels like there's no sense of a sort of a sort of liberating rainbow on the horizon in this song.

You know, and it must have felt like that at the time. I mean, his own life bears that out. You've touched upon when he got sent to Finchton Manor, that therapeutic community for teenagers with emotional difficulties. Being gay isn't an emotional difficulty. It's society that causes the fucking difficulty. Do you know what I mean? Well, in the EP, on the live EP, he actually introduces this song.

And he says, this song is dedicated to the World Health Organization. It's a medical song. And it concerns a disease whose classification, according to the international classifications of disease, diseases is 302.0. Homosexuality had been classified as a menclatured by the W.H.O. in 195, as well as Roger Daltry of the W.H.O. on top of the pops in 1980. But by 1975, it had been amended to egodistonic homosexuality.

So the mental condition was thinking you might be gay when you only haven't met the right girl yet. Fucking hell. They only dropped it as a mental disorder. mental disorder in 1990. Fucking hell. He first had a double with a song called Good to Be Gay for a promo EP for the campaign for homosexual equality in 1975. And yeah, this is him writing an answer song to his own song.

It was only meant to be performed once by Catholic Society at Gay Pride in London, but it rapidly caught on to the extent that it was used as a title by the Scottish Minorities Group for their TV program on the BBC 2 community broadcast show Open Door, which was broadcast in December of 1976, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Scotland. So it was kept in their set throughout 1977, started popping up on programmes like So It Goes in the London Weekend Show. Almost as well known at Tom Robinson band song as 2468 Motorway.

Predictably Radio One would not touch it with a bar. Paul, apart from John Peel. But Capical Radio, who were going to prove very influential on the charts of early 19708, as we'll discover, they weren't as preset. And it was number one on their listener phoning chart for six weeks. Wow. But we never got to see them performing this on top of the pops. And I feel we'd be living in a very different world if we did.

Yeah. I mean, fucking, oh, yeah, BBC grow up here. Just fucking let them play it. It's, oh, God, yeah. Imagine if this was a live broadcast and they just did it, man. Yeah. Robin Nash would have had to get fucking legs and cold

and ordered them to get the tits out or rub each other or something. To restore heterosexuality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, restore the equilibrium. Yeah.

The crucible is the school playground. I'd have been in light, I don't know, fourth year or whatever at this time. It was a chant, you know, say, if you're glad to be gay, once managed to kind of encapsulate

the rebelliousness of it, you know, singing this forbidden lyric. But also, was sung in a spirit of complete homophobia as well. Yeah. I mean, it's a huge. hugely important record. It's a landmark in pop history, isn't it?

Yes, it's. Even though it didn't reach, you know, the heights of the top three or anything. But prior to this, there was very little by high-profile artists on the topic of gay life as it was lived in 70s pop. You had Rod Stewart's The Killing of Georgie a couple of years earlier. Yeah. And under one roof by the Rubets. And that's pretty much it.

And I just wonder how Tom Robinson felt at that moment. Coming on here on top of the pops and being obliged to sing a different song from the Rising Free EP. I guess maybe, you know, if he really gave it some and really tried to sell the other song that he's forced to perform, that it would drive people to buy the record and discover glad to be gay that way, at least.

I don't know. And the ironic thing about that, as you pointed out, Simon, this is a proper born in the USA of a song, isn't it? Because, you know, it's not saying, come on, lads, get some cockat skill. It's saying, look, if you're this way inclined, boy, are you in for some song? shit.

Yes, that is true. And the difference between this and born in the USA is we can understand the verse. Well, exactly, yes.

But then again, as you pointed out, David, getting a venue full of Stratos to be bellow, sing if you're glad to be gay.

Yeah. Sing if you're happy that way. He did. No small achievement in 1978. Yeah. He talks about

10 plays like Middlesbrough and the crowd being full of all these guys that would expect to beat the shit out of him

all chanting along, you know, glad to be gay. Yeah. And this is worth talking about now because the day is going to come pretty soon when, to use the enemy's words, self-confessed trans artist is going

to absolutely blow up. And we're going to go through all this again, aren't we? As long as they maintain their gender dignity. But in terms of how it would have felt Tom Robinson, I mean, my guess is possibly, he just thought it's 1978 and probably rather than feeling like bitter and devastated and crushed that you can't play the song, he might well have thought, look, it was never going to be a chance in hell of that, you know, so. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Ah, but he is going to be. going to get the chance to perform the song on national television because two days after recording this it's up the two four six eight motorway to birmingham for the tom robinson band because they appear on the pilot episode of revolver yeah which will go out at the end of may on a saturday tea time to

the horror of my mom so yeah they play the song and at the end he says that was the song they wouldn't lay on top of the pop so there you go yeah brilliant brilliant and when we did chart music 54 i chided him by inquiring how Top of the Pops could let him play it when it was never on a single. And I was talking right out of my ass because it's on this EP. So I apologise to Tom Robinson. I apologise to his band. And I apologise to you, the pop crazed youngsters, for my wrongness. But Tom Robinson, is he the acceptable face of punk or post-punk or whatever we're calling

this sort of thing? He definitely comes off as a bit of a posh boy by 1978. standards. You know, you see him in interviews, and he's practically Roddy Llewellyn's little brother. He's got the haircut of a Genesis fan. There's distinct kick in his black school trousers. He's definitely not a young rib. You know, he's 27 at the time, which makes him older than Elvis Costello and younger than Ian Jure. And he's angry, but he's actually got something to be genuinely angry about. And he's at least

doing something about it, isn't it? Totally. I mean, he's the head boy of punk, I suppose he might say. You know, a lot of people are sort of like taking a kind of countercultural attitude or a sort of stanza, vague stance against capitalism, whatever, at this time, you know, in the kind of, on the new wave bands. But, you know, he's actively prepared to tackle politics at a time when it needed tackling. And I guess

in the late 70s, he performs the same function that Billy Bragg did in the 80s, you know, bands would profess themselves concerned with the state of the world, but then they've come, but of course, we're not political than a Tom Robinson star, you know, like, Lord forbid we should be so crudely blunt, you know. So there's Tom, you know, like fronting Rock against racism, handing out his pamphlet, his leaflets, and he's like, he must have felt the time.

So it's just me doing the lifting here, is it? Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure that Pilly Bragg might have felt similar later on, you know, being kind of disparaged or being the kind of the one person that's prepared to kind of, you know, less than noncommittal when it comes to politics or whatever. Surely it's no coincidence that Archer, the vegetarian cohort of Carlin in Scum, is the dead spit of Tom Robinson. You know, the well-spoken line who goes barefoot because he refuses to wear leather and he registers as Muslim to get out of Sunday service who absolutely does the screws-headed

because they can't work him out at all. From this distance, you know, Tom Robinson doesn't come off as a punk but someone that punk has kicked the door open for. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the kids are all for it. There's a documentary that Granada did later this year

featuring TRB on the road. And you look at their audience and it's a proper a mixed bag of ages and tribes. And, you know, afterwards, when he's out by his car signing autographs, there's loads of young kids hanging around and talking to him, none of whom seem to be terrified or of catching gay or interested in having a go at him. You know what I mean? Yeah.

My dad was into TRB. Yeah. I know that my dad wasn't a typical example, but, you know, still, yeah. He reached that generation as well. And, I mean, they just had that really active relationship with the fans. You know, they had this Tom Bromerson band newsletter, you know, which had addresses of all these kind of political and radical and alternative organisations.

You know, you mentioned one of them early on, you know, like gay switchboard. And things like spare rib and, you know, anti-Nazi league, of course. Yeah. Obviously, he was taken to talk at times for like sort of gauche lyrics. I mean, ain't going to take it. There's like, was it, women with children always carry the can till they lose them in divorce suits to some pig of a man. You know, I don't like that.

But Nick Kent, you know, he's reviewing power in the darkness. He says, like, you know, Robinson has committed man. That's almost too obvious to need stating. But his politics can. continually force him to humourless conclusions. Yeah. Not everything has to be humorous. It's like, you want, meet the gang cars, the boys are.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. If you can't have a chuckle about being gay and repressed, then what's the point? Raising the rafters with a hey, hey, hey, is that what are you doing? Yes. Yeah. The NME gave TLB their cover last week, along with making this their single of the week. And they did a four-pourable.

page interview. We learned that Tom's calm down on the benefit gig scene, preferring to donate gig money to the likes of gay switchboard on the choir, as he wants to focus on the band now and let other people handle the politics in between interviews. There was an incident where members of the Bradford Gay Liberation Front ran on stage while they were doing right on sister, and they grabbed the mic and accused him of being patronising, and his response was to say, oh okay then and then went into the next song but you know he just talk about his worries that people like that they're happy to have a go at him but they won't have a go at bands like the stranglers for being who they are yeah right yeah anyway chaps the song we're actually getting

tonight a big coat down of an old pop star who's done ripped off the kids and at face value you could take it as a bit of an uncharitable dig in the vein of leum galliger having a go at Michael Hutchins at the Brit Awards. But you could actually say it's the return volley in a disc battle between Ray Davis and Tom Robinson. The kinks are still going and they signed with Arista around about the time Robinson had walked out on Davis. And they're playing a song at their gigs called Prince of the Punks

about an aging chancer who jumps on the punky bandwagon. Have you ever heard it? No. Sample lyrics. He tried to be gay, but it didn't pay. so he bought a motorbike instead. He failed at funk, so he became a punk, because he thought he'd make a little more bread.

He's the prince of the punks and he's finally made it. Thinks he looks cool, but his act is dated. He acts working class, but it's all baloney. He's really middle class, and he's just a phony. Oh, I didn't see phony coming there. Came out as the B-side of Father Christmas last day. December and yeah this could well be the response you know we first met in the winter said let's give it a try I swallowed my fears a couple of years just living a lie I'd just come from the country

wide-eyed and naive I'd signed on the line I've signed up on time now you won't ever leave I don't want any trouble I ain't after a fight but well-respected man you better understand man you're standing in my light and I do believe chaps we've just seen the supposedly right on Tom Robinson using his platform on the BBC to indulging kink shaming

I don't think that's going to go down too well with Bradford Gay Liberation from him again another born in the USA situation because you hear the chorus don't take no for an answer and you think he's saying hey kids don't ever compromise when in actual fact he's saying

Hey, Ray Davis, you've got me by the balls and it's not fucking right. Yeah. Oh, and of course the irony is by performing this song and kids going out to buy it on Saturday, another 10% of your pocket money is going to Ray Davis.

Oh, yeah. As for the performance, well, it's your standard punk adjacent top of the pops run out, isn't it? Robinson appears to be singing live and if the rest of the band aren't playing live, they're doing a really good job to appear authentic. Everyone's plastered with sticking.

and badges, you know, musicians union, keep music live one, anti-Nazi badge on the drummer. The keyboard players wearing some rubber joke shop werewolf gloves because it's 1978 and that's what keyboard players did. And the kids seem to be well into it, aren't there? And not surprising because this sort of thing

is as close to punk as a lot of the youth of 1978 wanted to get. You know, some are a bit spiky and shatter that they can have a good bounce about to without the fear of a love. a load of skinheads bum rushing the stage. So, yeah, strong start to this episode, I believe. Yeah, yeah, it's orthodox and inclusive, I guess, in that respect.

Anything else to say, boys? I just wondered when the quicksave Mussolini, Stephen Yatsley-Lennon decided on his stage name, if you like, if he was aware of who had previously had that name. Oh, yes. And what their politics were. Do you know, it's ridiculous. It never occurred to me before. So the following week

The Rising Free EP would jump six places to number 24 and a week later would get to number 18 its highest position The follow-up Up Against the Wall would only get to number 33 in May

but a month later their first LP Power in the Darkness would get to number four in the album charts diminishing returns would set him by the end of the year when too good to be true failed to chart. The lead-off single from the next LP, TRB2,

bully for you, only got to number 68, and they never troubled the singles chart again, splitting up in 1979, when they were dropped by EMI. Robinson immediately formed a new band called Sector 27, which supported the police on their 1980 tour of America, but after their management company went bankrupt, he relocated to Berlin, went solo and had two hits in 1982 with War Babea and listened to the radio,

colon, Atmospherics. In 1986, he was offered his own radio show on the BBC World Service, which kicked off a radio career that has seen him appear on all six BBC national stations. And Robinson and Davis finally squashed the beef in 2020. when the latter appeared on the former's radio six show for a two and a half hour long interview. Take no for an answer. Don't take no for an answer.

A new EP and don't take no for an answer. And now making her debut on top of the pops is the exquisite Kate Bush with her new single, Wuthering Heights. We catch kid looking wistfully at TRB before snapping back into the here and now and introducing us to the debut performance. of the exquisite Kate Bush

and her new single Wuthering Heights. He says it as if we're expecting the song to be called Wuthering Depths. I don't know what he's doing there. Born in Bexley Heath in 1958,

Kate Bush is Kate fucking Bush. After a childhood steeped in music and learning to play her own songs on piano by the age of 11, her parents shopped around a demo tape

containing 50 songs to assorted labels in 1972 but was turned down flat. However, in 1973, it got into the hands of Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who gave her time in his studio. And in 1975, he linked her up with the arranger Andrew Powell, who had worked with Cockney Rebel,

Donovan, Al Stewart and the old sailor, and the sound engineer Jeff Emerick, who worked on Revolver, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band and Abbey Road to record a three-song demo tape. After that tape was sent to EMI, they immediately expressed an interest and signed her up in 1976 when she turned 18. But even though she'd already written and demoed between 100 and 200 songs, depending on who you talk to, they relented from shoving her through the music biz sausage machine, believing

that she was too young to handle either. the success or the failure of her first LP and put her on a two-year retainer instead, which she spent on mime and interpretive dance training from Lindsay Kemp, while getting used to live performance by playing pub gigs in London. By the summer of 1977, EMI were ready to pull the trigger, and she was summoned to Air Studio to record her debut LP, the kick-in-sight. When that was done, they decided upon the single that would introduce her to the world, James and the Cold Gun. But Bush put her foot right down and insisted that it should be the four and a half minute track, which was on the end of Side 1,

which she wrote in the late hours of February 2nd, 1977, after catching the last 10 minutes of the 1971 film adaptation of the 1847 Emily Bronte novel, Wuthering Heights with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff. After EMI caved in, the single was slated for release on November 4th, but when the design for the cover was shown to Bush, she hated it and demanded they'd change it. While an alternate design was being put together, delaying the release, Mull of Kintyre by wings smashed into the chartered number five, an EMI sniffing the heather-centred wind from the highlands,

studying the sales figures and realizing that thanks to Paul McCona they already had a big, fat, big-tittered hit on their hands, decided to hold back on release until the third week of January. However, copies of the single with the original cover had already been shipped out to every radio station in the country, leading EMI to rush out letters begging them not to play it. All of them complied, but totally. Tony Myatt, the late-night DJ on Capitol Radio, came across it, went on the ear and said he'd found this really odd song and played it, which led to a blizzard of phone calls from Londoners, demanding he'd play it again.

And it was on constant rotation on Capitol throughout December. Wow. It entered the charts at number 42 last week of Fortnite after its release, and this week it soared 15 places to number 20. and she's been rushed into the top of the pop studios. However, due to the BBC's arcane rules imposed by the musicians union, her band are in attendance, but only in the audience, because due to the fact that she's billed as a solo artist,

she's going to have to pick her way through the moors with the crushing, suffocating dead weight of the top of the pop's orchestra on her back. And if you think Kidd's introduction was a bit over-familiar that's because he's become very well acquainted with this beguiling new songstress today quote from his autobiography Kid Jensen for the record

As I pushed open the door of my top of the pop's dressing room in February 1978 it appeared I was not to benefit from its exclusive use A lacy black dress Dangled from the hook on the wall It belonged

I was informed to Kate Bush A hasty informal rota for the room Preserve Modeste As we prepared for our appearances Fucking up And once again we have to say Thank God Kid Jensen's on tonight Hey chaps

Yeah So what do we talk about first panel The song or the performance Because they're both striking in their own way I mean, we absolutely forget how fucking mental this song sounded when you heard it for the first time. Can you remember? I do remember. I mean, you got this kind of weird, almost like Partrigian intro by Kid Jensen, you know, like, pray silence for Kate Bush, almost.

It's like, wobbling heights. And it's almost like, you can have this delicate little songbird. And it out shrieks that voice like a parakeet, fucking hell. I vividly remember that first. I mean, Simon, you go on rightly about. how great 1981 was because we allowed the freakyer elements of pop to rise to the top of the charts. But this is three years earlier and in its own way, it's the absolute equal to all that insanity that hit the top of the charts in 1981, don't you think?

Yeah, she was maybe a bit of an outlier in her era. But also, she's kind of a test case for the theory that if you present the British public with weirdness, quite often they will fucking buy it. Yes. You know, just thinking of something, just off the top of my head, something like, oh, Superman by Laurie Anderson. I was just going to say that. A really strange record that became a hit, you know. All flying

lizards as well. Yeah. As I've already mentioned, I didn't see this episode, but I clearly remember hearing it for the first time. I'd just not known what the fuck was going on. Yes, there is a tune happening and there's a chorus and all that, but a fucking voice and a delivery. I truly believed it was a foreign language.

I could not pick out one line until bad dreams in the night. And I did think when she said Heathcliff, she was going, he-he-he, sort of proto-Michael Jackson. And here, chaps, is an oh, what, wow moment for you.

Oh. Until I started researching this and actually looked at the lyrics. I had gone 48 years thinking that Kate Bush in the middle was singing, my one thing, my one dream,

a monster. You don't know whether to laugh at the weirdness of it or shit yourself because, you know, hearing this on the radio, it would put you in mind of an episode of Armchair,

thriller where a siren call over the airwaves turns people into killbots and makes them start rummaging through their knife draw. You know, it's Gabriel era genesis for ginty readers, isn't it? It doesn't really feel like it's got anything to do with punk. No. I mean, I'm occasionally described Kate Bush's post-punk pebble mill or whatever, because there's a sort of MLR accessibility about her and the sort of, you know, the kind of sense of theatre as well, which is kind of conducive to a mainstream audience. But at the same time, you know, this absolute gogly weirdness. Yeah, I mean, I was going to ask you who the fuck is buying this, but it's obvious, man, teenage girls, teenage girls of all eras go mad for Bronte shit. Yeah. I mean, I remember eight or so years after this, we did a college

trip to Hayworth and me and some other lad, I think it might have been mad Phil of Chalp Music's Passing. We drifted off with these two girls to one of the moors, you know, tentatively wondering if something was going to happen. And the next thing we know, these two girls are just fucking bolted across the field, like Roadrunner, waving their hands in the air, screaming, Heathcliff! Heathcliff!

Till they were a fucking speck in the distance. Me and him just looked at each other and just laughed and went off to find a pub. Something in them that I can't understand. Yeah. I mean, even now, your release show went to see their new Wutheringites film, didn't she? Yeah, I think she liked it. Yeah.

She's not exactly familiar with the book, but so that probably helps. Nor was Kate Bush, by the way. No, absolutely. As I'll say. She only caught the end of it. Kind of adjacent in a sense to punk. But it's not goth in any way.

It doesn't really have anything much to do with Goth and all of its tropes. You know, and got up and running with Susie and the Banshees. You know, it's something apart from that as well. Yeah. And I suppose structurally wise, it's quite elaborate and it's quite ambitious in its sort of changes and everything like that and in terms of its musicology. But it's a sense of it, you know, in terms of the orchestra, of it. I mean, it's almost like

M-O-R-ish in some ways. But yes, she was so right to insist on this as the debut. I mean, have you ever heard James and the Cold Gun? It's very mid-70s, very polished, you know, steely Danielle, if you will. Right. And it's all right,

but it wouldn't have made a fraction of a dent that Wuthering Heights did. Because we're living in a time when even the average capital radio listener is craving something radically different. Now, if you hear a new single and it's a bit weird and you don't get it at first

you just pass it over and go for something more familiar but in 1978 after all the shit that's just gone before in the previous year people seem to be more willing to take on board something new even if they don't get it at first but give it a chance to seep in

you know not that they had any choice because it was absolutely hammered on the radio yeah so you could say really that Kate Bush got as much benefit out of punk as Tom Robinson did. In a sense, and it's also the fact that 1978 is a year when people aren't quite sure what's going to happen next, or, you know, so people are prepared to, perhaps

like, you know, like, specular as I said early on, maybe boogie-woogie is going to be the next thing, you know? And so, you know, there's lots of like leaping in the dark, I guess, and there's a sense that whoever's new could come from anywhere will be anything. But you have to say, fair go to EMI for letting her have her way. Yeah. The plan was to fix her as an album artist, who'd only really pay dividends by the third LP,

and the performances of the singles didn't really matter as long as you got them noticed. But, you know, that's bollocks because they wouldn't have helped the single back over the December otherwise. And they've played an absolute blinder at the moment, haven't they? Coming off the success of Mullerkin Tire. And, you know, it makes you wonder

what would have happened to the sex pistols if EMI had actually held their nerve after the Grundy incident? I think we'd at least got another LP out of it. Yeah. Johnny Rotten at this time is saying that it's just as well because the sex pistols will be in the rolling stones of the 80s if they'd carried on. Yeah.

You mentioned the sex pistols. About 12 years ago when Kate Bush was gearing up for her comeback shows at Hammersmith, which I went to, by the way, which were fucking amazing. BBC 4 ran a documentary about her. And in that, John Leiden, I think perceptively stated that for a lot of his punk friends, Kate Bush was too much. And I thought those two words too much. He kind of summed up the case against Bush,

or at least the kind of alibi for anyone who ever found her a little bit off-putting. And we've talked about it before, but as a child, she scared me. Yes. For reasons which are largely connected to that too muchness, you know, her eyes and mouth. You see it here, you know, the deep red lips, the vocal range. It's all too big. It's like the granny wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. and, you know, to children, that's always going to be unsettling.

Neil Colcarnie, R-I-P, pour out a little liquor, was also scared of her. Yeah, the widening of the eyes. Yeah, and I'd later learn to love what had once filled me with fear. I think Neil did too, I don't know, but it's not surprising that Rotten and his mates couldn't get along with what Kate Bush was about, what she was doing, because kind of uniquely among those towering icons of the late 70s and early 80s, Kate Bush didn't come out of punk. She did come out of Prague.

She was inspired by King Crimson and Pink Floyd as much as maybe the more obvious David Bowie and Stevie Nix of Roxy Music. Of course, she was mentored by Dave Gilmore and Peter Gabriel. You listen to the complexity of her works, the multi-cord structures, and of course this performance

shows the unashamed theatricality of it of the presentation. All of that was rooted not in 1976, but in 1973. She came from Kent, and I think it's kind of interesting, the kind of spiritual soil from which she sprang. It wasn't the Bromley contingent. It's soft machine, it's caravans, the Canterbury set.

And you could go a century earlier, William Morris. William Morris's Red House in Bexley Heath. It's where it was a rural retreat for Gabriel Dante Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddell and the pre-Raphaelite set. That was just a stone's throw from Kate Bush's child at home. It's just kind of arseiness. It's not limited by punk It doesn't have those kind of strictures of punk

Yeah She should probably be seen in that respect As a kind of last gasp of the bohemian 70s You know the sort of living in a caravan kind of 70s Flake advert Yes exactly that Just kind of this island of baroque excess Amid those kind of tapered strictures

That we're coming in with with New Wave And you look at this performance She's absolutely starting as she means to go on She's setting out of fucking stall here isn't she? Definitely I mean, obviously, she later admitted she'd not really read the book when this happened. But that's such a teenage thing to do, isn't it? Exactly, yeah.

When you first start reading kind of grown-up books when you're a teenager, the first book or the first couple of books, whatever they may be, whether it's, you know, The Outsider by Camus or 1984 by George Orwell, those books take up sort of undue prominence in your mind. You sort of start acting as if you're the only person who understands them, and it's really important that you share it with the world. There's a little bit of that here with whether they're in heights. I mean, it does sound like a massive stretch trying to find any influence that punk would have had on Kate Bush,

because it's definitely not their music clip, but performance-wise, what did most punky women do on top of the pops? They looked a bit scary and they looked a bit mad. And Kate Bush does both of those things when she's on top of the pops, albeit a bit more subtler and a thousand times more effectively. The thing is, the kind of punk equivalent would be Susie Sue. Yes. I would say that in their later album,

Susie and the Banshees ended up in a fairly similar place to Kate Bush. They just got there by a different route. And I think Kate Bush and Susie Sue, despite having come from Prague and punk respectively, had a lot more in common than might immediately be apparent. I really do. You know, I think they're kind of, God, it's reductive to call somebody the female Bowie or to have that.

But certainly to have that kind of impact, I think Kate Bush and Susie Sue are the two who can make that claim. And as you say, you recounted that story of the girls on your trip to Yorkshire who went running off shouting Heathcliff. This record just had a massive power over girls. And I think that strange power has always endured. You know, it's fairly easy to make your own list of female artists who've been hugely influenced. Well, by Kate Bush in general, but probably just by this one record. And you can see from this why girls responded.

The weird thing is, though, I was doing a bit of reading up on this. And there's a book by Simon Reynolds, David's old colleague and Joy Press, called The Sex Revoltz. And in that book, they've dug up some interview quotes with Kate Bush from this time from 19708. And in it, she basically talks about almost sort of identifying or cosplaying as male when she's a songwriter. She says, when I'm at the piano writing a song, I like to think I'm a man, not physically, but in the areas that they explore. Bobby Crush. fuck's sake. For fuck sake.

Rock and roll and punk. They're both really male music, she says. And every female you see at the piano is either Lindsay DePaul, Carol King, that lot. That stuff is sweet and lyrical,

but it doesn't push it on you. And most male music, not all of it, but the good stuff, really lays it on you. It's like an interrogation. It really puts you against the wall,

and that's what I like to do. I like my music to intrude. And I think that's really interesting. And also, of course, perhaps her most famous song now, thanks to Stranger Things, running up the hill, is all about gender swapping, isn't it? But that idea of pushing you against the wall

and intruding and forcing it on you. That's what she's fucking doing here in this performance. It's like scaring the shit out of you. It's like getting in your face. It's practically hammering on the fucking window pain, isn't she? She is. She is. She's doing that, that mind thing where you put your flat palm up, you know, as if you are at a window.

And she's using every fucking minute of that Lindsay Kemp training, isn't she? to an extent. Oh, okay. We have to talk about the performance because, I mean, this is the big reveal of Kate Bush in the UK. It's only a second ever TV appearance. Last weekend, she nipped over to West Germany to appear in the TV show, Beos Barnoff, a variety show set in a tram shed in Cologne, where she sang live over a backing tape in front of a backdrop of the Yorkshire Moors

that for some reason had an active volcano slap in the middle of it. Tonight, on top of the pops, she's going to be practically face to face with the sullen youth of Albion. And she's going to have a song completely shit on by our old friends, the Top of the Pops Orchestra. Oh, yeah. I mean, you could say that early 1978 is the imperial phase of the Top of the Pops Orchestra. They're still basking in their glory of their interesting take on Uptown top ranking the other week. But let no one say the top. of the Pops Orchestra are racialist

or don't understand the intricacies of their think music. They can turn their hands to this sort of thing to and make it just as unforgettable. Yes. A quote, if you don't mind, from the biography Under the Iveh by Graham Thompson. Top of the

Pops was the big one. She made her first appearance on the BBC's flagship music program on February the 16th when Wuthering Heights broke into the top 40 at number 27. What should have been a happy occasion

turned into a nightmare. She discovered just prior to taping her performance that the show's arcane rules dictated that as a solo artist, she was not allowed to play with her band. Instead, she would have to sing solo to a new, markedly inferior backing track of her song knocked off that afternoon by the best. BBC Orchestra.

It was all dictated by stringent musician union regulations. Robin Nash, the programme's producer, came from a variety background and was unsympathetic to Bush's plight. He threw his weight around, according to a member of the Bush

entourage. It was not a nice experience for someone who was bust a gut, creating things properly, and wants to be able to do it with backbone and honesty. So yeah, not the most convivial atmosphere for a new singer and it does show in the performance.

It's an absolute textbook example of a carefully honed image being lobbed into the sausage machine of television, don't you think? Musically, yes. She got really badly fucked over there and on that stupid technicality. If she'd build herself as KB, the K-Bush band, then it would have been different, wouldn't it? Oh, Kate and the Bushers. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

On that technicality, because she's a solo artist, they fucked her over. It's a dog's breakfast of a performance, obviously, you know. It's a dog's vomited breakfast, David. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. I mean, look, she's clearly nervous as far. She nearly comes in at a full bar earlier. More importantly, she's been made to sing live into a big silver hand mic while sat on a tiny circular platform,

which she then has to stand on, while she gamely attempts to wait for the top of the pop's orchestra to catch her up, all by being watched and in some cases being totally ignored by using American football t-shirts and late 70s dinge wear. They all look like extras in an advert for KP Skydivers, man. It's terrible. That big blonde.

Yeah, but that's as it ever was with Top of the Pops, you know. And it's on the performer to somehow cut through that and to transcend that. And I rate her performance more highly than you do. I really do. I think she's giving it loads. She's got a microphone. in the hand so that cuts off like 50% of her dance routine

I don't know though she uses it it's one of those microphones it's like a slim panetella cigar and she sort of circles it around like she's stirring porridge so she's kind of at least she's sort of using it as a prop or doing something I mean I could go to everyone who's listening to this right now

and ask them to do an impression of Kate Bush singing Raw than nights and they do exactly the same thing as me because it's burned into our brains you know the hands swinging the Hindu gory finger gestures, the spinning around, particularly the spinning around, the pouring at the window, both hands and the eye widening that terrified a young Neil Colcarnet. But in this performance, which is, remember, the first impression we get of Kate Bush, we get very little of that. I thought it's plenty. I don't agree. I thought it's plenty.

She might have got Lindsay Kemp in to refine her look, but he can't help her when she's been thrown into the country's most expensive youth club with fucking Ray and Nobby's. saw in a wave, been made to hold a microphone which cuts off half of the hand gestures and told to get on with it. I mean, let's be honest here, there is nothing here that's going to make Faith Brown sit up and start scribbling in a notebook. I feel sorry for her, man. She's been hobbled. I mean, you mentioned Faith Brown. This record has been ruined to some extent by parody. Those three women, I always get mixed up. Marty Kane, Faith Brown, Janet Brown. I always get a mixed up. They all seemed to have a crack at Kate. I don't know if they all did. I imagine not the 9 o'clock news had

had to go as well. Oh, course they did they? Almost certainly. You buy my latest hits because you like my latex tits. Oh God, yeah, yeah. And you're all trying hard to get inside my Leo Tard. Obviously, it's been partaged as well. Yes. I hated you. I loved you too. Yeah.

But despite that, I think it's still strong. And I think this performance is better than you think it is. And I think it's an incredible record. that there's probably a lot that's technically correct, definitely, about what Al says, certainly. But I think she's think that the performance is so shocking and so overwhelming that, you know, misgivings are kind of waived, really. I think she's got this kind of nice balance, you know, sort of coveting on this fine line between sexy and sexist, as it were, you know. I think the one thing that did she are with me is when it cuts to the, there's two geeseers standing there at the front, like they've been abandoned by all their mates, you know, that the old blonde unit there. Just, it's just like, what am I doing here? Where's everyone gone?

I wondered if they were her musicians. I was one... Yeah, possibly. Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree on this performance, I think, because to these jaded old eyes that are embedded into this old, ugly skull here, I think this could be the only time we've seen a Kate Bush performance where Kate Bush is not in control of the situation. And fucking Ellie shows.

I think that's true. The whole thing looks like a ridiculously talented six-former who's been asked to do recycle to the second-year assembly, who'd much sooner be listening to Quo. And by the end, as the camera pulls back, we realize that by this point, she's performing to an absolute crescent of shame, because it looks like 90% of the audience

have either fucked off to the other stage or getting ready to cluster around Kid Jensen for the next link. Yeah, that's the bad bit. Rum do. Back to the book. All the band were there, but they could only stand at the front and watch helplessly. the misery unfolded. Oh, it was then?

She had a terrible time with Top of the Pops, says Charlie Morgan. If you had a sound like Kate had on Wuthering Heights with this wonderful guitar solo by Ian Berson, and you want to use your own band, but the BBC says, absolutely not. Kate is a solo artist, and she will sing with the house band.

Well, it was a really, really unpleasant experience for her. She had a horrible time. she was practically in tears. Her band would have given her huge moral support, if nothing else. We all felt for her and we were really dejected because we knew she hadn't done a fantastic performance and it wasn't really her fault. It's one thing being out of your comfort zone,

but if you have an element of control, it's okay. But if you're completely out of control and you're 19 years old, that's not a very good experience. she later memorably described seeing the performance play back as like watching myself die. I mean chaps, there is an alternative universe out there somewhere where Kate Bush appears on top of the pops does this and it ends up being remembered as well as mirrors in the sun by Sally Oldfield or even naughty, naughty, naughty by Joy Sarnay. You know, a quirky song that came and went along with a singer. Totally.

Only remember by old cunts who do a podcast about Top of the Pops. There were so many one-hit wonders around this time. I was actually thinking of naughty-noughty-nought it as well. Yes, of course you was. I was convinced, actually, it was just going to be a kind of one-in-one. I thought, yes, it's something, but it's kind of a novelty thing. I mean, how's you going to follow that up? Yeah.

But Jilted John, who was interviewed at the time, he said everything that's happening now in New Wave is short-lived. And I think Jilted John is, too. I think it's not like Kate Bush, who's immortal. So, yeah, you got that exactly right. But, yeah, it could easily be, you know, like, or something like that. One thing that Kate Bush does have in common with punk in the new wave and in interviews

quite often, and it's this almost paralysing self-consciousness about the fact that you're kind of operating within the music industry and the kind of commerce of all the whole art versus commerce thing. People are almost like very painful about this, as if they're being kind of examined by their peers, you know, for anything they might say that sounds like kind of commercial opportunously, you know. She talks about the star making machine interviews and, you know, and she said, you know, her acts it says you see people who are into the glamour and the ego of it and not the work and really

works what it's all about it's not anything to do with ego music is like being a bank clerk it's still work on your different channel of energy i mean obviously she's not going to be a one it won't well yeah certainly because i have got her back and she's got the man with a child in his eyes in the tank that's going to be a fucking hit in any year yeah but it could have easily derailed her path to the top you know but on the upside this ferrogo actually encouraging you reaches her to get the fuck away from studio performances whenever she can avoid them and getting early on video and completely control her image so that means we get to see remoting in a polythene womb joining the TA and stepping on a mine and sitting on the shoulders of a roll of disco Satan and you know a world without cape bush on the shoulders of a roll of disco Satan that's that's not a world I care to think about so well played top of the pops it was all for the good in the Yeah, and I guess it might well be this experience that they'd love that because it's only right towards the end of her so pop career that she then lands up again on top of the pop. Yes.

And it's probably a side at that point she's on the slide. So the following week, despite that performance, Wuthering Heights soared another 14 places to number 13. And the week after jumped eight places to number five. And after another top of the pop's performance, this time with us sat behind a piano with a different sparse. pre-recorded accompaniment, it shoved this week's number one off the summit of Mount Pop and would stay there for four weeks, where she finally did a studio performance

without a mic and with all the hand gestures and all the twizzling around and everything before eventually giving way to match stork men and match stork cats and dogs by Brian and Michael. Fuck off. It would go on to sell half a million copies in the UK. would be the 12 biggest selling single of 1978,

one above Sandy by John Travolta, one below Dreadlock holiday by 10CC, and made her the first woman to take her own self-written song to number one. An EMI was so delighted with Tony Meyer of Capical telling them to fuck off that they gave him his own gold disc. And Wuthering Heights would be covered in a West Country regular. reggae source by Morgan Fisher, the keyboard player of Mott the Hoopal, under the name Charles Wurzel later in the year.

Have you heard that? No, I haven't. It's very similar to that song that was in the Enemy Reviews page, covering uptown top ranking, but about flashes. It's just, what the fuck is going on with the Wurzels and Reggae in 1978? But also, in 1996, the object of Kathy's obsession was turned into a musical, written by and starring the child blood vintner of pop himself, Cliff Richard. Boys, have you seen that?

No. No. Yeah, Cliff's on the stage, and he's wearing this kind of like shaggy mullet and beard combo that makes him look like a midfielder for Bocca Jr. Circa 1977. And he's deploying the kind of accent that all Southern is used when they're trying to take the piss out of anyone north of Lester. It's terrible. Oh, my God.

Obviously, Cliff's taken the opportunity. to build his part of a bit and improve upon the storyline because Heathcliff goes off round the world. So there's a bit in Africa, which is well-lying king. And we also learned that Heathcliff was responsible for introducing heroin to China. But there's a classic bit at the end when he comes home to find out that Kathy has died. And he's on the moors on his knees in pain. And he says, I cannot live without my light. I cannot live without my soul.

Does he do any danger dancing? He must do. Probably, yeah. I went to see a stage show of Weatherin Heights once, a few years ago. It was actually, there's this open-air amphitheatre in Brighton. It was pretty good. But the thing that was really distracting all the way through was that the guy who played Heathcliff was a dead ringer for Steve McMahon.

Oh, no. I kept expecting him to sort of break off from the dialogue and do a maisie run down the wing and whip him into the top corner. The follow-up, the man with a child, in his eyes, got to number six in July. And yes, was another single that she put a foot down for because AMI wanted them heavy people. But she'd have to wait 44 years for her next number one

when a re-release of running up that hill got there for three weeks in June of 2022, thanks to it being on some Netflix ramble. But the trauma from this performance meant that from late 1977 onwards, She refused point blank to appear in the top of the pop studio, only coming back in 1985 for running up that hill. When she had the authority to demand that she could load a bow with a real arrow and point it at the kids and assholes to BBC health and safety restrictions. Well, played doc.

Oh, what an episode, Pop Crazy youngsters, and we've only just started on it. If you don't mind, we're going to stop and catch us breath for a bit. All the better to come back hard in the next part tomorrow. So don't forget, if you want to hear all of this episode right now with no advert Rammell, get your ass over to Patreoncom. Get your ass over to patreon.com slash chart music, all one word, and get some tips in this here G-string.

Anyway, this is how need them. And if you're not staying pop crazed, you're letting yourself down, you're letting your family down, you're letting your school down, and you're letting chart music down. Just take a look around you. What do you see? Kids with feelings like you and me. Those kids happen to be David Stubbs, Simon Price, and me, I'll need them. And once again, the kids are united.

They will never be divided. And the feelings we have at the moment that this episode of Top of the Pops from February the 16th, 1978, are about to be shared with you, the pop craze youngsters in part three of episode 78 of chart music. So, let's get back to the episode. Let's all grab and let's all enjoy. And on that note, Pop Craze Youngsters, we're going to step back one more time and prepare for the denoument of this glorious episode at Top of the Pops. And on that note, Popcray's Youngsters, we're going to step back one more time and gird our loins for the denoument of this glorious episode at Top of the Pops. So come and join us for the last part tomorrow.

in the meantime, do not forget that we've got a massive video. In the meantime, do not forget that we've prepared a massive video playlist for you to pick through. Everything we listen to, everything we talk about, everything 1978 is all there, and it's all waiting for you at YouTube.com slash chart music, TOTP, all one word. So, until we meet again, this is Al Needham on behalf of Simon Price and David Stubbs, advising you to stay pop crazed. Chart music.