Hits 21 - 1997 (5): Will Smith, The Verve, Elton John, Spice Girls

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every single UK #1 hit..You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UKYou can email us: [e-mail] 21 DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY MUSIC USED IN THE EPISODES. USAGE OF ALL MUSIC USED IN THIS PODCAST FALLS UNDER SECTION 30(1) OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1988

Hits 21 Hi there everyone and welcome back to Hits 21 the 90s where me, Rob, me and me are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. Email us at Hits21 podcast at gmail.com, Twitter as at Hits21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are currently looking back at the year 1997 and this week we'll be covering the period between the 20th of July and the 25th of October. So it's time to press on with this week's episode.

Andy got about three months to cover. What are we buying as we all go back to school and deal with a certain news event in 1997? So we pick up from last week with six weeks at the top still going on ever since July for the fat of the land by the prodigy, which went triple platinum, all told. Then we get one week returning to the top.

entry for White on Blonde by Texas, which was number one for just one week and six times platinum overall. I remain baffled by the popularity of Texas, but clearly plenty of people disagree. It's just one of those things I'm going to have to accept like the Transformers movies. And then Oasis turn up with the biggest release of the year, the highest selling album of 1997. It's some old shit. It's their worst album. It's Be Here. now, which went six times platinum. That's interrupted for one week by Ocean Color Scene with marching already, marching already by Ocean Color Scene, which went number one, like I say, for just one week and went single platinum before Oasis returned to number one for another

wretched week. And finally, seeing us out, it's Wiggins finest, the verve with urban hymns, which eventually goes to number one for five weeks. And although Oasis is the biggest selling album of 1997, The Verve dwarf it actually overall across the whole of time. That went 10 times platinum. Oasis, the Verve and The Prodigy, three of them kind of sharing this period with little appearances from Texas and Ocean Colisein. I think a little bit like a festival line-ups in that time. Yes, Ocean Colossine, Oasis and The Verve all getting them all on albums at the same time. It's like, oh, we're in an era, aren't we?

Ed, America. How are they doing at this moment in time? there is plenty of Diddy coming and Diddy going in the charts, which I'm not going to deal with every single reappearance of P Diddy. We'll just pretend he's not in the room. So both thugs and Harmony are back at the top of the US Billboard No. 1 albums chart for a week in the days when debut album rub and a pretentious album title was enough to go gold on. The Art of War, Sons, Sues and Leave. Speaking of name recognition alone, I didn't even know Fleetwood Mac released an album in 1997, let alone that it went anywhere. But go it does and quickly.

Its own way, to be sure, but quickly. And here it is. Been waiting for this one, flagged it up, some episodes back. For me, possibly the nadir of hip-hop, certainly the worst hip-hop album cover I've ever seen. Master P and Get O-D. Scour the number one position for a week, like a debilitating bout of IBS. It went triple platinum, just look at that cover and remind yourself of that baffling factoid. With those rappers, and more gallingly, with that cover, I don't understand it.

Next up, with covers of God bless America and the US National Anthem, is it any wonder why Leanne Rhymes, you light up my life, inspirational songs? failed to ignite over here. In the States, though, they do like a bit of overt nationalism, whereas we just like to hang St George's flags over lamp posts under cover of night, and vote sneakily for reform while smiling at the citizens we want wholesale removed. That's my Sunday. Now, I'm not saying that all reform voters are gullible, cowardly bigots.

Come, Mariah, come, Mariah. Here is Butterfly by Mariah Carey for a week. It's the nostalgia, sloppy second show tonight, isn't it? Dysenuous Sunday School douchebags, boys to men are back again with Who Gives a Shit, there's an out on here you know. Morley-Anne rhymes chest beating before, Hey, it's an album I actually want to listen to. The Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson is another strong addition

to a streak of solid albums dating right back to the mid-80s. another week of Leanne Wow, you love your mawkish jingoism, don't you America? Before a week at number one for the firm Not the British Novelty Act that released Star Trekking This is a US hip-hop group Who I confess I've never fucking heard of Which does somewhat surprise me

Given the calibre of artists involved Including Nuzz, Foxy Brown, A-Z and Dr. Dre That one passed me by somehow And finally, finally for the albums, bringing us back down to the earth with a valiated bump. We have two weeks and 20 tracks of ambient horizontal mouth-bubbbler Mace with Harlem World. Singles now, it's a lot less long and unbearable. After Didicam finally breathes his last at number one,

we get basically everyone but him with two weeks of Didicum-Diddle posthum as biggie single, mo-money-mo problems, which not even Didicum nor Mace can actually fuck up. Taking us through the end of September, we have three weeks of honey. But enough about my alternative diet. Mariah Carey causes a sharp buzz until being defroined by a week of bees to men. Yes, four seasons of loneliness by boars to men. Snaked that one in under the door, didn't you, Ed? Four seasons of loneliness is, I imagine, about as pacey as it sounds.

But speaking of taking your sweet goddamn time, Elton John feels sufficiently moved by the death of a woman who was on telly a lot to ask his friend to change a couple of words in an existing song and spunk that out to the hysterical masses, who suck it down promptly like a Clinton card full of sweet, sweet nectar for 14,000. straight weeks at the top of the US singles charts. Even we didn't go that mental.

Regardless of your feelings about Diana, about any of that stuff, 14 weeks at US number one is a little bit mad. In the news, Diana, Princess of Wales, her friend Dodie fired and their driver Henri Paul, are all killed in a car crash in Paris after being chased by paparazzi. Diana's royal ceremonial funeral featuring a music,

performance from Elton John is watched by 2.5 billion people. And a week later, Mother Teresa dies, aged 87. Seven people are killed when an intercity train crashes in Southall in West London, while 11 people are killed in a series of earthquakes in Italy. Meanwhile, the people of Scotland vote in favour of reinstating the country's own parliament after 300 years without. In football, Derby County, Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland FC, and Stoke City all move into their newly built stadiums for the start of the 97-98 Football League season,

and in a world first former pilot Andy Green breaks the land speed record and the sound barrier hitting 763 miles an hour in a thrust SSC jet-powered car. I know what one of those is. In TV, South Park debuts on Comedy Central, Netflix is founded, while Grand Stam presenter Helen Rollison is diagnosed with cancer. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows, Men in Black and the Full Monty. That's your lot. So, we're going to press on with the songs this week.

I have to make a little detour first. Andy, if you could, because I can't be asked finding the sound clip, imagine you're on Nevermind the Buzzcocks and you are asked to perform the intro in that quiz round to I'll be missing you by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans. Could you do that police sample for me? Yeah, so this went back to number one for three weeks. It did 32 weeks on the UK charts. It's four times platinum matter 2026. Yeah. And there we go. That's it. That's that bit done. Andy, you don't need to carry on any further. Thank you very much for that. And Ed, Thank you very much for those wonderful he diddy ad libs.

So the first proper song this week of four, never tell us that we don't spoil you. Is this? As dressing black, remember that, just in case we ever face to face and make contact. The title helped by me, M.R. B, is what you think you saw you did not see.

So don't Blake B, what was dead is now going black seat with the black ray man is on. Walking shadow, move a silence, scarred against extraterrestrial violence. But Joe, we ain't on no government. Okay, this is the lead We're lead from his

No names and no fingerprints So something strange Watch your back Because you never quite know Where the M.I.B.'s It's at

Okay, This is Men in Black by Will Smith Released as the lead single from his debut studio album

As a solo artist titled Big Willie Style and as the lead single from the soundtrack album to the film Men in Black.

Men in Black is Will Smith's first solo single to be released in the UK under his birth name. However, as of 2020

It is his last. Men in Black went straight in at number one as a brand new entry and stayed at number one for four weeks. Across its four weeks atop the charts, it sold 542,000 copies beating competition from the following songs. Yesterday by Wet Wet, Mo Money, More Problems by the Notorious B-I-G. Everything by Mary J. Blige. Tub-thumping by Chumba Wamba. All I Want to Do by Danny Minogue. Film star by Swade,

You're the One I Love by Sholaama, Never Let You Go by Tina Moore, Queen of New Orleans by Bon Jovi, Honey by Mariah Carey, I Know Where It's At by All Saints, Travelers Tune by Ocean Color Scene, free by DJ Quicksilver, Karma Police by Radiohead,

and When Doves Cry by Genuine. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Men in Black, dropped one place to number two. By the time it was done on the charts, it have been inside the top 100 for 19 weeks. The song is currently officially certified two times platinum in the UK. As of 20, 26, Andy, you can go first with Men in Black. So as a kid, I did watch both of these films.

I say both because there was only two back in those halcyon days. And I was chiefly drawn to of all the songs that appeared in what was, I guess, what we call the Men in Black universe. Of all the songs that were there, nod your head black suits coming from Men in Black 2, also done by Wilson. That was definitely, I loved that at the time for a brief period when I was apparently deaf and stupid.

I thought that was really cool. I thought that was great. And I never really paid this one much attention, possibly because it was a little bit young, I didn't really watch this until a few years after it came out because I was only five when this came out. But I think there is something that isn't quite as zeitgeisty and isn't quite as on the button about this one

as nod your head is and as a lot of movie tie-ins tend to be. I mean, it is a very good movie tie-in and I think it suits the tone of the movie perfectly well. It's great to have the actual lead actor from the film doing it. You know, there's a lot of brand synergy going on here. But I think the actual content we're getting, it's a bit odd for a movie tie-in that you would think surely is trying to capture a moment. You know, you're advertising a product that is out now.

So it should always, in theory, be capturing this moment right now. And I don't think this does, partly because it samples, forget me not, which is a good 10 years, maybe slightly longer, old at this time. And also you've got Will Smith here. And, you know, we were talking about Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince at the start. of this decade. We had that very long conversation that I couldn't contribute to about the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Who could forget? And, like, I know that he's not under the name of the Fresh Prince anymore, and he's developed this, you know, legitimate acting career.

Like, he's really kind of reinvented himself, which is fair enough. But vocally, like, he does very much sound like that sort of turned to the 80s, 90s, like, the way you get out of thing, your words like that, you know, it does sound a little bit, I got the power, you know. it's just, it's quite dated, it's quite dated and I think when you combine that with a song that isn't current with Forget Me Not, you know, you do get this thing that sounds oddly out of time Not of its time, it sounds oddly dated the moment it arrives Despite the fact it's advertising something that's brand new

And genuinely was very popular and did quite well I don't really know how I feel about this to be honest Like it's fine, it does the job, like it's not something that was designed to have the kind of analysis that, you know, the kind of erudite analysis that we do on this show. You know, it's not really made for that kind of thing because it's just made to get you interested in the movie. And it definitely does. And I will tell you, whenever anyone mentions the film Men in Black, someone in the room will go, here come the Men in Black.

And I will also say that as much as I think the Forget Me Not sample is a little bit odd, I do think that for anyone under the age of about, I'm going to say under the age of about 35, I do think this has wholesale replaced, forget me not. But when you hear that tune, it would be men in black. Like always. The HUD's completely replaced her. Maybe slightly older people than that. I could just only speak for my own generation, really.

But I don't think this is anything special. I think Will Smith does fine with it. Like I say, I think he's just not really relevant musically to this kind of time. and I think that shows in his other songs that he does write around this time, like, Welcome to Miami and Wild Wild West. And Wild West kind of, it was always kind of intrinsically kind of offended me a little bit, to be honest, because that interpolates I Wish by Stevie Wonder, which I absolutely adore.

And I don't like that that was also attempting to wholesale replace I wish the way that this whole cellar place is for getting me on. So I didn't like that. But like he does all right with it. And when he's allowed to kind of break away from that, here come the man in the way, and do something a little bit different. I think he kind of shines a bit and shows some stock quality.

I really like that section at the end. You're just there with me. When he's able to kind of vibe with it and not have this be a corporate tie-in, it's much better. So, like, this is fine, but I'm keenly aware at all times that this is just a thing that's been assembled by committee

to go get me to watch a movie. That's all it is, really. And you can do that and still have it, you know, have lots of worthiness in its own right, have lots of artistry in its own right. You know, we've already covered songs on this podcast before that are movie

tie-ins but are really good. I've always thought Thunderbirds I go is just ridiculously, so much better than it needs to be. Thunderbirds I go by Busted. We've got a very famous movie tie-in coming up in just a few weeks that I think is a genuinely fantastic song. You know, you can kind of do better than this, but it's fine for what it is.

I just, I'm just not that into Will Smith, if I'm honest. Yeah, I sort of agree with you, Wanda. This is one of those songs of which we've had a few on his 21 way. We kind of see it coming up in the countdown and you think, oh, yeah, I bet I'll have loads to say about that. You know, I remember that being loads of fun as a kid.

And then you get to it and you think, oh, right, yeah, hmm, yeah. And you only really remember it being super fun because you haven't really heard it since you were 10 years old. You know, the whole thing is basically a giant advert for the film. And when you're 10 years old, men in black is like the funniest and coolest thing in the world. I mean, when you're a 10-year-old boy, men-in-black two is the funniest thing in the world. So you definitely think men-in-black is the funniest thing in the world. And that's, Men in Black, too, is the one where they make a pug, the main character.

So obviously, you're going to think it's super cool. Like, I really shouldn't have trusted the judgment of my 10-year-old self on this one. The second one is not good. They have a talking dog in a lot of the film. He's in the first film for quite a bit as well. And then they sort of really make him a big deal in the second one. and he's like, he sort of almost wholesale replaces Tommy Lee Jones. Never mind.

I think what I'm left with these days when it comes to Men in Black is this feeling that Will Smith is basically perfect for it because what he's essentially doing here is just explaining the premise of the film, which is handy because he's a pretty good kind of charming public speaker. The song is acting like a trailer and Will's the sort of hip presentation guy who's convincing a load of investors, the public, to part with their cash. And hey, yeah, okay, it's 1997. I think a lot of people wanted to do what Will Smith was telling them to do at that time.

Especially if it came with a bit of a forget-me-nots interpolation, which is maybe it's, I wouldn't say like its best attribute because it doesn't, like, it's not its own thing, but like, you know, it's a better, it's a better inclusion of an old sample than, like, I'll be missing you from last week. You know, it's a pretty fun interpolation. but there is also this little lingering mix of T-U-R-T-L-E power about this whole thing that kind of hangs around in the background. So I'm a bit, I'm mixed on this, really. What it does take me back to is a day in primary school that I will never forget.

We were asked to wear red for comic sports, comic relief sports day. You know, we're in year six, so the last year of primary school at this time. So we got, you know, we got asked to wear red. red shirts, red shorts, even red shoes, if we could find them, you know, all day, and then we do a big, like, sports day event on the field and raise a bit of money and all that stuff. Now, I didn't have a particularly happy time at primary school. I was kind of bullied a bit by some kids, to be honest. Like, looking back, I think it took it quite well, because kids can be really cavalier and vicious about other kids' feelings. Like, but one of these

kids, his name was Adam. and he didn't like he wasn't one of the worst of the bullies but like he was always like fourth in line you know like Stuart lee talks about Richard Hammond where he's like Jeremy Clarkson's the bully and Richard Hammond is the kid who stands behind Jeremy Clarkson giggling Adam was like one of those kids to me and we're so it comes to this comic relief sports day thing and we're getting changed in the classroom and Adam pulls these joggers out of these jogging pants out of his bag and he's puts them on. And they were sort of red, but they were so badly faded that they'd mostly turned pink. And a bunch of us all noticed this. Like, of course, you know, like when you're a 10 year old boy, the colour pink is hilarious and a sign of deficiency in a person as if they're wearing pink clothes because you're 10 years on, you're fucking stupid. So a few of the other lads start giggling and kind of pointing at him. And in my head, I thought, yes, finally, is going to get a taste of his own medicine. He's going to finally feel what it feels like to be like made fun of for something

that you can't necessarily control in that moment. And maybe, maybe he'll relent and maybe it will end my sort of misery at primary school. Instead, what Adam did was climb up onto a table in the classroom and start dancing. Really, really comical dance moves, really flailing his legs about to show off these pink trousers. And to the tune of the many black chorus, he's said, I am the man in pink, don't slag off my trousers. And in that moment, I realized that I had to get to the end of primary school because the people who made fun of me had that charisma and self-confidence that prevents them from feeling any effects of bullying or even having the piss taken out of them.

Because everybody, myself included, we all fell about laughing. He managed to take that situation and turn it into something that I would talk about on a podcast like 25 years, 20, 25 years later. Like, he managed to really turn that into something. And, yeah, that was a proper, like, oh, I'll never be him kind of thing. But, yeah, I am the man in pink. Don't slag off my trousers. It's pretty good for, like, on the spot.

The bully who makes you laugh and gets away with it. Oh, it's a, we've all had one, I think. Yes. And it's an awful, ambivalent feeling. Talking of ambivalence. But am I talking of awfulness? Well, you know, with the, woo, no, nah, nah, nah, it's easy to take the piss, isn't it? I mean, I can't really add to what either of you have said.

Yeah, it isn't exactly hard-hitting. I don't know why anyone would expect a Will Smith song accompanying a family science fiction comedy movie to be hard-hitting. But it's a fun novelty song to prop up what I recall as being a fun movie, even though I've not seen it in about 20 years. I think it should probably stop at three minutes. Yeah. There's nothing new in the last verse. And that's not necessarily to say that the actual material or the variety that Will Smith's bringing to the vocals, which, you know, he mixes it up quite a bit to its credit.

It's not the smoothest flow, but he's got a fair few ideas to keep you interested. It is that, as you say, Rob, it's that turtle power marketing vibe that dries it up. it's the sort of say what you see approach to the lyrics that that's what I think tires it out more than anything else because it is fun. It's like when I'm listening to it, I'm like, oh, well, I'm enjoying this. And, you know, there is even a bit of humour

intended or no with the choice of forget me not as the cover, if you want to call it that, which is, you know, they won't let you remember being reworked from, you know, to help you remember. which is like, I don't know if that was the, that probably wasn't the reason they chose it, but if it wasn't the reason they chose that piece, then I don't know, that's quite a fun little tongue-in-cheek bit. So it has a bit more reason to exist in the use of I will for Wild Wild West, except, I will say this for Wild Wild West. I was one of the only people who enjoyed that when I saw it in the cinema, but I was young and stupid.

And also, the theme to World World West, I heard that before I knew, I was. I wish by Stevie Wonder. And so even at the time, I was like, oh, that backing is great. I love that. How can you hate this? That's great. And so then you realise, oh, Stevie Wonder did the good bit. So it was a nice discovery retroactively.

It's like that's why that stood out. But yeah, I will say this. It's not, as I say, a sample of forget me not. I've obviously had to reinterpret it. And props for the VAPD. the backing vocals that closed the track, to be honest, had to look at who it was. It's Coco from SWUV, apparently, doing them.

Oh, really? She's got a fantastic voice, I think. Some really nice kind of smooth, silky improvisations at the end. Yeah, I just, it is the lyrics that let it down, I think. It's just too shallow. It's too frivolous to actually stay more than a couple of minutes. And I just wish that it just done some, slightly metaphorical with the title of the film,

not just talk about the film. You think of something like, do you know the man in motion, the St Elmo's Fire? Yeah, I really like that, to be honest. It's very chest beating Naf American Stadium rock, but it's great.

It does, it's like an empowerment anthem that uses very, very tenuously St Elmo's Fire as a visual concept, I guess, to actually, you know, write a song about, you know, powering through to some degree. I don't know what the fuck that has to do with the movie. But, you know, there's other examples. I don't know whether the song title Help came before the movie.

I know they were originally supposed to write something into a different title. It was bloody awful. What was it? Eight Arms to Hold You or something. Yeah, that was the original title for the film Help. And they said, write a song with the title, Eight Arms to Hold You. and John Land and Paul McCartney said, no. And so help, I don't know if it was hanging around,

whether they said, well, could you do something called help then, which does sound like a weird Beatles song title. But he just, you know, it's got nothing to do with the film, which I gather is some sort of, you know, action caper comedy thing. Some jule pice bullshit. I don't know. I've never seen it. Never really gets talked about a lot in the grand,

somewhat grand pantheon of Beatles movies. but yeah I mean as I say people remember that people love the song it exists on his own and it props up the movie by being a solid piece of work in its own right he's not just talking about what happens in the movie you would not have been able to get that much of a meaningful song out of it that much of an energetic performance out of it if he was just talking about wringo skiing or a crystal or something I would like to hear a song written by John Lender about Ringo skiing but anyway Yeah. Wow, I've managed to speak more than I thought about a song that is... Basically, all I'd to say about it was, I like it, but it's pretty way for thin. It's fun, though, in it? There we are. Because it's the last time that we're coming to Will Smith, I think, on this podcast. You mentioned in St. Elmo's Fire obviously made me think of The Simpsons. When I'm driving the car, we'll listen to my radio station. When you're driving the car, we'll listen to your radio station. And that then took me on. to the time when family guy feature Will Smith.

Oh yeah, yeah. And I just wanted, I respect women when I'm on a date, I'll take them to the park or maybe a museum and I only try to kiss them if they're ready. Woo-hoo! How about your mom and dad by getting a job so you can help pay for school supplies?

Woo-hoo! What? Just had to get that in, a stupid joke. You've got to say, though, if that's the worst they can throw at you as a celebrity, you know, Barb, I'm like, yeah, he did all right, didn't he?

I think they'd throw worse at him now. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was firmly, in those days. He was firmly hard to dislike, I think, for many, many years. I think, you know, the bit of the veneer dropped with the whole frigging Chris Rock incident.

Yeah. Oh, God, his face. I still think that it's just like, that's something that, that should have happened in 2009. It's perfectly like memeable in a way that old memes used to work. Like the Zinidine Zidan Headbutt in the World Cup final when he headbutted Matarazzi in the chest

or obviously Kanye West coming upon to the stage to take the microphone from Taylor Swift. It is just a moment of madness from an otherwise ostensibly composed person happening in a very, very public place that can be turned into image macros and can have thousands and thousands of. of things projected onto it at the same time, even just the things like him initially laughing

at the joke that Chris Rock tells, looking five yards away at Jada Pinkett Smith, who is not laughing, and then suddenly deciding, I didn't like that joke. Yeah, but all she does is she just rolls her eyes. It's not like she's completely outraged. He's just, it's an act of like sudden cowardice by Will Smith. So, the second song this week is a this.

All this talk of getting... It's getting me down my good catting to drown. This time I just make you worse, but I... This again. Now the drugs don't... Is out past down the street. Okay, this is The Drugs Don't Work by The Verve. Released as the second single from the band's third studio album titled Urban Hymns.

The Drugs Don't Work is the Verve. of seventh single overall to be released in the UK and their first to reach number one. However, as of 2025, it is their last. The Drugs Don't Work went straight in at number one as a brand new entry and stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 105,000 copies beating competition from Where's the Love by Hanson, Live the Dream by cast, and even after all by Finley Quay.

When it was knocked off the top of the charts, the drugs don't work fell two places to number three. It initially left the charts in February 1998, but re-entered in 2011 and 2012, taking its total up to 20 weeks. The song is currently officially certified, platinum in the UK. As of 2026, well done to Hansen for not being a one-hit wonder,

I genuinely had no idea. Ed, the Verve. The Verve, I do like some of their singles. However, I think there was a tendency at this point, I can't speak about their earlier stuff, for their songs to be very mid-tempo and very grandiose, and I honestly get quite a lot of the big singles mixed up, unfortunately. That said, I was surprised by how much I liked this in retrospect, given that it seems to be the most mid-tempoy,

the most, you know, weepy of the bunch. Because, I mean, they were never like a fast-paced up-tempo group in the first place. I think Richard Ashcroft really shows that he is a bit of a cut above the rest of the, the quote-unquote, Brit pop pack here. Because the vocals are not melodramatic, and the lyrics are not varnished either. and there's something about this song that really hits me and it's the sense of resignation to it

it's it's a you know it's someone who's in a bad place but can only try and make peace with their own sadness and just the simplicity of the gestures and the simplicity of the impossible request that if you want to show just let me know and I'll sing in your ear again there is something something something

sadly innocent about that. It really gets me. I can tell this comes from a very, a real place, if you'll forgive the hackish, you know, the hackish gesture there. I think it's true though. And it doesn't just stay on the same sort of

strummy, even keel. The textures do ramp up first by verse. Then there are some subtle backing vocals added, and then it goes into a kind of surprised unresolved coda at the end, which almost sounds a bit kind of psychedelic. I like the kind of ambivalent headspace it puts me in

because it sort of, it doesn't land. It sounds simultaneously in a sort of rested inert place, but like there's no end to it. And some nice little improvisations from Ashcroft in there as well. I think this is a very, very effective song, a very moving song, and for all of its size and stately strings, which I think are quite tastefully employed, I think it comes across as quite direct and quite touching in a lot of ways. So unlike some of the others like Bittersweet Symphony, it's such an event song that I'm

not really sure that I care. But with this, it does feel like a sad, quiet corner. And I really, really like it. It hits me in a way that the other singles from urban hymns don't. And I think in retrospect, that feeling is probably amplified by the fact that this had that solitary affecting little week before the grandiose national tragedy machine began, if you get what I mean. And that was the summer. So as young people who were like, oh yeah, Diana.

Oh, yeah. And everyone was like, it was in your face, in your ears. Elton John was unstoppable for weeks and weeks. This felt all the more poignant, I think, going back. I remember thinking it's like that song was actually a sad song by someone who was sad, not some sort of grandiose epilogue or an epitaph, should I say. But that's just my feelings on that. I mean, you know, I realise I'm being a bit.

a bit crass about my feelings, but I'm not going to lie either. I'm not going to pretend I was tremendously affected by the passing of Diana. She was just a celebrity in the, in the ambient, radioactive background noise of my life, not really different from anyone else I saw on telly. And certainly the way she was treated gave me a lifelong sort of distrust. of celebrity-based grief because of how much it's amplified and ratcheted up. But anyway, I'm going on to our next song, so I'll leave it there. I like this. I like it rather a lot. Andy, what about you? The Verve.

First of all, shout out to the fact that the Verve went to the same college as my husband in Wigan, Wigan's finest. So, you know, they're spoken of in very high terms. you know, a lot of my husband, school friends and stuff, they're really big on the verve, and they're quite a big deal locally. So that's kind of, you know, I've had a passing interest in them, and I think, like everyone, I went through, you know, a night as a teenager where I downloaded Urban Hymns off line wire and gave that a listen just to see what that was like,

just to see what the bus was about. And I sort of got it. Like, I sort of got it. I was, like, at the peak of my oasis phase at the time. So I was definitely into the Brit Rocks, Brit Pops. sound and that was what got me wanting to listen to the verve. I think it was a little bit, a little bit clever for me at the time, to be honest. Like, I was someone of very simple taste.

I still am to some extent, you know, I still am someone a very simple taste. And I do think that I agree with Ed that Richard Ashcroft's writing is definitely on a more sophisticated level than Noel Gallagher's or really, you know, Damon Albourne's or Jarvis Cockers to a lot of extent as well. He definitely has some very interesting things to say and is very confident about saying it in a way that doesn't seem pretentious. It doesn't seem like he's trying to be an artist. He just has a lot of soul to him.

He definitely just, like I say, has things to say and articulates them very well. And that's no insult to any of Gallagher, Albourne or Cocker, because they're all in their own way, extremely good songwriters as well. but I do think he adds a different flavour to the mix which I kind of appreciate and although I've never really got into the verve

I don't really get them that much I do appreciate that like just reading his lyrics even or not listening just reading them you know there's definitely a sense of honesty and a sense of emotional truth to them which I think you know the mistake that almost every Britpop band makes is to not be honest and not be emotional and to just get lost in the bluster and the spectacle,

I think particularly Oasis at this time, have completely lost their way because of that, that, you know, they've stopped saying anything and they've started just making lots of noise instead. This is the opposite of that. This is the antithesis of, do you know what I mean? Which is probably the highest compliments I can give this. I agree that there is a quiet sadness about this,

which gives it a lot of character and gives it a lot of meaning. And I think, you know, is what takes it over the line and makes it quite interesting because on the face of it, it can appear quite dull. You know, I think to play this, for me, as a musician, to play this, it wouldn't be very interesting. There's not a whole lot going on. And quite a lot of the time, musically, I'm kind of waiting for something else to happen.

But Ashcroft's performance, there's something about it that's like, although he doesn't have the most kind of immediately recognizable voice in the world, I do think there is a sort of a sadness, there is a melancholy. there is something sitting in his voice that you can't quite recapture it's just, it's sort of like oh I'm trying to think of someone else of that who's got quite a plain voice

but one that you get quite a lot of character out of I'd say probably Alex Turner to some extent actually and I really like just like the atmosphere of this that it doesn't really offer kind of easy roots to engage with the song

I like that this is all very like to listen to it's very cheery. It's all in a major key like pretty much the whole way. And it like has nice little perfect cadences. But it's about stuff that's like pretty bleak. And the same with Bittersweet Symphony, you know, to that. I think one of the good things about that is how dense it is and how difficult it is to ascertain what the tone of that song actually is. It's sort of atonal. Yeah, he's a clever guy, Richard Ashcroft. And it's made me think about. I'm only going to say think about because I don't want to commit to this. listening to the verve a bit more. Maybe they have more to offer than I thought because I have kind of dismissed them for quite a few years. It's like, yeah, I'm not into that stuff anymore because I've grown out with it. But maybe, maybe, because this is nice. This is a good example,

I think, of when Brit Pop can really be quite, really be quite nice and quite tender and can get to the heart of things. Yeah, I like this. Yeah, I think the word for me is dignified with this. I think, you know, I think it is quite lovely. I'm not going to vault this, because I have issues with it. I'm not sure it does enough with the time that it takes. I think it lacks maybe an obvious sort of chorus, maybe not much of a sense of rise and fall. It kind of sounds like a series of bridges

that sort of stop occasionally so that the title of the song can be said. It does start to rise, though, beyond the four minute mark with that kind of never coming down now, never coming down no more, that sort of code section, but I'm just kind of thinking, how you could have brought this in earlier. But broadly, I am totally on board, you know,

with the approach that it takes, because what it maybe lacks in terms of its arrangement, I think it's made up for by atmosphere, and like I say, a very kind of dignified approach to this. This is very much like this sounds to me like falling over on the floor of a pub or being in a bus stop after midnight or somehow finding itself in a cobbled kind of grey alleyway on a Sunday afternoon as it rains torrentially upon you.

It's the sound of someone whose life has kind of reached the edge of its very small limits and there's not really anywhere else for it to go. all the pushing and walking and striving has kind of just ended up in a dead end anyway so what's the point kind of thing? It's really despondent and yeah, okay, it's a little bit more kish, but I think it does tap into what it feels like

when you are watching someone trying to help themselves only to end up circling the drain again, like getting over something and then kind of feeling the pull of it again. I once had someone very close to me who was like this and until you know someone who's so deep in the well with substance abuse and addiction, it's hard to visualize

and imagine what their actions are actually like and what their addiction fuels, how otherwise lovely people can do terrible things because of how much pain that they're in, like how often they would, in the case of this person that I knew, expose their children as well to awful things in order to stop themselves from going insane. And I think this song does a similar thing to Beatlebum, actually,

in that it manages to convey that sense of malaise that comes through losing control of, like, recreational habits. this isn't, I don't think, as vivid or as interesting as Beetlebone, and I think there's maybe an element of voyeurism in the lyrics a little bit, but the feeling is definitely there. Richard Ashcroft eventually just sort of said this was about his dad dying, despite all the medication that he was on, but I think for a long time he was sort of deliberately evasive about the actual subjects,

and sometimes I wonder if he just said that about his dad to stop people asking, you know, like, oh, who's the song about, who's the song about, it doesn't matter who the song's about. The song's about literally everybody that's ever had to... A song that's ever... A song about people who've ever been sort of being pushed towards an inevitability but are using things to kind of... Using destructive methods to kind of stop themselves

and then they kind of end up pulling themselves closer to that inevitability anyway. Yeah, it's about both, isn't it? I mean, as I say, it's like, why do people feel like, now it's about drugs? No, it's about your dad dying. It's like, well, to be honest, I can see how those two things might very well be connected. Yes, yeah, exactly.

It's a bit like I saw on Twitter, like sort of like saying somebody sort of going, oh, you can tell like what kind of life people have had based on whether they think Fast Car by Tracy Chapman is a hopeful song or a song of despair. And I thought, isn't it both? Doesn't hope come from despair? Doesn't despair?

Don't despair and hope share very, very similar qualities. So yeah, it's a similar thing with this. I often feel it about the Sopranos as well where it's like people arguing over whether he's alive or dead. I just think he's both. The camera is off. That's the point. He's Schroding his cap.

Tony Soprano is shroding his cat. The camera is off. He is alive and dead. And that's the point. That's great. It doesn't matter what happens to him ultimately. That's not the point. You can easily argue.

I don't think this gets to number one maybe under its own strength. I think in another world, you know, Diana doesn't die and the radios continue to play their usual playlist instead of only playing slow, sad or mellow. songs, you know, but maybe tub thumping gets a push in this parallel world and makes it to the top, you know, because this week we've had that funny guy Will Smith from the TV doing a novelty rap. Hey, hey, it's 1997. Oasis are back, labouring power again. Oh, shit. You know, and I think people wanted to feel sad in that moment.

And so they just went out and bought the first sad song they could think of that had been played on radios recently, which was this one. I asked my mum about this and she said, yeah, they all just kind of pivoted to playing very kind of slow, sad stuff all over the main kind of radio stations. And I think that's maybe what gave this a lift. But I'm glad that the Verve got their moment because they've plugged away for a few years by this point. They've been a band for about eight or nine years and maybe deserve something for their efforts. It maybe should have been Bittersweet Symphony if, you know, you want to write history correctly in inverted commas. But this ain't too bad. This ain't too bad at all.

I do, I do like this one. Please, it's come up. So we've kind of, I guess we've kind of done the preview, now for the sort of main event from the preview. The third song up this week is this. Goodbye is the place to self where lives were torn apart out to our country. You whispered to those and the stars spell out your name. And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle of fading with the sunset when the rain. city. And your footsteps will always fall.

Your candles burned out long before. 20 days without your smile, this torch will always carry. So this is Candle in the Win 97, double A side with something about the way you look tonight by Elton John. The B sides, well, the double, the other A size title is too long. So when you hear me say Candle in the Win 97, I'm referring to both. Released as a standalone charity single, Candlein' Indoor, the win, 97, is Elton John's 74th single to be released in the UK and his fourth to reach number

one. It's not his last number one overall, but it is his last number one of the 90s. The single is a reworking of the song originally released by Elton, which got to number 11 in 1974. Candle in the Win, 97, went straight in at number one as a brand new entry and stayed at number one for five weeks. Across its five weeks to top the chart. It's sold 4.1 million copies beating competition from the following songs. You have been loved by George Michael. Maria by Ricky Martin. All Mine by Portishead and Four Seasons of Loneliness by Boys to Men.

Sunshine by Dario G. Fix by Black Street. Samba de Janeiro by Bellini. Never gonna let you go by Tina Moore. Stand by me by Oasis. Arms Around the World by Louise. Got Till It's Gone by John. Janet Jackson. Please by you too. Just for You by M people. As long as you love me by Backstreet Boys. Angel of Mind by Eternal, rain cloud by lighthouse family, stay by Sash, on Her Majesty

Secret Service by propellerheads and clothes for business by Manson. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, candle in the wind, 97 fell two places to number three. The song originally left the charts in 1998 but made one re-entry in 20. bringing its total up to 30 weeks inside the top 100. The song is currently officially certified nine times platinum. It is non-uple platinum in the UK. As of 2026, the biggest selling single of all time, not just in the UK, but globally two. Nice and easy one to discuss.

Ed. Candle in the Win 97. Oh, and also something about the way you look tonight. How do I look tonight? Rob, do you like it? I can't see you. We're on Zoom. That's all for the better.

But I'm sure you look beautiful. Should we all imagine what Ed is wearing? I'm going to imagine that he's wearing a top hat and a clown suit. That's what I'm imagining. I thought I thought you were going to say a top hat and nothing else. Oh no, that might be what you're imagining. Yes, it is now. I'm actually wearing a clown and a top knot, so you're not far off.

We should make this a regular feature for everyone. What is Ed wearing? But what is Ed thinking of Candle in the Wind 97? Yeah, I was there, as I implied, not fucking at the accident scene, that looks a bit shank. But, yeah, I witnessed this going on for what felt like eons. And even as, like, an 11-year-old, I was. like, well, we've basically just taken an older song and just changed a couple of words. And everybody's just like, I buy it. Buy it. Buy it. Why is everybody making me talk about Diana?

I remember going into school the very first day after she died. And everyone around the class, was, so what were you doing when you discovered that, you know, the England's rose, the queen of Longman's Zoo, has died. and everyone had to say, oh, well, you know, Mom just came in, and she was, she was crying so much. It was literally squirting three meters out directly in front of her eyes. It scoured the walls. The walls were scoured. We had to move house because it was flooded with our tears. And I was just like, but I remember thinking it's like, oh, I have to have to make this seem like it was a really big thing, don't I?

Like, it really, really shook me because everyone else is trying to one up each other in terms of, performative grief. So I'm like, oh, when my mum told me, I literally shat my pants, just everywhere. No, I didn't say that. But, yeah, I probably made up some, well, I probably said something,

but in a kind of, you know, sort of a bit of a forlorn way. Well, my mum came in and she said, Edwin. Edward. Edwin. She's gone. I actually do think that,

because I was off asleep, I think the third, The first thing I said was, can you stop making so much noise? And funnily enough, that might be a perfect review. Yeah, do you know what? Look, Bernie Taupin is a very, very lucky man, isn't he? I mean, he's not the worst lyricist. But if that's the best I can say for someone whose sole job is to write the lyrics for

its songs, I'm like, bloody hell, well done, mate. I don't know what scam you're running there. But yeah, look, that's candle in the wind. I'll be honest. I do really like some songs off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. The sum I really like. The title track is great. Benny and the Jets, love it.

Used to cover it a lot. Never like Candle in the Wind much. And I still don't like it in this version, especially not with all this fucking interminable baggage. As for the B-side, it's kind of, let's be honest, the sort of white-bred player piano version of gospel. He sings it fine. It's a fine enough song, but it all sounds so sterile and thin,

and there's no atmosphere to it. And he does that piano trill that used to be done occasionally for emphasis in gospel song. Every single fucking bar. Drink, da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-link-it-brun. Like, it's a preset on a fucking Cassio keyboard. I'm sorry. This is probably so harsh and so unfair, because there is talent here. He's a talented man. He knows what he's doing. But I cannot stand this at all. This will not do. I'm sorry. I'm going to leave this to people who actually have something to say that isn't just foaming at the mouth. So please, somebody take over for me.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay. Something about the way you look tonight is fine. It's fine. It sounds like two become one at the end. It's fine. Totally fine. It would have been fine as a number one single maybe on its own, sort of. Fine. Yep. Totally fine. Okay, so yeah, Candle in the Win 97, oh, big deep breath. I'll talk about the original first, which is also fine. I can't ever tell if the distance from Marilyn in Bernie Torpins' lyrics makes me warm to it or slightly hesitant to approach it. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, because on the one hand, the distance contributes to this sense that all we have left of Marilyn is like, you know, images and public profiles as opposed to the woman inside.

But on the other hand, the distance contributes to this sense that all we have left of Marilyn are images and public profiles as opposed to the woman inside. You can see the dilemma. Whereas I slightly forgive this one a little bit more because Elton actually knew Diana. They were friends, but the changes to the lyrics are again a bit of a double-edged sword because Elton's singing, singing from a much more personal place, which should really have the feeling the emotions much keener, much stronger. And hey, it's the biggest selling single of all time. Clearly people were in agreement about that. Although it doesn't take much to make the public agree about something during times of national crisis. As long as something

is tasteful, then in the eyes of the public, it can be easily mistaken for being powerful. I think people often mistake things that are tasteful for things that are being powerful. And for me, because Elton's singing from a more personal place, you realize that the words he's singing really aren't any more personal than the ones written about Marilyn, which makes this kind of sort of fascinating for me, because in the original, he's trying to make the point that if you pile images and metaphors and symbols and signifiers on top of a human being, who they really are gets lost. But all the lyrics really do in this 1997 version is pile images and metaphors and symbols

and signifiers on top of Diana. She's less Diana and more England's rose, a golden child, a ghostly figure walking through England's greenest hills, a candle in the wind, you might say. But at the same time I sympathise because I understand the pressure he probably feels he's under here. They've got to do something safe because she's dead now and the press are about to do and well they've done and about turn on Diana and Elton just has to match the mood of the country at that moment. We've collectively decided we're not going to remember Diana Spencer, we're going to cherish the Queen of Hearts. And if you're asked to perform at her

funeral in a country that's very, very sensitive right now and also famously terrible at dealing with death, then yeah, okay. You know, Elton isn't Diana's brother. He can't use her funeral to lambas the paparazzi for killing her, or the media, or the public's obsession with celebrity. He's got to play the compassionate singer in this larger function, and he's just got to gently validate the national mood. And I think he does that. I think I prefer the arrangement of this one compared to the 1974 version, even if it sounds worse in terms of quality. this has more in common with the live version he recorded in the 80s, which was a bigger hit than the original when it came out.

It suits the subject a bit more. It's Elton at a piano, singing about a friend, then a bunch of instruments coming at the end to help him finish. That's a resonant image, I think. I also think he has a tough job on his hands, which is to make something the public can use to assuage their own guilt over all of this. I partly think this is why William and Harry weren't allowed to cry that day. We can hide Diana's broken body in a coffin, but you can't shuffle a crying child

behind the curtain at his own mother's funeral. Like, I wasn't there, but from everything I've read, seen, well, I was there, but I was three, but everything I've read, heard, and seen about the reaction to Diana's death, a part of me has always wondered if the grief was so hysterical and so overwhelming, because on some level, we knew that we were all a little bit responsible for it. Because it wasn't just Britain in mourning. 2.5 billion people watched her funeral. It wasn't just the UK that went hysterical over this. It was pretty much everybody. She was that much in demand and it was that much of a shock to everyone that collectively in our own small ways, those 2.5 billion people probably also put her in that coffin in a way. Papparazzi don't chase

people that people aren't interested in. Which is maybe where I find this song to be the appropriate one. and maybe is Elton's way of saying that Diana and Marilyn were both treated and killed in roughly the same way. Even if he does do something a little bit cowardly, in my opinion, which is by change it, well, Bernie Taupin, changes those lyrics. Because in the original version, you've got the perfect lyrics about how the press hounded her. You know, all they could say was that Marilyn was found in the nude sort of thing. Maybe he was told that that was a little bit on the nose or a bit too soon. Like, again, he's not Charles Spencer, so maybe he feels like it's not his place to start a fight. The implication is sort of there

but you have to squint to see it and I wish he'd kept it, I wish he'd been braver. There is a lot of safety and caution in this though that perhaps prevents it from telling the real story 30 years on. There's not much in the song itself that illuminates much about Diana, more the idea of Diana that we had as a population

at that very specific moment in time, which maybe makes it something of a failure in the long term. There's also that bit in the second verse where Elton and Bernie clearly just run out of things to say. All our words cannot express the joy you brought us through the years. That's like, that is a greetings card you would put back in Morrisons, not even in a card shop.

You would just, in Morrissey, you would put that back on the shelf. Good effort, guys. Well done. Top lyricism there. And then the third verse is just the first verse repeated because they've got four minutes to fill. But hey, they had a week to put all of this together. So I don't know. I'm not going to come down too hard on this.

it just is. It is what it is and it's very, very big. I don't hate it. I kind of found myself singing along to it in the car, but it's weirdly icky. Andy, Candle in the Win 97. It's interesting with Elton because we've covered him, what, like five, six times on this series and the Nauties series as well. Like, he's been well spaced out like he shows up every couple of years, but I don't feel like we've ever, apart from Are You Ready for Love perhaps, doesn't we've ever really covered a really good one of his? We just keep getting the off cuts and I would include this really and this one is more frustrating

than any of the others really because I think the original candle in the wind, I'll get into it in a minute but I do actually really, really like that I think it's great. Diana, first of all. So just like my take on Diana basically so I don't remember her dying at all

apart from my mum's reaction. I remember coming down, her putting the news on and I were going oh my God Diana's dead and my question was who's Diana? Yeah. And that was all I'm remember. So I don't remember candle in the wind taking off for this. I don't remember the funeral. I

don't remember what it was like after she died. I just remember growing up knowing that Diana was a woman who died tragically in a car crash and that everybody mourned her. And I saw her face everywhere as I was growing up, probably more so than people would have done before she died. You know, even people who grew up in the 80s probably didn't see as much as Diana, as much of Diana as people that grew up in the late 90s in the early 90s. And so, you know, I think people who were children at the time were even more subjected to the kind of group think and the mass grief that we're all expected to feel about Diana than everybody else.

And to some extent, like, I think it's fair to some extent because objectively what happened to it was absolutely awful. You know, it's very, very sad. She lived a really sad life that was plagued by various mental health issues. She was manipulated and abused by a lot of people. never got the help she needed, and then died at a tragically young age in extremely avoidable circumstances that were, you know, bordering on manslaughter, really, at an age almost the same as I am now. So, like, yeah, truly awful, truly tragic. And if you read that story about anyone, you couldn't help but be slightly moved by it. But I would not have bought into what happened at the time in terms of the public reaction.

so I'm very glad that I was too young for it, that it just passed me by, and for me this was the summer of spice girls, and that's it. I'm really, really glad about that. And I can tell you that I know that I wouldn't have responded in that way because of when the Queen died a few years ago, which granted is not quite the same because it was expected. She was 96, you know, it was no huge surprise to anyone. But my reaction when the Queen died, I remember on the day itself, on the evening itself, I was quite sad.

I was quite contemplative. I remember making sure I did stand and, well, not stand. I happened to be standing up at the time. I didn't stand for the announcement, but I happened to be standing up and I saw the TV make the announcement. And I did just sort of stay silent and just watch it, watch the announcement be made and that version of the National Anthem that they did. And then I was sort of moved by it in a, because I love history.

And I was just like, this is a moment in history. People are going to look back on this TV club. going to ask us about when the queen died. This is like a moment in history that I'm observing here. I feel the weight of it. You know, a big part of our shared heritage as British people is leaving the world here. So I was moved in that sense. The next day, got on with my life, to be honest.

Like, I wasn't, I wasn't sad about it. You know, I was just sad in the sense of, oh, isn't that sad? Someone's died, you know. And then sort of that's it, really. And I got mighty sick of that morning period for the queen. I really did. Like, as much as I had nothing. against her and I had some admiration for the queen in a lot of ways. Like I was really sick to the

back teeth at that morning period and like I was out of step with a lot of the nation on that. But Diana, you know, that was up to the max. So I would, yeah, it would have really done my head in, to be honest. And this gets the heart of my problem with this is that much like Rob said, you know, it takes a person and makes them an idea. It makes them a symbol. It takes something that's universal and human and authentic and makes it into something that is inauthentic and by making it sort of beyond question, it makes it alienating to anyone who isn't authentically feeling that grief and it can be a deeply troubling thing to find yourself alienated in that way. I think it kind of has an adverse effect compared to what it's actually trying to do. The original, so I really,

really like the original. Well, the version I really like is a live version that was released in, I think, in 1987 that was on a Now album. And because I covered the Now albums on another podcast, that's how I know about that. And that, to me, is the definitive version. I really, really like it because I like the universal idea that that song doesn't have to be about Marilyn. It's not about Maryland, really. It's about celebrity name here. You know, whoever it is to you, for me, it's Carrie Fisher. That's who that was. I really went through those feelings when Carrie Fisher died. This idea that there's someone who

when you're a kid, you really love as a celebrity, you really dream about meeting them and telling them, you know, what they kind of mean to you when you're older. And then they die when you're still quite young, and you always felt like you wanted, you related to them, you always felt for them and really were rooting for them. And you just sadly feel that grief of, you know, I'm never going to get to meet them. You know, even if I get famous, it would be too late.

I'll never get to meet them. And, you know, that will never know that they meant heading to me because I never even met them. I think celebrity grief is something that we don't actually talk about enough as a society. We don't have enough acceptance of it and enough allowance for it. That is perfectly fine to feel genuine grief for a celebrity. Like I felt genuine grief for Kerry Fisher. And there's plenty of others, you know, like David Bowie. I felt, I felt too.

I'll certainly feel it when John Williams dies because he's been a big idol for me. I'll certainly feel it when Paul McCartney dies. I'll certainly feel when Stevie Wonder dies. You know, it's okay to feel genuine grief. for a celebrity. I think what's important, though, is that we accept that everybody has different people. That is, to me, is what underlines it.

And that's what makes the original very powerful for me, is that all those lyrics, you know, and they're not particularly about Marilyn. They talk about her circumstances, but when it gets into the choruses, it's more about what it means to you. And this version of it, the 97 version, isn't about what it means to you.

It's about Diana. Like, it's not about you, the listeners. it's about them the object. And I do say object, because it doesn't make her a person. It makes her an idea. It makes her an object, really. I agree with Rob's comments that it's oddly impersonal, but it is still clearly about Diana.

You can only ever hear it in that context. And so I think it takes this universal idea of anybody who's died, who's famous, who means something to you, and sends it into this one specific person who, by the way, Elton doesn't have that relationship with, as already mentioned. you know, she's not some stranger from afar who he'd love to meet one day, she's his friend.

So that takes this interesting idea about grief for a celebrity and sends it into, I'm sad about my friend's death, everybody else should be sad about this same person's death as well. There's no subtext anymore. There's no wider theme anymore. It's just a standard tribute song about grief to this one person, which, for starters, is far less interesting than the original candle in the wind, far, far, far less interesting.

But also, as I say, leaves you entirely cold. if you're not particularly grief-stricken about Diana, which it is okay to be. Yes, it's very sad that she died, but it's okay to not be grief-stricken about that. And I've discovered something interesting about myself with all this kind of thing about sad events and how people get obsessed with them and stuff.

Because I often felt a bit hypocritical about Diana because there are other really sad things that have happened that I get quite invested in and quite obsessed with. I have a little bit of a weird obsession with 9-11. Yeah, same. You know, I know loads about it. I'm like an expert in 9-11. Like, I really digest and absorb a lot of stuff about it.

And so when me and my husband went to New York, I thought, oh, let's go to the 9-11 museum. Like, that'd be great. And I was quite surprised at how unsettled and really shaken I was by it, that although I knew a lot about 9-11, and so I didn't think anything would surprise me, actually being there, I really found quite uncomfortable and quite overly sad. and it just wasn't nice for me at all. And I realized that actually, you know, I look at it as a historical event and I try and absorb it as a thing that happened.

But do I actually want to wallow in the death? Do I actually want to be there and see where the bodies were and stuff like that? No. I'm not mawkish about it. I acknowledge and pay tribute to tragedies that have happened, but I don't wallow in them. That's not me, really.

And there's another event, just like that, it reminded me of, which was when I was on a school trip in Paris in 2007, and we were on a tour through, we were on a bus tour through Paris. And for some reason, part of this tour was to take us through the tunnel, where Diana died. And they pointed out the exact pillar that she crashed into. I remember getting that exact same feeling at the time of like, oh, oh, this isn't nice. I'm walking over someone's grave. Like, yes, it's sad that she died, but I don't want to be here.

like, oh, I don't want to be here and that to me is the line that, like, I think a lot of people are mawkish and morbid and unhealthily interested in Diana's death and, you know, take it into their personalities in a way that I don't think is good for anyone. And I think it's okay to be sad about it and to learn about it and to learn lessons from it

without getting into hysteria and wallowing. in her death, which I think is a national mistake that's been made by a lot of people over the years. So, yes, for the song itself, I think this is kind of like a much inferior version of the original. I do give respect to Elton for, you know, having the huge cahones to actually do this at the funeral live. You know, that's a big deal that he did that. And obviously, a lot of people connected to it. It obviously did the job. And I do think people needed an outlet.

And by buying this song, you know, it gave them an outlet for their grief. fine, I don't have any objection to it. But I do think it represents something quite ugly about Diana's death. I do think it represents how so many people failed to process their grief in a healthy way and instead channeled it in a very unhealthy way that makes the grief permanent. And yeah, it leaves a bit of a sour taste overall.

But as a song, it's nice enough. If we were talking about the original, I would have given it really high marks. This version, it does what it does. You know, connects with a lot of people, doesn't connect with me. So yes, that was quite a long piece from me. No, no.

I think it was totally fine. I think it's especially good for me because I was alive, but I have no memory. So it's been very, very nice to hear you two having, because you would have been six, Andy? Five, five, six. Yeah, only just five, actually. Yeah, five.

And Ed, you were 11, 11. So, yeah, way more kind of, yeah, way more aware of things about happening. I was, well, I was only, I was still in nursery. So I have very little memories of nursery and that era of my life. I think the only memory I have of 1997

is running on a beach in Toulouse and being stung by a bee. And that's it. I've only got a few memories of 97 that I can definitely date to 97 and one of them is going to see Spice World. Oh, hello. Nice segue.

Well done for getting us out of that one, Andy. I was having a bit of trouble working at how the fuck we were going to pivot. Let's run with it. Let's not go back into the Diana. the vortex. Come on. Let's move. Yeah. Let's go. Song number four this week. Last song is this. Okay, this is Spice Up Your Life by Spice Girls. Released as the lead single from the group's second studio album titled Spice World. Spice Up Your Life is Spice Girls' fifth single to be released in the UK

and their fifth to reach number one and it's not the last time. We'll be coming to the Spice Girls during our 90s coverage. Spice Up Your Life went straight in at number one as a brand new entry and stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 321,000 copies beating competition from Barbie Girl by Aqua. You've got a friend by the brand new heavies and a life less ordinary by Ash. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, spice up your life, drop one place to number two. It initially left the charts in March 1998, but re-entered once in 2012. bringing its total time in the top 100 up to 19 weeks.

The song is currently officially certified two times platinum in the UK as of 2026. That's a much more normal figure. So Andy, your memories of Spice World and Spice Up Your Life. Yeah, well, we'll get more into the movie Spice World at a later date. But this was, you know, this was the time for me. This was the peak. This was the peak. And I think everybody would probably,

this sort of time as the peak as when Spice World came out. Suffice it to say, I adore that movie. Genuinely adore it. Like, there's a huge amount of nostalgia for me. And I know that objectively, it's not the best film ever. But I really think it captures that moment in time and how it felt and how exciting they were. And how exciting everything felt at that time. That it really felt like they were leading the charge in a really prosperous new era.

And that was Cool Britannia, basically. know, and it really just felt like they meant something and were sort of like, they were just goddesses to me. And they still are, to be honest. Well, four of them are. But yeah, it's hard to sum up really how much the hype train was so powerful at that time. And this song in particular, I always think about the way it's used in the film where it's the very last song of the film. You know, they're racing to get to that. No spoilers, sorry for anyone who's seen. Well, spoilers, for anyone who hasn't seen it, sorry.

But they're racing to get to their gig at the Albert Hall. The whole film is about getting them there and doing that gig at the Albert Hall. They get there and you have this montage of like literally everyone we've met in the whole film. Everyone across the world basically is watching this gig. And the lights go down and you just hear this. Spice girls! Spice girls! Spice girls!

And then the song quietly kicks in with just the and just the insubeses. instrumental at first, and you see the five silhouettes walking into the light from the back of the stage. And every time I see it, it gives me chills that, like, it really just feels like an arrival, you know, of these five mythical figures as that's Spice Girls plays over this song. And I've always thought, you know, if I ever, I wish I'd gone to their last tour, but if I ever go and see them, if I'm lucky enough to be able to go to any other tour, there are rumors, quite strong rumors about a tour for at least the four of them. this year. And if I go, you know, surely that will have to happen. The Spice World, I always imagine it happened in that way that people wait for them to come out to this song and recreate the start of that movie, and it would be very special to be, if that happened.

And that's this song all over. It is the biggest hype song. It is the absolute biggest, like, oh my God, it's the Spice Girls song, you know. I usually don't like songs that put the artist's name in the title and, like, you know, are an advert to the artist. You know, S Club Party or hey hey we're the monkeys you know but I think this sort of gets away with it because I think there has to be an acknowledgement that when you're as big as this

as totemic as this you do sort of have to acknowledge that that's happened and sort of speak to the listener directly and be like yeah we're the spice girls we're massive now and I think they get away with it for having that angle of like war here we are you know it's us

and what else needs to be said the spice girls are back for a second album. You know, I think it's okay to do that and not just remain distant and, you know, to appear to be unaffected by all of this fame they have. And it's okay to acknowledge their own hype to some extent, maybe disingenuous to not do that if they hadn't done that, to be honest. And I think it makes them even more exciting. I think this is the logical next step for them. It's like, yeah, embrace the intention you're getting it. Embrace the excitement around yourself. If I have one thing against this song, and it is only really one thing, it's the lyrics.

I do think they're just odd. You know, they've sort of hit the nail on the head with all of the lyrics and their songs up to this point. Mama is a little bit literal and a little bit easy, but the other four number ones they've had, yeah, excellent lyrics, all of them. This one, like, I don't know what they're on about some of the time, and sometimes it's quite sort of vacuous, empty lyrics. And there's that extremely unfortunate Yellow Man in Timbuk 2 line. I don't know how that made it into the finished song,

and it tends to get censored these days. So the lyrics are like not the best, but like musically, oh my God, this is so exciting. Their performances are just fantastic. I love all the little ad libs and little screams and that ta la la la la la thing that comes in over the bridge. Like they're all just so excited to be there. You can feel the energy in the room.

You feel like you're listening to an arena. here, and not just because of the film, it's just, oh, oh, it's just the most thrilling thing. This is the peak, and it's slightly down from here in terms of the actual pop culture impact of them. I don't think the songs really drop off for a little while yet, but yeah, this is the peak and what a peak it is, yeah. Ed, did you spice up your life sufficiently while listening to this song? Well, I liked it. It's another spice girl single that I, like. What a shocker. However, I will say that from a slightly more detached viewpoint,

not a criticism of you anymore, a criticism of me that I'm just coming in from the outside with a bit more like, hmm, yes, I vaguely remember this being around. But this does seem a little broader and more obviously kind of genre bound than their earliest stuff. I mean, because it is a big statement song, the most obvious point of comparison is always going to be a wannabe, isn't it, really? Because that was their first big statement introduction. It's like, this is who we are. And I think in many ways, while it's got that cool, I'm a big one for like South American rhythms, it's got the cool sort of, would it be a lot? Would it be? salsa. It's a bit severe for salsa. I'm getting that wrong. Someone can shout at me remotely over the...

Probably samba. Probably samba. Samba? Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. It sounds particularly stringent. It's almost a bit of a bit of a Cuban flavour to it. But as I said, it feels a bit straightjacketed by that. There are a lot of unison vocals going around the, you know, really precisely marking out the melody. and it doesn't seem like it's got the space for the individual personalities as much as say wannabe did. It does sound like, you know, which I think is intentional because if the, it's a far more, you know, aggressive song in many ways. You know, it's supposed to be like a unison attack, as it were. But I also just find it less interesting as a result and somehow less characterful. It's like we're the spice girls, you know.

It's like, yes, believe, believe me, we do. We do very much know this by this point. Yeah, I mean, the lyrics, they are, you said odd. I think that's very, very diplomatic. I'm not sure what they were thinking here, really. They must have been placeholder lyrics that they didn't bother changing. And they probably just thought, oh, they're fun and silly. And they come up, they're memorable in their own weird way.

I am skirting around the fact that I think they're pretty awful and have dated pretty badly. But, yeah, I like it, but I've got to say, because it, for me, just lacks that sort of characterful X factor that the single so far have had. It's the first one that's not going to make the vault. But I don't know. Is it the last one? I'm not sure. But anyway, yeah, it's good. It's still good, but I do feel

a little bit, like it's a little bit of a step down for me. Flamenco Lambada, but Jimmy Carter is smarter. Every time, every time I hear that lyric I think that. Normal service resumed everyone. It's still the 90s. The Spice Girls are back carnival time. Yeah, this is exciting. I think if you're going to come back,

you've got to remind everybody of the brand, and you've got to be loud. and I think they manage both of those things without it seeming like an actual advert. It is an advert, but the song has enough distractions to pull you away from thinking that this is all a bit empty and cynical,

because it isn't. It may be the most menacing they ever sound, like a group of evil hyenas slowly walking towards you, licking their lips, but also a group of evil hyenas that like to party, and it really inadvertently

ends up with a really appropriate opening line, which is when you're feeling sad and low, we will take you where you want to go or where you've got to go, as if to say, the designated morning period is over, the party time 90s will now resume, and I think it's pretty effective

as a sort of wham back into reality before all of the awful stuff happened on that August bank holiday. All five of the girls bring their own characteristics to the song again. The mood is infectious. They've tried to get a couple of catchphrases going again in this one with the

High See ya! Hold tight. And then you also get shiki, shiki, shiki, shiki, haka, whatever. Each new section feels like it's pushing the song forward. There's all sorts of call and response. There's no empty space. You've got catchy refrains, tense bridges, big choruses. The whole thing moves at a million miles an hour.

I think it maybe struggles against the amount of things in the mix. It's kind of muddy. It doesn't have much clarity to my ears. The piano bass line is great, but it feels pretty obscured at points. You know the dung, dung. do do do do do. Very Latin, very, yeah, okay, I've got it. Great.

The lyrics, yeah, we all know about the yellow man in Timbuktu. But I think this is another big hit from the Spice Girls and their average is still quite high for me. It's only really this upcoming Christmas that I think their average starts to drop for me. But not by much. But with the lyrics, I was sort of thinking, like, as I think I maybe said about who do you think you are or something. but like maybe Girls Aloud would sell those lyrics a little better because Girls Aloud's lyrics were always strange, but like the five of them were the most kind of normal people

that like them delivering them, that there was a charm to asking current BBC One TV presenter, Kimberly Walsh, to say the certain things that she said in things like The Promise and Love Machine and things like that. I think that this is just about great. candle in the wind is not. The drugs don't work, was close but didn't quite manage it,

and the men in black is there going nowhere. Ed, so Will Smith, the Verve, Elton John and Spice Girls. How are we feeling about those? Yeah, first of all, I just want to mention that you brought up a life less ordinary by Ash when you were talking about the singles that didn't make the top when the Spice Girls did. talking about songs from movies that actually did something great on their own with the title

nobody remembers the film of fucking a life less ordinary do you? Did not even know. I know the song fairly well and... I think it's a great song but I think sadly because it's stranded on its own and it's not on any albums people don't remember that it's actually one of their best songs in my opinion. The only other thing was that Motion City soundtrack did the song with the exact same title about 10 years after they.

so yeah. I know. It is a bit bonkers. Will Smith, you're overhated, but keep your nice song out of my fucking vault. The verve,

go on, bagpuss, get in the vault. Elton, got to say, my patience burned out long before her legend ever did.

But maybe, not as soon as Marilee, in Monroe's legend. What happened to her candle? Hey Elton, you snuffed that one out quick. Give it to someone else. Well, maybe, maybe you can go and look for it. In the piehole! I was cogent for every sainted minute of this ghoulish, hegemonic nightmare. So I can speak with no objectivity whatsoever. But yeah, I'm pie-holeing this. I don't know what to do with it, and I don't want it back. Anything, anything seems great after that.

Even what I feel is a not quite top-tier spice girls song. It is good. I do like it. But it is, again, not quite got enough of that X-factor for me to go into the vault, I'm afraid. But not far off. Andy, the men in black. The drugs don't work. Candle in the Wind 97 and Spice Up Your Life.

Yes, well, it's not men in vault. it's also not men in pie. That stays where it is. You use your imaginations for those phrases. And the drugs don't work. Well, the drugs don't work if what they are trying to do is get you into the vault or the pie hole, because that's staying where it is as well. And it's also, it's not candle in the pie, nor is it candle in the vault.

That's staying where it is as well. However, spice up your vault, everyone, Because the spice girls are making yet another entry into the vault, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm also just going to use my segment here to just hijack our closing out song for this week. Because how have none of us yet done the Phoenix night? Come and get your black bin bags. Oh, yes. On offer till December.

Come rip with me and rip with me and tear with me right now. They're on offer to December. Get your black bin bags. Long and black and slender Heavy duty Black bin bikes No matter what your gender Heavy duty

Black bin bags Whether by or straight or bender Heavy duty Black bin bikes To remember Just rip with me Just rip with me And tear with me right now

And tear with me right now