Now I can’t be sure of the exact date but I’m pretty certain that by early July 1989 my cosseted life as a student had just about come to an end. I was bereft. I had no idea what I was going to do, no career plan and I certainly wasn’t in any rush to start getting on with the rest of my life. Worst of all I had no firm idea when I would see my girlfriend again. She was heading back to Hull whilst I was Worcester bound. I travelled back to my hometown on a coach with the final lap having to be completed by taxi when the coach broke down. And then there I was. Back in my parents house. Back in my childhood bedroom. How had this happened? How had three years whizzed past so quickly?

My immediate aim was to get some sort of employment so I would at least have some money to pay off my overdraft, give my Mum some for housekeeping and fund travelling the length of the country to see my girlfriend at some point. I nearly got a job as a bin man but backed out at the last minute out off by the early starts and also by the scary man with a spider’s web tattooed all over his face in the employment office who was after the same position. I was directionless, cashless and thoroughly unhappy.

Surely there must have been some decent tunes on TOTP on a Thursday night to cheer me up….

…it’s not a good start. The Stock, Aitken and Waterman version of Cilla Black  – other wise known as Sonia – is first up on this particular show. Her Breakers appearance last week has caused her to move all the way up to No 12 whilst becoming at the same time the week’s biggest climber. We all could see what was going to happen here. “You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You” was bound for the top and those pesky Hit Factory people had inflicted another of their roster of pop puppets upon us  – the UK was seemingly unable to resist. What was her appeal? Was it her perkiness? Was it the catchy piece of pop fluff that was her single? Or was it The Beatles effect of her scouse accent? I never really got it. I could see how Kylie and Jason would appeal to a certain section of the record buying public but Sonia?

And still Stock, Aitken and Waterman weren’t done with manufacturing pop stars. The dreadful Big Fun will be along on these TOTP repeats soon enough. Even worse than that though, they will turn their attention to Cliff Richard and make a dog’s dinner out of the Band Aid record before the year is out.

The next song is decent though. Gladys Knight‘s Bond theme “Licence To Kill” was a worthy addition to the canon I think and of the five Bond songs released in the decade I would rank it probably in the top three and certainly above Rita Coolidge’s “All Time High”  – officially the worst ever UK chart performer of the genre.

It was a different kettle of fish for the film itself though. Unlike Alan Partridge, I’m no Bond aficionado and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Licence To Kill but the perceived wisdom is that it nearly killed off the franchise altogether. Up against that Summer’s blockbusters of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman, its gritty realism and the fact that Bond had gone rogue for the first film ever meant that audiences were less than impressed. Whilst UK box office receipts were respectable, across the water it was the least financially successful James Bond film in the US. It would be another six years before the franchise was rebooted with Pierce Brosnan as 007.

From Alan’s Bond party to “Grandpa’s Party” courtesy of Monie Love. Amongst the pretty big names that Monie (real name Simone Johnson) has worked with are Prince, Queen Latifah and Whitney Houston…..

…however, she missed a trick by not hooking up with this fellow. Imagine the mash up they could have made….

There have been a lot of  R’n’B soul singers on these TOTP repeats over the course of the last three and a bit years that I’ve been writing this blog and we haven’t got to the bottom of the barrel yet. Karyn White was only 23 when she hit big with “Superwoman” and was a much bigger deal in the States than over here where she racked up four Top 10 hits including a No 1 in 1991 and won two Grammy awards. In the UK she scored a couple more Top 30 hits but I’m guessing that “Superwoman” is what she is best remembered for on these shores.

Did I like this one? I found it all a bit ‘meh’ to be honest. “Superwoman” peaked at No 11 in the UK.

Some Breakers now beginning with Bette Midler‘s first ever UK Top 40 hit. I didn’t realise until now that “Wind Beneath My Wings” wasn’t actually written for the film Beaches from which Midler’s version is taken but had been composed in 1982 and already been recorded by the likes of Sheena Easton, Lou Rawls, Gladys Knight and the Pips and erm…Roger Whittaker before Bette got her mitts on it.

I caught the film in Newcastle (I think it must have been one of my last trips to the cinema before my time in the North East was up) with my girlfriend and another friend called Bev.  The slightly mawkish tale of two young girls who meet by chance and whose lives are then intertwined over the next 30 or so years to various degrees of relationship and drama was all too much for poor Bev (spoiler alert – there is a sad ending) who cried all the way back to Sunderland on the train.

“Wind Beneath My Wings” has become quite the standard over the years and in a 2002 UK poll was found to be the most-played song at British funerals. It was a No 1 record in the US and a No 5 hit over here.

Ooh this is much better! The return of Danny Wilson! After finally managing to get a hit with “Mary’s Prayer” after three attempts, the trio had lost ground rather when subsequent single releases did diddly squat. After retreating to lick their wounds, they returned a year later with “The Second Summer Of Love” from their sophomore album “Bebop Moptop”. I liked the song immediately but was delighted to find out that the whole album (which I bought on the strength of it) was full of even better tracks. Indeed “The Second Summer Of Love” is probably one of the weaker cuts on it for me. That didn’t detract from it being far better than most of its peers in the Top 40 at the time.

I recall seeing them interviewed about the video and them advising the reporter that they’d had to learn the song backwards so that when the film is shown backwards, they appear to be miming it as normal. A simple trick but quite effective.

“Bebop Moptop” is most likely to be found in charity shops these days I wouldn’t wonder but it really is worth shelling out a couple of quid for if you see it. “The Second Summer Of Love” was the band’s second and last hit peaking at No 23. If there was any justice in the pop world, subsequent singles released from the album “Never Gonna Be the Same” and “I Can’t Wait” would have been massive hits but they weren’t and the band split not long into the next decade with only a couple of brief reunions since.

Another classic song from De La Soul next. “Say No Go” was the follow up to “Me Myself And I” and was taken from the seminal “3 Feet High and Rising” album. A cautionary tale about the use of drugs, it famously samples the Hall and Oates hit “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)” as well as a few other tracks. It has maximum ear worm power and sounds as good today as it did back then.

Of course, they weren’t the first to ride on the back of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti drugs campaign though….

Rivalling Danny Wilson for my personal favourite song on this TOTP is “Song For Whoever” by The Beautiful South. Five years on from this debut, the band released a Greatest Hits collection called “Carry On Up The Charts” which was so popular that it was claimed that one in seven British households owned a copy. Somehow I didn’t but over the years I seem to have purchased most of the band’s albums as well as seeing them live. In fact I’ve seen The Beautiful South, their second generation version The South, Dave Rotheray offshoot Homespun and Paul Heaton solo. I never managed to see The Housemartins live but I did  once meet their original drummer Hugh Whittaker.

P.S. What was going on with Paul’s hair in this performance?!

Don’t Panic! “It’s Alright”…Pet Shop Boys are back! It’s amazing the things you learn researching this blog. For instance, I never knew that this wasn’t actually a Tennant / Lowe original but is in fact a cover. The original was by Sterling Void (no idea). To be fair to Neil and Chris though, they did add an extra verse about environmental issues to it.

I’d also forgotten that this was actually a track on their “Introspective” album and remembered it being a stand alone single which it isn’t. To be fair, it isn’t one of my favourite PSB tracks by a long way. I mean, its not terrible or anything but it kind of washed over me back then and still does a bit today. As for the that striking, baby fest video, Neil Tennant recounted to Spin magazine in 2013 that “We got there, and all the babies were asleep — all the 50 babies. And then one of them cried [and] they all fucking woke up!”. What was that old saying about working with children or animals?

“It’s Alright” peaked at No 5.

I’m guessing that this re-release of “Ain’t Nobody” by Chaka Khan and Rufus was part of her “Life Is a Dance: The Remix Project” album that also gave us the re-release of “I’m Every Woman: earlier in 1989. As with a lot of these re-releases, I don’t recall this one being back in the charts  – my go to memory for this song is definitely the original 1984 version. Apparently this ’89 vintage is the Frankie Knuckles re-mix but it sounds very similar to the original to me.

Chaka looks absolutely sweltering in that outfit she’s gone with for this performance. I can’t work out which would have been heavier, the clothes or her hair. To be fair, the sweating may have been for another reason as she doesn’t look fully compos mentis to me here. Maybe she’d had a very nice time pre-show in the green room.

The ’89 version of “Ain’t Nobody” peaked at No 6 thereby eclipsing the chart performance of the original by two places.

Top 10

10. Guns N’ Roses – “Patience”

9. Cyndi Lauper – “I Drove All Night”

8. U2 – “All I Want”

7. Queen – “Breakthru”

6. Gladys Knight – “Licence To Kill”

5. Pet Shop Boys – “It’s Alright”

4. Prince – “Batdance”

3. London Boys – “London Nights”

2. The Beautiful South – “Song For Whoever”

1. Soul II Soul – “Back To Life”: Another week at the top for a song that has enjoyed numerous accolades and a very respected legacy down the years. Q magazine voted it as No 67 in their 2003 poll “100 Songs That Changed the World” and in 2015 it was voted by the British public as No 18 in ITV’s “The Nation’s Favourite 80s Number One”.

Most significantly though, it was one of the songs included in the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. If you ever wanted to learn those dance moves…

“Voodoo Ray” was a hit in the 80s? I could have sworn that it was a 90s track but no A Guy Called Gerald (amazingly he was actually called Gerald) was a certifiable 80s hit and spent a whole 18 weeks in the charts peaking at No 12. Maybe I’m getting confused with “Infinity (1990’s… Time for the Guru)” by Guru Josh which was a hit in early 1990 despite officially being released in the previous decade (18th December).

One of the most recognisable house records ever made, it wasn’t really my thing but I could appreciate its significance which is made abundantly clear in this clip from 24 Hour Party People. 

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sonia	You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You	Of course not
2	Gladys Knight	Licence To Kill	Don’t think I did
3	Monie Love	Grandpa’s Party	Negative
4	Karyn White	Superwoman	Nah
5	Bette Midler	Wind Beneath My Wings	Nope
6	Danny Wilson	The Second Summer Of Love	No but I bought the album Bebop Moptop
7	De La Soul	Say No Go	No but my wife had the album 3 Feet High And Rising
8	Beautiful South	Song For Whoever	No but I had the album it was from
9	Pet Shop Boys	It’s Alright	No but I presume it’s on their Pop Art compilation which I have
10	Chaka Khan and Rufus	Ain’t Nobody	No
11	Soul II Soul	Back To Life	No but I think my wife had their album
12	A Guy Called Gerald	Voodoo Ray	It’s a no I’m afraid

Disclaimer

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Whole Show

Since we’ve all been on lockdown, there are people out there with time on their hands some of whom have recorded the whole TOTP show from the BBC4 repeat and made it available on YouTube. So if you did want to watch the whole thing over…

Some bed time reading?

 

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