Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

[purlieu]

Well, that went in one ear and out of the other.

[machotrouts]

The Bachelors had a top 10 greatest hits album in 2008. Got to hand it to anyone who found the time to be a Bachelors fan in 2008 without being dead of old age.

Delighted that we've now entered the era of groups that still tour today as two bitter rival factions with names just on the edges of legality, usually taking the format "[GROUP] with [GROUP MEMBER]" or "[GROUP MEMBER]'s [GROUP]". As I recall from my research for my deadpool team of #1 hitmakers, this will be the case for pretty much every group of the 1960s.

What is a "voice like a drowning rat"?

[Cardenio I]

Jesus that's dull. Smells like Sunday best and your nan's stew. Proper wreak of childhood ennui, desperate to get out on a sunny day, stuck indoors licking stamps or some shit.

Searchers tune is alright though.

[daf]

stuck indoors licking stamps or some shit.

Given the choice, I think I'd choose the stamps!!

[sevendaughters]

What is a "voice like a drowning rat"?

reckon it's warbly, like a Robin Gibb solo cut

[daf]

Lorra Lorra Lully Blinda Data, it's . . .

164.  Cilla Black - Anyone Who Had A Heart



From : 23 February – 14 March 1964
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Just For You
bonus : Live (aw, look at her lovely original hooter - what a waste!)

Cilla Black was born Priscilla Maria Veronica White in Vauxhall, Liverpool, on 27 May 1943. She grew up in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool.  She was raised in a Roman Catholic household, and attended St Anthony's School, situated behind St Anthony's Church in Scotland Road, and Anfield Commercial College, where she learned office skills.

Cilla was working as a Dictaphone typist at BICC, the Cable Company, when she first started singing with local groups. It all began when she went to The Iron Door Club with her friend Pauline Behan, who was going steady with George Harrison at the time and was later to marry Gerry Marsden. The group on stage was Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. The bass player noticed Cilla enthusiastically clapping her hands to the beat and singing along with the music,  took a microphone over to her, and asked her to "give us a song".

Cilla : "I got very embarrassed, I thought he was trying to make me look silly, and at first I refused to go up on the stage. But Pauline kept egging me on, and eventually, I went up and sang "Fever"

As a result she made several further appearances with the band. She was encouraged to begin singing by Liverpool promoter, Sam Leach, who booked her first gig at the "Casanova Club", where she appeared as "Swinging Cilla". Another account says that it was at The Iron Door that Leach booked Cilla for the first time. Never one to take anything too seriously, John Lennon used to announce her as "Swinging Cyril" when she joined the Beatles on stage to sing "Summertime", or "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues".



Meanwhile, she worked as a waitress at the "Zodiac" coffee lounge, where she later met her future husband Bobby Willis. Black was featured in an article in the first edition of the local music newspaper "Mersey Beat" by the paper's publisher, Bill Harry, who mistakenly referred to her as Cilla Black. Cilla's dad John, was upset but Cilla liked the sound of her new name and took the name Black as her stage surname, and the rest was history . . .

Determined to become an entertainer, Cilla gained a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at Liverpool's Cavern Club. This element of the story has turned into legend. According to Bill Harry, more people had seen her serving tea at the Zodiac coffee lounge than tending people's clothes at the Cavern Club.



Cilla : "All the time I was singing I carried the secret hope that I might be 'discovered', but nothing happened. Added to that it was very disheartening to see so much talent in Liverpool which nobody wanted to know about."

Her impromptu performances impressed the audience and the Liverpool bands. Black became a guest singer with the Merseybeat bands Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and, later, with the Big Three. When she performed with the Hurricanes, she used to share vocals on the song "Boys" with their then drummer, Ringo Starr. She was introduced to Brian Epstein by John Lennon, who persuaded him to audition her. But that first audition didn't go as planned . . .

Cilla : "I'd chosen to do "Summertime", but at the very last moment I wished I hadn't. I adored this song, and had sung it when I came to Birkenhead with the Big Three, but I hadn't rehearsed it with the Beatles and it had just occurred to me that they would play it in the wrong key. It was too late for second thoughts, though. With one last wicked wink at me, John set the group off playing. I'd been right to worry. The music was not in my key and any adjustments that the boys were now trying to make were too late to save me. My voice sounded awful. Destroyed - and wanting to die - I struggled on to the end."

But after seeing her another day, at the "Blue Angel" jazz club, singing "Boys", Epstein decided she was worth a punt, and Cilla Black became his first, and only, female client on 6 September 1963. Epstein introduced Cilla to George Martin who signed her to Parlophone Records and produced her début single.

 

Written mainly by Paul McCartney, "Love of the Loved", was one of his earliest compositions, dating to the first half of 1959, devised on his acoustic, during a night-time walk home in honour of his current girlfriend, Dot Rhone. It featured in the Beatles live act in their early days, and the group recorded the song at their 1962 audition for Decca Records, but never issued it on any of their official releases. 

For Black's benefit, McCartney recorded a demo on guitar which is apparently lost. She recorded the song with McCartney's help on August 28, and on release as her debut single, only three weeks after she signed with Epstein. Despite being an absolute honking banger, and an appearance on ABC-TV's popular "Thank Your Lucky Stars", the single, backed with "Shy Of Love", peaked at a modest #35 in the UK, a relative failure compared to début releases of Epstein's most successful artists (The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas).

Under Epstein's management, Cilla made her concert debut at the Odeon, Southport, in a show with the Beatles on 30 August. She then appeared with the Beatles on the all-Merseyside edition of the "Thank Your Lucky Stars" TV show and was booked for The Beatles Christmas Show at the Finsbury Park Astoria in north London from 24 December 1964 - 11 January 1964.

 

Black's second single, released at the beginning of 1964, was a cover of the Burt Bacharach–Hal David composition "Anyone Who Had a Heart", which had been written for Dionne Warwick. The single beat Warwick's recording into the UK charts and rose to No. 1 in Britain in February 1964.

"Anyone Who Had a Heart" was written by Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) in 1963.

It was presented to Dionne Warwick in unfinished form while she, Burt Bacharach and Hal David were rehearsing in Bacharach's Manhattan apartment for an upcoming recording session. Bacharach had finished the score which, in his words, "changes time signature constantly, 4/4 to 5/4, and a 7/8 bar at the end of the song on the turnaround. It wasn't intentional, it was all just natural. That's the way I felt it." This was the first use of polyrhythm in popular music.

However, David had written only about a third of the lyric and was reluctant to finalize the sixth line of the first stanza as "And know I dream of you", feeling the stress was unnatural. Bacharach played a snippet of the tune for Warwick, who was enraptured and, at her urging, David left Warwick to rehearse with Bacharach in the living room while David retired to a bedroom where he completed the lyric. Of the unnatural stress in "I dream of you", David later stated: "I tried to find a way to make the you do something and I could never do it... I had to let it go."

Warwick recorded "Anyone Who Had a Heart" at Bell Sound Studios in Manhattan in November 1963, in a session produced by Bacharach which also yielded "Walk On By" and "In the Land of Make Believe".

The track became Warwick's first Top Ten single in January 1964, peaking at no. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #11 on the 'CHUM' chart in Canada.

A scout for English record producer George Martin discovered "Anyone Who Had a Heart" when Warwick's version took off in the United States, suggesting to Martin that the song would be a strong UK single for Shirley Bassey. However, Martin saw the song as a vehicle for Cilla Black.

 

Martin produced the session for Cilla's recording of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" at Abbey Road Studios; the arrangement was by Johnny Pearson and the session personnel included guitarists Vic Flick and Big Jim Sullivan with backing vocals by The Breakaways .

Cilla's superior cover of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" debuted at no. 28 on the UK Top 50 on 8 February 1964. The Dionne Warwick original, debuted on the chart for the following week at no. 42; while Cilla Black was at no. 10, ascending in the subsequent two weeks to no. 2 and then no. 1.

On the chart dated February 29, 1964, besides Cilla's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" at no. 1, and Warwick's original in its final chart week at no. 47, the UK Top 50 also featured a third version by Mary May at no. 49. On April 25, 1964, Billboard reported that the sales tally for Black's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" was nearing one million copies. Cilla's version also reached no. 1 in Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa. In the Netherlands, the song reached no. 6, and in Australia it peaked at no. 34.

Despite the international success and recognition of Warwick's original version, the besting in Great Britain by Black's version had long been a sore point with Warwick,  stating that Black's version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" replicated Warwick's to the point where if she had coughed, it would have been present on Black's cover.

Cilla : "It was a no. 1; Dionne was dead choked and she's never forgiven me to this day."

However, Cilla actually sings different lyrics on the chorus - "who couldn't be another heart" rather than the original and standard lyric "you couldn't really have a heart". Also, arranger Johnny Pearson utilized a bassoon solo for the instrumental break in Black's version as opposed to the saxophone utilized in the Warwick original.

Burt Bacharach : "At one point it looked as if Shirley Bassey would record the song...but The Beatles producer George Martin suggested Cilla and I agreed immediately. It was late in 1963 and Liverpool was taking over popular music with some great songs and great people. There was an awareness that things would never be quite the same again - and Cilla Black was part of that."

"The great thing about the British is that they've always 'got' my songs right away. They are also one of the most loyal audiences in the world. I think Cilla reflected that kind of ability. She understood the song and she had a kind of long-term stickability, which is so very hard to achieve in this business."

 

In 1993, Black recorded a new version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" for her 'Through the Years' album.

The orchestra on Petula Clark's versions of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" was conducted by Tony Hatch. The instrumentation differs from that of the versions by Dionne Warwick and Cilla Black in utilizing an organ for the solo on the instrumental break rather than a saxophone as on the Warwick original or a bassoon as on Black's cover.

Other Versions include :  "Alles ist nun vorbei" by Petula Clark (1964)  /  Dusty Springfield (1964)  /  "Quelli che hanno un cuore" by Petula Clark (1964)  /  Percy Faith & His Orchestra (1964)  /  The Four Seasons (1965)  /  Joy Marshall (1965)  /  Vikki Carr (1966)  /  Gals and Pals (1966)  /  "Denně čekám" by Marta Kubišová (1967)  /  The Lettermen (1968)  /  Cal Tjader (1968)  /  Eve (1970)  /  "Alles ist nun vorbei" by Marion Maerz (1971)  /  Ena Baga (1972)  /  Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (1972)  /  Leslie Butler Plus 3 (1975)  /  Tim Curry (1978)  /  Shirley Bassey (1978)  /  Ritz (1979)  /  Barbara Dickson (1985)  /  Luther Vandross (1986)  /  Maureen McGovern (1992)  /  Linda Ronstadt (1993)  /  The Gary Tesca Orchestra (1995)  /  Brazilian Tropical Orchestra (1999)  /  Raymond Jones (2004)  /  Olivia Newton-John (2004)  /  Elton John & Luther Vandross (2005)  /  Cliff Richard with Dionne Warwick (2006)  /  Michael Ball (2007)  /  Atomic Kitten (2008)  /  Kim Wilde (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Sheridan Smith (2014)  /  Mari Wilson (2016)  /  Sarah Jones (2016)  /  Sheridan Smith (as Cilla) (2017)  /  Sienna (2018)  /  a robot (2019)

On This Day :

25 February : Lee Evans, sweaty comedian, born Lee John Martin Evans in Avonmouth, Bristol
25 February : Cassius Clay beats Sonny Liston in 7 rounds to win his first world heavyweight championship title
27 February : "What Makes Sammy Run?" opens at 84th St Theater NYC
27 February : The government of Italy asks for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.
29 February : "Rugantino" closes at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC after 28 performances
2 March : Beatles begin filming "A Hard Day's Night" & George Harrison meets Patti Boyd (aged 19)
6 March : Boxer Cassius Clay joins the Nation of Islam and changes his name to "Muhammad Ali", calling his former title a "slave name"
8 March : Malcolm X resigns from the Nation of Islam
8 March : Ped, (Frankie Goes to Hollywood), born Peter Gill, in Liverpool
10 March : Prince Edward,  born Edward Anthony Richard Louis in Buckingham Palace, London
10 March : Neneh Cherry, singer, born Neneh Mariann Karlsson in Stockholm, Sweden
11 March : Shane Richie, actor, born Shane Patrick Roche in Kensington, London
11 March : Emma Chambers, actress (The Vicar of Dibley), born in Doncaster, Yorkshire
14 March : "Girl Who Came to Supper" closes at Broadway NYC after 112 performances

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

     

[sevendaughters]

remember on Surprise Surprise where Cilla would sometimes do a Cillagram and start singing in the face of whatever punter she'd just accosted? I thought the joke there was that this cuddly mum of telly was singing because it was something she couldn't actually do.

Bacharach and David wrote a nice song there, but Cilla just landed on it and Martin's arrangement is cloying as hell.

edit: listening to Dusty's version, way better.

[The Culture Bunker]

Bacharach and David wrote a nice song there, but Cilla just landed on it and Martin's arrangement is cloying as hell.

Nonsense - Cilla's version is "superior". Look, it even sez so up there.

She was one of those people on TV my old man would rather walk out of the room than listen to her foghorn one note out of her trap. I totally understand the reaction.

[purlieu]

Yes, an inexplicable singer. Horrible.

[kalowski]

Fucking Cilla.
Horrendous.

[Captain Z]

Glad it's not just me, even without the stories of her being a nasty piece in real life I had an aversion to her as both a singer and TV presenter.

Her televised autopsy was good though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjI3-9KzvRQ

[The Culture Bunker]

Glad it's not just me, even without the stories of her being a nasty piece in real life I had an aversion to her as both a singer and TV presenter.

I have wondered if the nasty rumours about why she got signed by Epstein (and thus got a record deal) came about as a result of her being a bit of a nasty bit of work to us plebs.

[Satchmo Distel]

Some sources (e.g. Wiki) give the Dionne Warwick recording session that produced both Walk On By and this song as 22/11/63 - JFK assassination day, but it seems unlikely as it would surely be mentioned more if so.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Cilla sounded fine when she sang in her softer, quieter register, but whenever she attempted to belt things out she sounded like a fire in an abattoir. Horrific.

Epstein, the Beatles, George Martin, Burt Bacharach - anyone with ears, basically - must've known that her 'big voice' was absolutely honking, and yet they enabled her reign of terror. Why? Cilla Black's musical career is one of pop's great mysteries.

The controlled soul power of Dionne Warwick's version is astonishing, she sells the song's drama without a trace of grating bombast. That's because she's a proper singer, unlike our Cilla.

I have wondered if the nasty rumours about why she got signed by Epstein (and thus got a record deal) came about as a result of her being a bit of a nasty bit of work to us plebs.

Nasty rumours? Epstein presumably signed her because she was a popular singer at The Cavern and everybody on that scene was fond of her (she was apparently quite nice before fame went to her head). I mean, I daresay she sounded okay while belting out a few R&B covers on stage - a plucky amateur, the girl next door giving it her all - but Epstein's decision to record her as a melodramatic ballad singer was disastrous. Dusty Springfield she was not.

[Satchmo Distel]

Disastrous artistically but commercially it got them 11 Top 10 hits.

Mercifully I've never heard her version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling but am gobsmacked that it got to No. 2 and would have got No. 1 had not the Righteous Brothers version leapfrogged it.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0HaJcirCVI

Say what you like about Cilla, but she sure knew how to take a great song and turn it into nothing.

[machotrouts]

Cilla's is the definitive Anyone Who Had a Heart. The highlight of the song is, at the end of the chorus, Cilla's post-foghorn flop down to the resigned "what am I to do?". Every other version just sounds like they're singing the whole thing like it's the slumpy bit. Even the Shirley Bassey one. Also while I'm here, I think Nicola Roberts' solo album was underappreciated. 'Beat of My Drum', 'Lucky Day', 'Gladiator', 'Take a Bite'. All bangers.

[daf]

You better not tell on him, it's . . .

165.  Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas - Little Children



From : 15 – 28 March 1964
Weeks : 2
Flip side : They Remind Me Of You

Following his second number one, "Bad To Me", Kramer and with The Dakotas scored a Top 4 hit with "I'll Keep You Satisfied' in November 1963 - which was included on an EP in April 1964 along with " I Know"  /  "Dance With Me"  /  and "It's Up To You".

Despite being advised against it, he turned down the offer of another Lennon/McCartney song, "One and One Is Two", and insisted on recording the Stateside chart hit "Little Children". Released in March 1964, it became his third chart topper and biggest hit. In the United States, "Little Children" was backed with "Bad to Me". This was the only debut single of an act on the Hot 100, each of whose sides separately reached that chart's The Top 10 (No. 7 and No. 9, respectively).

As with his previous single, this was expanded into a four track EP released in May, including the 'Bad To Me' flip-side - "I Call Your Name", plus one new track - "Beautiful Dreamer".

Despite this success, Kramer went backwards with his second and last UK single of 1964, the Lennon/McCartney composition "From a Window" which only reached #10 in July 1964. It was also was released as part of an EP, along with the single flip-side "Second To None", plus "Dance With Me" and "Twelfth Of Never"

 

The Dakotas enjoyed Top 20 success on their own with the Mike Maxfield composition "The Cruel Sea" (b/w "The Millionaire")  in July 1963. This was followed in September by a George Martin creation, "Magic Carpet" (b/w "Humdinger"), in which an echo-laden piano played the melody alongside Maxfield's guitar.

The Dakotas' ranks were then strengthened by the inclusion of Mick Green, formerly a guitarist with the London band the Pirates who backed Johnny Kidd. This line-up cut a few tracks which were at odds with the balladeer's usual fare. These included a take on "Everytime You Walk in the Room" and "Sneakin' Around". The Dakotas' final outing whilst with Kramer was the blues-driven "Oyeh" (b/w "Hallo Josephine"), released in October 1964, but this also flopped.

 

In January 1965 "It's Gotta Last Forever" (b/w "Don't You Do It No More") missed the chart, but he bounced back for one final hit with a cover version of Bacharach and David's "Trains And Boats And Planes" (b/w "That's The Way I Feel") which saw off Anita Harris' version in the UK, reaching a respectable number 12, but was trounced by that of Dionne Warwick in the US, and turned out to be the group's chart swan-song.

Released on 5 November, Guy Fawkes Night 1965, "Neon City" (b/w "I'll Be Doggone") proved to be a damp squib and fizzled out before it got anywhere near the Hit Parade.

1966 begun with the band in happier mood, claiming that . . . "We're Doing Fine" (b/w "Forgive Me"). However, they clearly 'doth protest too much', as chart-wise they weren't "doing fine" at all. The July 1966 release of "You Make Me Feel Like Someone" (b/w "Take My Hand") proved to be a flop too far, and they were dropped by Parlophone.

One final single was released by Reaction, featuring a cover of The Bee Gees "Town Of Tuxley Toy Maker Part 1" on the A side, as by "Billy J Kramer" (without The Dakotas), and going out on a high, the excellent "Chinese Girl" on the flip-side was credited on the label to "Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas".

The singer and group parted company. Kramer, then living in Rugby, Warwickshire, had a solo career over the next ten to fifteen years or so, working in cabaret and television with his new band, again from the Manchester area, consisting of Pete Heaton (bass), John Miller (drums) and Tim Randles (guitar)

In the 1970s, Kramer, whilst performing cabaret in the UK and Europe, released a couple of singles — "San Diego" and "Ships that Pass in the Night" — before settling in the United States.

In 1983, Kramer released a solo single on the RAK label, "You Can't Live on Memories" / (b/w "Stood Up"), which failed to chart. The following year, 1984, he released "Shootin' the Breeze" on 'Mean Records'. Again, this failed to chart . . . unsurprisingly!!

In 2005, Kramer recorded the song "Cow Planet" for Dog Train, the children's album by Sandra Boynton. A long-term fan of Kramer, Boynton had sought him out for her project: in 1964, at the age of 11, Little Children became the first album she ever bought.

In late 2012, Kramer went back into the studio for the first time in years to record a new CD, 'I Won the Fight', which was released in 2013.

"Little Children" was written by J. Leslie McFarland and Mort Shuman.  It was recorded by Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas, and reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in March 1964,  and No. 7 in the US chart later the same year.

The lyric concerns a man's entreaties to his girlfriend's young siblings not to reveal his courtship of their elder sister and to leave them alone, at some points, even bribing them with things like "candy and a quarter" and "a movie", on the condition that they "keep a secret". As such, it was a departure from the traditional love songs previously recorded by Kramer.

When offered another Lennon and McCartney song, "One and One Is Two", for his next single by the manager of both groups, Brian Epstein, Kramer turned it down and chose "Little Children" instead, after a search for suitable material from music publishers.

Billy : "[Little Children] was buried in a large batch of new material which had been sent in by various music publishers. Normally, I don't get the opportunity to try through each and every new song that's sent in. But it so happens that I had a couple of free hours and was running through some of the new stuff. "Little Children" came to the surface. I was immediately knocked out by it.. When we agreed that I should record it, the boys and I had one quick rehearal the previous day, and went into the studio with what was no more than a head arrangement. Our recording manager, George Martin, listened to our routine -  then volunteered some valuable ideas himself. After that, it was plain sailing."



Other Versions include :   Ed Hardin (1964)  /  The Saxons (1964)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Phil (2016)  /  George Possley (2017)

On This Day :

15 March : Rockwell,  singer, born Kennedy William Gordy in Detroit, Michigan
18 March : Courtney Pine, British jazz saxophonist, born in London
20 March : Brendan Behan, Irish author and poet, dies at 41
21 March : The Beatles' single "She Loves You" goes #1 in the US & stays there for 2 weeks
21 March : 118th Grand National : Willie Robinson aboard American-owned 12-year-old Team Spirit wins at odds of 18/1
21 March : 9th Eurovision Song Contest : Gigliola Cinquetti for Italy wins singing "Non ho l'eta" in Copenhagen
23 March : Peter Lorre, actor (Casablanca), dies from a stroke at 59
23 March :  John Lennon's "In His Own Write" is published in the UK
26 March : "Funny Girl" opens at Winter Garden Theater NYC
27 March : Pirate Radio station Radio Caroline starts broadcasting - and THE "SWINGING SIXTIES" OFFICIALLY BEGINS!

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :

       

[sevendaughters]

This is just ghastly. Feel like a paedo has jumped into my cranium and is giggling like BOB from Twin Peaks.

[Cardenio I]

Billy's twitter is looking lively:

@BILLYJKRAMER

I am singing come together at the GRAMMY MUSEUM

8:31 pm - 13 Sep 2019

@BILLYJKRAMER

Political  reality tv show

8:24 pm - 13 Sep 2019

@BILLYJKRAMER

I had a great birthday with my best friends
I couldn't have asked for mor more

6:13 pm - 21 Aug 2019

@BILLYJKRAMER

Where did you get this

1:46 pm - 29 Jul 2019

[Satchmo Distel]

Here is a bit of rock and roll trivia, I was the opening act for a The Beatles more than anyone else

[purlieu]

Desolation thread RIP.

We're heading into a Beatles backlash at the minute. "We're tired of all this good pop music, let's go back to making shit."

[daf]

Backlash already started in the press - Beatles "for the Mums and Dads now" says disgruntled Reader * :



- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
* (Just spotted that they printed her full name and address - handy for any local Beatles fan who fancies shoving some dog crap through her letterbox! Well done Record Mirror - safety first!)

[purlieu]

"Their appearance alone stands against social standards", printed alongside a picture of them in suits and ties.

[daf]

Maybe she meant their faces - that is one set of ugly mugs!

[Satchmo Distel]

I'm not sure how The Beatles were rebellious after they started playing outside Liverpool. The leather was long gone and the songs were all romantic ones, albeit with possible blowjob subtexts (Please Please Me).

[machotrouts]

Is the fact that it sounds like he's a paedophile until the second verse the joke? Like, it's supposed to be a comedy reveal in the song that ahh, he's not really shagging kids, they're just getting on his tits? Or was this written in total innocence? Genuinely not sure and neither option seems plausible.

I probably would have liked this as a little child. Then again I was also super into old men's cocks.

(Nowhere near the most troubling lyrics of any song mentioned in daf's post – 'Chinese Girl', or 'Kinky Chinese Girl' as it's called on Spotify?, is brilliant as long as you're prepared to ignore absolutely every word in it.)

I always enjoyed his Facebook (I check in for my deadpooling commitments) before whoever does the more comprehensible posts for him (particularly the "I am very saddened to hear of the passing..." posts) took over full-time.


















Catching up on his Twitter now.

[Satchmo Distel]

Chinese Girl: https://youtu.be/w1rkXqijLbo?t=42

"She don't need no loving tutor
She done wrote the Kama Sutra
She's the greatest Oriental
European girls they drive me mental"

Like a Benny Hill number.

[Cardenio I]

BillyJ KraMmer SCORE FIRST

[daf]

Is the fact that it sounds like he's a paedophile until the second verse the joke? Like, it's supposed to be a comedy reveal in the song that ahh, he's not really shagging kids, they're just getting on his tits

Even with the reveal, I'm still getting a whiff of Bill Wyman / Ed Stewpot from the scenario :

You saw me kissin' your sister, you saw me holdin' her hand But if you snitch to your mother, your father won't understand

(Key is heard scraping in the lock)
Mum : "Yoo-Hoo! We're back from the Bingo Sheila!"
(Sheila and Billy spring apart)
Sheila (adjusting flustered bra strap) : "Oh, I . . . We ,  . . er . ."
Billy (furiously squashing down budding erection with a copy of Beat Monthy) : "Ah, Mrs Patterson . . I was just  . . er . . helping Sheila . . . with her . . um, homework?"
Sheila : Yes THAT'S it - homework - 'Uncle' Billy was just  . .  testing me for my . . my . .  French . . "
Billy : "Kissing . .   I mean Oral  . .  French Oral exam. That was it  - ORAL!"
Dad (entering with flat cap and whippet) : Ey-up! Who's been giving sweets to young Beryl then? - she's bouncing off t'walls like t'jumping bean upstairs!"