My Musical History Part 8

The start of the new decade

Yes, I know that technically 1979 wasn’t the start of a new decade, but if you look at everything that was happening, it was the year that the 1980s started culturally, politically, and musically. So many things happened in this year that were to become pivotal in all three areas, that I don’t think any history of the 80s can start later than 1979.

Britain turns to Maggie

On May 4, the UK woke up to the news that James Callaghan’s Labour government had, as expected, been ousted by Margaret Thatcher’s opposition Conservative Party. Cards on the table here, I was living in a staunchly Conservative area, and she was something of a heroine already to a number of the Tory supporters like my Dad and his friends. As a result I was as pleased as he was at the time. Let’s just say, I changed my views in the years afterwards(!), but this is looking back to 1979 and in our Tory supporting, Daily Telegraph reading household there was a genuine sense of optimism. To understand this, you need to know that even the least political person, and I had never been that, saw a country on its knees. Towards the end of January, public sector strikers went on strike and, for just over a month, the usual running of the country stopped. The BBC News showed the mass of black bags in the centre of Leicester Square where rubbish went uncollected during that time and the mainly hostile press went to town over reports of the dead being unburied. It really looked as though the country was falling apart. The abiding memories of those grim scenes are often coupled with James Callaghan’s response of ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’. Except of course, he never said it. It was a headline used on The Sun front page paraphrasing the much more nuanced response of

‘I don’t think other people in the world would share the view [that] there is mounting chaos.’

Callaghan looked, at best, complacent or, at worst, in denial. In all honesty the damage had already been done when he failed to go for a snap election in October 1978 when Labour were in a small but clear lead in the polls. When he blinked, much as Gordon Brown did 30 years later, he lost his chance and the Winter of Discontent made defeat inevitable. It is highly likely that the majority may have been very slim, or he might have been in charge of another minority government, but it would certainly not have given the Conservatives a 45 seat majority. In 1979, however, Thatcher’s room for manoeuvre was very small, and her attempts to drag the country to the right were thwarted by a combination of events and the more conciliatory approach of her mainly ‘One Nation’ colleagues. That, however, is a story for another year!

Terrorist assassinations

In 1979, two terrorist attacks hit the headlines more than any since the pub bombings of 1974. In March, Airey Neave, an MP, and Margaret Thatcher’s closest political friend was killed by a car bomb planted by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Before coming into politics he had, like many other politicians been a decorated serviceman in World War II. Neave was the first person to escape from Colditz, and after the war he was part of the Nuremberg Trials where his legal training and fluent German made him an integral part of the team and saw him accorded the honour of reading out the charges to the Nazi officers on trial. A fiercely right wing politician, he masterminded Margaret Thatcher’s election as Conservative leader and influenced her approach significantly. The INLA bomb robbed her of her mentor just over a month before the election.

The second major assassination was an even more shocking one for the UK public as a whole and the Royal Family in particular. On August Bank Holiday Monday, 18 soldiers were killed in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush at Warrenpoint, but that news was overshadowed by the IRA’s assassination of Lord Mountbatten of Burma, Prince Philip’s Uncle, and the Prince of Wales’s mentor. It was one of those moments that I remember exactly where I was. I was playing Monopoly with my friend Steve when the newsflash came up. My Dad was in the room, just about to go off to work, and the anger of his reaction is etched upon my memory. He took me up to the funeral the following week where I blotted my copybook by nearly fainting just before the cortege came along to where we were waiting. He had to get me to the grass where it was clear of people, and he lost the space we had been occupying for almost 3 hours! We could still see the funeral procession, but the view was nowhere near as good as it should have been. To say he was, quite naturally, unhappy was an understatement! For my own part I felt extremely guilty at the time and still do. It’s one of those moments I wish I could relive and change. If I could, I would have insisted on taking food for me to have during that 3 hours to give me a chance of staying upright for that vital extra 5 minutes.

A comedy hero

The death that touched me most deeply that year came in March. One of my favourite actors at the time was a young comedian called Richard Beckinsale. He had appeared in Porridge, one of the finest comedies ever written, and its sequel Going Straight, alongside the great Ronnie Barker. He was one of the biggest stars of the time for this and his role in Rising Damp with another comedy great Leonard Rossiter. At 31 his career was already the envy of much more established actors, and he had started to branch out, filming a drama which would have shown him as a very gifted straight actor. Then, on March 19, 1979, came the dreadful news that he had died of a heart attack. Ronnie Barker was heartbroken and could barely speak when he collected an award for Going Straight. Like all of Beckinsale’s fans he couldn’t come to terms with the unfairness of life. His death, as well as robbing him of 40 or 50 years of life, had robbed us of an actor who would undoubtedly have become an all-time great of both comedy and drama.  

A pivotal year in music

As I said at the beginning of this article, 1979 was the start of the 80s. Nowhere was this truer than in music. This was the year where New Wave exploded on to the charts in all its variety. Initially seen as an offshoot of punk, New Wave quickly overtook its originators and became the dominant force in music, seeding its influence throughout the 80s and beyond. A number of artists who became indelibly associated with the following decade saw their first major chart successes in 1979 and there were two one hit wonders whose records were always, in my mind at least, associated with the 80s. It was a year when my record buying started to increase in frequency and the importance I attached to music move up a gear as, more than ever, it became my escape from everyday life.

An arresting sound

The first New Wave group I really became a massive fan of was The Police. They were a three piece made up of Sting on Bass and Lead Vocals, Andy Summers on Guitar and Stewart Copeland on Drums. The first hit of theirs that really made me sit up and take notice was, Can’t Stand Losing You, with the heady mixture of Sting’s iconic vocals, the reggae inflected sound and the sardonic lyrics about a young man’s problems in love featuring lyrics like

‘Your brother’s gonna kill me and he’s 6 feet 10!’

A blackly humorous line that always makes me laugh when I hear it.  

‘I see you sent my letters back
And my L.P. records, and they’re all scratched.’

That second lyric definitely struck fear into my vinyl loving heart! Eventually the young man decides he is going to kill himself with the spiteful comment.

‘I guess this is our last goodbye
And you don’t care, so I won’t cry
But you’ll be sorry when I’m dead
And all this guilt will be on your head.’

This record caused a certain amount of controversy when it was released originally in 1978, not only for the lyrics but also for the original cover which showed Stewart Copeland standing on a block of ice with a noose around his neck, presumably waiting for it to melt! It was banned by the BBC, which obviously ensured that this new band would get noticed. Upon rerelease the cover was changed to a picture of The Police, the track was unbanned by the BBC and in July they had a Number 2 record.

From September, The Police went from promising newcomers to the best band in Britain with the release of their first Number 1 single, the incredible ‘Message in a Bottle’. I was utterly hooked from the opening guitar intro, one of the best ever in my opinion. Then came Sting’s lyrics where he spoke of the loneliness of someone going through life without finding anyone to share it with. He sends out an S.O.S. in a bottle and waits for a reply that he decides isn’t coming. Then he wakes up one morning and finds ‘a hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore’ of his desert island. In other hands those lyrics would be trite, but Sting sang every word as if it were vitally important. It was quite simply one of those songs that come about rarely in life and change your entire musical universe. Their album, Regatta De Blanc, was a work of genius that just captivated me throughout, and it is still one of my all-time favourites.

Blonde ambition

Debbie Harry and Blondie came from the punk scene of New York, but they were definitely part of the New Wave invasion of the charts. The combination of Harry’s incredible voice, the fact that she was drop dead gorgeous and Blondie’s knack of recording brilliant song after brilliant song made them one of the biggest acts of the year. Their two Number 1 records were the synth powered Heart of Glass and the pure pop of Sunday Girl. Heart of Glass was influenced by Giorgio Moroder, whose disco sound had already provided huge hits for the likes of Donna Summer. Blondie gave it a rock twist by combining the synth style drum track with real drumming giving the song that edge which made it so popular. My favourite record of theirs, though, was the gorgeous Sunday Girl, which was a throwback to the pure pop of 60s girl groups and one of Harry’s most appealing vocal performances. There was, unusually, another version sung completely in French, part of which was borrowed for the English version which gave it a more cosmopolitan vibe. Debbie Harry and French were definitely a match made in heaven! Her ability to turn her amazing voice to any style of music was definitely the main reason for Blondie’s success, but without the superb musicians behind her she wouldn’t have the right backing to make Blondie such a phenomenon.

Punk makes a splash

The great thing about the charts of 1979 was the sheer variety of acts who were having hits. Three groups who came out of the punk rock bands of the time to make a huge name for themselves proved that you didn’t have to tone down your approach to become successful. First of all you had Ian Dury and the Blockheads with the humour and wordplay of Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick. They were witty, earthy and educated and made full use of those qualities in their impossibly catchy Number 1 hit. Like Debbie Harry they used languages other than English, but to very different effect! It was a classic teenage singalong, but one that was a cut above the rest.

The big hit of summer 1979 was I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats. Lead singer Bob Geldof was controversial, intense, and seemed intent on stirring up a section of the record buying public. The previous year, their first Number 1, Rat Trap, was the song that finally knocked Summer Nights off the top. They celebrated on Top of the Pops by ripping up pictures of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John! Their lyrics were always socially aware, but I Don’t Like Mondays moved that up a notch by setting an early school shooting in America to music. Even then, they did not look to glorify the shooter. Geldof saw it as the ultimate senseless act. The iconic opening line, ‘The silicon chip inside her head had switched to overload’, was based on meeting Steve Jobs of Apple. The line about the telex machine typing was based on the first news report he saw on the case. It became an iconic piece of music that was played to such great effect 6 years later during Live Aid.

A number of punk bands hit the Top 10 during 79 with the Sex Pistols seeing three records hit the charts as a result of the Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle. Memorable one hit wonders that year came from The Skids with Into the Valley, The Ruts with Babylon’s Burning and, perhaps most memorably, The Dickies with the speeded up thrash of The Banana Splits Theme Tune! Clocking in at 1 minute 51 seconds it was one of the shortest records ever in the UK Top 10. Finally Sham 69 reached Number 6 with Hersham Boys, their third and final Top 10 hit.

An Electronic Pioneer

Gary Numan was responsible for two of the most influential Number 1 records of the year. His first was under the name Tubeway Army with Are Friends Electric? The band had first been noticed when they provided the jingle for jeans brand Lee Cooper. The track, Don’t Be a Dummy didn’t become a hit in its own right, but it probably paved the way for the Kraftwerk style tone of the single being accepted by the record buying public. It was Number 1 for four weeks. Numan then dropped the Tubeway Army name as he had recorded a new album, The Pleasure Principle, with a new line up and he put himself front and centre. His image was one of an android who was totally divorced from the real world. Cars, his second single played on this isolation with the line, ‘Here in my car, I feel safest of all’. This record was to be his final Number 1, but his influence on the next generation of electronic bands was enormous.

Other hits in other styles

The fascinating state of flux the charts were in could be best shown by the middle of May. Number 1 was Bright Eyes, written by Mike Batt for the film Watership Down. It was beautifully sung by Art Garfunkel and stayed at Number 1 for 6 weeks becoming the biggest selling single of the year. Just failing to dislodge it was the iconic and rather brilliant single Pop Muzik by M. Its futuristic sound and insistent beat with the chorus ‘New York, London, Paris, Munich, everyone’s talking bout Pop Muzik’ not only captured my imagination then, but four decades later sounds just as fresh. At three and four in the charts were Europop stalwarts Boney M and ABBA. The Number 5 record was from the Chinn and Chapman stable, which had been responsible for a large part of Glam Rock. It was the catchy and sexist (not that that was a consideration at the time) Some Girls by Racey. The record was reminiscent of Mud and it was making its slow way down the charts having reached Number 2. It was a marvellously varied period of chart history that probably led to the eclectic tastes that I have displayed since!

The final Number 1 of the 70s was the Christmas chart topper Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, their first hit for 12 years and their only Number 1. My parents hated it due to its chanted, menacing refrain,

‘We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher leave them kids alone!’

As someone who hated every minute of my secondary education, it became a kind of inner theme tune as I’m sure it did for many, many others.   

Next time

Ska, 2-Tone, John Lennon and The Jam all play a part in broadening my horizons.

If you are interested in listening to some of the music on this blog, go to my personal 70s playlist covering every possible genre.