Saturday, March 23, 2013

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#21/45)

Good morning friends,

again - should I feel sorry about this at all? Don't think I should - an oldie but goodie, one you already know, and, so I hope, still love. For me it has stood the test of time, that's for sure.

I didn't know anything at all about the artist, so I had a look at Wikepedia earlier on and was astonished to see that the bloke behind this record - and the record itself - seem to be not totally unknown within the UK.  Some excerpts from the article:

"Graham David Fellows (born 22 May 1959, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England) is an English comedy actor and musician, best known for creating the characters of John Shuttleworth and Jilted John.

Fellows first came to prominence as Jilted John, a character who had a hit single in 1978 that was named after his own alter ego. The single was performed in the aggressive, minimalist style of the then-prevailing punk genre, but with poppier influences, somewhat akin to the Buzzcocks and "Up the Junction", a docupop song by Difford and Tilbrook of Squeeze written around the same time. The novelty hit was most memorable for its humorous lyrics, a first-person narrative of a bitter teenager named John whose girlfriend Julie had left him for another man named Gordon, "just 'cause he's better lookin' than me/just 'cause he's cool and trendy". John wails that "Gordon is a moron", a phrase that became briefly famous in Britain, along with "I was so upset that I cried all the way to the chipshop".

Produced by Martin Hannett for his Rabid Records label, the song was first played on national radio by John Peel who commented that if the single was promoted by a major record label he could see its being a huge hit. This proved to be the case when it was picked up by EMI International. The song was introduced by David Jensen on Top of the Pops as "one of the most bizarre singles of the decade", and the song reached number 4 in the UK Singles Chart."

So there you are, your number twenty-one, friends. Enjoy:


EMI International - INT 567 (1978)



"Two more recent Fellows creations followed, firstly Brian Appleton, a rock musicologist and media studies lecturer from a college of further education in the Newcastle-under-Lyme area although originally he hails from Selly Oak in Birmingham. His girlfriend Wendy is an aromatherapist, but unfortunately upon qualifying she became allergic to the essential oils she uses. He is convinced that he has been instrumental in helping many rock acts to achieve megastardom and yet received no credit for his efforts, such as being the cause for the gap in "Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)" by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, inadvertently launching the vocal career of Phil Collins at a failed audition for the lead singer of Genesis after the departure of Peter Gabriel and giving Howard Jones the idea for using a mime artist in the hit "New Song" while working opposite him at a Clingfilm factory in High Wycombe. Brian also claimed to have a significant bearing on the career of the Thompson Twins (for example he inspired the hit 'Love On Your Side' while directing Alannah Currie towards her hat which he accidentally knocked off her head)."

Dead funny, I must say ... exactly my kind of humour!

Cheerio,

Dirk

3 comments:

drew said...

Always loved this Dirk

TheRobster said...

Good track, typical British humour.

Charity Chic said...

I once met an American Morman called Jordan who couldn't understand why were singing Jordan is a Mormon!