MIDDLE OF THE ROAD - “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”
(#301, 19th June 1971)
One of the great, endlessly rediscovered truths of pop is that there are rhythms so addictive they make content irrelevant. “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”, a song about an abandoned bird performed terrace-chant style by a choir of buzz-voiced irritants, does not quite achieve this, but its handclaps and glitter beat is propulsive enough for them to almost get away with it. Certainly the reputation of “Chirpy Chirpy” as an all time pop crime seems unfair - “it’s moronic”, “it’s repetitive”, cry the detractors*, and it’s not that they’re wrong exactly, but their objections miss the point: the problem with the song is that with a bit less twang on the voice, and a bit more thunder in the drums, it could have broken through annoying into awesome. 4
*I researched said detraction online and found one marvellous comment box claim that “CCCC” is a song about the Vietnam War! Another great truth of pop I think is that EVERY song recorded between 1967 and 1972 is on some level (usually that of Interweb maniacs) about the Vietnam War.
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FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on November 21st, 2006
i always loved that bandname — it is so “HAHA IN YOUR FACE HATAz!”
i wonder what rainin’ and painin’ is like?
FT's Tom on November 21st, 2006
Did it mean then what it does now?
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on November 21st, 2006
i don’t know if it was an actual technical term for a niche market in the liesure industry, but it was certainly a phrase meaning “undemandingly mainstream”
Marcello Carlin on November 21st, 2006
They were Scottish and therefore had eight sodding number ones in Scotland, including “Rainin’ And Painin’” which was painful.
“CCCC” allegedly written by Ken Stott’s aunt, btw.
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on November 21st, 2006
he is the hub of all human culture
intothefireuk on November 21st, 2006
Well yes extremely trite and undemanding if you’re an adult but great fun for kids. My two mini terrorists love this and the last number one - so they do function on at least one level, in fact thanks to this blog they have a compilation of bubblegum hits from this period that they love to bits.
bramble on November 21st, 2006
It was written and originally recorded by Harold (Lally) Stott, who died in the late seventies on a Harley Davidson allegedly bought with the royalties of CCCC. There was a slightly more palatable version by Mac and Katie Kissoon.
Tommy Mack on November 21st, 2006
Did Kenickie cover this for some sort of Lamacq-sponsored charity affair? Or is that just an indie-boy wet dream?
bramble on November 21st, 2006
I dont think Kenickie covered it. There was a version by Lush at some point
Matthew K on November 22nd, 2006
My four year old LOVES the Lush version. Sings it over and over and over and over and over. Like the original wasn’t repetitive enough.
FT's Tim on November 22nd, 2006
This is the first #1 since “Back Home” that I can remember hearing adapted into a football chant, which seems strange.
Marcello Carlin on November 22nd, 2006
Thanks for clearing up the Stott mystery.
Mention must of course also be made of Denim’s song “Middle Of The Road” at the end of which Lawrence paraphrases CCCC, and I think he captures the sadness at the essence of this song very well.
FT's Tom on November 22nd, 2006
Even though I stand by my 4 I am gladdened by the poll support for this track.
The quoting in the Denim track I always hear as defiantly celebratory, like the rest of the song really.
Concealed in the blog entry (well, in the photo caption) is another content parallel, of course.
Marcello Carlin on November 22nd, 2006
There is also a noticeable lyrical overlap (in the chorus) with another number one from a decade later.
Don’t quite see the Vietnam subtext in “Dick-A-Dum-Dum,” mind.
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on November 22nd, 2006
it is a euphemism for fragging!
Marcello Carlin on November 22nd, 2006
What the bleep is “fragging”?
Marcello Carlin on November 22nd, 2006
Oh right, that’s what it means. Obviously punishment for the impetuous request: “Lend me a fiver, I’ll bring you back a spare one.”
Erithian on November 22nd, 2006
Can someone confirm the Harold Stott/Harley story?
Must say I always thought this was awful, and the band did have smaller hits with better songs (“Soley Soley”, “Tweedledee Tweedledum” – well, relatively better). Mainly, though, this brings to mind the image of TOTP dancers doing that archetypal early 70s dance best described as “trying to break out of an invisible bubble” – the one that all the dolly birds were doing in that club George Best strode into to fill the stack of champagne glasses in the clip included in every obituary. (a year ago this weekend. R.I.P.)
Erithian on November 24th, 2006
Number 2 Watch: a motley collection of songs stalled at 2 while Middle of the Road were at the top. “I Did What I Did For Maria”, Tony Christie’s biggest hit pre-Peter Kay; “Don’t Let It Die” by Hurricane Smith (former Pink Floyd sound engineer, bizarrely enough) and “Co-Co”, the first of the Sweet’s five Number 2s.
Dadaismus on November 24th, 2006
Hurricane Smith, now yer talkin’!
Marcello Carlin on November 24th, 2006
And future Teardrop Explodes trumpeter to boot!
“Oh Babe What Would You Say” was bizarrely a US number one in ‘72 (number four here).
Doctor Casino on November 24th, 2006
Huh. This pretty harmless as these things go. Catchy enough. Keep hearing “The Locomotion” in the verses. I do have to admit that each one of these minor bubblegum hits does make me appreciate Tom’s take on “Sugar, Sugar” more - the Archies still bug me, but I’m starting to yearn for that layering-up of elements and hooks. Here we just get them in steady alternation without any variation in arrangement or timbre. Good, could be better.
mike on November 26th, 2006
As this was the single which got me properly into “following the charts”, it will always hold a special place in my heart (”Knock Three Times” occupying the John The Baptist slot). Best bits: Sally Carr’s interjections between each repetition of the chorus during the outro. (”Let’s go now!” “All together now!” “One more time now!” “LemmehearyouallSINGINnow!”… oh OK, maybe you had to be very young.) Lally Stott (yes, male) had a solo album out later in 1971, as I recall from a half-remembered full-page review in Target…
Marcello Carlin on November 27th, 2006
Best bit is Ken Andrews’ deadpan cymbal on every fourth beat of the chorus!
david b on December 12th, 2006
Re Denim’s quoting of CCCC, P J Harvey doing the same even more wrackingly at the end of the Robert Wyatt-esque “Nina in Ecstacy”
FT's koganbot on February 9th, 2007
OK, first heard this song not in this version but in a mix-and-match dance remix on a cheap cassette out of Singapore. Vastly better; hearing it, you’d realize what a fundamentally great song it is. Probably wasn’t actually recorded/mixed in Singapore but in Italy or Germany, which is where the East Beat Singapore pirates pulled a lot of their material; in fact, I think the draggy old Middle Of The Road’s version was also recorded in Italy. Anyway, Tom, just want you to know there’s an amazing version out there, unfortunately I don’t know whom by. This is terrible compared to that one - no wonder Mama’s gone. She’s bored. But still, this is such a great tune it’s at least a 7 in any version not sung by barking dogs. Also, the disparity between word and melody is truly bizarre.
BabyBoomer1960 on February 9th, 2007
This song was all over the AM airwaves when I was a child, right about the time when the Viet Nam conflict had reach it’s boiling point and divided America into two camps. That bit said, there’s been so many covers recorded and quite a few in foreign languages, Mickie Krause’s German dance mix Riesse Die Hutte Ab to name in particular. As said above, a catchy little tune yet to appear in a TV commercial to sell soft drinks or personal computers.-Post Script: Harold (Lally) Stott did release a quirky B/W video to this song, it’s posted on YouTube and worth a peek. Yes, Middle Of The Road had their own version available on that site as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jZG-UugBrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BOcTVHmq_k
FT's CarsmileSteve on February 9th, 2007
But still, this is such a great tune it’s at least a 7 in any version not sung by barking dogs.
clearly the barking dogs version would be a 10?
johnnyf on May 13th, 2007
What are the thoughts of the Mac and Katie kissoon version>thatwas the hit in the US!
Alan Pennington on January 16th, 2008
In reply to “bramble” November 2006.
I Knew Lally Stott having lived only a few miles away from him in St.Helens Merseyside, he came from Shore Lane Prescot between St.Helens & Liverpool. Lally went living in Italy and became a big pop star there and married the daughter of a high ranking official, possibly the head of the milatary forces,Lally had a massive hit with Chirpy in Italy but his was a much slower version. He then divorced and returned to England and lived with his mother in Prescot. He bought himself a Jaguar but on that fateful day he borrowed his mothers moped to quickly go on an errand to Prescot and was knocked off the moped and killed. The biography of Middle of the Road group going to Italy and recording the song sounds feasable considering the writer Lally was living there at the time. However, to my knowledge he never owned or rode a Harley Davidson, he was not really into motor bikes so I don’t think the story about him being killed on a Harley is correct, thinking about it,in those days you could ride a moped with “L” plates using a car licence, you only needed a motor bike one for anything over 250cc at that time.
Mark G on January 16th, 2008
and Mac and Katie kissoon had a hit in the UK with an Abba song, before Abba had even had any! (Hits in the UK, that is)
Marcello Carlin on January 17th, 2008
Incorrect. Their first hit single after their cover of “CCCC” was “Sugar Candy Kisses” in January 1975, which was not only not written by Abba (it was another Bickerton/Waddington production) but charted nine months after “Waterloo.”
Mark G on January 17th, 2008
ah, soz, it was the now forgotten “Sweet Dreams”…
They were another duo, sort of. As in, the guy sang no backing vocals and took the lead vocal for the middle eight, twice.
“Honey Honey” was the song. T’was a hit before Abba etc…
Marcello Carlin on January 17th, 2008
Again, not quite the case; the Sweet Dreams version charted in July ‘74, three months after “Waterloo.”
Sweet Dreams were in fact a very controversial duo; one of them was ex-Pickettywitch singer Polly Brown who blacked up for photos and TV appearances since we weren’t supposed to know it was her. The record still went top ten but there was a huge outcry about the blacking up and it pretty much killed Polly’s career stone dead; witness the brilliant “Up In A Puff Of Smoke” which came out under her own name three months later and petered out after peaking at #43.
Mark G on January 17th, 2008
I remember that one. 43? Blimey, I’d have thought it was higher. Then again, all those “First Choice” type singers went the way round about then.
Marcello Carlin on January 17th, 2008
On the Radio Clyde Tartan Thirty show they used the “going up, going up, going up up UP” bit as a jingle to indicate that a record was, erm, going up the chart.
Mark G on January 17th, 2008
Heh, that’d probably be worth 3p to the writer. And in these d/l times, songs do actually move up the charts once again!
wichita lineman on May 17th, 2008
I remember J Saville always comparing this lot to Abba - cos they had a run of number Euro number ones and a blonde haired singer, I guess. Came and went sharpish in England but Marcello I’m intrigued by these Scottish charts. Were they published anywhere?
Quick look at the Norwegian chart book reveals CCCC was no.1 for 12 weeks, Soley Soley for 7 and Sacramento for 9! Bigger than Abba (well, for a bit) who only ever managed two no.1s in Frida’s homeland.
No.2 watch: Hurricane Smith’s Don’t Let It Die - first eco hit?
No.4 watch: John Kongos’s He’s Gonna Step On You Again was the first drum loop on a hit record, and still sounds dark and thrilling.
Glenn on June 18th, 2008
In response to Alan Pennington on January 16th, 2008:
there exists a photo of Lally Stott in the studio with Middle of the Road when they were recording “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”. It’s on Middle of the Road’s web site. So he clearly had input into their version of his song.
Thanks for your personal account of Stott’s life.
I much prefer the Mac and Katy Kissoon version, but then I am American and they had the hit here. But just objectively it’s a marvelous, driving, percussion-filled production that is a little masterpiece all unto itself - a very well-made and well-performed record that creates a lot of excitement in the listener, tinged with the haunting sadness - and scariness - of the lyric.