MUNGO JERRY – “Baby Jump”
Mungo Jerry’s shot at the mutant blues suffers from its proximity to Hendrix on the one side and T Rex on the other. Those sci-fi and glitter visions make “Baby Jump” sound like a smirk, not a strut, a cartoon growl that’s too broad to be funny (despite its clever-clogs lyrics). The band try hard to sound like wild men – but only the piano man, making his instrument into a toy laser pistol, manages it. Worst mistake though is the horribly unnecessary false ending, a perfect case study in how to kill a song’s energy and make it outstay its welcome. .
{democracy:18}
4
Well, I like the godammn record.
ALso, this was another one of those “maxi-singles” where you got a b-side on the same side as the A, and a 15 minute “live” recording of two tracks on the actual b-side.
wow, you ppl just plain don’t really like Mungo Jerry music at all, huh? Sounds like to me, lol. Ok, so you don’t like this type of music.
The song ‘Baby Jump’ .. I like it. It sounds good. lol. It has a really good beat. I think it’s cute, lol. Then again, hmm, I guess it’s only because I’m female. dear god, oh well. hah hahhh…….
Their other songs are pretty good as well. Yeah, I’m just one person. I love music. Just my opinion. heh……
.. have a good one anyway people..
: )
Marcello is right. Many has been the time when I’ve been discussing pop and rock with people of my age and older how so many simply don’t remember this topping the charts. An obscure Number One indeed.
I happen to think it’s a belter and the references to Lady Chatterley and Lolita are most amusing and should be taken in the tongue-in-cheek manor Ray Dorset intended them. Mungo Jerry, it must be remembered, were a fun band and “Baby Jump” is a busting little piece of honky tonk rock. Credence could have used it.
funnily enough, I thought about CCR when I heard “Baby Jump” soundtracking a bouncy castle yesterday.
Still, I think it’s yes obscure, but damn awesome.
The grimiest record to get to number one ever?
Oh, and about having fake reprises: So did “In the Summertime”
I do not believe this
First this song was in the live-set of Mungo Jerry – who was 1971 in the Melody Maker Top 5 of the best live bands – just after the Stones!
The festival-goers loved it. So the band decided to release it as a single. And it worked – Mungo´s second No.1. As a young german guy I loved this song – and it was the first single I bought from my small money. The song was so different to all other tunes I heard from the radio. So wild, so catchy – for me it was perfect! A rock-song without drums – because the band used it´s first drummer one year later with the Blues-Single OPEN UP. Yes, Mungo Jerry used different styles of music!In The Summertime is jug-band music, Baby Jump and Alright Alright Alright are rock-numbers. LADY ROSE is a pop-song. And do not forget the single YOU DON´T HAVE TO BE IN THE ARMY TO FIGHT IN THE WAR! Great content and a hymh for the young european guys who want to do social work instead of going in the army. Ray Dorset, the band-leader, was winning 3 Ivor-Novello Awards (music-oscars) for penning differnt Mungo-songs!
More kudos for the Mungos: Earl Brutus based their entire sound on Open Up (a 3-day week, mud-brown sound to rival Mouldy Old Dough); Alright Alright Alright, a re-write of Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi, was the only UK chart appearance by laconic chanteur Jacques Dutronc, aka Mr Francoise Hardy. Apparently the decisive factor in Francoise’s work with Blur in the nineties was Damon’s resemblance to the young Jacques. Her duet with Ray Dorset, a reworking of Bebe Jump, remains one of my idle daydreams.
Sorry for the delay in commenting, but I loved this record at the time. Think it was the visual image conjured up by the words (“she wears those see through sweaters” etc) to an adolescent, but seeing it sung by Ray Dorset on TOTP made it seem rather pervy!
Remember!
I’ve never seen a list of Tad Doyle’s favourite songs, but if I did….
I’d go as far to say this is the filthiest – in many senses – number one of all time. I was going to put this one down to the ‘early part of the year’ effect, but that doesn’t really fit the end of February. Maybe a combination of the postal strike and it ‘being by the blokes who did that “Summertime” one’? Whatever, the most anonymous – and by that token, easily one of the most interesting – to ever hit the top.
The fact it didn’t take long – well, for those days – to reach the summit suggests that the postal strike may have plated a very large role indeed. Enough to keep the rancid ‘Another Day’ from the plateau anyway, which works for me.
My way into this was K-Tel’s 40 Number One Hits , released in 1977. I don’t think I’ve EVER heard it on the radio.
I tried to convince Terry Staunton at NME that this should be the cover art for what became Ruby Trax. Shame!
Also, I wanted to bags covering Baby Jump for the comp, but was told that Blur already had. The conspiracy deepens.
I wish that had been the case wl, but as it was we had to make do with their take on ‘Maggie May’ – probably the most perfunctory runthrough on the entire album. They proved with ‘Substitute’ that they could “do” covers as well, so it was doubly disappointing. So much so Alex James refused to even appear on it.
Actually this does have a bit of a Seymour vibe to it, could see it shoehorned into a medley with ‘Fried’!
I thought it was “Substitute” that Damon hated and Alex didn’t play on.
To the extent that it’s never appeared on any other release apart from the “Who Covers Who” album, and that Damon won’t even have it in the house!
It is better than “Maggie May” though.
On Smooth Radio’s Double Top 20 right now! Although hardly fitting the station’s remit.
I would have had no idea it was them if the Kid hadn’t just introduced it.
It’s the Small Faces’ “Universal”, with the guitar solo from Squeeze’s “Take Me I’m Yours”…
#41 – oh Christ, we had to switch the radio off when that came on! Awful x Pi to the power of infinity.
Also, “Kid,” 1969 chart not that great. Six Motowns, maybe, but what a depressing top five. Engelbert in the restaurant with everybody else laughing at him, Donald Peers wrestling haplessly with Offenbach (not a patch on Robert Wyatt’s take on the same tune on Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard), Peter Sarstedt haha haha…
Memo to both Double Top 20 and Pick Of The Pops: PLAY RUPERT BY JACKIE LEE
I seem to be the lone nut here who loves both “Baby Jump” and “Where do you go to…”. I can say no more than that.
Query: Was the Rupert Jackie Lee the same Jackie who sung “White Horses”? I remember being totally agog with the little blonde Austrian girl in the latter of those two shows. I was probably about nine.
Yes it was the same Jackie (or Jacky, the spelling seemed to vary). Not to be confused with Jackie Trent, of course. “White Horses” and “The Lightning Tree” are among my favourite TV themes from the period.
Is “Baby Jump” acquiring a new radio life? It was the subject of a question on Pop Master this morning. The contestant thought it was by Marmalade. FAIL.
Well, it sounds as much like Reflections Of My Life as In The Summertime I s’pose.
Re 44: Went to Paris last weekend. Got as far as a cafe next to the Sorbonne and… damn you Sarstedt!!! The bloody song was stuck in my head until I got back onto the Eurostar. It overrides any actual French music in my head whenever I go there.
Swede, you may be interested to know Jacky/Jackie has her own youtube channel, including her own recollections of White Horses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtCNbERKvMs
‘Rupert’ was played on POTP recently (18 Feb). Possible I have missed MC’s point?
Lazarus @ 45: It was (part of) the subject of a question on Radio 4 literary quiz show The Write Stuff a week or so ago, so perhaps you’re right. The other part of the question was Shakepeare’s Sister (#674). Host James Walton also made reference to the number ones either side of them, to the effect that George Harrison and T Rex were much to be preferred to Wet Wet Wet and Right Said Fred. Populistas will not be surprised to learn that I concur.
Some years ago there was a spinoff quiz concerned with pop music rather than books and writers called [FX: frantic googling] All The Way From Memphis. I rather enjoyed it but it didn’t have legs apparently.
Lazarus – I am grateful for your confirmation.
Lineman – Thank you also for the Jackie link. As I mentioned on the Sarstedt thread way back when, Paris is a city I can never tire of and I too have strolled down the Boulevard Saint-Michel past the Sorbonne with eyes raised in search of Marie-Claire’s fancy apartment. My reaction was less “Damn you, Sarstedt!” and more “You’ve got no chance, Pete, and you know you haven’t!”, which is really the story of the song. Fuelled by a number of glasses of vin de maison from various establishments (an excellent choice as no Paris cafe would have pisswater as its house wine), the recurring theme of my continuing fantasy was “Pete out – Swede in”.
Yeah, I know…
Apparently there’s “a friend of Sacha Distel” already living there. Which may be a euphemism.
Baby Jump will also get ref’d on a new album out in May (cough).
Re Jackie Lee and ‘White Horses’ (voted best children’s telly theme of alltime somewhere)- she’s great she used to take loads of time (may still do)saying thanks to all the people on YouTube who praised the song and invariably (the vast majority who seemed to be born between about 1960 and 1970)mentioned it as being part of their earliest memories. Personally it’s always been one of my favourite tunes and remember it from as far back as when we lived in our first house when I would have been 3 (when it started) and 4 (when we moved) so it was great when she replied to my comment.
“There’s a little bear/ Like you’ve never seen before/ Who’s a lot of fun”…
Infant chronology is an inexact science, but I’m pretty sure that ‘Rupert’ is the earliest song that I can remember. Until recently, I hadn’t heard it for about 35 years, but it still sounds *really* good – enchanting and magical, and without any of the frequent flaws of children’s music, not creepy nor cutesy nor arch.
51 – The same group you speak of (in which I myself slot in at pretty much the top) would no doubt be equally nostalgic about mice in windmills, unicorns playing silly games and Terry Scott’s brother. An age of innocence to be sure. And then there was “Robinson Crusoe” and that wonderful score.
Happy Days indeed!