BONEY M - “Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord”
Christmas is a time for the kiddies, but I can’t say Boney M made much impression on this five-year-old: “Mary’s Boy Child” was never quite a first-division carol for me, and as for Frank Farian’s unique contribution to the mythology of Christmas, “Oh My Lord” just didn’t register.
Much though I’d love to be writing a hearty defence of Boney M here, this second No.1 shows them at their worst: self-editing doesn’t seem to be a Farian skill and at almost six minutes this is cripplingly long. It’s a frothy bubblebath at first - the girls’ creamy vocals and the rippling steel drums ushering you into a grotto festooned with Christmas tack - but by the end the water’s getting cold and your toes are looking horribly crinkly. The problem is that the group do the entire of “Mary’s Boy Child” - not in itself a short song - and then go into the “oh my lord” routine. Everyone seems to be on autopilot, and the vim which makes their good songs good is mostly absent (Poor old Bobby Farrell looks unimaginably bored in the video). Go back and listen to “Rasputin” instead. 3
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DJ Punctum on August 15th, 2008
My favourite Popular year as well! :-))))
CarsmileSteve on August 15th, 2008
I can confirm that “When a Knight…” (oh, what a knight!) was still being sung in primary schools until the mid 80s at least. i always kind of liked it…
another early memory for me this one, singing along to MBC with my cousins into a tape recorder my grandparents had just bought…
DJ Punctum on August 15th, 2008
I never did any singing at school. Due to my non-denominational status I was excused from hymns and I managed to avoid all musicals, house shows etc.
FT's Tom on August 15th, 2008
Re #15 - calibrating it into a mark may prove difficult, but from the next #1 I will at least play them to him.
FT's Tom on August 15th, 2008
Oh, unless you meant translating MY OWN reaction as a young’un into a mark! Which I could also do (this one wd have got 4 back then I guess).
Waldo on August 15th, 2008
My family possessed the Harry Belafonte version of this from 1957, the year my brother was born, and as I grew up, I fell in love with it, along with the B-side “Eden Was Just Like This”. I was thus perfectly primed for Boney M to revive MBC and correspondingly had a quota of affection for it, which I otherwise would not have had.
Unlike Harry B, Boney M segue the song into “Oh My Lord”, an offering which Doctor King would have labelled a “negro spiritual”, a term which simply would not be used today. Certainly it was nice having such an overtly Christian hymn at number one at Christmas, but again, this today would also now probably be hit on the head by the BBC and the Church of England, whose Guardianista leaders would jump up and down and insist that the record offends citizens of other faiths and one faith in particular, despite no protest at all coming from the good people these white middle class loony tunes claim that they are “protecting” against the evils of life in the very nation in which they have chosen quite freely to live.
Merry Christmas.
Oh, sorry…Happy Holidays!
FT's Conrad on August 15th, 2008
Tom, can you try and time it so that when we get to this Christmas you are covering a Christmas Number 1?!
It would be a nice touch and, more to the point, I’m confused by the sunshine outside….
FT's Tom on August 15th, 2008
Last year I reviewed “Lonely This Christmas” on Xmas Eve and I think was a lot more generous about it for that reason!
I doubt - even with my current decent pace - I’m going to hit the next really Christmassy Christmas No.1 by Christmas, sadly.
Mark G on August 15th, 2008
There was one year, the highest “christmas” record in the chart was “No Christmas” by the Wedding present.
Billy Smart on August 15th, 2008
Looking at the 1978 chart, there are only 2 other Christmas themed records in the Top 40; Father Abraham & The Smurfs, ‘Christmas In Smurfland’ and The Eagles, ‘Please Come Home For Christmas’
LondonLee on August 15th, 2008
God this is horrible. My main memory of it is working at WH Smith that Xmas and we had boxes and boxes of the bloody thing piled up everywhere behind the counter. We sold them all too.
Records like this are why people who work in shops hate Xmas, we had to listen to this sort of rubbish all day (with the only joy being when I could get Phil Spector’s Xmas album on the turntable).
FT's Malice Cooper on August 15th, 2008
Boney M could really do no wrong. Farian found a formula and stuck to it and this definitely worked. They did look hilarious dressed as snowmen however…
Waldo on August 15th, 2008
I don’t know anything about being trapped behind a counter in Smiths but surely piped Xmas music in shopping centres is the truer evil. I can recall being dragged around the Bentalls Centre, Kingston, by t’other half one yuletide and being subjected to “Stop The Cavalry” three times on the bounce. I turned to Lizzie (who being a bird surrounded by shops was obviously completely oblivious to my torment) and told her that all I wanted to do at that point was “stop fucking Jona Lewie”. She looked at me quisically and said: “I suppose this means you’re going to start drinking now”, which was a peculiar bolt from the blue but not acually unadjacent to the truth. It was the spare room for me that night.
rosie on August 16th, 2008
What exactly was the point of Bobby Farrell in Boney-M?
wichita lineman on August 16th, 2008
I assumed Bobby WAS Boney M when they first appeared, as I’m sure a few others did. Daddy Cool and Rasputin wouldn’t be much without him.
On MBC, they sound bored stiff, which comes across in the grooves and makes for possibly the dreariest Christmas no.1 ever. Harry Belafonte’s version has a genuine sparkle and feeling of hushed wonder, especially on the “Hark now hear…” line (I’m a humanist so any religious reference has to REALLY work to get me). It’s steamrollered in the Boney M version.
Oh My Lord was presumably a cheap trick to earn Frank Farian 50% of the writing credit.
FT's Malice Cooper on August 16th, 2008
“Oh My Lord was presumably a cheap trick to earn Frank Farian 50% of the writing credit.”
How cynical Wichita ! My German friend said it was well known that Farian did the voice of Bobby and probably the girls too. (what was she suggesting?). Is it really more dreary than Johnny Mathis ?
Boney M’s first single “Baby do you wanna bump” is actually superb. Sadly time has proved you often have to make dross to make it big.
mike on August 17th, 2008
Oh My Lord, that’s 5 minutes and 40 seconds of my Sunday afternoon that I’ll never get back. In marked contrast to “Rivers Of Babylon”, this is even worse than I remembered… which takes some doing, in this instance.
Is this the first instance of the dreaded “Turn it into a medley with some throwaway piece of self-composed toss (*) in order to bag 50% of the royalties” phenomenon? Obviously we can’t talk about any chart-topping future instances (which is just as well), but I’d be hard pushed to think of any earlier instances than this.
(*) I’ll make an exception for Amii Stewart’s sparkling “137 Disco Heaven”, which improved that dreary old Doors song no end…
mike on August 17th, 2008
P.S. Interesting to see a brief clip of the group boogying on the balcony of St Basil’s in Red Square - which has been copy/pasted into the promo video a few times over, rather in the manner of Bela Lugosi’s precious few seconds of footage in Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space. How DID they sing the Lord’s song in a strange (and militantly secular) land?
(Looking at the way that the body movements fail to synch with the track, I suspect that it was by getting the group to sing a different song altogether. Such bold entryism! Beat that for subversion, punk rockers!)
wichita lineman on August 17th, 2008
Re 41: J Mathis enlivens his xmas no.1 with the splendidly non-pc “Black White? YELLOW? No one knows”, as if he’s said “MARTIAN?” No fun like that on the M’s festive effort.
Pete on August 17th, 2008
Mathis has style, this is just by the rote sleigh-bell machine on auto and mumble through the track interminably. Mathis does the full on Jackanory with the spoken word and as a nipper I was captivated by the nativity J.Mathis style.
Looking at the wrtiting credits of Dinosaur Jr albums in a later life I often wondered what they would sound like if it was J.Mathis not J.Mascis. Until I realised they would probably sound like Johnny Mathis. Duh!
DJ Punctum on August 18th, 2008
In reality they would sound like “Johnny Mathis’ Eyes” by American Music Club.
As I said apropos Ken Dodd’s 1981 hit “Hold My Hand” (chorus: “Hold my hand, hold it tight/Hold my hand if you’re yellow, black or white”; went on TOTP with lots of children, wouldn’t happen now), what about the Red Indians you prejudiced c**t?
Billy Smart on August 18th, 2008
‘Johnny Mathis’ Feet’ surely, DJP?
There’s a fantastic Divine Comedy cover version of that song.
DJ Punctum on August 18th, 2008
Yeah, “Feet” - what was I thinking?
(”Bette Davis’ Eyes” that’s what)
Did you hear POTP yesterday? 1980 - how to turn a great chart into a crap one in one easy lesson.
Billy Smart on August 18th, 2008
Playing Sheena Easton and Billy Joel in preference to ‘Bankrobber’ and ‘C30 C60 C90 Go!’ is not a decision that I would take, certainly. That said, Tom Browne/ George Benson/ Gap Band was an impressive run.
Next week a one hour Olympics “special” which is clearly going earlier and later than usual as it “Features hits from Johnny Ray and Gary Barlow”!
Billy Smart on August 18th, 2008
TOTP Watch: Kenn Dodd performed ‘Hold My Hand’ on the edition transmitted on December the 10th 1981. Also in the studio that week were; Showaddywaddy, Dollar, Bucks Fizz and The Police, plus Zoo’s interpretation of ‘Yellow Pearl’. Jimmy Saville OBE was the host.
Tim on August 18th, 2008
Mike (#42) - the whole-side-of-an-LP version of “Knights In White Satin” by Giorgio splits down into three tracks (though the listener wouldn’t know it):
1. Knights In White Satin
2. In The Middle Of The Night
3. Knights In White Satin
A certain Mr Moroder is credited with writing track 2. I assume that was a royalties grab, and that was 1976, I think.
Mark G on August 18th, 2008
I have to say though, the “Oh My Lord” bit at least livens up the track a tad. Imagine how dull it would have been without it.
DJ Punctum on August 18th, 2008
No, it just makes me wish more fervently that they’d hitched a ride on Jim Jones’ wagon.
FT's Malice Cooper on August 18th, 2008
I’ve never forgiven them for the LP sleeve of “Love for sale”
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/4651/1977frontrd8.jpg
I should mention that my mother loved Boney M and made a rare excursion into “Kelly’s Radio” (our local record shop) and asked for LPs by “those nice black people”
Chris Brown on August 24th, 2008
Well, I hate ‘Bankrobber’ and ‘C30…’ but I also hate whatever that awful ELO track they played was.
Today’s Bottom To The Top managed to pick a (mostly) decent chart from 1980, although for some reason the only Top 20 hit they missed was Cliff.
As for this - it’s another in the long long list of tracks that were endlessly repeated through the medium of cassette at various school events. Or at least I assume it is, as I haven’t the energy to revisit it. Oh my Lord indeed.
intothefireuk on September 6th, 2008
Oh my Lord indeed. The fact that it’s a Christmas song does mean it’s almost forgiven for being very dull. Almost but not quite. The only things I can find in its favour are that it is suitably festive and it did feature a mad man in a Santa suit.
Mark G on September 8th, 2008
Wasn’t Roky Erikson, was it though?
DJ Punctum on September 8th, 2008
#55: They didn’t miss Cliff; “Carrie” was at #19 and was played.