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.

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”

A certain Mr Moroder is credited with writing track 2. I assume that was a royalties grab, and that was 1976, I think.

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”!

(”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.

There’s a fantastic Divine Comedy cover version of that song.

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?

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!

(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!)

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…

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.

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.

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).