“Pack Up” by Eliza Doolittle on the other hand is brill, and it’s a shame it only got to #5.

A big fan of it is my 70 year old Grandma. Tonight they repeated the 1985 Christmas episode of Top of the Pops, and this (along with ‘I’m Your Man’) were her two favourites. In contrast, her favourite of 2010 is ‘Pack Up’ by Eliza Doolittle…I like to think I’ll still be into music at her age too.

Does anyone else remember (I think fairly big in Ireland, but maybe getting a number 84 hit in the UK) an Irish group, about 1990, called Something Happens!, whos big hit (as was) was called “Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello (Petrol)” on the basis that its main guitar riff was a rip-off of TPE? It also had a heavy metal cover of Sabrina’s “Boys (Summertime Love) on the b-side.

Oh yes, good times. And much better than almost all of what was on offer in 1985. So I am inclined to be gentle to Feargal, whatever this single’s shortcomings.

I still have a soft spot for this (much later) minor hit of Maria McKee’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQL0OhwgL-c&ob=av2e

(The video is a bit ridiculous, actually, but, hell, the song is strong enough to take it – from the album “You Gotta Sin To Get Saved”

Maria McKee – who, as David says above, deserves to be remembered for more than this and The Other One – finally got around to recording her own version on her patchy but occasionally excellent Late December album from 2007. (Sadly not on Spotify.) In my opinion, the song is lifted greatly by the introduction of a harpsichord solo. We should have more of them!

The song was written when McKee 18 years old, “hence the very innocent, quixotic lyrics – My expectations may be high, I blame it on my youth – which now I have to sing with a bit of irony. But the lyrics still hold true to me.” (Quote lifted from an interview that I did with her in 2007.)

I knew Feargal for a short while, in the missing stage of his career, the stage when he was MD of EXP Records (home of Black Star Liner, erm, and I forget the rest; those Flux Trax compilations too). Me, I was the postroom boy in lengthy pursuit of Feargal’s PA – which was successful in the end, but that’s another tale. Anyway, he regularly came into my cubby hole and ranted at me, which made me think I was in trouble at first, but that turned out to be his standard voice. The guy was a maniac, but a smart one all the same.

*waves arms above head in sinister yet mimsy fashion*

it’s not that it’s “too strong”, it’s just wrong.

*most* of us would have *few* complaints if it were ‘Hounds….

Sorry Tom, I never acknowledged your welcome. Cheers for that. i was slightly worried that after the piece by Sir Bob Stanley in the Times that you might have been deluged by newbies and as such I felt a wee bit backwards about coming forwards.

I sniffed about for a while before taking the plunge, but now that me cherries popped, hopefully my tuppenthworth will add a wee bit to the broth.

Why did it have to be 1985 though………………….

erm, yes we would. I may as well come out now as a Bush non-believer……

Be gentle on my heretical bones.

it got an extra 2 points ( making 6 ) just for that.

I agree that the production’s abominable though – that keyboard effect throughout (sorry, I don’t know the name for it – phasing? staggering? echo?) plain gives me a headache. It’s one of those effects that seems to take over the entire track, and listening to the bits where Feargal’s not singing makes me feel hungover.