MORE TOP OF THE POPS MEMORIES
Since it would appear I am incapable of thinking of more than one subject these days, I must refer to you a conversation I overheard in a pub the other day. A man, let’s call him Gerard, was surrounded by a number of young (18-19) year old girls hanging on his every word. I of course was bitterly hollering about the new Spice Girls single (a more lumpen, leaden sound you’ll not hear outside a place that makes lumpy piping). Nevertheless I overheard this sentence uttered triumphantly by Gerard.
“And then Dexy’s went on, but they had a big picture of Jocky Wilson behind them.”
Gerard rests back, and waits for the surround titters from the laydeez. But it was silent as the applause bits at a Magnetic Fields gig (respectful silence or audience fucked off – you choose).
“Because the song was called Jackie Wilson Says”
Still nothing. And this took me back to the old days when the tale of how the BBC researcher in error put up a picture of reputed darts star Jocky instead of not reputed soul singer Jackie. Ha Ha, what a fool, we would all say – not realising that said researcher really did not care, was on a pitiful salary and working on Top Of The Pops was like having your nails pulled out. In the early eighties, when Dexy’s Midnight Runners were worrying about what Jackie Wilson Said and Searching for the Young Soul Rebel (“I’ve looked everywhere”) nobody knew who Jackie Wilson was. Its only the late eighties when British pop music ground to a total halt that twenty five year old soul – ahem -classics like Reet Petite had a chance at hitting the charts.
I for one enjoyed seeing the corpulant Scottish darter behind Kevin Rowlands genius inflated head (To-ra-ay indeed). It was a welcome distraction to the sound that invented The Levellers. And even if the researcher had got it right, there just would have been a photo of a blacked up version of Morph on show.
But back to Gerard. A man who feels he can impress teenagers with stories of TV blunders about three protagonists the simpering fools have never heard of. Dexy’s Midnight Who? Jocky Who? Jackie Who? I fear Gerard was sleeping alone that night.