It’s easy to look back on the social mores of previous decades and cringe or laugh. Sometimes it’s also neccessary. There were probably good – and funny and poignant and poptastic – songs to be written about immigrants’ mixed feelings for their new lives and former homes: it doesn’t seem to me like political correctness gone mad to suggest that two white session musicians may not have been the best candidates to write one, especially not when you factor in Max West’s turn as Tobias Wilcock, “Coconut Airways”, “are we cool brother?”, “Mary Jane” and so on.
Of course it was all ‘just a bit of fun’. It’s unfair to suggest Typically Tropical should have written anything more socially conscious: they weren’t aiming to, and judging by the deftness of touch on show here that’s a good thing. But it’s also unfair to suggest anyone now should feel much other than vague embarassment or discomfort when they encounter this. I have an immense soft spot for holiday novelties – the idea of singles as souvenirs is a strong and charming one, and really (as we’ll discover in a future entry) “Barbados” is a rousing bit of nonsense wrapped in a gruesomely ill-judged framing device. You could certainly make a case that Radio 1 should have known better than to promote it. This, though, is from the period when the station had only recently established itself as guardian of the nation’s Summer Fun, and it seems to have taken a strictly majoritarian view of what that Fun consisted of.
Score: 2
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I may be on my own here, and I’m probably mentally squinting to blinker out the unfortunate associations when I listen to it, but I think this is fantastic! It’s an array of funny hooks and devices that keep me delighted from start to finish, and mean that I never lose interest, and the “Woooah! I’m goin’ to see ma girlfriend!” line does actually evoke anticipated pleasure and sunlight to me.
This song cheers me up.
I am in danger of being savaged by my own bunny, but I have the opposite experience. I heard a later version of this – which I liked a great deal – before the original, so the dodgy gags are really the only thing I pick up on hearing “Barbados”.
I didn’t know that there were any other versions of this.
I always think of ‘International Jet Set’ by The Specials as being the dark, parallel, shadow song to ‘Barbados’.
yes, i thought BCR *and* this both “look forward” in the sense that what’s maybe wrong with them — roller-cynicism abt pop**, idea with lots of dark edges unaddressed*** — creates a space for some yout movement or other to RUSH IN and CHANGE EVERYTHING
**pistols = the boyband the rollers SHOULD have been
***holidays in the sun <— the answer song to the above
very hard indeed not to be getting ahead of ourselves if we are me at this point: my life is abt to be ripped in half and started anew :\
Funny, I always think of “Dreadlock Holiday”.
I would have given this 4 at the time and about 1 now.
Looking ahead is fine Mark! specific discussion of future #1s is what the “no spoilers” policy is meant to prevent.
Whereas I think of this as the precursor of the annual bout of Eurotosh, the meme brought back from Benidorm the way that Columbus’s men brought syphilis to Barcelona, as much a part of the English late summer as the sombrero and the stuffed donkey. (Yes, I know there’d already been Eurotosh, like Y Viva España).
For me this was always just bland and annoying. Yes, it’s as embarrassing now as the Black & White Minstrels but there was far worse going on.
With the notable exception of the one before last, the terrain is pretty dreary at the moment, isn’t it! Not to worry – my pop second childhood isn’t too far off now!
Oh God, ‘Y Viva Espana’, that’s another record that I’m the world’s sole advocate of. It’s so rousing and lusty: You’re left in no doubt that Sylvia is going to have a good time on holiday!
I’ll get my coat…
Well, this was of course a home-grown Holiday Hit, that year’s big imported Costa Del Sol Smash being the George Baker Selection’s “Una Paloma Blanca”: the #1 in Germany during my exchange visit, and also covered by Jonathan King, lest we forget.
(Aside: did the tradition of the imported Summer Euro Hit start with Sylvia’s “Y Viva Espana” in 1974?)
At the time, I’d have given this a 7 or maybe even 8. It sounded like the summer, we were off and about, and it kept bouncing out of our radios all over the country, reminding us that it was holiday time. I liked the whooshes and the wohs, and the suggestion of (relatively)glamorous international travel.
(I should add that my dad was dating a British Midland Airways stewardess at the time, and that my sister was still known by her full birth name – she dropped the “Jane” as soon as she was old enough for her opinions to be taken seriously – so there was a certain intra-familial thrill at hearing her constantly name-checked on the radio.)
It therefore came as a disappointment to see TT exposed on the front cover of Record Mirror as two spoddy white session hacks – for yes, honesty compels me to tell you that I was actually taken in by those cod-Caribbean accents, and I don’t think I was the only one.
Do I cringe at it now? Oh, I try to. But nostalgia always wins out. Summer 1975 was a testing combination of highs and lows, and this (along with Van McCoy’s “The Hustle”, T.Rex’s “New York City” and Wings’ “Listen To What The Man Said”) reminds me of the highs. What can you do?
Billy – I like “Y Viva Espana” too! As I said in the piece, generally I find the idea of souvenir holiday hits a lovely one (and after all it did end up Changing Pop Forever) – didn’t know “Barbados” was a homegrown one.
Billy – you must love ” Fiesta” by The Pogues.
I think Rosie alluded to it, but it’s interesting to me how music from our vacation spots gets into the mainstream.
Anybody know if there was upturn , or maybe start of tour company selling package vacations to Barbados in the UK at this time ?
I did like Fiesta at the time, certainly. Not so sure now. I think of it as being drinking music, and I don’t drink, you see…
On interminable car journeys in the late seventies (my dad insisted we drove to our European holidays) my brother and I used to play verbal games of fabulation. One of these was inspired by this song, and the bridge line ‘Fly away on Coconut Airways, flying high Caribbean sky’. Something about the soaring note in ‘Airways’ struck both of us as suggesting an aeroplane of almost unimaginable luxury and we could spend hours competitively imagining the astonishing facilities on board Coconut Airways’s most expensive flight.
I quite enjoy this too, though one does have to bracket the crassness of the accent choice (like The Kinks’s ‘Apeman’). It’s not a patch on ‘Y Viva Espana’, though.
Did I allude to Fiesta? I don’t remember but I adore Fiesta and if I ever get invited onto Desert Island Discs I might have it as one of my eight (although I might instead choose The Sickbed of Cúchullain along with something from that Captain Beefheart album that I definitely did allude to the other day, in order to discomfit the audience)
Nowt wrong with Apeman for me. Especially the line that goes “I think I’m so educated and am so civilised ’cause I’m a strict vegetarian.” I know people who really are like that, they just don’t get invited for dinner!
This must have one of the longest intros to any number one up to this point (and possibly beyond). I don’t recall the full intro ever being played on the radio even underneath DJ babble, does anyone else ? Barbados is well played, well sung (even with the faux accent) and has a huge bouncy chorus, overall it is a very good pop song. I don’t see a real problem with it. It’s a sunny, breezy piece of pop fluff which probably doesn’t warrant it’s PC credentials being disected. My memory is vague but did anyone complain about it at the time ? When did it become distatsteful ? Like the previous number one, it’s naivety is one of the things I can find to like about it.
I thought this thread would have gone further into the theme of political correctness by now (quite glad it hasn’t) but for me the whole of PC can be boiled down to one word – “respect”. And honestly I don’t hear any disrespect going on here. It’s a couple of session musicians trying to empathise, as songwriters will in a first-person narrative, with a Brixton bus driver who, 25 years on from Windrush (and whether he’s first or second generation isn’t specified, I suspect the latter), is tired of the weather and just wants the sun on his back for a while.
It’s a sympathetic portrayal, while that of Tobias Wilcock is nothing if not affectionate – and it’s a great summer song. You may think the fact that the performers were white affects this, but nobody was being maligned here. Certainly seeing them on TOTP (and it’s not as if they were blacked up!) they wouldn’t say boo to a goose.
The only line I has “discomfit” with is “Don’t want to be bus driver all me life” which is too JDavidson for me.
The rest is in the spirit of the thing.
Oh, and when I was on hol in Spain, I tried to get a single of a track I liked but they didn;t have it, and I ended up prompted by family to get “Y Viva”. The actual, original version by ‘Samantha’. In Spanish, different lyrics even allowing for translation.
The Sylvia version was also homegrown.
Just over four years ago I was in a pop quiz team which won the right to represent London Civil Service in a multi-event tournament against Barbados Civil Service in Bridgetown. The team name with which we won the qualifier was “Coconut Airways Ground Staff”. Shortly before we travelled I though I’d check with our hosts that no offence would be caused if we used that name in Barbados, and the reply came back “no problem – we like the song actually”.
During the build-up, in an attempt to anticipate what sort of music could be used in a London v Barbados quiz, I read Lloyd Bradley’s history of reggae, tried to find a Barbados top ten (the chart we found featured at Number 1 a dancehall track about setting fire to homosexuals!!) and listened out for local music – try Red Plastic Bag, who’s rather more fun than Rihanna. As it turned out, whereas the civil service netball and volleyball teams included Barbadian internationals and wiped the floor with us, the pop quiz team comprised four members of the British High Commission with much the same pop background as our team – and they pipped us due to greater knowledge of Celine Dion cover versions. Mind you the Bajans themselves were the friendliest people we’ve ever met.
With this one it really is a case of the less said the better.
At least until one starts to contemplate the line which begins with overaged white guys singing in a cod-Jamaican accent about going to Barbados and ends with overaged white guys singing in a cod-Jamaican accent about walking on the moon. I’m not quite sure where the paradigmal shift occurred.
Arguable summer Euro hit precedents: “Black Is Black” and (even though he was British) “Dancin’ On A Saturday Night.”
And you can also rewind a couple of years to Kevin Ayers singing in a cod-Jamaican accent about a Caribbean Moon…
What is this “overaged” of which you speak, Marcello? I’ll walk on the moon or anywhere else with the last alluded to even now!
Black is Black was actually a pretty damned good single of it’s time, and not to be linked in my mind with Eurotosh!
Ah, but it nearly got to number one again in ’77 with a Eurotosh cloak on…”Ve like ze music! Ve like ze disco sound!”
I’m overaged myself so I didn’t necessarily mean it as a pejorative…
“Barbados” mercifully was only on top for one week.
But in the same top ten (at #8, peaking at #7) I must acknowledge the presence of my childhood hero, Glasgow’s SERIOUSLY overaged but Godlike genius Alex Harvey with his sublime reconstitution of the old Tom Jones chestbeater “Delilah.”
I certainly wasn’t looking forward to hearing this one again. However I downloaded it especially and must admit to my huge suprise its not THAT bad- catchy tune, nice arrangement,very danceable groove. It certainly doesnt belong in the rogues gallery of really worthless musical monstrosities such as “The Birdy Song”, “Agadoo” and so on. Ill give it a 4. If only it had been written from the perspective of Brit Holiday makers setting off on their Summer trip to Barbados rather than that of Caribeans heading back home to “the island” then as a result dropped all the unforgivable ‘Choccy accents which rob the track of almost all charm, then the track would probably be held in (slightly) higher esteem.
[reply to crag savaged by pilled-up spoiler bunny]
In my memory, ‘Black Is Black’ (the original) was on constant loop at the beach caff (a chiringuito, to be technical) in Tarragona (my mother’s hometown). We were in Spain in the summers of ’75, ’77 and ’78 – few foreigners up in that part of the country in those days.
‘Barbados’ is, I think, one of my earliest proper pop memories – I remember from the time (I was almost five), rather than hearing it later and superimposing it back on my childhood. I have no fond associations of it, though…
Ah, Alex Harvey, now you are talking!
Of course, a mere recording of Delilah isn’t enough – you have to have seen the stage performance.
A sad loss indeed.
re:- Typically Tropical ….and it’s certainly miles better than that god-awful cover version from a few years ago.
re:- SAHB – quality band & Alex Harvey is one of rock’s true great frontmen. Sadly I never got to see them live.
Elsewhere in the charts The Sweet were still rocking out with the excellent ‘Action’ and Sparks were freaking everyone out with the very weird ‘Get In The Swing’.
As part of the compare and contrast (I’m afraid I don’t know any of the holiday songs mentioned), The Bee Gees were at #1 in the US with the first of their disco hits, “Jive Talkin’.”
My dad took me to see the Sensational Alex Harvey Band at one of their series of Xmas shows at the Glasgow Apollo in December ’75 and I still think it’s the greatest gig I’ve ever been to.
“Jive Talkin'” was in this particular week at its peak UK position of #5.
Also *spoiler bunny alert* we haven’t quite seen the last of this song, more’s the pity…
Re#25- Hey be fair Tom! I dont think either of the songs i mentioned will be covered in Popular in the future (and arent you glad?..)
Sorry crag – nothing to do with the content of your post, more that I couldn’t reply to it without getting into bunny territory.
??As part of the compare and contrast …?
Here in Australia Number 1 was Sweet’s “Fox On The Run” which would top the charts for a full five weeks…if “Barbados” was even released here it never played on any radio station I listened to, not dented any chart.
“WOAH!” This is a great recording. I’m inclined to not look up the words as I fear they would spoil the thing – certainly the “Coconut Airways” material is worrisome. I’d kind of rather remain ignorant so I can buy wholly into Erithian’s reading, which posits a very sweet kind of song that I feel like I haven’t heard before.
Part of this was mixed in a studio a cover drive away from the Stockwell tower block I lived in. This was Landor Road, backing onto Clapham North tube station, where I’m convinced that I once much later saw a rather doughy (but very pretty) young woman of precisely my own age toddling past in her little red Vauxhall on her way to work as a nanny. Her name was Diana Spencer. The studio was aligned to Gull Records, probably the smallest label to claim a chart topper in the seventies. Was it? Answers on a post card.
What was beyond dispute was that this record fooled the hell out of the Caribbean community of “Brixton Town” and other places, whom, I am certain, assumed that Typically Tropical were from the island rather than a group of well known white English session musicians. Even Captain Tobias Wilcox was a little pink person. I wouldn’t mind betting that Typically Tropical would be fouled with the rancid label of “racists” in the poisonous PC society we suffer today. But let’s face it, this record was fun and brightened up the landscape with what we call today a “feel-good factor”. The Coconut Airways passenger is leaving the UK, having had his fill of driving a Number 2 (almost certainly) bus around Brixton and Stockwell. Well, who wouldn’t? His girlfriend (probably a right brarmer) awaits and our lad is on to a certainty. He may or may not return. A very positive and upbeat little number probably produced for about thirty bob.
Tom’s response of 2 is indeed oversensitive PC bullshit, and makes me seriously question his judgment. I can’t believe something as innocuous as this set off his alarm.
I mean, seriously, it’s like the writer understands that minstrelsy was wrong for some reason but doesn’t understand why.
Sometimes you need to be wary of judging things that happened in the past by current standards. Imb’s post reminded me of a hero of mine, “Tumbler” Bell. While researching my local football club’s history I came across this character who wrote articles in the local paper in the 40s detailing the life of my adopted home town in the 19th century (he referred to the inhabitants as “Erithians”, hence my nom de web). In the 1890s Tumbler was an all-round sportsman, co-founder of Erith’s first football club; he was also a trade unionist, campaigned for better working conditions, was blacked from factory after factory and met Keir Hardie. He was also a member of a N—-r Minstrel troupe. A passionate and fair-minded man, the evils of slavery cannot have been in his mind as he performed the music he admired.
Similarly, for all the years the Black and White Minstrel Show garnered huge TV audiences, it wasn’t a success because of its promotion of slavery, but because they were popular songs performed in a popular style. Eventually the message got through that this style gave genuine offence to black people, but the reasons for this were not uppermost in the minds of the performers or most of the audience during its heyday. 33 years on “Barbados” clearly makes a fair number of people uncomfortable, but clearly no offence is meant and (though this is contentious) no offence need be taken.
Ah, the soundtrack to my first summer romance. Not the summer of ’75, though. I think it must have been a couple of years later, the last week of the summer between my leaving primary school and starting secondary school.
It was at a caravan site / self-catering holiday village on the north Suffolk coast. A bit like Butlins but without the enforced entertainment. There was a games room and a lounge for evening musical entertainments, but no arm-twisting redcoats or similar. In addition to penny slot machines, table tennis, pool and the first Space Invader game machine I’d seen close up (another reason why I think this must have been ’77), the games room had a jukebox. Out of which ‘Barbados’ blared semi-regularly throughout the week; certainly it was the song I most enjoyed / looked forward to – to the extent where I’ve now forgotten what the alternatives were.
The girl worked at the village, making change in the games room and flirting with all the boys. I had to be pateient, but we got together finally on the last afternoon before I was due to leave. It was literally the dying days of the summer; the village itself was due to close for the season in another week and it was obvious those last 7 days were going to be quiet in terms of numbers of guests. Soon, souvenirs like “Barbados” would all we’d have left to remind us of fun times.
So for very personal reasons, this gets a 10.
No, fuck it. As Billy S says, this is a GREAT song. 10.
I thank Erithian for his thoughts at #38 concerning not only “Barbados” but “The Black and White Minstrels” and agree entirely with him. The key to whether or not there is any “ism” being committed in any single case is whether any offence is intended. No is the answer in both cases, although it was clear that the Minstrels died a natural death, as the result of society changing rather than being the fruits of any concerted efforts by pressure groups demanding their cancellation.
Does anyone remember that rather infamous interracial troupe of young girl dancers from Peterborough “The Black and White Menstruals”?
No, didn’t think so…
No, I prefer the “pile of racist shite” angle, as concurred with by ex-Black And White Minstrel Show star Lenny Henry.
In respect of this aspect of the debate I remember seething at a statement made during a diversity awareness course I attended – the presenter used the phrase “Intention is irrelevant” where offensive language is concerned. To which I thought, nonsense. Take two scenarios: one person uses the N-word intending to cause offence and knowing that offence will be taken; another uses a word such as “coloured” because they’re of an age and background whereby they think it’s a neutral word and intend no offence. A degree of offence is caused in both cases, but to treat the perpetrators the same way is unfair and dangerous.
Talk of Lenny Henry reminds me of another point that occurred to me re “Barbados”. Remember his gag about Jamaican air traffic control? – it’s a voicemail message saying “wi cyaan’t come to de phone right now, we’re at de beach. Please land your aircraft after de tone.” Coming from a black comic – albeit one born and bred in Dudley – it works. Coming from Jim Davidson, it’d still get a laugh but the underlying tone would be different. Typically Tropical fall foul of this principle, perhaps, but it’s not exactly “racist shite”.
for someone leading a diversity awareness course you can see how ‘intention is irrelevant’ would be very much their line. in that the rider to that would be ‘unless you are ignorant’
i’ve known white people with strong carribean accents and it always made me feel a bit self conscious. putting on an accent identified with a different ethnic group is… fraught.
Then again, any school run South London bus of your choice to thread.
The most mind-boggling Black & White Minstrel Show routine that I’ve heard described was: Some white red indian squaws have been tied to totem poles by their menfolk. They are then rescued by a troupe of blackface cowboys, who dance with them.
Erithian – one of the points of Popular is to assess old stuff by current standards: does this still work for me as pop? If so why? If not why not, and why did it work for people (me once I’m around and listening) then?
So – were Typically Tropical racists? Certainly not.
Would this record, by these people, get recorded and released and heavily promoted now? Certainly not.
Between these “certainly not”s there’s room for discomfort for the listener: some will not notice or shrug it off, some won’t.
The entry reads harsher than it was meant, though: I was suggesting an equivalence between the jolly complacency of TT and the wider complacency of Radio 1 and its attitudes to summer fun – two things that reinforce one another and make the record wearier to me than it might have been. However it looks like I’m saying R1 should have censored this, which I don’t believe.
You know, I’ve been listening to The Police and UB40 long enough that “bad Caribbean accent” just sounds to me like another variety of British accent, like Cockney.
Of course it is, Tom, you’ve always looked at why something was a hit then as well as how it moves us now, and rightly so – but I was talking about history in general and social mores. It occurs to me that it’s interesting to see this record as part of a journey in terms of society’s attitudes. Recent documentaries marking the 40th anniversary of the “Rivers of Blood” speech showed the remarkable level of support for Enoch Powell. Maybe, just a few years on, “Barbados”, rather than presenting a stereotype in a cod-Caribbean accent, played some small part in improving race relations. I was only 13 and there were no black kids at my school and just a handful of Asians, so it’s just a theory and I stand to be shot down!
It’s also a theory that around that time “Love Thy Neighbour” played its part as well. Obviously it featured language that wouldn’t get within a mile of TV now, but the joke was invariably on the white bigot (unlike Alf Garnett, with whom people actively sympathised). The black man was hard-working and well respected, the black woman was intelligent, attractive and got on fine with the white woman. There’s a case for saying they were the best black role models on mid-70s TV – and that’s a stance Rudolph Walker maintains to this day.
Lenny Henry’s take on the Minstrels experience.
Marcello, you’re more knowledgeable on these things than me – was Lenny Henry’s character in “Chef” the first major black character in a British sitcom whose colour was entirely incidental?