>Starve the bloody lizards!

You don’t have to dig very deep to find something truly evil in 1973.

Just scratch the surface.and you’ll find Tony Orlando and Dawn, festering there at Number 1 with “Tie a yellow ribbon”

Stuart W’s (and Wop’s) favourite. Along with “Knock three times”

There are some blatantly obvious “should have been melted down” candidates, but the list underwent some serious pruning

Tony Orlando TWICE. Donny Osmond AND The Carpenters. John Denver. Gilbert O’Sullivan TWICE.

But here are my candidates for the furnace

#1 – Tony Orlando & Dawn – Tie A Yellow Ribbon
Stuart W used to sit at one end of the living room in Doghurst Avenue in Harlington with an airband scanner warbling in one ear and crap like this blasting away in the other.
The conversation went something like
“Stuart, could you turn that down please?”
“WHAT”
Wop, the mynah bird, would chime in with
“Shut the fuck up, Wop” (Can’t imagine where it got that from.)
We’d respond with
Shut the FUCK UP, Wop” (oh, OK…)
It’d could go on like that for hours…

#5 – Paul McCartney & Wings – My Love
How can someone who had so much promise and talent sink to this turgid stuff? Supports my thesis that the only Beatles stuff truly worth listening to is Lennon’s.

#18 – Sweet – Little Willy
This could get indelicate. Definitely NSFW. You had NO IDEA what this was about, did you. Lyrics Vault might save embarrassment here. (And you wonder why I snigger at the film about that killer whale in Oregon.

#72 – Gilbert O’Sullivan – Clair
I used to share with a guy whose name I’ve forgotten – used to write horrendously bad science fiction and get drunk on half a pint – but the odour from his sneakers haunts me to this day. Odour doesn’t do it justice. It was an abattoir/Mumbai sewer symbiosis stench. An olefactory counterpoint to Tony Orlando, in fact.

#99 – Donny Osmond – The Twelfth Of Never
Aaaaaargh! Nooooo! Put me on the rack! Please pull out my nails! Feed me to the lions! But not this….! I’ll talk, I’ll talk…

And – as is generally the case – the good stuff doesn’t turn up until later.
#17 – Dobie Gray – Drift Away
This song clicked the instant I heard it. No idea. No need to ask me. It gave me immense pleasure finding it here.
#63 – Al Green – Here I Am (Come And Take Me)
I didn’t discover Al Green until much, much later and it’s a treat to listen to this.

#68 – Steely Dan – Reelin’ In The Years
#73 – Steely Dan – Do It Again
Couldn’t decide, so it has to be both.
But don’t try to buy their music in Bangkok. Even in the better places (i.e. non-pirate, real stores) they’ll point you to Steeleye Span..

#96 – Edgar Winter Group – Free Ride
I played Frankenstein through headphones to the on-again-off-again airline CEO back then. You should have seen his eyes swivelling in their sockets when it switched from the left channel to the right channel and back again in rapid succession. Probably caused brain damage. Which would explain a lot.

#97 – David Bowie – Space Oddity
It’s become a cliché to say this song or that song changed my life and this one didn’t actually, but it certainly opened my eyes.

Talking of oddities…..

#85 – Rolling Stones – Angie
The centre-right party in Germany chose this as the anthem for Angela Merkel, their candidate for the chancellorship in 2005. Now, if there’s anyone who’s less Stones and less “Angie” than her, I’d like to meet them…
Don’t misconstrue this into thinking that I don’t rate her – I do, she’s a class act – but hip, she ain’t.

#89 – Jud Strunk – Daisy A Day

Just who the fuck is Jud Strunk? And what gives him the right to serve up lyrics like

He remembers the first time he met her
He remembers the first thing she said
He remembers the first time he held her
And the night that she came to his bed

On reflection, I think there should be 6 of the worst this week…