7June
The combination of the Strikeout nonsense and the end of the month meant we missed the second of last week's Two Songs. So here's one we didn't put up then, and a new old one for this week.
It's been annoyingly difficult to avoid Young folks
(words and music: John Eriksson, Peter Morén, Björn Yttling) over the past year. The song was released by the composers' group, Peter Bjorn and John, and was a very minor top 40 hit in the UK last August. We would normally expect such very minor hits to vanish into the ether. Not this one; the insistent whistling and strange sound has given the song a certain persistance, and it's become one of those tunes that gets played on low rotation for most credible radio stations. And the theme to RTÉ's sports coverage, curiously.
More recently, the song has been translated into German as Ich kann nix dafuer
, and recorded by Nena, Olli & Remmler. That's Nena of 99 red balloons
fame, Oliver Pocher of last summer's anthem Schwarz und weiss
, and Stephan Remmler a former member of Trio, of those adverts with a loudly shouting girl. (That was the right Trio, wasn't it?) Anyway, this cover version has done something the other version hasn't, and become a significant hit somewhere on the planet - to wit, top ten in Germany.
Song two is one inspired by something in the next 1997 Nostalgia post. Terry Hall has been making records of quality and distinction for the best part of three decades. Just so that no-one is hideously confused, this is the singer and songwriter, not the recently-deceased Terry Hall who worked with Lenny the Lion.
Beginning his career in Coventry ska bands, Terry Hall's biggest hit would be Ghost town
, a chart-topper in 1981 with the ska band Special AKA. This was the seventh consecutive top-ten smash for the group, who had become massive stars in the previous two years. But at the height of the group's success Hall went off and manufactured the commercial pop Fun Boy Three. By 1984, that concept was beginning to show its age, though had given us the great hits Out lips are sealed
and launched Bananarama on It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it
.
Though his early work had shown a fantastic ear for melody, Hall had not had much chance to show it during the previous few years. He set that right in 1984, founding the Colourfield, yielding a near miss with an eponymous track, and the number 12 hit Thinking of you
, but precious little else.
At the end of the 1980s came the Terry, Blair, and Anouchka project, with Anouchka Groce (who didn't give up the day job as a jeweller) and
an actress with a name that was unremarkable then, but quite amazing now - Blair Booth. This was an unashamedly kitsch act, recalling the heyday of 60s pop on the 1990 release Ultra modern nursery rhyme
(m/l: Terry Hall). Next up was 1992's Vegas, a one-album work with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame - we found it rather heavy going, the best bit was the single Walk into the wind
.
Not until 1995 did Terry Hall release a solo single, and not until 1997 did he have a top 50 hit, putting in Ballad of a landlord
from his second solo album Laugh
. Since then, Terry has released one further solo album, 2003's Hour of Two Lights
, but is probably best known for working with the Lightning Seeds, contributing a number of tracks to the group's work during the 1990s.
