32. ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...70s/80s ONE HIT WONDERS

The absolute very first time I heard a one-hit wonder was, well you never actually know do you? There were a few acts which you suspected might have limited enduring appeal – for instance, I don’t remember wanting to dress up like Fred Wedlock and eagerly wait for his follow-up to the Oldest Swinger in Town – but I certainly thought that Men Without Hats were set for long-term chart success after Safety Dance. I was a teenager wearing a very cool trilby at the time (I was also wearing a denim jacket, cardigan and a Weetabix Neat Wheat Mate T-Shirt – I have the photo – so I couldn't have been more cool) and it would've been far too ironic to write ‘Men Without Hats’ on my pencil case in tippex ….which proved a blessing since, after Safety Dance (in the UK at least), they vanished without a trace and I’d have been forced to pop down to WH Smith and buy a new one.

What I love is the thought that some of these would-be pop stars are now accountants or dentists with workmates & clients who presumably have no idea about their 15 minutes of fame. A friend of mine used to work in the same media agency as the guitarist from Department S who, back in the 80s, had asked if Vic was there and in one stroke exhausted their capacity for inventive lyrics before they could pen a follow-up single.

The banjo player in Fiddlers Dram, who liked to remind us about the day we went to Bangor (which rather predictably became ‘the day we went to bang ‘er’ in my boys school), reckons he made £8,000 from the song but had to give half of it to his ex-wife. Apparently he drank the rest which sounds a little like George Best’s best line about going broke (‘I spent it all on booze, birds and fast cars and the rest I wasted’).

John Peel was probably the home of no-hit wonders and no doubt felt deeply ashamed when Joy Division scored their only Top 30 single hit with Love Will Tear Us Apart (this doesn’t make them one-hit wonders though – I’m not sure why but it just doesn’t). That said, he did propel Althea and Donna to the top of the charts with Uptown Top Ranking before they faded away never to be heard of again….. although I notice that they recently announced some reunion gigs which I assume will be one of the shortest nights out any of us could possibly experience. What on earth do they play for an encore and, if it’s Uptown Top Ranking, what on earth did they play beforehand?

Remember Simon Park? I didn’t either but he and his orchestra took Eye Level to No.1, keeping the Sweet’s Ballroom Blitz off the top. I've just watched the TOTP re-run with the whole orchestra wearing orange polo necks and slacks. It was about as rock 'n' roll as Mr Blobby. Or Noel Edmonds. It obviously helped that it was the theme tune to Van der Valk, a Dutch detective played by a bloke from Nottingham called Barry and quite a rarity in the days before Danish cop thrillers with sub-titles invaded our TV screens. I’m not sure if this counts as a proper one-hit wonder but I like the song and I’ve enjoyed watching some early episodes recently to remind myself that the Dutch constabulary in Amsterdam in the 70s & 80s had a strict recruitment policy of non-native speakers, preferably with cockney accents, as did the local criminal fraternity too. They rebooted the series recently with that bloke off Hustle. No, me neither.

There were quite a few others who deserved to be on the one-hit wonder list because they were either crap, ridiculously sentimental, silly or all 3. These include Clive Dunn’s Grandad, There’s No One Quite Like Grandma by St Winifred’s School Choir and Joe Dolce’s Shaddap You Face which, as everyone knows, kept Midge Ure’s Ultravox off the top spot and so encouraged him to ditch his Thin Lizzy touring gig (not sure how the pencil moustache, sideburns and new romantic trenchcoat went down with his long-haired and leathered bandmates anyway) and focus fully on the Vox.

A song which didn’t fit into the typical OHW categories but whose band name did was Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats & Dogs (I know, the title's pretty silly too but it’s about art so let's give it the benefit of the doubt). It was by Brian & Michael which must be the least pop-star name I’ve ever heard (unless it was ironic – like the Smiths – in which case it’s brilliant). What’s even better is that the band members were actually called Kevin & Michael so they must have decided, after much deliberation over a pint or two of real ale, that Brian was a more rockstar name than Kevin. Please, please, please let this be true. Brian/Kevin & Michael used fellow OHWs, St Winifreds School Choir, on backing vocals. That might technically disqualify SWSC from the list but it definitely cements B&M on it.

Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting wasn’t silly either but it made an army of schoolkids look pretty stupid as we strapped our ties round our heads and aimed karate chops & kung fu kicks at our mates in the playground while grunting 'huh' and 'hah' at regular intervals. Written and performed by a Jamaican (obviously), it was meant to be the B-Side to 'I Want to Give You My Everything' (yawn) but reached No.1 in every country in the western world.....except Switzerland where the Swiss were only just going through their Donny & Marie Osmond phase, several months after the rest of Europe, and so chose 'I'm Leaving it All Up to You' (double yawn) ahead of our oriental disco masterpiece.

Another Asian-inspired OHW was Turning Japanese by the Vapors. At my school, the 6th Formers would question all the spotty-faced new boys (like me) on the meaning of the song. This was a tricky one to know how to answer safely. If you said it was meant to represent a boy’s facial expression during masturbation then you’d be beaten up and greeted with chants of ‘wanker’ for the next few weeks and, if you pretended not to know the song, you’d be beaten up and have your name scribbled out in biro and replaced with ‘saddo’ on every school noticeboard. I got round it by admitting I knew the meaning but pointing out it was Eggy who’d told me and so he got beaten up instead.

One of my favourite OHWs was Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please by Splodgenessabounds, which displayed a lyrical inventiveness which Department S could only dream of. It came out in 1980 and was apparently about the trouble Max Splodge had being served in the Crown at Chiselhurst when they called last orders (which is what pubs did in the old days…often accompanied by a bell and usually well before bedtime). I’ve no idea if this was an apocryphal story (and, if it was, surely he could’ve lied about something more momentous) but his band consisted of Roger Rodent, Miles Runt Flat, Pat Thetic, Whitty Archer and Baby Greensleeves so you have to doubt their capacity to tell the truth.

It’s easy to be dismissive about one-hit wonders but just think how many no-hit wonders exist – either as proper hard-working bands or talentless 'in-our-dreams' would-be pop stars like me? I’d give 2 pints of lager and any number of packets of crisps for a sniff of their success. I’d sing about all my elderly relatives if it got me onto TOTP where I’d dance, safely or otherwise and with or without Vic. I’d even go to Bangor, wherever that is, if that’s where the BBC had their studio. And, back in the dressing room afterwards, flushed by my longed-for pop fame, I’d be turning Japanese for the rest of the night.

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Next: ABSOLUTE VERY FIRST TIME...MAGIC ROUNDABOUT

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