Every UK #1 Single Of 1972 Discussion Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Bobby Morrow, Apr 29, 2018.

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  1. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Lynsey was in the charts at the same time as Lieutenant Pigeon, but Sugar Me was on it’s way down at that point.
     
  2. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    The average amount of.... no don't go there.
     
  3. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Spotify Sheet Music, The Original Soundtrack and How Dare You! If you still don't like them you've only lost a couple of hours.
     
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  4. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    David Cassidy was always much hated at school. Some girls fancied him though.
    Mouldy Old Dough - The sort of thing that used to drive us nuts and say "Who buys this stuff?"
     
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  5. bob60

    bob60 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    You must have gone to an all boys school.....
     
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  6. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Certainly at my primary school saying, "some girls fancied him", is one of the understatements of the millennium!
     
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  7. Purple Jim

    Purple Jim Senior Member

    Location:
    Bretagne
    Well I was at Grammar school then and as I said, some girls liked him. Other girls fancied Donny, Bolan, Bowie, Rod, Jagger,...
     
  8. plentyofjamjars67

    plentyofjamjars67 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan
    I prefer the 'name on a marquee in a dream' & 'named after a song by an old bluesman' versions of how these bands got their names- probably much closer to the truth but admittedly pretty boring!
     
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  9. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Actually, I think this is urban myth: Jonathan King said the name came to him in a dream. This is probably even more disconcerting. :ignore:

    The other "fact", I was told on the school coach when I was 12: you got a proper education back in those days!!
     
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  10. Check the girls out with the Slade T Shirts on......the dancing on TOTP is highly amusing looking back.
     
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  11. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    This is The Pigeon’s follow up to Mouldy Old Dough. It’s called Desperate Dan and reached #17 in the charts.

    I think it’s fair to say they hadn’t moved on much...

     
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  12. Randoms

    Randoms Aerie Faerie Nonsense

    Location:
    UK
    Yes, you can see where the beginnings of Dad dancing came from.

    My inspiration for Dad dancing came from the lad in the tank top, grooving to Starman on TOTP. Come to think of it, he could be lurking on this thread.....
     
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  13. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    Mouldy Old Dough got a little airplay here. I always get it confused with Resurrection Shuffle and another instrumental which I can hear in my mind but whose name and artist both escape me at the moment. [Edit: Double Barrel by Dave and Ansil Collins; when "I am the magnificent, w000" came to mind, Google came to the rescue] [obviously wrong about "instrumental" too]

    In the result it's inoffensive; the cookie monster vocals in the background are the dumbest thing about it (although that's not saying much).

    Oh Donna: I've heard this before too. Probably when I bought the first 10 cc LP off a review around 1975, which I believe was the year it was released, and more importantly reviewed, over here. Also probably for the only time ever, until today. I hear a bit of Oh Darling in there quite frankly. Not much Richie Valens though.

    Can I live without either of these, uh, masterpieces? Yes, of course!

    I was going to say that this chart was a complete and total dud, until I spotted America by Simon and Garfunkel hiding at no. 29. Then You Wear It Well at no. 38 and, near the very bottom, All the Young Dudes and Layla. So it's not a total loss then. A couple of other decent tracks in there (I'm skipping the oldies as always). I gave a listen to the Junior Campbell because he was in Marmalade; started off really weak (like many '70s hits) but picked up a bit. Not really a keeper though.

    Aficionados may note Python Lee Jackson in the top 10 ...
     
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  14. bob60

    bob60 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    If you hate this chart so much then I would recommend that you skip the next few years....
     
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  15. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter


    Have you actually heard most of the records in the chart? I ask because I'm sure many of these were just UK hits and maybe you're dismissing them because you aren't familiar with them?

    Either way I don't agree with you.:)
     
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  16. richarm

    richarm Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    Such great singles from 1972. Many of us were of an impressionable age (13 for me) and our subsequent lifelong love of rock/pop music is therefore unsurprising. Plus we were exploring the back catalogue of the Beatles and other classic sixties groups often heard on Radio 1.
     
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  17. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Well, I wasn’t exploring the back catalogue of the Beatles and other sixties groups, I had enough on keeping up with what was in the charts at the time. It was more than enough for me to be going on with.:D

    I’d be 10 in 1972 and maybe this is why I’m kinder to stuff like the Osmonds and the soppier records of the day...The younger you were the more this stuff would stick. If you were 16 in 1972, Little Jimmy and like would understandably fill you with horror.

    Or maybe I’m just making excuses for my bad taste. Then and now.:D
     
  18. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Next up is Gilbert O’Sullivan with Clair. Number one for 2 weeks from 11th November.



    "Clair" is a popular song by Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan and is one of his biggest-selling singles. Written by O'Sullivan and produced by Gordon Mills, it was the number one single in the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in November 1972, number one in Canada on the RPM 100 national singles chart the following January, and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. It was also O'Sullivan's second and last number one hit on the U.S. Easy Listening chart, after "Alone Again (Naturally)".

    The song is the love song of a close family friend who babysits a young girl (actually the artist's manager's daughter), though for the first part of the song, the ambiguous text leads one to think that it is from one adult to another. The brief instrumental introduction is the sound of O'Sullivan whistling, before he comes in. The real Clair was the three-year-old daughter of O'Sullivan's producer-manager, Gordon Mills, and his wife, the model Jo Waring. The little girl's giggling is heard at the end of this song. The "Uncle Ray" mentioned in the song is O'Sullivan himself, a reference to his real name of Raymond O'Sullivan. The instrumental break in the middle section is done half a step up from A to B-Flat, before going back to A.

    "Clair" was included in O'Sullivan's album Back to Front (1972). An Italian version was performed in 1973 by the crooner Johnny Dorelli. A cover by Singers Unlimited was sampled by producer J Dilla
     
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  19. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    The B-side, What Could Be Nicer. I honestly remember this being featured in the movie version of For The Love Of Ada! The film seemed to be shown every Sunday afternoon in the 80s.:D I actually like the song.

     
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  20. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Here’s the UK single.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Italy would get a picture sleeve.

    [​IMG]

    As would Belgium.

    [​IMG]
     
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  21. Bobby Morrow

    Bobby Morrow Senior Member Thread Starter

    Dear old Giblet, as we ‘hilariously’ used to call him at school.:D

    I think GOS fancied himself as an albums artist rather than a singles one.. His quaint and quirky style was never going to work for long. Indeed just a year later he’d find it increasingly hard to get hits. I own a couple of his albums..It’s fair to say he offered something different, but his clunky and often downright embarrassing lyrics wouldn’t fare well with the passage of time. For me, Gilbert had 3 good singles..Alone Again (Naturally) is by far the best. Get Down is pretty solid too. Clair isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t want to hear it on a regular basis.

    Why did Clair do so well in 1972? I can imagine parents and grandparents buying it rather than the kids. Like the majority of Gilbert’s best songs it has a mournful quality to it, the tune is pretty enough and he doesn’t meander as much lyrically as he would on his albums... Also, coming off Mouldy Old Dough, who the hell knew what was happening in the charts in 1972?!

    [​IMG]
    France got a picture sleeve as well
     
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  22. bob60

    bob60 Forum Resident

    Location:
    London UK
    These days people would be ringing child protection if someone released a single like this one :D.
    My favourites of Gilbert's are Nothing Rhymed and Alone Again (naturally).
     
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  23. richarm

    richarm Senior Member

    Location:
    UK
    Loved the single and bought it. My first girlfriend a few months later was called Claire. When I hear the song now I still think of her and wonder what she’s doing...
     
  24. Victor/Victrola

    Victor/Victrola Makng shure its write

    I know little of GO'S, so I can't really say if Clair is one of his better tracks or not, but I do like it more than Alone Again (Naturally) which really grates my taters the wrong way. Clair is a nice little pleasant song that I can take or leave. Get Down is embarrassingly bad. And that's the extent of my knowledge of GO'S. Giblet O'Sullivan. I like that.
     
  25. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    In the U.S., "Clair" was the follow-up to his "Alone Again (Naturally)"; the B side was "Ooh-Wakka-Doo-Wakka-Day," which in the U.K. was the single in-between the two. There was also a pic sleeve accompanying it.
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Notice here, as writer he is credited as "Ray O'Sullivan." U.S. lacquers were cut at Mediasound in New York by Dominick Romeo. It would be the last single of Mr. O'Sullivan's to be so mastered.
     
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