Holding out for a haircut
05/09/85 (Peter Powell & Mike Smith)
Baltimora – “Tarzan Boy” (3)
At its peak.
Bryan Ferry – “Don’t Stop The Dance” (26) (Montreux clip)
Peaked at number 21.
Rebecca Storm – “The Show” (28)
Her only hit, it peaked at number 22.
Madness – “Yesterday’s Men” (21)
Their first of two top 30 hits in 1985, this was being the biggest when it peaked at number 18.
Huey Lewis & The News – “The Power Of Love” (31) (breaker)
The second of a trio of 'Power of Love' songs to make the charts, this one reached number 11.
Marillion – “Lavender” (23) (breaker)
The follow up to Kayleigh, it peaked at number 5.
Bonnie Tyler – “Holding Out For A Hero” (10)
Her fifth and final top ten hit, peaking at number 2.
The Top Nine:
Dire Straits - "Money For Nothing" (9) (video clip)
King - "Alone Without You" (8) (video clip)
Princess - "Say I'm Your Number One" (7) (video clip)
The Cars - "Drive" (6) (video clip)
Kate Bush - "Running Up That Hill" (5) (video clip)
Madonna - "Into The Groove" (4) (video clip)
Baltimora – “Tarzan Boy” (3) (video clip)
UB40 & Chrissie Hynde - "I Got You Babe" (2) (video clip)
David Bowie & Mick Jagger – “Dancing In The Street” (1) (video)
First of four weeks at number one.
Stevie Wonder - "Part Time Lover" (20) (audience dancing/credits)
Peaked at number 3.
September 12th is next.
As mentioned at the start of this show, from this week onward TOTP would be broadcast at 7.00, the slot I generally remember it occupying and which it would hold for the next decade, but which also condemned it to a permanent existence as a 30-minute show. PP once again finds himself burdened with Smitty, and doesn't seem thrilled at the prospect, largely avoiding eye contact with his co-host and ignoring his more facetious remarks. Perhaps sensing the mood, Smitty is actually more restrained than usual and, one cock-up over the title of the Bryan Ferry song aside, comes over as the more competent of the two. PP, by contrast, introduces "Redecca Storm" and gets into a muddle when introducing Marillion, making it sound as if Lavender was only their second single.
ReplyDeleteBaltimora first up this week, with what in Smitty-speak is apparently a "wangdangaruga", or something like that. Jimmy once again gives a quick flash of loincloth but there is no Jane or gorilla to accompany him this time - maybe their frisky antics in the previous performance got them banned! Off to Montreux yet again after that for Bryan Ferry's new offering, another song that leans heavily on the late-Roxy sound but is none the worse for doing so, even if it doesn't linger too long in the memory. At least there are some nice backing singers to look at here...
I had never heard of Connie, the TV show this Rebecca Storm song comes from, but according to IMDB it "was a gritty series set in the fashion industry" starring Stephanie Beacham. Rebecca looks like she has borrowed Elaine Paige's hairspray and used her gran's net curtains to help make her outfit, and I can't say I was that enamoured by the song; I was suppose it was fairly melodic, but the production was muted and it all sounded a bit sub-Lloyd Webber. Madness return to the studio with one of the most restrained performances we have seen from them. I don't know if the song title was an ironic comment on their declining chart fortunes, but it would prove all-too-apt a choice. Not a bad little tune anyway, and I always prefer them when they cut out the zaniness.
Just the two breakers this time, both of which will be back next week, so straight on to Bonnie Tyler and this highly successful reunion with Jim Steinman. I don't think it's as good as Total Eclipse of the Heart, but there is no denying the anthemic power and the welly Bonnie applies to the vocal. She is in all her big-haired finery for this performance too, though the Trevor Horn-lookalike keyboardist seems a little out of place. As I was just approaching my sixth birthday at the time, I had never heard of Mick Jagger until this notorious cover of Dancing in the Street hit number 1. It's fair to say that it is not exactly the finest moment in either man's career, and they both look stupid in the video, though it doubtless raised a lot of money for famine relief. They were originally supposed to perform it over a satellite link-up at Live Aid, with Bowie at Wembley and Jagger in Philadelphia, but technical problems scuppered that plan. The playout song proves that Stevie Wonder had not quite lost his creative mojo yet, and it's a good track for the crowd to dance to, but despite getting to number 3 it wouldn't feature on the show again.
Yes, but did anyone get the 'Gail Force' joke by Mike Smith at the end of the 'Rebecca Storm' song? Haha, boom boom, tish tish!
DeleteI was pleased to see there was no gorilla this week on Baltimore's Tarzan Boy. It reminded me of Terry Scott playing Tarzan in Carry On Up The Jungle, where ironically the ever present gorilla would be the only creature to frighten the assumed fearless Tarzan, which was the whole point of the Carry On funny take on the whole Tarzan concept.
Indeed this week's much welcome return of Jim Steinman to TOTP albeit via Bonnie Tyler as the latest vehicle for his music, was in some way a nice follow up to Dan Hartman's hit just two places lower at no.12 in the same chart, where the movie it came from called Streets Of Fire was also largely Steinman in main contribution.
In fact, funnily enough, Holding Out For A Hero sounds a little bit like the feature song from Streets Of Fire, i.e., Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young, after the opening verse has rolled out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eln48BCELk
Good Lord, no wonder the film was also known a 'Rock n Roll fable on the title.
Thanks for the info on Connie.
DeleteNot the sort of show 11 year old me would have been aware of.
Ah yes, Connie. Most of it was filmed around Mansfield marketplace. Watched it, but don't remember much about it apart from Peter Straker playing something of a dodgy character, and Connie (Stephanie Beacham) exclaiming 'I want some of that !).
Deleteaha - nigel of "golden years" fame lives (or once lived) in nottingham, and mansfield is not too far away. so the above local knowledge suggests that this nigel jones is one and the same. any chance of confirmation?
Deletethe only thing i ever knew about mansfield (other than having an underachieving lower leagues football team) was that for many years it was the biggest town in england without a railway station!
Yes it is indeed me, and I have lived in Mansfield for the past 13 years. Three fifths of my family relocated from Wrexham to Mansfield in 1980, and that's how I acquired the 'Connie' knowledge.
DeleteAnd Mansfield does now have a railway station. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much else ;-)
thanks nigel - i have responded to this news in more detail in the following show's blog
DeleteBaltimora still denying us a look at the singer's loincloth, I wonder what his excuse was this time? Probably didn't want to look like a stripogram. He seems to be cut off at the end just as he launches into his grand finale.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ferry with a moody, repetitive item, bit of a plodder and Bry's facial expressions remind me of Les doing his Bryan Ferry impersonation on Vic Reeves' Big Night Out.
Rebecca Storm, not living up to her name with this naff, would-be soulful dirge from a TV show I remember being a bit boring, a poor second to the Dynasty rip-off it was trying to be.
Madness, now I have a memory of some controversy about this one, wasn't it specially written for a documentary about a politician that was criticised harshly for its dismissive tone, the song about the subject being past it one of the reasons it was lambasted? Anyone recall who the politician in question was?
Only two Breakers and then a combined Breaker/New Entry with Bonnie's triumphant accompaniment to a game of chicken with some slow moving tractors. Or the theme to Cover Up, as mentioned here, a TV show only remembered because its male star shot himself in the head with a gun holding blanks as a joke, not realising that didn't mean it would behave like a cap gun and blowing his head off as a result. Horrible story.
Yeesh, the Jagger and Bowie collaboration we didn't know we wanted, it sold well because charity, but there's a reason Family Guy played this in full to illustrate the gayest video ever. They surely meant the naffest, their showing off is most unseemly.
Steveland to end on, I liked this at the time, certainly preferable to Just Called. Skips along acceptably.
The "Yesterday's Men" documentary you are thinking of was actually made in 1971, and featured David Dimbleby interviewing Harold Wilson and former members of his cabinet about how they had adapted to life in opposition after unexpectedly losing the previous year's General Election. Wilson was furious about the programme, which he felt was designed to portray Labour in the most unflattering light possible, and there was a big row over it. There was also a rather annoying song specially written for the programme by The Scaffold - you can see the whole thing on YouTube:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKLvQdGzigc
Brilliant detective work, John! Thanks for that.
Deletehi just to let you know i have set up another a/c on vimeo it has this edition uploaded - to make it easy the a/c name is just - Meer2
ReplyDeletemeer
Brilliant stuff Meer
DeleteIs there any way of downloading that from vimeo. I missed the 'we transfer' one as I had surgery last week and haven't been on here until tonight.
Deleteyes that is no problem i think you have to set up an account and just follow me
Deletemeer
Yeah, I have an account from when Meer posted them previously. Unfortunately, the download button is absent on this video.
DeleteGot it eventually using RealDownloader. :-)
Delete"Wangdangarooga"? "Don't rock the dance"? Hmmm...wonder if this was one of the shows Smith saw on UK Gold that gave him the sudden realisation that he was a bell-end on most of them...
ReplyDeleteMind you, Powell was making minor errors all over the place too. On to the music then -
Bryan Ferry - A lovely, slinky song which is miles better than 'Slave To Love'. A shame that it's yet another Montreux clip to represent it.
Rebecca Storm - Er....no ta.
Madness - 'One Better Day' is my favourite of theirs and it doesn't sound vastly different to this yet this is one of their few singles that I'm really not keen on! I'm pretty sure the lyric was admitted to be self-parodying.
Breakers - Housewife song! Then Marillion with a nice tune that TOTP have decided to rename for some reason.
Bonnie Tyler - HOUSEWIFE SONG!!! I would gladly never hear this again. Btw, it's not pronounced "heROW" Powell, you utter prick.
Jagger / Bowie - It's cheesy as hell for sure but I don't mind hearing it once in a while. It always reminds me of the surprisingly good Les Dennis / Dustin Gee parody too.
Stevie Wonder - One of his dullest singles ever, yet I was sadly forced to play it repeatedly on the radio.
At the time, I thought Freddie Starr's parody of Bowie/Jagger was hilarious. I'll probably never see it again to judge.
Deletehas freddie been cornered by the yewtree squad now them? by the way, are any of his hitler sketches on youtube?
DeleteFreddie was completely exonerated - and this will come as a massive surprise to those following the Met's exemplary work on Yewtree et al (sarcasm) - because the charges turned out to be a load of bollocks.
DeleteBut he brought a civil case against his accuser and was found responsible! Even though it had been proven he was innocent. Very worrying.
DeleteNoax - ToTP must have been referring to the 12" version of 'Lavender' for some reason....where, stretched out to an incredible 4:20, the track was indeed called 'Lavender Blue'.
DeleteLavender Blue is a better title for me (more precise, unique and memorable). And it sounds more like the hook in the song, so that's why some may think it's the normal title.
Deletethe human league went through a similar thing in the early 80's by adding slight variations to their name (including "human league red" and "human league 100" to my recollection) for various singles. it never really caught on though...
DeleteI never liked the Jagger/Bowie effort, that kind of thing can look too ego driven, ironic proceeds went to charity then. But I never loved the original that much either, it's just a bit too repetitive with the hook and that works against the energy of it.
ReplyDeleteBryan Ferry - bad, the inspiration has gone. All style and nothing else.
Bonnie Tyler, I like this much more than the Tina Turner We don't Need Another Hero. Can imagine Meat Loaf doing it.
Rebecca Storm - sounds ok, hard to judge as haven't heard it much before.
hosts: shitty makes mention of being on noel beardy's crap light entertainment show at the end of this episode - which was where he belonged, rather than here with his ever-more punchable face
ReplyDeletebryan ferry: i felt a huge sight of relief when i saw that this made it onto the show (albeit via last week's breakers and this week's truncated montreux clip), as it's a certainty for my top 10 crackers of this year. as someone else said, it's a swayer rather than a dancer. but it's oh such a seductive one, with the sultan of suave pretty much at the top of his game. yet despite that, in my opinion this was only the third-best track from the "boys & girls" album (behind "stone woman" and "windswept")
rebecca storm: oh dear, from one extreme to the other. a rubbish 80's vocal theme for a rubbish 80's tv series. ergo a storm in a teacup
madness: didn't they do a similar cod-lounge thing not that long back? i have to assume that it's self-irony or an in-joke, as surely they must have realised their time was up by now? of course these days they've become an institution as a nostalgia live act (i bet this doesn't get much exposure at their gigs though), with a poster for their latest tour where they humourously spoof the characters from "the sound of music". and not surprisingly the joker of the pack (in what is a pack of jokers) thommo is dressed as a nun. oh well, old habits die hard (arf! arf!)
bonnie tyler: oh no, she's not still hanging around is she? come back rebecca storm - all is forgiven!
bowie/jagger: by chance i went to a bowie tribute gig last night, and the person i was with mentioned this and said she thought that they hated each other. i don't how true that is, but it does make me wonder if bowie got first billing due to the alphabet, or were other factors in play? i thought this okay at the time, and certainly preferred it to the motown original. but i'd probably run out of earshot if i heard it nowadays. hopefully all the profits from it went to charidee rather than in the pair's already-deep pockets?
stevie wonder: listening to this rubbish gave me a nagging feeling i'd heard the riff before, and then i realised that stevie borrowed it from the hall & oates tune "maneater". what a shame he wasn't using the far-superior "i can't go for that" for his inspiration instead
Thanks Neil B. Compared to last week’s dire edition, this is a revelation!
ReplyDeleteBaltimora – Tarzan Boy – Infectious and harmless but you don’t hear it on the radio these days.
Bryan Ferry – Don’t stop the Dance – Smooth piece of Ferry fare. It doesn’t sound live though does it?
Rebecca Storm – The Show – I loved Steve Hackett’s 1980 song ‘The Show’ (“a plodding dirge with no redeeming features” said one music paper critic at the time). This is good too. Don’t believe I ever watched ‘Connie’ but a quick check on the cast list shows that Stephanie Beacham was in the eponymous lead role; staring with her was our old mate Peter Straker. Also appearing in every episode was George Costigan who starred in one of my favourite ever series ‘Chimera’ from 1991. Who remembers that? Boy! episode one freaked me out!!!
Madness – Yesterday’s Men – Well they certainly weren’t and I love this gentle lilting song. Not so nutty these days.
Breakers – So not to be confused with Frankie goes to Hollywood was Huey Lewis and the News with ‘The Power of love’. Well, it’s only two weeks to go now until Jennifer emerges from her almost permanent residence in the 40s to hit the big time and Frankie’s ‘Power’ will not be the one that everyone associates with that song title. As for Huey; had ‘Back to the Future’ come out in the UK at this point? I know when I saw the film at the cinema, this song had already been a hit. Marillion had a big hit with what was merely a two minute interlude on the ‘Misplaced Childhood’ album stretched to breaking point! It’s not one of my favourites of theirs, although nice to see Steve Rothery with his double guitar.
Bonnie Tyler – Holding out for a Hero – Deserved belated success on the back of being used on the ‘Cover up’ series but no mention here of its ‘Footloose’ origins. The keyboard player reminds me of someone – that Black Lace bloke perhaps?
Top10 – Six weeks in the top10 without going higher than no4. Not bad for a bit of ‘Dad rock’ from Dire Straits!
David Bowie / Mick Jagger – Dancing in the Streets – Where on earth did this come from? It’s ok. Nothing special, just ok. I certainly prefer Martha Reeves and the Vandella’s version. I guess it was a charity record so that explains the massed sales. Otherwise, second bad 60s cover in a row; although admittedly not as bad as the previous one. As for the video, well ‘posturing peacocks’ sums it up for me!
Stevie Wonder – Part time lover danceout – Oh gawd, he’s back. This one made no1 in the States zzzzzz
Yeah, I remember Chimera, good Stephen Gallagher book, too, before he went in for more traditional thrillers.
DeleteJust checked out the Connie titles on YT and they seem to go on for ten minutes. Of course, the best thing Stephanie ever did was Super Bitch. Well, maybe.
not remembering the rebecca storm thing, i too wondered if it was a cover of the steve hackett tune (i remember that actually getting quite a lot of airtime back in 1980, although sadly not enough punters bought it to put it in the charts). i've probably said this here before, but in my opinion both the hackett albums "spectral mornings" and "defector" (from whence "the show" came) are excellent
DeleteThey are certainly two of Hackett's best ('Please don't touch' also scores high with me). Hackett amazingly reached the album top10 with 'Defector' - one week at no9 in June 1980 meaning that the famous Charisma label had two albums in the top10 (Peter Gabriel 3 was the other). Looking at that chart, The Photos were at no4 with their self titled album. Don't remember them at all, but they had a minor single hit with 'Irene'.
DeleteThe Photos were a band from Worcestershire who started out as a punk band called Satan's Rats. After changing name and style their first single as The Photos was "I'm So Attractive" which got a good amount of Radio 1 play and music press due to the band's attractive singer Wendy Wu.
Deletehackett's debut album "voyage of the acolyte" was pretty good in places too (it was basically his only outlet for his own songs at that point, thanks to his senior and band-founder tony banks hogging the genesis albums - actually the rest of genesis were involved on that as musicians... with one notable exception ha ha). but despite that and the other two mentioned, for some strange reason i've never got around to listenng to "please don't touch"
Deletei remember the photos being a hyped-up post-punk band that featured a dark-haired blondie-style attractive female singer in one wendy wu (presumably not her given name?). but they never really made it despite all that, so i'm somewhat surprised to hear they had a top 10 album
and regarding "brothers in arms"-era dire straits: i wouldn't call it "dad rock" myself - more like "couples rock"!
arthur beat me to the photos response by one minute - bah! still, at least he confirmed who the lead singer was, as i was merely going from memory rather than checking on the internet
DeleteWendy Wu's real name is Wendy Cruise.
DeleteIt's the First of May today and I'm sharing this. Definitely brought a lump to my sentimental throat...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cNWAtgNCWg
sct you have reminded me of the notorious "clive anderson talks back" chat show incident where the bee gees stormed off set in protest at the host's "jive talkin". what was really funny was how they all left in turn rather than en masse, thus demonstrating each one's personality:
Delete1: barry - egotistical leader
2: robin - lesser-talented barry wannabee
3: maurice - joker/peacemaker
Just watched said clip on YT! Was it real or staged? Surprised it was ever broadcast if it were real.
Deleteit was genuine apparently. it seems the bee gees themselves thought it wouldn't be broadcast as anderson would be too embarrassed at the way things turned out. but they quite obviously didn't know him well enough!
DeleteYes, all true, The Bee Gees famously had very little sense of humour about themselves (they detested the spoof The Hee-Bee-Gee-Bees, for example), though as noted Maurice was the milder of the three. Sad thing was, this pride caused them to all have fallen out at the time of two of the brother's deaths.
DeleteThe brothers famously fell out and temporarily split at the end of the 60s, thought I wasn't aware that they were on bad terms when Maurice died; indeed, after his death Barry and Robin appeared to draw closer.
DeleteI don't know if anyone else remembers this, but in the last years of his life Robin used to turn up quite regularly on Sky News to review the papers. It was always faintly bizarre seeing him sit there discussing the next morning's headlines alongside some star-struck journalist or politician!
perhaps the journalists and politicians in robin gibb's company were not-so-much star-struck as startled, thinking "what the fuck has he got on his head?!?"
DeleteYou could well be right there - Robin's thatch was a sight to behold!
DeleteI recall an interview with Barry where he said his biggest regret was not being on good terms with his brothers when they died. Can't find it online, alas, you'll have to take my word for it!
Deletewhatever possessed robin to start wearing that dreadful syrup? after all, everyone was aware that he had been losing his hair for some time by that point. maurice was an early casualty of course, but even the once mega-hirsute barry is struggling in that department nowadays. although perhaps as a result of witnessing robin make an arse of himself, he has the sense not to go down that route himself
DeleteTHX - it certainly wouldn't surprise me if their relationship suffered plenty of ups and downs. My dad has experienced that with his own two brothers over the years!
DeleteWilberforce - as you say, it was already blindingly obvious that Robin was going bald long before he acquired his new hair. He presumably did not embarrass easily...
Once again, big thanks to Neil B.
ReplyDeleteLook at the presenters’ chemistry. Janice and John, eat your heart out!
Peter PowELL made a number of mistakes as previously mentioned, and Shitty said Five Star were from Guildford instead of Romford, but at least he consistently gave us the ‘up X’ and ‘down Y’ for the mugshots.
I suppose Baltimora couldn’t just stand there so fair play for an energetic turn, and it was better without those two ‘dancers’. I feel a bit ashamed to say this was the first time ever I’d actually heard the song’s title in the lyrics.
A messy sort of Montreux intro leads us into Bryan Ferry’s groove rather than a dance, complete with serious / moody backing singers.
Poor old Rebecca, neither going down a storm nor the star of the show. Boom boom tish! You could tell she painfully wanted to become a power trio with Barbra Dickson and Elaine Paige. Bearing in mind PeTER’s painfully wrong intro, shame she wasn’t actually on Decca. Old Stormy was on Towerbell, whose previous hitsters were Natasha, Snowy White and Joe Fagin but they also released an early single by Amazulu and they briefly had Shirley Bassey on their roster.
Madness with some interesting ’whistle’ and hat variations. Nice lyrical interpretation there (“stop”, “hang on” etc.) by Chas and the ‘Madness member for a night’ backing singer.
I loved “Back To The Future”. Not so the bland AOR soundtrack here.
PetER, this is Marillion’s fifth top 30 hit (though he might have meant this’ll be their second major charter so I can forgive him for a change, though he was four places out on his forecast). Nice double neck there! The singer’s Scottish, don’tcha know.
Bonnie Tyler with jewellery adding 20% to her weight and a speccy Trevor Horn / Korgis type on keyboards.
I see records that were number one get a climber style big screen on their descent.
Talking of descent, there goes Mick and Bowie’s (dancing in the) street cred in one almighty throw of the charity dice.
Thanks for alerting us to Saturday night, Shitty. I’ll tune to ITV instead. We finish with a Stevie Wonder track which is poppy and flimsy but, to my ears, way more palatable than that shite which got him to number one.
Bloody hell! regrading my remarks about Redecca...er, Rebecca Storm, it turns out she was a very able actress who appeared in productions of Evita, Chess and Les Miserables. Looks like that power trio wasn't as far fetched as I joked about!
ReplyDeleteSeptember already. How the year flys by. Hooked the laptop up to the TV and ready to go. ..
ReplyDeleteNew time for the autumn which is its new permanent home of 7pm. Only a few years aways from its stereo Radio 1 link up.
Powell and Smithy on presenting duties. I think they make a good pair. TOTP is meant to be a fun show and they certainly seem to enjoy themselves.
Baltimora up first and on his own this time, nothing new to say about this one...
This Bryan Ferry song is not one I knew until the breakers last week but is a favourite of Wifey at the time, so she informed me.
It's not a bad tune, probably one I would have talked to my Mum through at the time, 11 year old me would not have approved,
Ferry has a very soulful voice. It's a well made and a worthy hit.
Rebecca Storm? Pass
Connie? Pass
Going to have to read the thread above to find out about this one as I have never heard of it.
Proper Barbara Dickson hair though.
Starts off well but then goes all keyboard and cheese in the middle. Better composition and this could have been a decent song, as it is. ..Pass
Lots of classic songs entering the charts this week. Looking forward to seeing some of these in the coming weeks.
Madness up next. Passed their prime (which they will amazingly rediscover in the 90s). This is not great. Doesn't even make it on to my Total Madness Greatest Hits CD which shows you how many much better songs they did.
Breakers:
BACK TO THE FUTURE. ..Huey up first. Classic. Love it.
Also like the follow up Hip To Be Square.
Marillion not getting to number 1 PP but an ok song. Not a fan myself,but they are still going strong today..
Bonnie up next with her American Football theme from Channel 4.
She has one hell of a voice and this is a great record.
With that hair she's a spit for Rod Stewart though
Going to miss the video Top Ten when it goes. I quite like it.
That King song is hanging around a bit isn't it.
Only one week at the top for UB40. I though it was longer.
Now a new entry at number one, very rare occurrence back then but will become the norm by the mid 90s.
Was a big fan of this one as a kid. I know Bowie fans dispise it but it was for a good cause and it's a very good version of the song, Think was the first place I saw it as my Dad wouldn't have Live Aid on in the house after Geldof swore...
Smithy mentions the Late Late Breakfast show which was a family favourite in our house,
Stevie plays out with another well known number. 85 really is punching it's weight with big 80s hits.
Learning to Reed and Wright next time then..
i was thinking from the pic above that ms tyler looked more like bobby from bucks fizz in drag!
Deleteas for bowie, this was actually preferable to my ears than some of the rubbish he was churning out around this time such as "modern love" and "cat people (putting out fire)". not surprisingly the bowie tribute band i saw last week played none of the above!
Both Modern Love and to a lesser extent Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline have seen a major renaissance in recent years, the latter because Quentin Tarantino put it in his film Inglourious Basterds (I preferred it in Cat People, which may be ludicrous but does have a great title sequence).
Deletethere were actually two versions of "cat people (putting out fire)" *, one being used in the film of that name. both were bloody awful in my view!
Delete* another silly (bracketed bit in song title) alert!
Just listening to the delightful Hollie Cook on BBC 6 Music and she's said she loves song titles with brackets and hopes to write one of her own one day!
Deletei have to admit sometimes a song title does make more sense if there is a bit in brackets afterwards (which is usually the following lyrical line). a guy once wrote some lyrics for a composition of mine that i refer to as "what am i meant to do", but really should be called "what am i meant to do (after you're gone)" to get the full context. but what bugs me is when they add a bit in brackets that is unnecessary, irrelevent, nonsensical or pretentious. or (as has been happening of late here) to make people aware it's tied in with a movie as some kind of promotional tool. or a combination of the above!
DeleteI suppose it is an affectation, the main offender being Everything I Do (I Do It For You) which nobody calls simply Everything I Do anyway. That was from a film, too.
Delete