The Commodores: Three Times a Lady To make up for the shocking shortage of ballads in the 100, here’s one of the biggest, written for Frank Sinatra before the Commodores decided to keep it for themselves. My partner is cool and ironic and cynical and anti-romantic and teases me about my fondness for smoochy ballads and would never accept a courtly proposal set to the music of Lionel Richie, but sometimes I wish she would. Alexito Madonna: Like a Prayer Growing up in Lanarkshire and attending a Catholic school, my education around sexuality consisted of “homosexuality is a sin”, teachers making “jokes” about “backs against the wall” and “if you have anal sex you will die”. As a kid struggling with my burgeoning queerness I grabbed on to Madonna as a drowning person would a rubber ring. Here was one of the biggest stars in the world speaking about, and directly to, a queer audience. It was an alternative education of sorts (Truth or Dare was the first time I ever saw men kissing) and it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say it saved my life. Like a Prayer pushed all the right buttons, with its blasphemous blend of the sacred and sex. Years later, in a Catholic secondary school, I handed in an essay about how the song and the furore around it (it saw Madonna’s music banned from my school entirely) helped me work through feelings of guilt and confusion around my sexuality and my religion. The teacher who read it asked if I was sure I hadn’t been “brainwashed”. I was sure. It is also, of course, an absolutely incredible pop song and despite having heard it thousands of times now, it still gets my heart pumping. I have so many moments of joy associated with it and it still inspires mass singalongs in the east London bars I frequent these days. Philip Matusavage Alice Cooper: School’s Out In the summer of 1972 I was almost 14, seething with hormones and unfocused rebelliousness. Music was very important to me, and I adored the glam rock scene with all its outrageousness, its glitter and its tat. I was a huge fan of Marc Bolan and waited hungrily for the follow-up album to Electric Warrior. But when it came, as with many eagerly awaited events, The Slider was a huge disappointment and I was young enough to believe it was the end of the world. Suffering the deep disillusionment that only a 14-year-old can feel, I sought another hero. And suddenly there he was, on Top of the Pops – a tall, skinny guy with ratty black hair, a black leotard open to the navel, a sword and a lot of black makeup. Sometimes, in the grip of some intense of emotion, it’s impossible to articulate the feeling even to ourselves. Sometimes, one can chance upon a song or a poem that expresses how we feel so powerfully it becomes the personification of that emotion x 100. That’s what School’s Out was to me, with its barrage of drums and dirty guitar riffs and the rasping vocals of Alice himself: an embodiment of joy, anger and rebellion. “We got no class / And we got no principles / We can’t even think of a word that rhymes …” 1972 was a long time ago; so was that girl who was mesmerised by Alice. But at various angst-filled times in my life, I’ve belted out School’s Out in order to vent my feelings. And I still get a glimmer of that 14-year-old. Anon Desmond Dekker and the Aces: Israelites Sometimes there would be a potential situation at teenage parties when both hippies and skinheads turned up. Records like Israelites, [those] by Tamla Motown artists and even Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit could diffuse the tension. The music had a different status. Dave56 Cilla Black: Anyone Who Had a Heart The sheer beauty of the performance, the truth in its articulating what desire can wreck in every part of you, body and soul, and above all, heart … Cilla Black is the best actor in British 60s pop, her status denied by the snobbery of blokes writing pop history, her records proving for the best part of five years this woman’s voice knows more about love, loss, fear and failure than others of her generation. The Beatles knew her worth, and what she stood for. A vital sound in creating the independent freedom that allowed this music to exist, and in Anyone Who Had a Heart, Cilla Black sang it as that music should be sung. TP ODonnell All Saints: Never Ever In the noughties, when my group of friends were desperately trying to shut out pop music in order to focus on listening to completely obscure Scandinavian hardcore punk and British grindcore, this was still regularly wheeled out at late night post-pub bedroom parties. There is no higher honour. Shortordercook Girls Aloud: Sound of the Underground In a stroke it disavowed audiences of boring concerns like “authenticity” and “authorship”. We literally saw this band put together in front of our eyes and then they released a banger so amazing that anyone who ever whined “but they don’t even write their own songs” was instantly ignored like a pub bore and, free of all this bullshit, pop moved forward into arguably its most creative phase. Jim Larkin Pink Floyd: Another Brick in the Wall I don’t love it so much, but it describes a time of tension and brooding fear. Anyone who was in school in the early 80s will recognise the casual brutality that existed. Pupil on pupil and teacher on pupil. It was a time of cynicism and fear on the streets too. There is a real culture clash intimated here, between the returning second world war soldiers who were still teaching in the early 80s and those of us trying to understand an unforgiving world. Rupert Sheard Cliff Richard and the Shadows: Summer Holiday The 100 list paid all too scant regard to the great British artists who belonged to the pre-Beatles rock’n’roll era, and with some of the more prominent of these including: Alma Cogan, Tommy Steele, Lonnie Donegan, Anthony Newley, and Helen Shapiro. The standout solo artist from this period was, of course, Cliff Richard; the standout instrumental band was certainly the Shadows (and not the Tornados); and the standout act was beyond all doubt Cliff Richard and the Shadows, working in collaboration and performing together. Cliff Richard and the Shadows were featured in the films Expresso Bongo and The Young Ones, which are hugely important defining film statements about the emerging of the new pop culture that would explode with creativity during the height of the 1960s. They were followed by Summer Holiday, a film musical that is full of wonderful songs and dance routines, and that gives expression to the spirit of the innocent last days of an era that would come to an end with the establishing of the Beatles hegemony at the end of 1963. Those are days that I find myself recalling more and more as the years pass; and it is good for me to do honour to an iconic UK No 1 hit single that celebrates summer, and the sunny exuberance of youth, now that I have entered the autumn of my life! Thinkandleap1234 Culture Club: Do You Really Want to Hurt Me A torch song in reggae style? Yes really. The song that brought Boy George into wide public view. As a shy-ish, gay-ish 14-year-old, it reassured me that being different was going to be, if not an easy ride, ultimately OK. That mix of soft lilts and hard-edged lyrics – “Give me time to realise my crime”; “I could waste a thousand years / Wrapped in sorrow …” – takes something light and ethereal and makes it meaningful. And danceable at the school disco. Sean Larkins Fugees: Ready or Not Suddenly and perhaps unexpectedly one of the biggest bands in the world after the success of Killing Me Softly, the Fugees’ next single was astonishing. Lauryn Hill manages to cut through all the macho gangsta nonsense that had become associated with hip-hop with the magnificent lines “While you’re imitating Al Capone / I’ll be Nina Simone / And defecating on your microphone”. Has any No 1 created a more vivid and indelible visual image than that? Nicholas Jones Dusty Springfield: You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me That opening fanfare – and then there’s a pause while you wait for the lady to step up to the mic, open up her heart, and express the feelings of everyone who’s ever sat in the ruins of a relationship wondering what the hell happened. “When I said I needed you / You said you would always stay / It wasn’t me who changed, but you”. There’s a desperation in her voice, a willingness to accept any compromise to get the relationship back. But there’s also a strength there, that makes you feel her despair will burn itself out and she’ll get through this, and come out the other side better than ever. In any other singer’s hands, the repeated “believe me” at the end would sound pathetic, but somehow Dusty makes them sound positive. She might be begging for the past to return on the surface, but underneath she’s facing the future with her head held high. David Absalom Lonnie Donegan: Cumberland Gap I’m a child in the 1980s and we’re on a long car journey to visit my grandparents. The music, chosen by my parents, is heavily biased to the 50s and 60s, Buddy Holly and the Beatles and Johnny Cash (who I really believed had shot a man in Reno) interspersed with Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann and socialist Geordie folk satirist Alex Glasgow. Quite a mix. But best of all, we’d listen to Lonnie Donegan. Lonnie was my dad’s musical hero, and he talked about hearing Rock Island Line on the radio for the first time as a true life-changing experience, the first time pop music spoke directly to him and his generation. That particular track didn’t make No 1, but Lonnie did hit the top spot for the first time with Cumberland Gap. It’s simple, stripped-down music, with a propulsive rhythm and a performance of total conviction. And yet, of course, like all great pop music it’s totally fake – Lonnie adopted the name in homage to the great Lonnie Johnson and sang songs of the American south despite coming from east London via Glasgow. He was a serious professional jazz musician, playing with Chris Barber, but inspired tens of thousands of kids to grab a battered guitar and a washboard and form a skiffle combo. It’s the punk DIY aesthetic 25 years earlier, showing that anyone can form a band and make some noise with a guitar. Some of these skiffle bands were awful, a few were brilliant, and many musicians who came to prominence later on first learned to play in such a combo. Cumberland Gap remains an astonishing two minutes of fast and exciting pop music, but also has a place in history as skiffle morphed into the later British rock’n’roll. Nicholas Jones Blur: Beetlebum Although it’s mostly ridiculed now, at the time Britpop meant a lot to a huge number of teenagers looking to find their identity in the post-Thatcher landscape. However, by the end of 1996, the bottom had fallen out of it. When Pulp got to No 2 with Common People, it felt like a subversion of the mainstream, but when Oasis headlined Knebworth just over a year later, it felt like the opposite. As a 15-year-old at the time, I eagerly awaited the release of new Blur music, with a realisation that it was either going to lead me to turn my back on the genre altogether, or take me on a new voyage of discovery. I remember listening to the first Radio 1 play with my blank cassette ready so I could listen to it again immediately and decide whether or not I liked it. The first thing that was obvious was how different it was – how unlike a hit single it sounded with its discordant guitar and sleepy vocals. The lyrics were pretty impenetrable too (apparently about heroin?) but it soon grew on me, and as I’d hoped, led me to discover a whole manner of new music from Pavement and Sonic Youth to the White Album. (It seems improbable now, but in the 90s, if your parents didn’t own these classic albums, you had no access to them.) I still love the song. I think it’s the perfect summation of what Blur are all about – a bit arty and obtuse but with an undeniable melodic core and, especially apparent in the outro, one of the best guitarists in pop music history. It changed the musical landscape too and, along with This is Hardcore, demonstrated how empty so much of Britpop was, and meaning that by the following year, music had again moved on. Jamie Taylor Wizzard: Angel Fingers You know that Goldwyn saying about a film starting with an earthquake and building up to a climax? Angel Fingers opens with an explosion and then gets louder. Woody threw everything in there and turned the drum line into an epic suffused with nostalgia, longing, desire, and sheer, sheer, sheer unsurpassed brilliance. Vastariner Tennessee Ernie Ford: Sixteen Tons Recently I’ve been listening through the UK’s number ones from the very start in 1952. There’s a lot of anodyne traditional pop in those early days, a lot of which is completely forgettable. This one, released in 1955 and first on top in January 1956, was the second one to really wow me (after the wonderful Rock Around the Clock) and is a departure from most No 1s at the time. It’s quite dark, chronicling the monotony and futility of a coal miner as he trudges through each day. Merle Travis’s lyrics have a timeless quality and still seem relevant in some professions today, with the unforgettable chorus “You load 16 tons and what do you get? / Another day older and deeper in debt”. Ford’s tenor voice underscores the miner’s plight with a real grittiness and, honestly, sounds very cool. Perhaps not the same kind of cool as Bill Haley’s Comets, but a sort of weary, wise cool. It’s also worth talking about the instrumentation here – while it’s mostly minimal, with a catchy bassline underscored with finger clicks, there’s also a flourish here and there from trumpets, trombone and clarinet to punctuate the mood, with the latter beginning and ending the song nicely. And to think the top-selling single of that year was Pat Boone’s tepid I’ll Be Home. Ugh. Will Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger I was 14 when (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? came out. [I was] impressionable, naive, just getting into music, and it sounded incredible. The lyrics meant nothing, but with a drink inside you and an arm round your mate, they meant everything. Like so many of Noel Gallagher’s songs, it’s not one you think about. You feel it. When those big stolen piano chords start and lead into that descending melody, melancholic, celebratory, somehow defiant, universal – who can say they’ve not been told by their mum “Take that look from off your face”? – you feel it in your stomach. This is a great song. It’s a song that’s meant the world to me throughout the years, the start of relationships and the end of them, but it got a new meaning in 2017. I was a journalist at Granada Reports, ITV’s news programme for the north-west, when 22 people were killed at Manchester Arena. I was news editor the day after the bomb, when students from Chetham’s School of Music, mere yards from the arena, sang the song outside their school, with their arms round each other. Defiant. I produced the main news programme on the Thursday. That was the day Lydia Bernsmeier-Rullow broke into Don’t Look Back in Anger in the middle of St Ann’s Square, surrounded by hundreds of people silently paying their respects. Slowly, they joined in. A bloke shouted, “Come on, sing up”, and the crowd swelled as one: “She knows it’s too late, as she’s walking on by / Her soul slides away / But don’t look back in anger / Don’t look back in anger / I heard you say”. Goosebumps then, now and forever. At the We Are Manchester charity gig Noel said some words that only seem to get more relevant as the world unravels around us: “Every time you sing, we win.” This, for me, is the greatest No 1 ever. Paul Duckworth Joe Dolce: Shaddap You Face My all-time favourite UK number one is Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce. Hear me out with this. Even though I was brought up on the likes of Talking Heads, the Clash, Bowie, the Smiths and all the other post-punk, new wave and indie bands that it is achingly trendy to namedrop, I always had a soft spot for Shaddap You Face. I don’t mean this in an ironic, “look at me” kind of way. I really like it. Yes, it’s a novelty song. Yes, it is terrible. Probably. But is that such a bad thing? For me, I can’t think of many other songs that can put a smile on your face as much as this one. My love for it was cemented when I moved to Italy a few years ago for work, and found the Italian people to be a mirror of the song – playful, friendly, upbeat, good fun. I have played it to many Italian people I have met, and they love it! One of them would even say to me “Whatsa matter you?” every time he greeted me after listening to it. Is it better than Ghost Town, Wuthering Heights, West End Girls, etc? No. Does it make you smile more than those songs? Absolutely. And sometimes that is what pop music is all about. Just good, simple fun. And anything that keeps Vienna by Ultravox off the top spot for three weeks must be doing something right, right? Anon Queen: We Will Rock You After a very traumatic period it reminded me that I could still rock and should not go quietly into a long goodnight. The attitude of “bollocks” was restored, fully. Albie Baron Peter Sarstedt: Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)? Always brings back beautiful memories of travelling in Europe with my first husband, long before gay marriage was possible. We always found pleasure in the backstreets as well as the boulevards and life was such an amazing adventure until he died of Aids in 1996. Neither of us cared where we came from and, just like Sophia Loren, we were going to make the most of the time we had. Alex Robertson The Timelords: Doctorin’ the Tardis Simultaneously terrible and brilliant. Like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain (a signed urinal placed in an art gallery), this may not be classic Art, but works as a piece of conceptual, situationist art. Yes, it’s a mash-up, relying entirely on a cacophonous mix of samples (Dr Who theme, the Sweet’s Block Buster!, Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Part 2 – even Daleks voicing Harry Enfield’s “bosh bosh bosh loadsamoney”). Yes Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty were taking the proverbial, but at the same time the song is a catchy, bizarre and joyful riot of noise. Variety is the spice of life and so it is with No 1s. You wouldn’t want something like Doctorin’ the Tardis to be No 1 every week, but it deserves its place. To be No 1, you have to sell more records (back in the day) than any other artist that week. The KLF (I mean, the Timelords) did it that week. They made “loadsamoney”, but later burned £1m of it, which goes to show I don’t quite know what, except that they were in it for something other than money. A No 1 pop single must be catchy and tap into the mood of the moment, but (like most things) it is also something quite disposable. Simon Briggs Johnny Kidd & the Pirates: Shakin’ All Over Fifties chart music by British artists was either polite pop or anodyne Elvis impersonators. In August 1960, before the Beatles and the Stones, the most original rock‘n’roll record ever produced in this country topped the charts for one week only. It was intended as a B-side and hastily written in the cramped basement of a London coffee shop among crates of Coca-Cola the night before recording, and nothing like this had been heard before by national listeners. What makes Shakin’ All Over a worthy inclusion on your list? That opening electric glissando riff, drenched in echo and aided by a cigarette lighter sliding up and down the fretboard. The white-coated EMI technicians said such a sound wasn’t possible as it wasn’t in their manual. The loud prowling bass and vocals first proved that rock‘n’roll singing didn’t have to parrot an American. Exciting, heavy, raunchy and seedy, it’s a much covered song that still occupies a special place in the core repertoire of rock‘n’roll. Not bad for a tune apparently recorded in six minutes, less time than it took to set up the equipment. Gareth Miles James Blunt: You’re Beautiful 2020 is such an abomination that it’s almost criminal to not include the one song that would make everyone completely lose their shit and allow them to forget killer viruses and killer cops for just one pure, beautiful moment. Nathan Green Ben E King: Stand By Me It does what the best pop always does. Says what it wants to say in the fewest possible words and then buggers off. Nor does it need a big arrangement or big production input to work. Still sounding as fresh as a daisy. What an effortless soaring melody. That bass line. It’s so easy to sing along to. And everybody does, ‘cos it gives everybody a heart and a soul, even if they didn’t have either when it kicked in. You feel like you’re Ben E King when you sing it, even if you sound like King Kong. Lyrically it remains universally poignant, potent and forever pertinent. Any songwriter would die to have this one in their archive. So what were you thinking of, leaving it out? David Fee Gnarls Barkley: Crazy Nobody knew who Gnarls Barkley was, or were, and when we found out, it didn’t really matter, the record transcending whoever made it – a song from the ether, the era. The new millennium hadn’t started well. The alleged “end of history” had quickly been replaced by new horrible history-making: world-traumatising acts of terrorism, dubiously justified and grottily fought wars, torture (and torture porn), a seemingly worst ever (to that point) administration in the White House, apocalyptic fears of global pandemics, of stop-at-no-cost immigrants ... Crazy was the wholly logical response; the only sane way of coping. CeeLo Green sounds frantic, his voice trying to escape the gravity of the song’s melancholy while the naggingly addictive spaghetti western sample reels us back in like a whirlpool with him. That their Top of the Pops appearances included an even more stately slowed down version made this event TV, an emotional affirmation of the hysteria we were all feeling and confirmation that we weren’t alone in feeling it. No other No 1 but for Ghost Town better articulated its time or illuminated its darkness. Hundreds of hearings later, it still haunts me. Nick Black Soul II Soul: Back to Life As the 80s were ending and the 90s were starting, there was a real feeling of optimism and good vibrations. There was definitely something in the air: yes, a lot of that was due to certain chemicals but it seemed to go much deeper. Football hooliganism started to go down. I remember in a club one night, accidentally knocking into someone and their drink spilling. In the past, this might have led to aggro, but, during this period, no problem and no fighting on the dancefloor. Different music cultures seemed to blend together. No one seemed to get that blend better than Soul II Soul. And this was happening when the cold war was ending. The good vibrations were spreading out into the world, peace was going to break out and the future was going to be so much better. When I think back to that time, and see how the world is now, I almost want to cry. Also to me at least, it seemed to be when UK soul music created its own identity, separate from the US. That is the cultural background. But it is also such a hypnotic swaying blissful piece of music. You just want to float on air when you hear it. Paul Terry Jacks: Seasons in the Sun I was ill in bed when they played it on the radio. It appeared to haunt me. I went up town and finally got it at a record shop, feeling cool asking for it. My Dad moaned at me for going out, but I had to own this single. It was all about life and death. Jeff Danahay Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Chile In this five minutes there is nearly every guitar trope known to man, frottage followed by talking wah-wah descending into huge searing power chords in the first 40 seconds, then a phased solo swoops across the speakers taking us up into space. The song is a poetic description of [Hendrix’s] own dynamic and visceral playing, his guitar is indeed chopping down mountains and then picking up grains of sand. There are huge dynamics in every move he makes. He is too quick to be bombastic; the music veers between solo, chords and glissandi in an epic tour de force. While his guitar could do plenty of talking, his vocal prowess matches it. The casual belief in his own boasting is delivered with complete authority and an infectious enthusiasm. Whispering asides, even apologies, are made before he ascends into the next world, screaming with dramatic urgency: “Don’t be late.” The lyrics, while suggesting he has god-like powers, also contain genuine concern, with lines from a love song worried that he will “take up all your sweet time”. Still, before long he is an alien again, there is another world out there, the counterculture, and out there God knows he’s a voodoo child. Just listen: his guitar tells you all you need to know. Douglas Cape The Righteous Brothers: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling You’ve chosen the wrong male duo for your No 1 – the Brothers not the Boys would have made more sense. For such a seminal masterpiece not even to be in the Top 100 at all is such a blinding blatant omission it beggars belief – akin to neglecting to include Citizen Kane in a list of the hundred greatest films of all time. It means a great deal to me because at the time it was the subject of a battle between this American original and the British cover version. They were neck and neck for the prized chart top slot and this fight was reflected in my school playground, where I gained the battle scars in my defence of this great record by these unknown artists, but it was worth it when my side won and it reached No 1. I loved this blue-eyed soul classic so much because as a young teenager it was the first time a record enveloped me in its own sound and atmosphere and moved me emotionally. Now, all these decades later it still impacts on me the same way and it stands the test of time as a perfect pop record and work of art. Gordon Roome Céline Dion: My Heart Will Go On The reason I love it is not because I love the song above all others, far from it. But because it embodies best how music can provide Proustian flashbacks and emotions you may have long forgotten. So firstly, it reminds me of attending my first teen birthday party bash, in which it was played every 10 minutes in order to aid these ritualistic snogging fests. Under the critical gaze of more experienced 13-year-olds I nervously danced with Zoe, who told everyone I was shaking (I was not). This was then followed by an excruciatingly awkward hands-holding waltz with Katie, my first crush who – unbeknownst to me – already had a boyfriend and as it transpired was merely pawning me into some kind of mind-game jealousy between the two of them. But now when I hear that song I can look back and appreciate how ludicrous we all were and how thankful I am to have grown a more thicker, existential skin when it comes to public humility and failed desires. The song never contained an innocence or romance for me like it was perhaps intended. But it provided a valuable benchmark for me on what romance isn’t. J Adam and the Ants: Prince Charming My first crush. A poster on the wall that I kissed goodnight, every night. So much beauty and style, the overblown video (Diana Dors, for heaven’s sake!), the ridiculous dance – it was amazing and thrilling and utterly alien to everything that had gone before. It was impenetrable to grown-ups, which only increased its appeal. I didn’t have a record player and my parents only listened to Radio 2. I lived for the brief snippets I could catch on Saturday morning TV or at a friend’s house. Adam Ant encapsulated the glamour and excitement of the city and this record was Peak Ant. I love it still. Sharon Malley John Lennon: Imagine Some churches banned Imagine because it says “no religion”. I think you need to ask why it was being sung in churches in the first place. It’s because it’s more than a pop song – it’s a contemporary hymn, isn’t it? Micktrick The Black Eyed Peas: Where is the Love The song condemns state violence, terrorism and overt racism and yearns for love in a world divided by conflict and poverty. There is no wonder it had such a tear-jerking sung response from the crowd at the 2005 Live 8 concert. Despite being around six at the time, I can genuinely remember realising the unparalleled ecstasy and feeling of togetherness that only live music can bring when watching this, albeit televised, performance. And yet, both lyrically and musically, this song has layers. It is anthemic but intimate; soothing and, at the same time, raging. The band’s project is big, as they list off a never-ending list of social ills that they sentimentally believe can be solved with love – perhaps this is why it speaks so much to a childish impulse. But not only does it criticise the blatant racism and division in society, it also acknowledges the part played by those who do not “practise what they preach”. To me, this sentiment feels more relevant than ever. For a generation of young people who sing this blissfully at the top of their lungs, it is not only a nostalgic reminder of childhood but a reminder of how to act now. Will Owen Chef: Chocolate Salty Balls Puerile, offensive and perhaps Isaac Hayes’s biggest hit! It doesn’t have the spot-on social commentary of Ghost Town or the futurist glamour of I Feel Love, but it does have the line: “Suck on my … balls!” Which, when you are 12 and an unsuspecting granny buys it for you for Christmas and asks to hear it, truly showed me the power of music. Anon The Sweet: Block Buster! At the outset of 1973, the Sweet scored their only UK No 1 with Block Buster! It held off David Bowie’s The Jean Genie from the top spot, a song with which it shares an almost identical riff, though both parties claimed this was coincidental. Nor do the mysteries end there, for Block Buster has inspired all manner of theories. In its opening seconds a blaring police alarm merges with the kind of scuzzy licks that REM would later channel for Monster. Brian Connolly’s anxious vocal warns us about the perils of having long black hair, while in the second verse Buster’s “crimes” extend to womanising, or far worse. Quite why the law is in such flux over this man isn’t explained, but the tension is palpable with pounding kettle drums and a mad-eyed finale like the baying of some lynch mob. Were those bellicose sirens and drums a reference to Blockbuster bombs used by the RAF in World War II? Or does the “evil” Buster, a predator and master of disguise, signify our fears of sexual abuse? Steve Priest’s puzzled cry “We just haven’t got a clue what to do” soon descends into an incoherent babble, such is the chaos left by Buster. Whatever the elusive Buster did wrong, this song’s message was that everyone wanted him gone, never to be heard from again. It left my 10-year-old self exhilarated by the sheer drama of its deadlocked chase. But who was I siding with back then? The perspiring cops, or this villain who offered me a window into some illicit adult world? Gareth Thompson JJ Barrie: No Charge In the hot, hazy summer of 1976, when the tar literally melted on the roads, a kind of collective madness overtook Britain. Suddenly, bafflingly, a seemingly insatiable public appetite for mawkish country songs saw a succession of novelty one-hit wonders shoot up the charts, inevitably to be quickly followed by a dismal parody by Billy Connolly. It was into this febrile atmosphere that JJ Barrie launched this rhinestone encrusted grenade, and that June the peerlessly terrible No Charge was No 1 for one single glorious week. If, like me, you love a song with a story, strap yourself in. A little boy unsuspectingly approaches his parents with a list of chores he’s undertaken – made his bed, taken out the rubbish, that kind of thing – and suggests that they reward him for his endeavours. True, he does seem to be pushing his luck a little (25 cents for “playing with his little brother”) but this being America you might have expected them to praise his nascent entrepreneurialism. Not a bit of it. Instead, they embark on an epic musical guilt trip, outlining the expense, pain and just plain inconvenience their son has wreaked on his mother’s life. Mom croons plaintively in the background while dad delivers her wounded response in a “not angry, just disappointed” voice: “For the nine months I carried you, growin’ inside me – no charge.” “For the toys, food and clothes and even for wipin’ your nose – there’s no charge, son.” Well, maybe not yet.