Naughty Naughty Naughty / Letters Of Love

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I always thought this was a very rude record about anal sex – it’s all there in the lyrics “That ain’t the way to do it” – “Oh yes it is! Someone in his management company obviously thought he needed an image and the bowler hat and cane was introduced.

Initially, the lead singer of Sweet Sensation, Marcel King, was supposed to do the vocal but reportedly couldn’t get to grips with the song, leaving the door open for producer David Parton to do his own version. As well as being the leader of the Top Of The Pops Orchestra for 15 years, he helped launch the career of Cilla Black (well, nobody’s perfect) and was musical director for a number of Dusty Springfield shows in the 60s (much more like it). Alaska Records also brought out an opportunistic version of Paul Simon’s The Boxer by 70s Liverpudlian boxing favourite John Conteh.I collect non chart singles from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s and have many 1000’s, this being one of them. Ask anyone over a certain age (OK 55-ish), which single sums up the tackiness of the 70s for them and a fair number might choose this song.

He then made it into West End musicals including starring roles in Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar amongst many other musical shows. Oh You Pretty Thing‘ by Peter No One, sorry Peter Noone, recently having gone solo after splitting from the bafflingly hugely successful Herman’s Hermits. Well, it’s irritatingly memorable, it has very straightforward lyrics ( Leonard Cohen was not involved I’m assured), it has a chorus that burrows into your psyche and an utterly weird vocal that suggests someone with adenoidal problems, sung in a quasi-American accent that really grates. If Stuart Maconie had played Mouldy Old Dough on the Freakzone without anyone being aware of the record from the 70s, I think it would have pricked many people’s interest. So using the Observers’ Book of Punk Rock Credibility as a guide they found a song that sounded vaguely ‘punky’, they went down the Kings Road and secured some second-hand jackets and thin ties, they bought some fashionably ironic sunglasses in Debenhams, had their shoulder-length hair cut and, hilariously, gave themselves punky, anti-establishment names.

They were the sort of band that stopped more interesting acts breaking through in the mid-sixties by releasing anodyne, unthreatening, harmonic fare, like this utter tosh. The song "Naughty Naughty Naughty" was a novelty love song between the singer and Mr Punch, [2] and reached Number 26 on the UK Singles Chart in May 1977. Anyone who has read this section of my little blog space will know that some of the titles featured are records which should have been strangled before birth. But a talking record only has so much mileage and his follow up to the super-successful ‘ If‘, pretty much bombed.

Naughty Naughty Naughty" was engineered by Chris Tsangarides at Morgan Studios in Willesden, North London. As well as being one of the figures on the front cover of Wings ‘ Band On The Run,’ LP, Conteh also appeared in 70s films ‘ Man At The Top‘ and, strangely, ‘ The Stud‘ with Joan Collins in a career low. Without the cache of being a ‘novelty hit’, it might have been viewed as an interesting example of left-field pop.This lugubrious equine annual bunfight even bumped Monty Python’s Flying Circus from the schedules and became a running gag for years on the programme.