Who can explain it?
Not me, that's for sure.
But I must at least acknowledge it because, in this week of 1979, the top of the UK singles chart was claimed by Cliff's We Don't Talk Anymore, giving him his tenth Number One, a mere 21 years after his chart debut. To do this, he had to knock the Boomtown Rats off the top spot and expose the oft-repeated lie of Punk having blown away the older generation.
Granted, I Don't Like Mondays was hardly Punk and Cliff was only eleven years older than Bob Geldof at the time.
And the weird thing is he's still only eleven years older than Bob Geldof.
At last, we get the showdown on Tatooine, even if I do keep reading that blurb as, "Slowdown on Tatooine." I like the idea of a slowdown on Tatooine. It's not good to have too much excitement in your life.
Elsewhere, the Guardians of the Galaxy are still on the planet that resembles New York, and are now arousing the wrath of the locals.
I don't have a clue what's going on in the Star-Lord strip but I do know that, in this issue's Tales of the Watcher, astronaut Derek Wolfington finds himself up against Kraggoom the cloud monster who bears a remarkable resemblance to Diablo the smoke monster, recently seen battling the Hulk.
Speaking of the Hulk, that behemoth finds himself up against Xemnu the Titan, who was the one who set Diablo on him in the first place.
It's a good job our hero didn't have to face Kraggoom as well. If Derek Wolfington couldn't stop the thing, what chance would the Hulk have?
This exciting climax features the US military happily depth-charging the dam which contains Xemnu's base.
Isn't depth-charging a dam somewhat irresponsible? Wouldn't huge numbers of people be killed by its destruction?
Elsewhere, in another dimension. Merlin disposes of a dark god, as the Black Knight tries to return Captain Britain from the dead.
High on a hilltop, we get to meet the Russian-based Eternals. Needless to say, they're as smug and glib as all the others of their species.
We also get the conclusion of the tale about what would have happened if Rick Jones had become the Hulk. For once, there's an actual happy ending.
And I still don't have a clue what Nick Fury's up to.
This is it! Spidey's climactic battle with Carrion and his homicidal amoeba!
Meanwhile, the Watcher asks, "What if someone else had become Nova?" Daredevil meets the Torpedo, Odin's still on Earth, in mortal form, and the Thing teams up with Skull the Slayer, in order to fight a bunch of dinosaurs and try to convince us we should be interested in Skull the Slayer.
I, personally, feel the attempt fails.
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22 comments:
Cliff Richards only really had, I think, 2 hits here in the states. If I remember correctly, "We Don't Talk Anymore" was his biggest hit. I got a promo of that album the song was on and it got pawned of instantly to a used shop.
If I recall correctly the Boomtown Rats music video for "I Don't Like Mondays" had dancing poodles in it. That song is my once-a-week theme song. I've read once that Bob Geldof is one of the richest men in England.
One of my pals complained about Geldof playing "Pink" in THE WALL movie."He's not even in the band!" he screamed. I told him it's only a movie, and I thought he did a great job. What was really bad was after the movie came out uninformed folks actually thought that Pink Floyd was a person, not a band. I loved the confused looks on their faces when I set them straight.
By the way, Steve, I don't know if you had anything to do with it, but it's been easy to get onto your site.
I have a bit of vertigo going on because of my head injury, and those bicycles & traffic lights would twist my grey-matter like a pretzel. Lol.
Thanks, oh my brother.
KD, I don't know if there was a different video made for America but the only video I've ever seen for I Don't Like Mondays definitely didn't have dancing poodles in it.
Steve-
Crikey, must've been another one that was playing at the same time when MTV just started and was playing the same 30 videos over & over.
And I was probably really high and/or drunk.
KD, I think you're right about Cliff Richard. He didn't exactly light up the US Billboard Hot 100. That said, I really dug his 1976 hit "Devil Woman". "She's just a devil woman, with evil on her mind". Makes a good pairing with Chef's song "Dark Lady". Aaaaaaand, you could also add Redbone's "Witch Queen of New Orleans". Okay, I'll move on...
Yeah, Redartz, "Devil Woman" was the other hit, I just couldn't remember the title. That wasn't a bad song, for what it was.
Along the lines of music, Mungo Jerry is releasing a new album.
Funny you should have mentioned the Boomtown Rats Steve, as while I'm reading theres a doc on the Beeb about Irish rock music. Boomtown Rats, Thin Lizzy, U2... inflicting them on you lot is fitting payback for centuries of colonialism.
I believe Cliff Richard is originally from India, so maybe theres a bit of karma going on there too...
-sean
Funny... I used to think Iggy Pop was Cliff Richards.
Do you get the Stooges mixed up with the Shadows Charlie?
(Thats not easy to do...)
-sean
Cliff Richard was born in India and his real name is Harry Webb. And "Mistletoe & Wine" is crap but "Saviour's Day" is much better. So there.
Bob Geldof is "one of the richest men in England"? Really? Where did his wealth come from? I can only name three Boomtown Rats songs - Rat Trap, I Don't Like Mondays and Banana Republic.
Yikes! Iggy Pop compared to Cliff Richards?!!
I thought Iggy was a stage name for CLiff, lol. Well anyhow, who in the USA could really keep up with all the innovation happening in the UK before the internet!
Here in the States we had a music show called Solid Gold. It was hosted by Andy Gibb and before/after by Cliff Richards. I'm led to believe Cliff was later, as Gibb got sacked from the show be caused of his drug problem.
I only watched that show a couple of times, when the Plazmatics & Adam and the Ants appeared.
Colin, Geldof is a wealthy media entrepreneur. He made a fortune in the 90s from the sale of a tv production company he co-owned (they made the Big Breakfast I think) and carried on from there.
-sean
I never confused Iggy Pop with Cliff Richards, Charlie. Like the moon landing, I'm not sure how that's possible.
I do think Iggy may be the Bizarro Donny Osmond. Or vice versa.
It's like that Star Trek episode where there's an evil crew of an alternate universe Enterprise that have goatees.
Iggy and Donny do have one thing in common, though: Neither one is currently doing heroin.
I assume.
M.P.
Sean, thanks for that information about "Sir" Bob Geldof - whenever I hear his name I think of three things:
1) The Boomtown Rats
2) Band Aid
3) He's anti-Brexit
KD and MP - it's Cliff Richard NOT Cliff Richards.
I saw Mungo Jerry perform at a wedding in the 80s. Strange times all round.
Mungo Jerry-
As in "In the summer time when the..." Mungo Jerry?
We played that song every month at the Ukulele get together during the summers of the past 3 - 4 years. Eventually one of the lady folks very mildly objected to the lyrics about "if her daddy's poor just do what you feel."
So we stopped b/c we all mildly agreed that we should give each other a little respect regardless of financial status though agreeing that the lyric isn't necessarily implying anything bad.
At least I think we stopped b/c we haven't played it this summer.
But man oh man... the Uke leader keeps us playing these authentic Hawaii Uke songs from decades and decades ago and the lyrics are full of "little brown girls that drive you crazy and you chase along the beach and then when you catch them its all about the huki huki huki" LOL.
I think he was in safer territory with Mungo Jerry!
Wait a minute!!! Was that THE Tim Field writing just above? Used to have the photo with the John Lennon round glasses?
Where you been???
I thought Tim Field's photo was Ian Dury?
Charlie, I too object to those Mungo Jerry lyrics:
"If her daddy's rich take her out for a meal,
If her daddy's poor just do what you feel..."
What does "do what you feel" mean??? If she's poor you can treat her like sh*t apparently - what disgusting lyrics!! I've always loathed that bloody song!
Hey CJ-
Well amongst a bunch of adults, male and female... we agreed the lyric could be rather disgusting.
But at the same time we agreed that with the poor girl there was no need for pretension like having to expensively wine/dine her. I.e., you could just hang out at the bowling alley, drink a Coke and play monopoly, go to a movie...
I.e., the lyric was written when there was still stronger differentiation among the classes of wealth so in a sense you could just have fun with the poor girl instead of forking out big $$$ and go through some elaborate, stiff ritual with the rich girl.
Anyhow, though, at first blush without engaging in any thinking, the lyric sounds disgusting.
But I can't tell you how nervous I get singing about the little brown Hawaiian girls, shaking their hips, chasing them on the beach in old Hawaii. That shit makes me cringe.
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