Another of the good lady’s favourites. (I didn’t buy this one though, even if it is a piece of perfect jaunty pop.)

Another of the good lady’s favourites. I bought the album Too Low For Zero for her Christmas on the basis of this.

The track is an almost perfect latter day popular song, with a great Stevie Wonder harmonica solo. I especially liked the lyrical echoes of Amoreena from Tumbleweed Connection.

It’s also unusual in the John canon for giving a writing credit to Elton’s long time guitarist Davey Johnstone.

Elton wears a wig with a quiff in this. It suits him!

You may have noticed my Live It Up posting this week came today (Thursday) rather than the usual Friday.

That’s because tomorrow is a sigificant anniversary of a certain event; one that this blog could not let go past unmarked.

This one’s a bit of a cheat since it was recorded in 1958; as the names referenced in the lyric attest. It wasn’t a hit in the UK till 1985 though, on the back of a TV advert, so fits the category.

It’s also one of the good lady’s favourite tracks. I remember buying the 12 inch for her.

The accompanying video here has an interesting cartoon.

Another song that was used in a TV series – written specially for it – was Jethro Tull’s Coronach, the theme tune for a Channel 4 series on British History called Blood of the British. I liked it so much I bought the single. As I recall Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow was the B-side.

Edited to add:- I just found my original embedding was of a video that had been taken down. I’ve swiched it for a new one which shows views of Scotland – starting with St Andrews Cathedral.

From 1981.

The saxophone solo here is simply brilliant but the song also contains what is either the best or worst line ever in a lyric, “I spill my tea. Oh, silly me.”

The sax solo was used as a theme tune for a TV series later in the 80s. As I recall the series was set in a Welsh town with a lighthouse, but an internet search using those terms hasn’t been revealing.*

*Edited to add:- I had a sudden thought that it was actually a lifeboat, not a lighthouse; so it may have been this, from 1994.

Another one from 1980.

Cliff Richard with the frankly stalkerish Carrie.

Prelude’s only other hit apart from their cover of Neil Young’s After the Goldrush (see Reelin’ in the Years 31) came in 1980.

This is another Top of the Pops appearance. (The fadeout on the actual record lasts an extra minute!)

The place The Troggs had for me in the 60s and Sweet in the early 70s was taken by Marillion in the early 80s.

Marillion have been forever tagged with the Prog Rock label and while their first songs – especially the 17 minute long Grendel and most of the debut album Script For a Jester’s Tear – fit that bill (which was why I got into them in the first place) by the time of Fugazi they had mainly moved on to a more guitar based rock sound.

Their initial success, though, shows that Prog wasn’t as moribund a genre as its detractors would have had it.

Mind you their third and fourth LPs, Misplaced Childhood and Clutching at Straws were those most Prog of things, concept albums (though arguably one concept album spread over two releases.)

I think I first saw them on television on The Oxford Road Show (who remembers that!) when this was one of the songs they played. Despite it being from Fugazi there is still a hint of Prog and echoes of Genesis.

This clip, though, is from Top of the Pops. Check out Fish – with hair!

Having said there weren’t many protest songs in the 1980s this is another one – of sorts. It was performed by the Hull based Housemartins (out of whose demise came both The Beautiful South and Fat Boy Slim.)