Monday 25 July 2022

Celebrity Jukebox #13: Patrick McGoohan


Number 13 in this series might seem unlucky, unless we go with someone who resolutely refuses to be a number, because he is a free man!

Despite a movie career that includes Ice Station Zebra, Braveheart and Scanners (the one with the exploding heads, kids) Patrick McGoohan will always be better remembered for his TV roles, first as Danger Man, and then as The Prisoner. Despite the fact that the former ran for 86 episodes and the latter only 17, it's Number 6 who became an icon, not John Drake from Danger Man (although some people believe they're one and the same, and that The Prisoner was a continuation of the earlier show... although McGoohan himself has poured cold water on this idea). Let's not go any deeper into all that, otherwise we could be here all day.

The influence of The Prisoner was fell across all genres of popular music, from heavy metal...


...to dance...

  
...to rap...


...to indie...


But what about Patrick McGoohan himself? 

I found three songs that mention him by name, though they're all inextricably connected to The Prisoner.
 
First, try a blast of 90s ska from Brixton...


Do you remember when you used to go bopping
You would sit back down to watch Batman and Robin
All those silly crazy things that you thought you were doing
Coz you used to watch the Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan

Then a little alt-rock from Boston...


And with luck I'll be drugged and dragged to a Village ocean view
Lazy afternoon down on the terrace
Playing chess with sexy Number Two
Maybe I'll present my lighter
and suggest you burn my file
I'll be Patrick McGoohan resigned to Number Six landscaped exile

Both pretty good, but Edward Ball was always going to win this one... with a little help from the Spencer Davis Group, I think. This is from 1982...

The Times - I Helped Patrick McGoohan Escape



3 comments:

  1. To add a bit of film trivia - Patrick McGoohan also starred in the 1976 movie "Silver Streak" along with Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor and Rich Kiel who played Jaws in one of the Bond films. Patrick played the baddie.

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    Replies
    1. I started searching for Richard Kiel songs. Didn't get very far.

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  2. Good to see Number 6 grace these pages! A little while back when the Horror channel aired the whole series of The Prisoner we recorded all the episodes so we could dip back into it at a leisurely pace, having not seen it since the '80s. Not sure I'll ever fully understand some of the plots but oh, the style! And of course The Times song, which I first heard on a great and very memorable '80s comp album 'A Splash Of Colour' - it led me down a whole new avenue of musical exploration back then, great stuff. Paisley days!

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