Gloria Gaynor's disco hit I Will Survive was originally seen as a female empowerment anthem, although in recent years it has also been embraced by the LGBT community for its message of not giving up even when it seems like the whole world's against you. Apparently the American Library of Congress selected it to be included in the National Re cording Registry as a track that is "culturally, historically, or artistically significant". And who am I to argue with any of that? It's a fine song...
There are plenty of interesting cover version around though, which take the song way beyond its disco roots. For example, there's the country version...
And this, which is apparently Gloria Gaynor's least favourite version, because it's a bit too sweary (edited here to make it more radio friendly). I was always very fond of this cover though...
I grew up listening to Terry
Wogan. He was a warm and friendly voice on the radio; he often made me
laugh, sometimes till I cried; and like all the best DJs, he introduced
me to some great records. Here's ten that will always remind me of old
Tel...
The only pop song I know that mentions Terry by name, and that's what drew my attention to Franz Ferdinand in the first place. It's about a band starting out and dreaming of a better future - including an interview on Wogan.
So I'm on BBC2 now, telling Terry Wogan how I made it
What I made is unclear now, but his deference is and his laughter is
My words and smile are so easy now
Yes, It's easy now
Yes, It's easy now
It's a curious, dreamlike interlude in the song which doesn't quite fit with the rest, but that's what makes it great. It certainly helped lift Franz Ferdinand a step above other turn-of-the-century guitar bands like the Libertines, though I'm not sure they ever did anything so self-consciously odd again.
I resisted including The Floral Dance or any of Terry's own musical recordings (although he did have a damned fine voice and if you can track down his duet with Cerys Matthews on Que Sera Sera, recorded for Children In Need a few years back, you'll be amazed), but I couldn't resist this. For many years, Ray Moore presented the show before Terry on Radio 2. Moore was a quiet, very well spoken gentleman representative of the old school BBC, with a wickedly subversive sense of humour (much like Tel himself). Somehow, Moore's jokey charity record based on a rhyme from his Liverpudlian childhood reached #24 in the charts in 1986. Sadly, he died of cancer in 1989, but not before being reunited with his old radio sparring partner one last time...
When I posted my initial reaction to Terry's death with the video for my #2 song, saying how it always reminded me of Terry, my old pal Sally responded immediately that she agreed... and then mentioned Billie Jo Spears. A few weeks back, I picked up a Billie Jo CD in the local charity shop and was surprised by how many of them I remembered... from a long, long time ago. My misspent youth: listening to Terry Wogan on the wireless.
Any excuse to play some Glen (and Jimmy Webb). I thought about crowbarring the Greatest Record Ever Recorded in here again, but it's Rhinestone Cowboy, not Wichita Lineman, that reminds me more of Terry.
I guess I can trace my love of country music to Sir Terence. While rock and indie and alt-everything else came later, Radio 2 was the station I listened to as a small child, and Terry introduced me to many of my favourite country singers.
Apparently, the album this comes from was Terry's all-time favourite 33 1/3. I didn't know that till compiling this post, but I did know the song... thanks to Tel.
Clifford T. Ward slips into the Nick Drake category - a heartbreaking singer-songwriter too shy and retiring to play the fame game. One listen to this song will tell you he could have been massive... if he'd had the confidence.
Written by Randy Newman, who only does film scores these days, this was the theme to the second Babe film, Pig In The City. Getting Peter Gabriel to record it along with Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains and the Black Dyke Mills brass band lifted it beyond the schmaltz of its roots, turning it into something really quite moving. When Terry appeared on Desert Island Discs, he chose this as the favourite of all his selections.
The record that was at Number One in March 1972, the month I was born. A couple of weeks later, Terry Wogan took over the Radio 2 breakfast show and became the most recognisable radio voice of my childhood. And he played this song a lot...
Another favourite of Tel's, for obvious reasons as it's about a morning radio jock who's feeling his age. There's a radio edit of the song that ends a little happier than the album version, but I'm sure Terry used to play the original, sadder version. (I might be wrong: my memory makes its own rules.) Hearing this song on Terry's show when I was a kid introduced me to the late great Harry Chapin and I've been a fan ever since.
1. Hoyt Axton - Della & The Dealer
I've been wanting to feature this song here for a while. It's a longtime favourite of mine and I know for certain it was Terry who introduced me to it. I've never heard anyone else play it on the radio, and I'm not sure I'd have heard of Hoyt Axton (beyond his most famous role as Zach Galligan's dad in Gremlins) otherwise. It was the first song that came to mind when I heard about Terry's death, so it makes Number One today...
If that cat could talk, what tales he'd tell,
About Della and the Dealer and the dog as well.
But the cat was cool,
And he never said a mumblin' word...
Good night, Terry. Dallas wouldn't have been the same without you...
Many years ago, I remember reading an article arguing that this was the worst song Sir Thumbsaloft had ever recorded. Personally, I disagree - and not just because he's done much worse things over the last 30 years. Listening to it again now, I think he accidentally created the soundtrack to a lot of ZX Spectrum games in the 80s... and a fair bit of early 90s dance music obviously used this track as a template.
A lost punk gem from 1979 New York. Not really sure why Joy's got it in for this particular secretary, except the lady in question won't seem to put her calls through...
Get it straight, yer boss is a jerk
He pays you like a peon and he treats you like dirt
If you're good he'll send you away, down to Miami for a week with no pay...
A little gender equality: here Stuart Murdoch plays a male secretary who gets eaten alive by his new female boss. She's got an out tray full of guys...
Another classic story song from the late, great Harry C, one of the best midlife crisis records I've ever heard. A tragic tale of a middle aged man risking everything for a misguided fling with his secretary...
God damn, I'm one crazy mixed up mixture of a man...
Probably the best song purely about the perils of being a secretary... it should really be Number One, but I follow my own weird rules round these parts, which is why these lists are nothing more than internet detritus. Don't take them seriously...
In this building there's a crowd of guys with old familiar thoughts upon their minds
That's a lot of hands a reaching out to grab the things that I consider mine
And the president pursues me even though he's old and hair a turnin' white
Mr Walker it's all over I don't like the New York secretary's life!
Justin Currie's ode to mundane loneliness only features secretaries in its opening lines, but it remains one of the best singles of the 80s in my humble opinion... I'd feature it here every week if I could.
Post office clerks put up signs saying 'Position Closed' And secretaries turn off typewriters and put on their coats...
1. Dolly Parton - 9 To 5
Although the movie focused on rebellious secretaries, the song itself could be adopted by any working Jo (or Joe) who spends their life just putting money in the boss man's wallet...
They let you dream Just a watch 'em shatter You're just a step on the boss man's ladder But you got dreams he'll never take away In the same boat with a lot of your friends Waitin' for the day your ship'll come in And the tide's gonna turn And it's all gonna roll you away
