I Am Not The Beatles

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

As opening lines go, ‘Mum and Dad and Danny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal’ isn’t exactly the catchiest.

But then this isn’t trying to be the catchiest song in the world, deciding instead to make a pretty decent stab at being The Most Bloody Serious. Now I can see no reason why, like the still surprisingly muscular Two Tribes before it, a song about the futility of war can’t be both stupidly catchy and brilliantly serious - but any possibility of this occurring is quickly blown out of the water like an unlucky soldier in an ambush, thanks to the vocalist having the unnerving bad habit of repeatedly indulging in Very Oversincere Talky Bits.

I must point out that I have nothing against Very Oversincere Talky Bits per se - the intro of It’s Raining Men where The Weather Girls explain what unlikely but really rather spectacular news they have to impart is a particularly fine example - but with Redgum it is a little disconcerting to hear the singer successfully plaster a melody onto that unnecessarily overcomplicated first line, only to then apparently give up searching for any other discernible tune to go with it and start Oversincerely Talking by the second line of the entire song.

Indeed, such is the devastating non-impact of this Singy then Talky situation, if you are vaguely distracted when the song begins you would be forgiven for absentmindedly daydreaming a particularly mellow DFS radio advert over the top of it :

‘ (singy) Mum and Dad and Danny went to DFS today to buy a sofa
(talky) Sale now on… open 9 ’til 6…’

What’s The Funniest Bit ?

When he sings, “Then someone yelled out ‘Contact’ … and the bloke behind me swore” as if swearing in a war zone with the constant threat of a pointless and painful death forever surrounding you in the stinking filth of your existence is kind of rare, and this instance of it is therefore worth highlighting. One can only assume that each time someone yelled out ‘Contact’ previously, the bloke behind him just emitted a slightly camp “Oh piddly twiddley widdlesticks.”

Of Which Lyric Is He Most Proud ?

He’s pretty bloody proud of all of it - although you get the feeling that when he wrote the line “Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon”, he probably had to go for a quick lie down on the sofa with some particularly strokable cats - so overcome was he by the literary juxtapositional excitement of it all.

Unfortunately he still manages to cock this bit up though by throwing in yet another Oversincere Talky Bit immediately after it - mumbling ‘He was going home in June…’ in a voice so quiet and deadpan it sounds like he is in the corner of a pub with his mates, and this is the whispered offensively filthy punchline to the dirtiest joke in the world.

Tell Me About The Redgum Tree

The Redgum is a eucalyptus tree prevalent in Australia and famous for it’s honey. Interestingly, the eucalyptus species used to have petals coyly covering the parts of it that required pollination - but then dispensed with them ages ago in the name of evolution and now relies purely on it’s uncovered colourful sex organs alone to attract bees to it. Despite this now rather blatant sex show, the name ‘eucalyptus’ derives from the latin for ‘well covered’ - which means that when this name was conceived it either still had petals dangling rather enticingly over it’s privates, which seems a bit unlikely, or somehow people knew that it definitely used to.

Just as interestingly, the name of the eminently shaggable but sadly mythological greek nymph Calypso has exactly the same derivation (in this case ‘I Will Conceal’) and she thus has the same heady mix of beauty, sexuality and concealment. The difference here though is that Calypso had to cover up her sex organs for the sole reason that she was a woman and if she didn’t, the myth rather misogynistically seems to suggest, she would be asking for it - the dirty minx.

Anyway, these aforementioned Red Gum tree sex organs certainly are a very nice colour and the wood therefore makes some very sexy furniture.

Tell Me About The Redgum Song

To understand it’s full argument we must now visit another myth - not of Calypso but of The ANZAC. Essentially, in 1914 as part of the first world war, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) were sent on a mission to Gallipoli. Unfortunately it all went utterly wrong and ended in defeat. It is widely acknowledged though that this defeat was a pivotal moment in Australian history giving rise to the first feelings of true independent nationhood.

From here the ANZAC myth grew to become an aspirational masculine stereotype for Australian men as whole - involving an extreme masculine physical beauty, nobility of bearing and a bonding with each other known rather Neighboursly as ‘mateship’.

http://www.awm.gov.au/dawn/empire/index.asp

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/stories/s281903.htm

So important was this shift in Australian culture, the landing date of the Gallipoli mission is celebrated each year with the laying of wreaths, the playing of the last post and - most importantly of course - everyone gets the day off :

http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/anzac_tradition.htm

Meanwhile, what does Turkey do when all this is happening on the same day ? They do what any sensible country who won the actual battle would do, and have a nice game of tennis instead :

http://www.anzaclegendscup.com/

‘I Was Only 19′ blames a desire by Australian men to believe the ANZAC myth as the reason why people sign up to the army all these years later, including in this instance the Vietnam war, claiming it mythologises the war process as far away as possible from the grim reality of actually doing unproductive things like getting your legs blown off or shooting other people in the head.

It is based on the true story of the Battle of Long Tan in Vietnam as told to John Schumann (the singer and lyricist) by his brother-in-law, Mick Storen. Pretty much every detail of the lyrics are factually correct from the mention of Puckapanyal and Vung Tau, to the Grand Hotel where soldiers used to unwind of an evening before popping out to shoot a few more people on the following day.

There are photos of the Nui Dat battle taken by somebody who presumably really should have been shooting people instead, here.

Incidentally, it seems I may the only person who finds that line about ‘contact’ and somebody uncharacteristically swearing vaguely amusing - as this very quote is included on a memorial to all the Australians who died at the Battle Of Long Tan on a Wall Of Words in Canberra :

http://www.vietvet.org/aussimem.htm

Does That Make You Feel Slightly Guilty ?

Possibly, but it seems I will never feel as guilty as a chap called Dr Richard Gatling presumably did. He invented the world’s first multi barrel machine gun in 1861 - and his design is still the basis of all machine guns used today.

Why would Richard feel so guilty ? Because the only reason this peace loving baptist invented it in the first place was because he was absolutely convinced people would be so utterly repelled by the carnage and horror his weapon would create, war would become unthinkable and peace on earth would inevitably reign.

Ooops.

Tell Me About The Redgum Band

John Schumann, Michael Atkinson and Verity Truman met on a Politics and Art course in 1975 in Adelaide and were asked by their tutor to contribute to a music project. So incredibly amazed were they all by the genius outcome, the band was born.

It may not surprise you to learn they were all active members of the anti-war movement, and their politicised brand of folk went on to become Very Seriously successful in their native Australia - this song was a number 1 there - until John left the same year this song was released and it disbanded soon afterwards.

http://www.geocities.com/redgum_music/

John initally tried his hand at politics but then went onto become Very Seriously revered as a solo artist, and is about to release an album of Australian songs “either directly or indirectly related to Australian’s at war” with a bloke from Midnight Oil :

http://www.schumann.com.au/john/news.html

Verity now works in local government using a mystery new married name so is currently untraceable, whilst Michael writes music for film and television. If you are a Very Serious Redgum Fan and therefore demand a much more in depth Very Serious Redgum Update, click here.

Finally, what did John Very Seriously describe as “… just not very useful; in fact it’s counterproductive in the final analysis” ?

Yep… INXS.

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : This has a different B-side to the Australian Big Hit version, and is thus worth slightly more : 2 pounds and 96 pence. It doesn’t, however, spin in the opposite direction which is a shame.

Current Profit : 162 pounds and 29 pence. Want to know how poor old Richard’s machine guns work ? http://science.howstuffworks.com/machine-gun4.htm

Supporting Cast Update : Weather Girls, The ; Midnight Oil; INXS

In a day and age where we have grown used to seeing newborn babies emerge from the womb visibly gutted to discover they have been born with hands too small to play Guitar Hero for a good few years yet, it is easy to be apathetic when faced with vulgar and unprincipalled advertising.

This record though is a fucking disgrace.

Don’t Be Cruel…

I am not - but RCA are, as in an incredibly ugly and cynical piece of financial management they have quite plainly kidnapped The Real Judds and replaced them with two heavily made up Girl’s Worlds.

To A Heart That’s True…

I tell you now, these two wouldn’t know the meaning of the word ‘true’ if it was written backwards in lipstick across their foreheads and they were held in front of a mirror - this is because they are made of plastic and don’t have a brain.

That’s Not Really True Is It ?

It bloody well is, just look at the evidence :

First of all there are, rather tellingly, no photographs taken of them below their shoulders – for the very good reason of course that there is absolutely nothing below their shoulders except the table upon which they have just been rather artlessly placed.

Secondly, if you take a look at the back cover you can see their heads have been specially designed to very cleverly slot together and form an almost perfect rectangle - an obvious money saving exercise which will make them brilliantly easy to slip into a suitcase and take onto their own tour as hand luggage.

Finally, the only make up artist these Judd-U-Likes require will be the nearest 12 year old girl in the vicinity – thus saving the record label quite literally thousands of pounds on an entourage. If you are still a bit doubtful about this whole The Judds Have Been Kidnapped theory, then just take look at the front cover again and ask yourself this question : who else, apart from a young child, would choose to apply that slightly wonky and unnecessarily brave shade of green eyeliner on the one on the right ?

Errr… I Know This Song Don’t I ?

You certainly do.

Will I Like This Version ?

It seems unlikely.

Taking the morally dubious backstory into account, Don’t Be Cruel has essentially been morphed into an ice cream van version of the original and revamped into a plea to teenage girls everywhere not to apply silly make up onto the faces of their ever loyal toy. The fact it has already been noted that this is all rather too late for the one on the right means it could be viewed as a plaintive and wonderfully touching call to arms for decapitated plastic heads everywhere – but all this talk of ‘hearts’ and ‘love’ makes it alarming anthropomorphic.

It Does Have A Gap Though, And I Like Gaps.

Yes it does- but please don’t get overexcited by this prospect… it’s only a tiddler.

Oh Well, At Least The Song Only Lasts For 2 Minutes And 20 Seconds.

That’s true – and although that is something to get excited about, my initial outlay of 8 pence means I still paid 0.05 pence per second for this record, which seems a bit steep.

Did The Real Judds Ever Escape Their Captors And Expose This Scam ?

Thankfully yes - but the experience obviously badly affected the two sisters as they split this band up just a few years later. For the years Wynonna and Naomi were together though they did manage to have a rather incredible fourteen number one singles in the US. Unsurprisingly however, this wasn’t one of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Judds

Do you want to watch quite literally the last song The Judds ever played together at their last ever concert ? You can tell it’s The Real Judds because they’ve got legs :

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=VpLk1MaJKNM

Shortly after this performance Wynonna shocked The Entire American Nation when she had a child out of wedlock - she had to make a statement to the press and everything - and then went on to be generally forgiven and have a successful US solo career, perhaps partly due to her new unbelievably straight and sparkly hair :

http://www.wynonna.com

Meanwhile, Naomi - who actually initially retired as she was sadly diagnosed with Hepatitis C - eventually went on to present a Sunday morning religious television show called Naomi’s New Morning :

http://www.faithstreams.com/ME2/Default.asp

Today, like many others before them The Real Judds have just reformed and will play a music festival in California this coming May - they claim they are doing it for one night only so, if you’re a fan, you know what to do :

http://stagecoachfestival.com/

Do You Have A Video Of The Pretend Judds Singing Don’t Be Cruel ?

No.

Suspiciously no video appears to have ever been made, so you’ll just have to make do with Majella singing it instead :

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=NTj3–pAJ04

Were There Any Other Famous Judds ?

Yes, actress Ashley Judd - Wynonna and Naomi’s half-sister :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Judd

She is married to someone I’ve never heard of, and who I only mention because he’s got a brilliant name - Dario Franchitti :

http://www.franchitti.com/

Can You Tell Me A Bit About The History Of This Song Before You Go ?

Ok : The Jordanaires sung backing vocals on the original Elvis version and reprise their role by popping in and doing a few, admittedly brief, nice crisp doo-wops on The Judds version too. It’s the best bit.

Interestingly, Elvis’ original was the first ever single to top all three separate Billboard charts - Pop, Rhythm and Blues, and Country and Western - and it was arranged and recorded immediately after 30 takes of Hound Dog had just been recorded on the same day.

Just like Sudden Sway, he then recorded 8 different versions of this song. Unlike Sudden Sway, however, he only released one of them : version 7 of this song was the one that was used, along with version 28 of Hound Dog.

Now, although it was no doubt physically tiring doing all those takes, it probably isn’t as tiring as just trying to sit through the one version recorded by The Residents :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Be_Cruel

I Want To Buy A Girl’s World

Then you’re a fucking fool. These days they speak :

Click For The Full Horror

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : Some very odd people actually ask for over 10 pounds for a copy of this record. I eventually found somebody a bit more sensible though : 1 pound 56 pence.

Current Profit : 159 pounds and 41 pennies. Yes I know it’s worth nearly nothing, but I am just glad to be going back up again. Hurrah !

Supporting Cast Update : Presley, Elvis; Residents, The; Jordanaires, The

EDIT : Update now available in ‘Corrections and Clarifications’

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Jean Beauvoir has a rather unusual party trick.

When he stands in front of a 100 watt lightbulb, has precisely the right amount of his mum’s talcum powder blown into his face by an industrial strength snow machine, and thrusts his head back as far as it can go thus exposing his voluptuous adam’s apple - the resulting neck shadow on his bedroom wall looks just like the carving of Abraham Lincoln in Mount Rushmore on a scorchingly hot misty morning.

It is a desperate shame the photographer didn’t get quite the right angle, because it really is dreadfully impressive.

What Exactly Is This Heat Jean is Feeling ?

The heat of time passing and the feeling of his own imminent death.

That Sounds A Bit Depressing. Are You Sure ?

Oh yes.

You see, Jean has been dangling his dangly bits in places where they really shouldn’t have been dangled and is feeling slightly bad about the whole scenario. Poor old Jean knows he’s been doing wrong and he wants to stop, but that ever dastardly time has been turning though his mind and he is starting to feel the heat of his own mortality and resulting predictable lonely death.

After a few throaty minutes considering his options however, he eventually decides to have another quick dangle anyway. After all, you only live once don’t you ?

As reasons for infidelity go, it certainly beats ‘I was drunk.’

Can You Feel The Heat ?

Yes I can.

The sure knowledge that - despite the emotional pain we experience on a daily basis - we will all face our own death scared and alone mixed with the fact that within 100 years nobody will know we were ever here, let alone care, is a tough one for us all to face.

Despite this existential angst however, my dangly bits are being very firmly dangled where they should be being dangled thanks very much.

Is Jean Beauvoir His Real Name ?

I was utterly convinced it was a totally made up concoction styled with his own vanity (his surname translates, after all, as beautiful to see) but, no, I was wrong : it’s his real name alright.

I Bet His Story Is Really Dull…

You may find this very very hard to believe - I certainly did - but his story is actually absolutely fascinating.

Jean is apparently of Haitian descent and was born in Chicago. When he was 13 he was so determined to be a performer he lied about his true age and managed to get himself recruited to be the musical director for very successful singer Gary US Bonds (who was so well known in America at that time he actually consistently headlined above The Beatles).

As a result of this, Jean then went on to do shows with such luminaries as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry. As if this wasn’t enough for a thirteen year old, he was then recruited to become the lead singer in an incarnation of The Flamingos (most famous for I Only Have Eyes For You):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flamingos

After this (now at the ripe old age of 15) sensing he hadn’t really achieved that much in his life yet, he moved to New York and joined a band who very quickly turned into the horribly well respected Plasmatics with Wendy O Williams :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plasmatics

http://www.plasmatics.com/

Fastforwarding a few years to Feel The Heat, the album this song came from sold an incredible 1.5 million copies wordwide and Feel The Heat was used as the theme tune for yet another film I’ve never seen : Cobra with Sylvester Stallone.

http://www.joblo.com/arrow/reviews.php?id=935

From hereon in, his life is a who’s who of the corporate rock empire and also an exhaustive lesson in how to make quite literally shitloads of money in the music world. Take a look :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Beauvoir

Brace yourselves though, some of his history does involve Shalamar :

http://www.rathole.com/fireworks/23/4.asp

Anyway, Jean is still with us, no longer has a talcum powder fetish and is obviously stupidly loaded. These days he has a goatee, a very strange pair of eyebrows and no other visible hair to speak of :

http://www.jeanbeauvoir.com/

Gosh. Do You Have Any Dangerously Long Interviews With Jean For Me To Read ?

I certainly do.

If you’ve always wondered how Jean thinks Chameleon compares to Drums Along the Mohawk in terms of his progression as a songwriter (The answer is that he asks himself that very question all the time) - now is your chance to find out :

http://www.the-fuze.com/jean_beauvoir.html

If Jean Hadn’t Written This Song To Tell Me, How Else Could I Have Discovered His Infidelity ?

In her book ‘Is He Cheating On You? 829 Telltale Signs’, Ruth Houston rather unsurprisingly claims there are… 829 telltale signs :

http://www.ishecheatingonyou.com/

I like Ruth, partly because she refers to herself as an ‘infidelity expert’ - which frankly sounds like the best job in the world - but also because she feels the need to point out that ‘No special skills or equipment are needed’.

I also particularly like her advice if you are worried your loved one is secretly shagging your best friend, which is this : if your best friend happens to show you something new like jewellery or lingerie at some vague point after Valentine’s day… always ask them to show you the receipt.

Subtle or what ?

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : Jean maybe mind bogglingly rich but his record is quite literally worthless. There are none anywhere - and I must therefore record our third desperately disappointing minus 8 pence. With this frankly damning outcome he joins the not remotely poncey Latin Quarter and not remotely sexy Georgio… at the bottom of the pile. Oh well, want to hear the 12″ ? If you don’t laugh at some point in the first two minutes - existential angst or not - you are very possibly dead already :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpk_Z1h3As&feature=related

Current Profit : 157 pounds and 93 pence. Bugger. We’ve gone down - and not,as Jean’s front cover is really trying to suggest, in a good way.

Supporting Cast Update : Bonds, Gary US; Diddley, Bo; Berry, Chuck; Flamingos, The; Williams, Wendy O; Stallone, Sylvester

Click above for big pictures, click below to play me…

Sing Song is a song about writing a song.

More specifically, Sing Song is a song about writing a song which is the actual song you are listening to.

In other words, Sing Song is a song about writing this song, Sing Song.

Unfortunately, this song is the same song as the song Sudden Sway are currently singing about writing - they are both one and the same - and how can you start writing a song about writing a song when the original song written about the song you are writing hasn’t been written yet ? Just as worryingly, the song you are currently writing a song about can only appear once you have written the song about writing the song - so if you are not bloody careful you’ll just end up in the pub reminiscing about the song you never got around to writing.

Sudden Sway confront this admittedly tricky problem by very cleverly making the original Sing Song (whichever one that is) into a very silly pop song.

By doing this they can write a lyric of almost total nonsense which not only comments on the genius banality of the very best pop music, but also becomes the very best pop music. This means the song can basically write itself as the best way to write about total nonsense, of course, is by writing total nonsense.

In essence then, this is a song which means simultaneously absolutely nothing whatsoever but also - because silly pop music can rather ironically be the best music to utterly lose yourself within - absolutely everything important to you at that moment.

Sorry…Errr…How Many Songs Called Sing Song Are There ?

Depending upon what you want to believe, there is either just 1 song called Sing Song… or an infinite number of Sing Song’s.

What Are You Going On About ?

Remembering that this Sing Song is subtitled f-a-E-G-s-i-n-g on the record label, the really quite lovely front cover suggests this is in fact version 4 of 8 different songs called Sing Song which (according to the equally brilliant back cover) were all packaged in the same record sleeve and sent randomly to record shops. Thus, the person buying the record would have no idea which version they were buying, or indeed if they’d even heard it before.

Remembering that logically if one song exists about writing a song there must always be another song about writing a song about to be written and vice-versa, there are arguably an infinite number of Sing Song’s all consistently writing both themselves and each other for all eternity.

And herein, one supposes, lies Sudden Sway’s point :

If there is always another song about to be written about writing a song, why not write it yourself ?

And What If The Record Cover Is Lying ?

If that is the case then there is only one song called Sing Song.

This one.

So Is This Sing Song Any Good ?

Luckily, yes.

Taking notes from M’s equally spectacular Pop Muzik (which pulls the same trick as this song by taking the brilliant banality of pop music as it’s subject by writing a song of brilliant banality) it is completely and utterly fabulous.

The back cover repeats the point that brilliantly silly pop music is ironically sometimes the most meaningful stating as it does ‘Permitted Freedom Illusion : Freedom’. ie For the three minutes that a brilliant pop song allows you to immerse yourself within it, there are times when nothing else matters.

Frankly, it seems to be saying, if you don’t thrill at the sound of a grown man straining his vocal chords to order you to do such things as getting ‘busy with your busy whizzy house mouse’ and scream such words as ‘Doggedyheadsticker’ , then I would give up on this whole pop music malarkey altogether if I were you.

Were There Really 8 Sing Song’s ?

A quick run around the internet says that, yes, there really were - and they really were sent randomly to record shops in the same record sleeve. It is worth pointing out that we are not talking about 8 lazy remixes of the same song with no input from the band, but 8 independently recorded songs all with the same song title - with different producers. Adrian Sherwood did one, as did the bloke who used to produce Bucks Fizz.

This would of course have been a totally brilliant marketing exercise if thousands of people obsessively bought lots of them on the off-chance of collecting the set, making the record a bit like a Panini sticker album with that one missing bloody sticker.

Unfortunately for Sudden Sway however… they didn’t.

Either way, this does explain the equally brilliant b-side, entitled Creative Marketing In Eight Dimensions :

In fact, I am so in love with this song after a few listens, I have created this page in it’s honour where you can listen to all 8 of the different songs called Sing Song and save yourself the absolute hassle I just went through to find them.

Where Are Sudden Sway Now ?

Although other band members came and went Sudden Sway seem to be at their core Simon Childs, Pete Jostins and Michael McGuire… and sadly, nobody knows where they have gone.

They were signed to Blanco Y Negro (part of WEA) by a chap called Mike Alway who formed the label after leaving Cherry Red (he then later started el records). He describes WEA allowing him to sign Sudden Sway as ‘indulging’ him in an interview here.

It is possible that Simon played the guitar on a limited edition record made to accompany a fancy book with a print run of just 35 copies called ‘Dust, Dobros, Desert Flowers’ by famous artist Richard Long. The book and record would have cost you over six and half thousand dollars to buy it at the time - but if it is just the record you’re after, a mere 90 dollars will get you a listen these days :

http://www.editionjs.com/img/long/

Whether the Richard Long connection is true or not however, this probably isn’t Simon’s bouncy castle .

On a similar non-inflatably-bouncy art theme, it also possible that Pete played on a record called Placement and Recognition which was published by the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford :

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=801503

But again, whether or not John Simons recently tiled his wet room and kitchen floor with Bisazza glass mosaics is a bit more up for grabs.

Beyond that there is also a web design company called Sudden Sway , a really scary looking man called Michael McGuire who works at Sun Microsystems, and also quite a few internet warnings informing us politely that wind turbulance can make your trailer suddenly sway - but none of that really helps us.

The only legal Sudden Sway you’ll find on the internet is Cherry Red’s re-release of their second album ‘76 Kids Forever which is described as a ’soap opera musical’ here. However, Spacemate (the boxed album which a version of Sing Song was on) has basically disappeared and their third album Ko-Opera is only available secondhand.

Incidentally, Spacemate looks bloody brilliant - take a look at this review from Smash Hits. One of the reasons it looks so good is both that and this lovely single cover were designed by a chap called Jon Wozencroft who later went on to form Touch.

There is a Yahoo group for fans old and new of Sudden Sway if you feel the need for further investigation. All the members seem tremendously nice, and there are scans of some of the Spacemate inserts and lots of other goodies to take a look at :

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/suddensway/

Here is a short article about Sudden Sway, apparently written by the keyboardist from Scritti Politti, with a nice link to their second admittedly odd Peel Session called Hypnostroll :

http://rhodri.biz/cos-e-tech/

And here they are, in dodgy sounding VHS glory, playing on Whistle Test. In a box :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3d7tUs7K7g

” hehe i know the guitarist, hes ma sisters dad livs in scotland” claims one of the comments below it…

Simon ? In Scotland ?

Money Update

Cost : 8 pence

Current Value : This is a bit tricky. The entire point of the exercise was, of course, for nobody to know which particular Sing Song was inside each identical cover and none I could find actually specified their contents. I will therefore just take the lowest price I can find - safe in the knowledge that Sudden Sway’s shenanigans are still being successful over 20 years after they started them : a rather magnificent 5 pounds and 54 pence.

Current Profit : 158 pounds and a single solitary penny. Which made me sing a bit.

Supporting Cast Update : Scritti Politti; Bucks Fizz; Sherwood, Adrian; Long, Richard