Almanac Music: Countdown’s Worst One Hit Wonders
As a teenager growing up in WA there was a right of passage on a Sunday evening, The Winners and Countdown, both on ABC TV.
The Winners was the greatest footy show ever, and after watching, it often led to a quick game in the hallway with rolled up socks.
Countdown I could take with a grain of salt. At times it was like watching a car crash with intoxicated musicians, and its host for that matter. I was also discovering rock and blues music, so much of what Molly Meldrum was dishing up seemed very lightweight and puerile.
I love Molly. He’s self-deprecating, generous and most importantly a die-hard Saints supporter. He did a lot for Australian music but his influence over what was played on TV and radio was all encompassing at the time.
Basically Molly oversaw and promoted some of the worst music I can ever remember and those ‘tunes’ still resonate as occasional ‘ear worms’ to this day.
These are some that regurgitate themselves when I least expect it. (The opinions of the following songs belong to the author and he alone)
- Goosebumps & He’s My #1 – Christy Allen. Christy arrived on Countdown from Perth and was very successful over a short period with these two singles. At the time she was WA’s finest export along with Karen Pini. Rating: Like chewing old bubblegum.
- Get Used To It – Roger Voudouris. Is there anything that better epitomises 70’s pop than this gorgeous looking man with the flowing locks sweating his arse off under a woollen jumper? The song has a stalking narrative but no one cared because you got distracted by the wind on the hair and the microphone work. Rating: Like eating wet cardboard.
- Torn Between Two Lovers – Mary MacGregor . This is infidelity, plain and simple. No redeeming features whatsoever. This made #1 believe it or not. Rating: Like squeezing lemon juice into my eyes.
- Lay Your Love On Me & Some Girls – Racey. These demon spawn were previously clothes dummies in a London department store. I prayed they would spontaneously combust. Rating: Dog poo on toast.
- Before The Next Teardrop Falls – Freddy Fender. Another dodgy narrative based on moving in on a woman while she is in another relationship. Early gaslighting for mine and inexplicably #1 in Australia. Rating: Food poisoning from a dodgy burrito.
- Billy Don’t Be A Hero & The Night Chicago Died – Paper Lace. Another band sent from the UK in the mid 70’s to taint our collective unconscious. Both went to #1. Hang your head in shame Australia. Rating: Rotten as a chop in the midday sun.
- S S S Single Bed – Fox. Noosha Fox was a singer from Sydney who moved to the UK in the early 70’s and sang a song about not having enough room to sleep with her boyfriend. Another #1 and woeful. Rating: Nails down a blackboard then eating those nails.
- My Little Angel – William Shakespeare. Another homegrown #1 was performed by this man in very tight satin pants. There’s something quite inappropriate about this performance on Countdown in front of a studio full of pre-pubescent girls but that’s how it was. In fact he was charged with statuary rape with a 15YO member of his fan club under his real name of John Cave in 1975. Sadly William’s career didn’t have the longevity of his playwright namesake. Rating: A gravel sandwich.
- The Way That You Do It – Pussyfoot. Patti Smith or Joni Mitchell could only dream of writing a masterpiece such as this. Oo Na Na Hya Hya still haunts me to this day. Listening to it now fifty years on, I still feel the same way, wanting to unscrew my skull and suck my brain out with a vacuum cleaner. Rating: A bowl of raw chilli with crushed glass.
More from Ian Wilson can be read Here.
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About Ian Wilson
Former army aircraft mechanic, sales manager, VFA footballer and coach. Now mental health worker and blogger. Lifelong St Kilda FC tragic and father to 2 x girls.
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Sorry, but I actually really enjoyed listening to Billy The Hero and The Night Chicago died, even to this day. I recently played those songs on YouTube and loved it.
As far as The Winners is concerned, as a St Kilda fan, I enjoyed the show and the TV commentary, especially Doug Heywood, Tim Lane and Drew Morphett. However as a St Kilda fan, the Mighty Saints were hardly ever on, because of their position on the ladder. It was terrible 40 years ago when St Kilda ‘won” 4 wooden spoons in a row from 1983-86, and it wasn’t much better between 1974-1982, not to mention the countless wooden spoons before Allan Jeans was St Kilda’s coach.
At least, things improved from 1987 onwards with Plugger Lockett winning the Brownlow Medal and kicking 100 goals. Of course, the draft and salary cap has helped St Kilda now because the team has a fighting chance and Ross Lyon could have easily been a premiership coach in 2009 and the 2010 Drawn Grand Final. St Kilda was also stiff to not win the 1971 Grand Final, having been 20 points up at three quarter time. Let’s hope the Mighty Saints can win their 2nd flag in our lifetime, hopefully sooner than later. The signs are good with Ross Lyon back as coach, his coaching assistants and the best young talent I have ever seen at St Kilda.
Speaking of St Kilda and Countdown, the song “Mickey” was a bit of a shocker too and was heavily promoted on Countdown. However, I suppose it was catchy and former St Kilda player Michael Roberts (the son of St Kilda player and Brownlow medallist, Neil Roberts) and was known as “Mickey” too, was in the audience, when the song was being played. There are too many other terrible Countdown songs to mention.
I can’t believe Molly Meldrum had fainted when St Kilda won the 1966 premiership and he didn’t really see the end of the match. At least he was at the match! Come on St Kilda, win another flag while Molly is still alive. To quote Kanga Kennedy, “Don’t hope, don’t think, do!” Carn The Mighty Saints!
Good work Ian!
My Sharona by the Knack.
Thanks Anon and Go Saints! Barry, My Sharona is coming shortly but I’ve included it in a positive list. Many thanks
Good onya Ian, some old memories combined with some good songs. But maybe you could change the title as some of these tunes, bands, were more than just one hit wonders.
Like Anon I enjoy both the Paper Lace tunes listed. If I’m correct they actually pre date Countdown, which first aired in November 1974.
Christie Allen, Karen Pini, two wonderful sights from Western Australia in the late 1970’s. As a high school student they were certainly of interest to me back then. I had the first copy of Australian Playboy but lost it somewhere over the years, moving house is always a way of losing/finding things.
Mary MacGregor’s 1977 song was a pleasant tune. I used to own the single, but it went the way of the rest of my vinyl: sold for $.
Freddie Fender, with his Tex Mex was OK. Was this his best song? The jury may be out on that but it was his best known.
Noosha Fox’s Sssssssssssssssingle Bed was atrocious in 1976: I doubt if it’s better now. Ditto Pussyfoot with The Way That You Do It. She played a gig on a Friday night in Centre Court at Highpoint West. It would have been January 1977. I was there.
I reckon Shakespeare may have had a couple of charting singles. I thank the judge for having the final say there.
Anon, what was wrong with Toni Basil’s Mickey? It was a silly, happy song from another time.
The Winners was good. More ‘serious’ than the World Of Sport footy coverage, probably more in depth also. Happy memories of that sort of TV.
Keep them coming Ian, these are good reads.
Glen!
You’re right Glen. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned Mickey. Maybe, when I first heard it, I didn’t like it because it was a different sort of sound but I guess the song grew on me and as mentioned, it’s very catchy. To be honest, I probably like it more now than back then. Sorry for being previously harsh on Toni Basil song’s Mickey. I can’t believe Toni Basil, is now 80 years old, born in 1943, like Moll Meldrum, but Molly is now 81. Toni Basil looked even younger than her 37 years of age, when Mickey was released. In hindsight, I was probably clutching at straws to name bad one hit wonder songs, on Countdown that hadn’t been mentioned, or maybe other songs were so bad for me at the time, that I just forgot their titles or simply didn’t want to remember their titles, or I never knew the name of the song at the time because I would tune out when those songs were being played.
To be honest, I know I’m probably in the extreme minority and they were one of the most successful groups of all time, but I honestly disliked the song “Bohemian Rhapsody”, when it first came out. Maybe, I just didn’t like the different “opera” sound of Queen, to the tunes that I really liked at the time. Maybe, too, I was also jealous that “Bohemian Rhapsody” would knock songs like “Fernando”, from number 1 on the charts. Like many people, I was a big Abba fan, at the time.
I just think it’s great for music too that ladies like Blondie (Deborah Harry, 78, 79 in July) and Cher (77, 78 in May) are still singing well. I had crushes on both of them growing up. There are many other examples of well known singers still singing today.
Like yourself, I also thought Mary McGregor’s “Torn Between Two Lovers” was a pleasant tune and I also didn’t mind Racy’s “Some Girls” and “Lay Your Love On Me”. I also thought “My Little Angel”, was Ok. A happy chorus in the song.
Thanks Glen as always cheers
Hi Ian
Love the premise and it’s easy to agree with a number of the songs you have put forward.
I had all but forgotten Christie Allen and like you, being from Perth, no she wasn’t our ace. Considering that around the same time Dave Faulkner, Kim Salmon, Dave McComb and his gang, the core of INXS and Dave Warner were all about to explode, along with many, many more.
I do want to throw in my two cents re Freddy Fender. Far from being a one-hit wonder, he had a number of big hits (Wasted Days and Wasted Nights) and played with Doug Sahm in the Texas Tornadoes and members of Los Lobos in Los Super 7. He is seen as one of the breakthrough Mex-Tex artists and that creative input has really opened up rock, country and RnB.
As for the song, I don’t know that it is as you describe it, “another dodgy narrative based on moving in on a woman while she is in another relationship”. I hear it as a song about unrequited love, which is a deep well across popular music genres including and especially the blues. It’s a great song, still melts my heart when I listen to it today. Written almost 10 years before Freddy took a shot at it and invigorated it with the Spanish twist, as well as his heartfelt delivery. Cowritten by Ben Peters (check out his songs, he’s pretty good) and Vivian Keith the lyrics reflect a respectful distance, with fingers crossed. It’s been covered countless times by great male and female artists including Loretta Lynn, Dolly and Candi Staton. But there isn’t a better version than Freddy’s.
And I agree with others on this thread, the Paper Lace songs while lightweights are still good pop songs.
I’d easily replace the three songs discussed here with Daryl’s abysmal song, Old Sid, the Leig Garrett cardboard cover of a Beach Boys classic, and Marty Rhone or Harpo.
Cheers
Cracker writing! Ahh, the subjectiveness of music. While, as an adult, I cringe at most all of these, as a little boy, the sort Countdown was made for, I didn’t mind a few of them. Liked a couple, even., It’s all relative.
Indeed, I am going to try a few out on my 6 year old girl. She will love them! So… thanks! (Have you just perpetuated your torture by digging them up again? Imagine if this snowballed, and they all became hits again.)
P.S. My understanding of the Fox song was that the man wants to stay over, and she is brushing him off. “Sorry mate, all I’ve got is a single bed.”
Thanks for this, Willo.
For me, Countdown was good entertainment for the early teen demographic in particular; in that context, it wasn’t to be taken too seriously. I figured this even when watching it as a teenager myself. In more general terms, though, the show did do a great deal for Oz music, and a range of international artists.
Regarding your choice of ‘Countdown stinkers’ (my term, of course), most I actually liked, even if only for a few days! After all, a big proportion of pop/soft rock music is meant to be throwaway fun.
Thanks heaps Gents. It is very much a tongue in cheek list and I appreciate the feedback.
Rick you left out Dom Mariani and The Stems also. A fine group of artists coming through for sure. I have a friend who challenged me over Freddy Fender also so I stand corrected. Those other suggestions are spot on and woeful thanks!
Matt I reckon many of these will get recycled at some stage, God help us! It isn’t all negative. I’ve written another blog coming out this week with a pick of 10 x quality one hit wonders. Be interested to see what you think mate cheers
Kev I understand it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously but I was a serious young insect with my music! We didn’t have much money so when I spent money on an album had to be specific and it was usually Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or The Stones. After listening to them, Countdowns Top 10 suddenly felt insignificant. OK I might have tapped my feet to a few for a couple of days but that’s it! Hope you enjoy the next list this week mate. Many thanks
To be fair to Molly, I distinctly recalling him really bagging Freddie Fender and that track, which was so out of character for Molly that people were surprised.
Christie Allen passed away at a relatively young age, I believe.
Yes Smoke Christie had cancer and passed away too early. I had an annoying social studies teacher in year 9 who was a doppelganger for Freddie so whenever he rightly threw me out of class I’d sing that song whilst parked outside on the verandah of the demountable classroom. Probably added to my dislike of the song. ?
If there was crap on the Top 40 in the mid-seventies (and there certainly was, and I disagree with none of the examples you give), I believe in Melbourne at least it had more to do with the stranglehold 3XY had on the Youth radio market , and its extremely limited week to week playlist (25 songs max out of their Top 40, plus their half dozen hand-picked ‘Hitbounds’). Meanwhile KZ had a much wider catalogue, and the American Top 40, but struggled to dent XY’s audience.
Effing Joe Dolce
I agree with your choices, Ian, though God knows, Torn Between Two Lovers surely has to take the suspect sandwich. But your prizes – now they are true poetry!
Cheers
Jane
Thanks for this Ian. Great fun. For me musically public enemy number one or given that I was fourteen puberty enemy numero uno was Video Killed the Radio Star. I can’t explain why but there was likely some contextual upset around the first time I saw it on countdown in 1981. If it were released today, it’d be titled, TikTok Killed The Radio Stars excepting the execrable Kyle and Jackie O.
Not sure if Billy Swan’s ‘I Can Help’ should be in this list or the other one.
Years later Molly skited that he was much more hip than Brian Henderson because while Brian played Little Pattie, Molly played her edgier cousin Christine Amphlett!
Really Molly? Abba, Sherbert, Wings, Billy and Elton, Pretty Johnny, LRB. The guy was so middle of the road you could paint a yellow line down his tummy!
Anything political, Midnight Oil, Bob Marley, the English version of Nina’s 99 Red Balloons got short shrift from Molly and his gang…