O8
BABY CAN
I HOLD YOU
TRACY CHAPMAN
To commend Boyzone
for services to music is
not a role anyone will
accept enthusiastically, but giving
this song a huge new audience
in 1997 only brought home
how crazy it was that Tracy
Chapman’s gorgeous, simple,
intimate original only reached
No.94. And in 1988, too, the
year when her performance at
the Nelson Mandela 70th
birthday concert seemed set to
make her a lifelong superstar.
O4
JOHNNY AND MARY
ROBERT PALMER
It perplexingly would
be common for
Robert Palmer’s
best-known singles to dodge the
Top 40. With the release of the
Clues album he had stashed
away his bluesy beginnings and
embraced the electronic sound.
Yet the strongest single stalled
at 44, despite having everything
the new wave of 1980
demanded – arty synth
groove, political lyrics,
and Palmer’s
unique allure.
O7
LET’S GO TO BED
THE CURE
A 1982 standalone
single written as an
antidote to their dark
album Pornography, and while
shade remained more important
than light to The Cure, this perky,
suggestive record was
unquestionably one of the best
singles of their early years.
Sunny and funny with great
lyrical imagery and a lovely ‘will
they, won’t they’ motif in the
chorus until the authoritative title
removes all ambiguity, it
bafflingly peaked at No.44.O3
CARS AND GIRLS
PREFAB SPROUT
One of the era’s great
composers, a crowning
glory of Paddy
McAloon’s art was this waspish
critique of the small number of
songwriting topics used by Bruce
Springsteen. No.44 in 1988
was scant reward for such a
courageous subject matter and
vivid arrangement which was
one of a smattering of tracks
targeting US culture. Later
familiarity was enhanced
by inclusion on umpteen
driving compilations.O6
SUNSHINE ON LEITH
THE PROCLAIMERS
Green and white
scarves twirl jubilantly
to this emotional Celtic
paean every time the brothers
Reid’s team, Hibernian, wins a
home game, and had another
stadium’s worth of buyers picked
up a copy back in 1988 it would
have got beyond its lousy,
luckless No.41 peak. With
rousing, tears-to-triumph prose
and simple production, disliking
it feels totally inconceivable,
unless you happen to be a
Hearts season ticket holder.O2
TEMPTED
SQUEEZE
Arguably the finest
Difford and Tilbrook
song of them all,
making its No.41 peak in 1981
all the more bewildering. Sung
from the view of a two-timing
man whose important airport
trip is a metaphor for running
away from his guilt, it worked
via an unusual three-way
vocal led by Jools Holland’s
replacement Paul Carrack –
and is regarded by the
composers as the first track they
wrote for grown-ups.O5
CHOCOLATE GIRL
DEACON BLUE
Fresh to the scene
with two minor chart
successes, this third
single followed Deacon Blue’s
early pattern of bluesy pop
songs using conceptual,
illustrative lyrics. This tale of a
wannabe lothario whose
principles hold him back became
a regular play on the radio and
a long-term live favourite, but
stalled at No.43 in 1988. It was
the Glasgow band’s only single
of the 80s not to make the
Top 40.O1
SUMMER OF ‘69
BRYAN ADAMS
The modern ubiquity of
Bryan Adams’ nostalgic
soft metal anthem would
put some million-selling No.1
singles to shame. In 1985, its
peak at 42 may not have been
surprising, as two of the previous
three singles had barely scraped
into the Top 40 themselves. Still
the Canadian’s most accessible,
tuneful record, it also educated
his new fans of the 90s that he
wasn’t actually a maudlin
balladeer, but a proper,
guitar-wielding rock star.