MIDDLE OF THE ROAD – "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep"

They were Scottish and therefore had eight sodding number ones in Scotland, including “Rainin’ And Painin'” which was painful.

“CCCC” allegedly written by Ken Stott’s aunt, btw.

Well yes extremely trite and undemanding if you’re an adult but great fun for kids. My two mini terrorists love this and the last number one – so they do function on at least one level, in fact thanks to this blog they have a compilation of bubblegum hits from this period that they love to bits.

Did Kenickie cover this for some sort of Lamacq-sponsored charity affair? Or is that just an indie-boy wet dream?

My four year old LOVES the Lush version. Sings it over and over and over and over and over. Like the original wasn’t repetitive enough.

Thanks for clearing up the Stott mystery.

Mention must of course also be made of Denim’s song “Middle Of The Road” at the end of which Lawrence paraphrases CCCC, and I think he captures the sadness at the essence of this song very well.

There is also a noticeable lyrical overlap (in the chorus) with another number one from a decade later.

Don’t quite see the Vietnam subtext in “Dick-A-Dum-Dum,” mind.

What the bleep is “fragging”?

Can someone confirm the Harold Stott/Harley story?

Must say I always thought this was awful, and the band did have smaller hits with better songs (“Soley Soley”, “Tweedledee Tweedledum” – well, relatively better). Mainly, though, this brings to mind the image of TOTP dancers doing that archetypal early 70s dance best described as “trying to break out of an invisible bubble” – the one that all the dolly birds were doing in that club George Best strode into to fill the stack of champagne glasses in the clip included in every obituary. (a year ago this weekend. R.I.P.)

Hurricane Smith, now yer talkin’!

Huh. This pretty harmless as these things go. Catchy enough. Keep hearing “The Locomotion” in the verses. I do have to admit that each one of these minor bubblegum hits does make me appreciate Tom’s take on “Sugar, Sugar” more – the Archies still bug me, but I’m starting to yearn for that layering-up of elements and hooks. Here we just get them in steady alternation without any variation in arrangement or timbre. Good, could be better.

Best bit is Ken Andrews’ deadpan cymbal on every fourth beat of the chorus!

OK, first heard this song not in this version but in a mix-and-match dance remix on a cheap cassette out of Singapore. Vastly better; hearing it, you’d realize what a fundamentally great song it is. Probably wasn’t actually recorded/mixed in Singapore but in Italy or Germany, which is where the East Beat Singapore pirates pulled a lot of their material; in fact, I think the draggy old Middle Of The Road’s version was also recorded in Italy. Anyway, Tom, just want you to know there’s an amazing version out there, unfortunately I don’t know whom by. This is terrible compared to that one – no wonder Mama’s gone. She’s bored. But still, this is such a great tune it’s at least a 7 in any version not sung by barking dogs. Also, the disparity between word and melody is truly bizarre.

But still, this is such a great tune it’s at least a 7 in any version not sung by barking dogs.

clearly the barking dogs version would be a 10?

In reply to “bramble” November 2006.
I Knew Lally Stott having lived only a few miles away from him in St.Helens Merseyside, he came from Shore Lane Prescot between St.Helens & Liverpool. Lally went living in Italy and became a big pop star there and married the daughter of a high ranking official, possibly the head of the milatary forces,Lally had a massive hit with Chirpy in Italy but his was a much slower version. He then divorced and returned to England and lived with his mother in Prescot. He bought himself a Jaguar but on that fateful day he borrowed his mothers moped to quickly go on an errand to Prescot and was knocked off the moped and killed. The biography of Middle of the Road group going to Italy and recording the song sounds feasable considering the writer Lally was living there at the time. However, to my knowledge he never owned or rode a Harley Davidson, he was not really into motor bikes so I don’t think the story about him being killed on a Harley is correct, thinking about it,in those days you could ride a moped with “L” plates using a car licence, you only needed a motor bike one for anything over 250cc at that time.

Incorrect. Their first hit single after their cover of “CCCC” was “Sugar Candy Kisses” in January 1975, which was not only not written by Abba (it was another Bickerton/Waddington production) but charted nine months after “Waterloo.”

Again, not quite the case; the Sweet Dreams version charted in July ’74, three months after “Waterloo.”

Sweet Dreams were in fact a very controversial duo; one of them was ex-Pickettywitch singer Polly Brown who blacked up for photos and TV appearances since we weren’t supposed to know it was her. The record still went top ten but there was a huge outcry about the blacking up and it pretty much killed Polly’s career stone dead; witness the brilliant “Up In A Puff Of Smoke” which came out under her own name three months later and petered out after peaking at #43.

On the Radio Clyde Tartan Thirty show they used the “going up, going up, going up up UP” bit as a jingle to indicate that a record was, erm, going up the chart.

I remember J Saville always comparing this lot to Abba – cos they had a run of number Euro number ones and a blonde haired singer, I guess. Came and went sharpish in England but Marcello I’m intrigued by these Scottish charts. Were they published anywhere?

Quick look at the Norwegian chart book reveals CCCC was no.1 for 12 weeks, Soley Soley for 7 and Sacramento for 9! Bigger than Abba (well, for a bit) who only ever managed two no.1s in Frida’s homeland.

No.2 watch: Hurricane Smith’s Don’t Let It Die – first eco hit?

No.4 watch: John Kongos’s He’s Gonna Step On You Again was the first drum loop on a hit record, and still sounds dark and thrilling.

I heared “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” for the first time in as long as I can remember. I thought it was awful. So repetative. The same lines over and over again. It sounds like it was written and recorded in 10 minutes. Even the title to the song is dodgy. I don’t like bad mouthing songs, by the way.

I remember CCCC when it went at or near what you Brits would call “top of the pops” in the early Seventies. It was inescapable on WFHG-Bristol, Virginia.

I despised the song then; but like so many things, the ludicrous, with time, comes back as camp.

A few months ago I was listening to Chicago’s FM station “Jack 104.3,” slogan “We Play What We Want” (as long as it’s from post-1970 and/or alternative). They played “Manamana,” a total nonce song consisting only of the world “Manamana” with rhythm and first and funilly peformed, as far as I know, on the Muppets’ syndicated TV show which aired here in 1971. That became “alternative” music! I loved the song and the concept! BTW you should find the vid on a Dutch website; we did.

“CCCC” by a power-rock girl group? What do y’all think? – al, chicago illinois USA

very interesting bloke Hurricane Smith: World War II bomber crew member, named himself after a film title,Beatles engineer (nicknamed ‘Normal’ by John Lennon), early Pink Floyd producer, making it as a pop star at 50, made his last record in the mid-noughties when he was in his early 80s when he was still appearing at Beatles conventions

quite liked his 3 UK hits as evocative of the early 70s for me as Dickie Davies on “World Of Sport” at Saturday dinnertimes, the Flaxton Boys, Esso Blue adverts and the disabled bloke coming round in his invalid carriage selling eggs and football coupons.

He named himself after a 1942 film remade at least twice subsequently – in my 7 year old mind I used to get him confused with Hurricane Higgins who also broke through in 1972!

Yes I know the band were called Middle of the Road and the song was called CCCC, but I missed the edit deadline. Told you I was a moron!

As a child I thought this song was sung by a black soul band and it was about an african american family in the south of America, when they woke up in the morning their mother had been lynched. I listened to it over and over.. I found out today that it is about a baby bird in a nest…..I feel like a part of my personality was shaped through the sadness I felt in hearing this song. I still find it to be a VERY sad song….