CAPTAIN SENSIBLE – "Happy Talk"

This is not even ironically funny, I’m afraid. Sensible appears to be saying: “Look at me. I’m doing ‘South Pacific’!” but actually he isn’t. He’s just being a pillock.

I knew this song because we had the film soundtrack album at home and the original of this particular song, sung in pidgin English, is a lot better than this, which was clearly pitched as a comedy record. As Tom says, the presence of The Dolly Mixtures was this record’s saviour but I can’t really understand who would have bought it, as it fell between several stools and stands alone as being just plain bad.

Btw, I have often wondered how many Liverpool fans realize that their renowned dirge is, like “Happy Talk”, from a Rogers and Hammerstein musical. I would expect that the majority (even the older vintage) will swear blind that it originated with Gerry. I could be ruder about this but I am mindful of the date.

# 3 “Btw, I have often wondered how many Liverpool fans realize that their renowned dirge is, like “Happy Talk”, from a Rogers and Hammerstein musical.”

Cheap shot and don’t try to diguise it ! I think you’ll find that we are more aware than you give us credit for.

I’d never heard of The Damned at the time, and found this deeply irritating. Probably still would – I’m too lazy to find out. Quite liked ‘Wot’; even the spelling made me laugh. Still does a bit, but that’s an issue I’ll have to work through alone.

Its not surprising you had a copy of the South Pacific OST, it still holds the record for most weeks at no.1 for an album. And Happy Talk in the original is pitched a touch as a slightly dodgy pidgin pastiche – pity for Rogers and Hammerstein cos the musical itself touches some very daring race issues for its time (the film neuters many of these subtexts sadly).

As for Sensible, it just seemed like pure pantomime – fun but he came across as a kids TV uncle rather than trying to do anything particularly interesting with the track (except perhaps rescue it from its dodgy original rendition pidgin English). But when it comes to SOutH Pacific I am more of a Cockeyed Optimist kind of guy.

I think everyone knows You’ll Never Walk Alone is from Carousel, it was a Trivial Pursuit question after all!

I’d had this sensation to a lesser extent earlier in the year with ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, but this is the first single that I can remember disliking to the extent that I found it a personal, emotional, affront.

With his whacky proto-Timmy Mallet persona and chirpy song of novelty and enforced jollity, Captain Sensible reminded me of the more blatant type of childrens’ entertainer, the sort who’d create a consensus in his audience around behaving in a ‘humorous’ manner, which I would then feel duty bound to reject. This certainly seemed to be hugely popular with all other children at the time – I was just born to sorrow!

As a grown man I now like both South Pacific and the seventies Damned, but this tawdry thing still just makes me really unhappy whenever I hear it. And in a mocking way, not a cathartic one.

What an unforgiving bunch you all seem to be!

I saw the Damned in 77 supporting T.Rex, and enjoyed their early albums, before they went off the boil a bit. I’m looking forward to seeing them in June when they play with the Alarm in Glasgow.

That doesn’t stop me from enjoying this piece of silliness. I was initially only vaguely aware that it was an “oldie”, but not specifically that it came from South Pacific. I would have thought that most potential buyers (bemused Damned fans and kids) would have thought much the same, so I don’t go along with the “wave of nostalgia” theory. I liked at the time and I like it now – it’s no masterpiece, but a solid 7.

(One downside – was it because of the success of this that Sting’s execrable “Spread a Little Happiness” from the Brimstone and Treacle soundtrack was released as a single??)

Finally, I’m quite sure that, by now, the vast majority of Liverpool (and Celtic) fans are well aware of the origin of their anthem. It is often assumed that as football fans we will be culturally ignorant, but this particular fact is drummed into every fan of these clubs precisely to avoid having the p*** taken by others who wrongly assume the intellectual high ground.

I’ve also got a softer spot for this than most. Does it maybe depend on whether you generally find the singer-who-can’t-really-sing stretching beyond his or her capabilities endearing, or just annoying? I think the fact that he can’t really sing makes it sound like he almost means it – you’ve got to have a dream, and mine is that I’m a decent singer…

I was also thinking that the 1982 No.1s, and the last 6 in particular, sound like an interesting conversation between shiny/playful/ironic pop and sincere/mature/meaningful pop and the dangers inherent in both; pushed too far in one direction things can get a bit forced (House of Fun) irritatingly wacky (Happy Talk) or start to prowl the boundary between reality and artifice in a slightly worrying way (GTS); go the other way and you make it just too easy to take the piss (Ebony and Ivory, A Little Peace, Hey Laydee). & this conundrum has maybe always been around (its certainly always around in my head, and music consumption), but I’m associating it particularly with the early 80s, hedonism v seriousness in response to mass unemployment and the nuclear shadow blah.

Hi Jonny. Welcome. And feel free to jump back to old posts, especially the early ones as all the comments on those were destroyed so whole new conversations are likely to stretch on!

TOTPWatch: Captain Sensible performed Happy Talk on Top Of The Pops on three occasions. These are the first two (the Christmas edition we’ll come to in the fullness of time);

1 July 1982. Also in the studio that week were; Visage, Dollar and Natasha, plus Zoo’s interpretation of ‘Murphy’s Law’. John Peel was the host.

8 July 1982. Also in the studio that week were; Imagination, Trio, Odyssey and Bananarama. John Peel was again the host.

Re 19: “hedonism v seriousness in response to mass unemployment and the nuclear shadow”

Everything went exceeeedingly colourful in 1982, a belated flipside to 1980’s unrelenting monochrome (Closer/Crocodiles/MASH/McLean). It was all teased up, frizzy blonde hair, lurid lipstick, bows and ribbons, the much ridiculed rara skirt. Bananarama and the previously mentioned Belle Stars bossed the look, which was mirrored by the super-chirpy no.1s we’ve been witnessing.

I wasn’t aware of the original, so this take didn’t pall quickly, and was most pleased with its colossal and unexpected leap from 26 to 1 in a single week.

Also I’d been to see Dolly Mixture – in their decidedly un-82, proto-86 Oxfam gear – supporting Orange Juice at the Venue, Victoria, in January. After that they played Croydon’s Warehouse Theatre to about 40 people on a seemingly monthly basis, and I saw them every time. No wonder I was pleased when this got to no.1 and earnt them a Melody Maker cover. It’s hard for me to be objective – but without the DM backing this is no better or worse than Whispering Grass.

It seemed to disappear sharpish – six weeks at no.1 would have tested even my patience.

The Captain is taking a poke at something bigger and considerably less absurd than he is, n’est-ce pas? A pointless piss-take, I thought at the time, and I don’t feel enlightened for being rteminded of it now.

The South Pacific soundtrack, along with those of Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I (and probably others, but mainly those) were part of the wallpaper of my formative years. I won’t hear a word against any of them! The first song I ever learned to sing in French was not Frère Jacques, nor even Sûr le pont d’Avignon but

Dîtes-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est belle
Dîtes-moi
Pourquoi
La vie est gai

Yes, like #20 I was a bit dismayed that the old posts were seemingly closed to new discussion. You would obviously know if there was something new and it does show up new comments now, though you feel silly posting in older threads. It’s good to know that all the old commentary remains open.

Don’t think I’m able to offer up much in the way of meta analysis in the context of the era, but I’ve been following it for a while and have been very pleased with the dizzying pace it moved last year, great to be up to the 80s already.

Да таков уж наш современный мир и боюсь наверное с этим ни чего не поделать:)

This seems like the right place to mention that a limited edition Dolly Mixture box set has just been issued, featuring “CAMBRIDGE 1978 – I WAS THERE!” sleeve notes by yours truly. (Originally written as a blog post in 2003.)

Well now, there’s a thing. My blurb was used on the mock-up of the booklet which is used on the website, but “sources close to Dolly Mixture” tell me that the blurb was never actually used on the printed version. But it’s good to see wichita lineman’s more all-encompassing essay in its place!

(Note to wichita lineman: Curiously, I also saw Orange Juice at The Venue in Victoria, but with The Bluebells supporting. Fairly sure it was August 1981, not long after Poor Old Soul came out.)

A long way from the Damned, but good fun nonetheless. 6/10.

OK, so I found myself having the strange urge to check out what Tom said about this one, as my memory was jogged by hearing this single on some obscure music TV channel and I didn’t recall reading the entry before. Doubtful anyone will read my witterings on this now, but two comments I feel the urge to respond to:

#13 – A friend of mine used to seriously annoy a Damned fan he worked with by insisting that Captain Sensible actually was a “cheeky children’s entertainer”.
“Oh, The Damned! Weren’t they the group Captain Sensible used to be in before he did lots of things on Children’s ITV?”
His colleague must have known he was on the wind-up, but behaved as if he’d heard this kind of argument before and went on elongated rants about how Sensible was a “proper punk”, and “I’VE SEEN HIM ONSTAGE NAKED DOES THAT SOUND LIKE A CHILDREN’S ENTERTAINER TO YOU?!”
Old punks can be touchy souls.

#36 – I never knew that! A classic example of a mid-summer novelty hit attracting enough attention during a weak sales period to slip up to the top position. Noticeably it only spent 8 weeks in the Top 75 in total, indicating perhaps that the joke wore thin quite quickly for most people.
Checking the actual year-end charts, I can see a lot of top five hits throughout the rest of 1982 actually outsold it very convincingly (among them “Maid of Orleans” by OMD, the 33rd biggest selling single, and “I Won’t Let You Down” by PhD, the 24th).