RENEE AND RENATO – "Save Your Love"

Excellent phonetic spelling! I don’t think it deserves 1, it’s vaguely enjoyable to listen to. You need to remove the Ron Jeremy lookalike from your mind. And ignore the line about ‘Roma’, you’ll have a pretty good time.

I agree with Poohugh – it’s clearly rubbish, but it’s not nearly in the same league of awfulness as Little Jimmy or St Winifred’s – I wouldn’t need to lunge for the off switch if this came on the radio. Worth at least a 2!

I wasn’t exactly returning from another planet, but when I got back home from Brittany for Christmas I had a few nuances of British life to get used to. I’d only been away for two and a half months, but I had no idea about Channel 4, “The Young Ones”, what Watford were doing among the league title contenders and who the blue blazes was buying this record.

You occasionally get a bit of light opera-style singing (or even proper opera in the case of old Pav) gracing the chart, which people are buying for the perceived touch of class it brings to their record collection, but “class” isn’t what comes to mind when you consider this offering. One of the very worst number ones ever.

Jasper Carrott, before he lost his edge completely, did a good routine about Renee and Renato – “he comes from Birmingham, you know”.

I like the bit about the steel-hearted pretty-voice-meet-cute-girl technique, Tom although they’re hardly alone – towards the end of the decade there’s a much worse example involving a soul diva, an Italian producer and a French model, which we’ll dissect in due course.

i think that seeing the video on TOTP may be the very first time i had to leave the room with sheer embarrassment. now i have to do it on a weekly basis, thanks to shows like the x factor. this is just awful. i don’t know how it even gets a 1!

You can’t fault the generosity of the regulars on here but this is absolutely a 1. It’s not a spitefully bad song, or a callously lowest-common-denominator song; it’s not incompetent or bandwagon-jumping. It is just a very very bland song, sung in a novelty Italian accent, in some misguided idea that this is ‘romantic’. The lyrics have what Henry James referred to as ‘weak specificity’; there’s nothing in there, not a single phrase that catches any sense of the particular, that this is an actual relationship between two particular people; there’s no tang of reality and this, lyrically, is what divides emotion from sentimentality.

The absurd operette styling of Renato’s voice is laughable. Not, of course, as laughable as the ridiculous video (which I seem to recall was even considered absurd at the time), with the revealed Renato in his white-suited, pudgy, mustachioed horror, hammily pawing at the empty pillow, the soft focus, the comically bad cut on the thrown rose, etc. The arrangement, with the inevitable key change, the yucky strings, the air of Mantovani shimmer, the stars/moon/rose/Roma sciocchezze (as real Italians might say), all suggests the profound romance of a waiter saying ‘and a glass of champagne for the lovely lady?’. It’s not retrievable; it’s entirely without merit; I don’t imagine it was bought for much more than sentimental and kitsch reasons.

It’s also one of those songs that is all about how they’re about to sing their song (‘A serenade I long to sing you’ ‘Darling, sing for me our lovers’ song’). Which only makes me think: yes sing the song that means something to you, not this crap.

Sleeve oddly mismatches the song, I think.

From wiki:

“Renato is a keen fan of Aston Villa F.C. and during the early 90s was asked by manager Ron Atkinson to sing Nessun Dorma at half time following a particularly poor first half performance by the team. On completion of his performance Atkinson told the players ‘Now that is passion! Go and show me some of that in the second half!'”

It’s no Barcelona, that much is clear.

When detached from the ridiculous video I find myself more positively disposed to this than I would have guessed – so I give it 1.

I can’t remember whether I liked this back then, but I definitely like it now. Without wanting to listen to it or anything like that.

Well, I’m here to say:

At the time, I thought “It could be worse, it could have been an operatic woman singing and a bloke with a fair/middling voice”

Cue “Barcelona”, Mercury/Cavaille. Guess I was wrong.

Anybody who thinks Renato has an ‘operatic’ voice hasn’t heard much opera. He’d be lucky to escape La Scala with his bollocks intact.

Is there REALLY all that much difference between the ‘awful fascination of the very bad’ novelty factor of this song and the current popularity of Susan Boyle?!!

And I’m not talking about the physical similarities of the two singers.

According to Wikipedia, this song had a considerable afterlife in Scandinavia. Which goes to show that excellent welfare provision and a fine tradition of deliberative democracy do not correlate with good taste in music.

Smash Hits did a pretty good version of this that’s stuck with me for some weird reason.

Darling I am wider than I’m tall
My mouth is big, my piggy eyes are small
About my clothes I don’t have cares, just wear my jumper and my flares,
In fact I don’t have any dress sense at all.

i recall a spoof (probably on 3-of-a-kind) that had the couplet

i’ve got a boyfriend home in Pinner
Better looking, and much thinner

Re 28: Malcolm Roberts wrote Contact??? Kenny Pickett of art-mod legends The Creation wrote Clive Dunn’s Grandad (I’m sure we’ve mentioned that before). Barry White wrote We’re The Banana Splits and other songs in the tv series (but sadly not the Tra La La Song).

I’m rather mindblown to discover that Clint thingy from Pop Will Eat Itself is now a highly respective soundtrack composer. He did The Wrestler? Nuts!

As far as unlikely song-writers are concerned, Scottish singer Jesse Rae having written Odyssey’s “Inside Out” was one which always seemed a little bizarre to me.

…and another ‘unlikely’ song-writer I’ve always wanted to prove the identity of one way or the other is the ‘Steve Torch’ who co-wrote Cher’s “Believe”. I am 90% convinced that it IS the same ‘Steve Torch’ who was part of 80’s duo White & Torch (and who also co-wrote a couple of Dexys songs) but I’ve never been able to prove it. They certainly seem to indicate that it’s the same chap on the ‘discogs’ site, but since that’s written by people from the internet you can never be quite sure! Anyone here able to clarify?!

Ah, thanks for that. Yes, he co-wrote “Liars A To E” and got a belated co-writing credit for “The Waltz” when they re-released “Don’t Stand Me Down” a few years back.

32: And its even more “intriguing” when in the case of the Arctic Monkeys*, Lily Allen, Kate Nash** (the Sex Pistols slightly ruin my point here by probably being genuine but anyway)the accents are completely fake so really the diametrical opposite of “earthy and honest”.

*surely only the most sheltered media inhabitant of Hampstead thinks theres anything “real” about the Arctic Monkeys’ accents – as someone who worked in the “community” in Sheffield for around 5 years no-one from Parson Cross or the Manor (ie 2 of the most deprived estates in Sheffield) speaks in an accent remotely resembling the “earthy” Arctic Monkeys – so why does Alex Turner the middle class son of university educated teachers from the leafy suburbs…?

**…and even the north London chattering classes know Allen and Nash are ridiculous

I might have made this point before but its one of my pet hates “posh” pop stars going for the prole vote when the only people they’ll impress (if anyone) are probably other members of the middle class

and why I’m talking about class isn’t our bewilderment at this geting to Number One at least partly due to the fact that (I’d guess) the vast majority of us are now middle class/have professional jobs (irrespective of whatever “class” some of us originate from)and feel utter dumbfoundment at the record buying habits of people of “lower” down the social scale – ie I’d reckon the vast majority of buyers of this record were working class women of 25+ and with so little intersection socio-economically with those who bought “Beat Surrender” as to be virtually living in a parallel universe.

Golly – was it just me, or was it all threatening to kick off a bit there? That’s the thing with Rene and Renato – the passion amongst the fans can sometimes cross the line into violence. Banned from several venues, I understand.

Following AndyPandy #14 – yes – he was Italian. Hence the Italian voice. He did loads of light ent when the hit dried up and was on a couple of chatshows – I’m sure he hammed it up a bit, but came across basically exactly how you’d expect: a fairly uncomplicated, jovial, Italian restauranteur who’d have been rejected from a bit part in a drama about jovial Italian restauranteurs as being ‘too stereotypical’. A chance fell into his lap to make a record and – well, who wouldn’t?

So I agree with many of the commenters here. It’s a naff one, but a score of 1 means that it can’t be any worse. And it can, oh God it can.

Even though I don’t like the song, I can think of so many things more to say about it than Efficient-Jam-By-Numbers. Thinking about it hard, perhaps I’m defending it because I do mourn the inclusivity of the charts. It’s a cliche to say ‘there used to be something for everyone’, but I don’t begrudge the mums and grans their occasional number one (ahem – that might be a truly outrageously sexist remark – I apologise. I’m really talking about MY mum and my gran).

After R&R, what was there for them, Cliff Richard aside? And although not having this sort of thing on my radio improves the quality of my life no end, the idea of generic ‘chart’ music depresses me. The fact that everything musically different was filed under ‘novelty’ – no room for light cod-opera such as this, but also no room for folk, or metal, or any number of other genres that didn’t fit.

Perhaps I am wrong and look back on this with the opposite of rose-tinted glasses, whatever they may be. Shit-tinted glasses. Perhaps I should not look to R&R to champion this thesis.

Agree lots with #32.

@32 – Growing up in West Oxfordshire, I, and most of the people I hung round with the 90s, had a trace of what could, euphemistically, be termed a ‘burr’.

The only band I can remember who sung anywhere near the way we talked were Reef, who (for all their faults) were unfairly pilloried for having West Country accents when they came from, erm, Somerset.

A bit random, I know…

Re 43:

“I hate the guts of Shakin’ Stevens for what he has done
The massacre of Blue Christmas
On him I’d like to land one on”

Presumably Mark E Smith, if no one else, was pleased to see Renee & Renato keep the top spot at Christmas.

Re 43: The Troggs from Andover weren’t taken too seriously by their manager – unless Larry Page was 100% serious in renaming two members Presley and Bond. I wonder if the Troggs Tapes would be less funny if they had any other accent?

Unlikely songwriter no.27: “Micky” by Toni Basil was written by Racey singer Richard Gower, originally as “Kitty”. Racey’s Smash And Grab album is about to come out on cd for the first time on the 7Ts label through Cherry Red. Nolans and Dooleys later in the year. I’m quite excited.

I gave this a 2 because I managed to sit through the video right until the end.