NICK BERRY – "Every Loser Wins"

From the very first shot of episode one, when the door is smashed open to reveal the decaying figure of a dead old man in a rotting armchair, the BBC’s premier soap opera EastEnders was never going to be a harbour of sunshine and light, and over its subsequent quarter-century it has kept that promise. None of its thousands of hapless characters has been allowed more than a glimpse of what might be termed happiness or hope; always the chance is snatched or pushed away, misery invariably embraced over love. The series has tended to take its original remit to be “the anti-Coronation Street” rather too literally, and yet it has continued to attract millions whose only derivable pleasure from the series can be their own knowledge that however wretched their own lives might become, nothing could conceivably be as disastrously terminal as the car crashes witnessed nightly with the peeling puce house sets, the lighting which invariably looks as though somebody forgot to put a shilling in the electricity meter, even when out in the Square of Albert in midsummer. Lapsed lovers – usually men old enough to be their lovers’ father, and women young enough to be their lovers’ daughter – are re-courted in grimy gents’ toilets within the Underground station. Familial tensions in the local pub can resemble the last days in the Berlin bunker. Though a supposed suburb of the East End of London, “London” remains a quotidian chimera, rarely glimpsed, mentioned only in passing (“I’m goin’ up West!”), and indeed the whole thing is filmed out in Borehamwood (or is/was it Elstree?); at times it looks like one of those stranger, later episodes of The Prisoner where McGoohan wakes up to find himself in a mock chirpy Cockney community.

The series, however, was spectacularly successful in its first year, such that the BBC opted to launch some external brand awareness by having some of its cast “sing.” Thus Anita Dobson, the tormented barmaid Angie Watts (a.k.a. Mrs Brian May), made number four with her vocal version of the show’s theme tune, “Anyone Can Fall In Love,” while Letitia Dean and Paul J Medford (Sharon Watts and Kelvin Carpenter, the show’s primary “teen” interest) also went Top 20 with their offensively bland “Somethin’ Outta Nothin’,” allegedly performed by their pop group, The Banned (geddit?).

The most successful spinoff by far, however, was “Every Loser Wins” and its story is thus. Teenager Michelle Fowler has foolishly fallen pregnant by evil Machiavellian pub owner Dennis “Dirty Den” Watts – a man old enough to be his lover’s father – and in a curious melange of desperation and defiance decides to marry the affable, amiable, borderline Aspergic barman Lofty Holloway. But when the ceremony comes around (with her already having given birth) she realises her heart isn’t in it and jilts the hapless Lofty, who thereupon crumples into a Kleenex of suicidal ideations. In pity, Michelle reconsiders, and they elope to marry. However, after a couple of months of Lofty’s well-meaning but unsexy “Would you like me to take Vicky round der park, ‘Chell?” (for the now-born child is called Vicky, named after the Queen Victoria pub – do you see what luminous avenues of plot we are strolling down here?) Michelle calls the whole thing off, tells Lofty that she was pregnant with, but aborted, his child, and moves back in with her family (or “fairm-ly”). Bereft and broken (having screamed and sobbed “I hate you!” at Michelle several hundred times), Lofty’s only consolation now is his best mate, Simon “Wicksey” Wicks, who throughout all of this time has been playing a dolorous ballad on the pub piano about how “every loser wins, once the dream begins” (for said “Wicksey” is also an aspiring songwriter – not that this is ever alluded to again in the series after about January 1987). Something about it catches Lofty’s heart, and with its regretful hues of “we nearly made it” and troubled water bridges of hope (“Shine down on me/And those who believe/That we can make it”), he wanders manfully out of Albert Square, out of the series and into a still-successful radio sports commentary career.

The ballad caught on with the public, too, and “Every Loser Wins” – helpfully, if ungrammatically, described on its front cover as “The song featured by ‘Wicksey’ in EastEnders” – became the year’s big weepie, shooting to number one and outselling every other single that year bar the Communards. It’s as hard now as it was then to make anything out of it; though skilfully hacked into shape by veteran soap song composer Simon May (who you may recall was responsible for “Born With A Smile On My Face” a dozen years previously), its over-facile construction, coupled with Berry’s lugubrious and unsteady voice (as a singer, he’s a fine actor) and the bargain basement synths and drum machines, place it in an odd limbo, stranded somewhere between a bad British attempt at American AoR (Richard Marx, say) and a precursor of the pained piano-based ballads in which Gary Barlow would specialise a decade hence. And despite its belief that “we can make it,” the song hardly ever turns up on CD; its 800,000 sold copies continue to filter down through charity shops the land over, as demonstrated by the mention of “two copies of ‘Every Loser Wins'” on Saint Etienne’s “Teenage Winter”; a brief, novel attraction whose resonance was quickly found to be hollow.

Wow, this is horrendous. Thankfully a non-entity in the US, its closest equivalent maybe being Don Johnson’s “Heartbeat,” which sounds like “Gimme Shelter” in comparison to this turkey.

more context is scarcely needed after punctum’s enders masterclass, but it’s probably worth adding that wicksy was an uber 1986 pie faced lothario who invariably wore open necked shirts with wide pastel stripes and tiny collars and always had a twinkle in his eye and a ready quip for the ladies. i fear i thought he was pretty cool in 1986 – and might even have quite liked this song – but with the clarity of time, it is obvious he was a substantial arse.

#7 my guess is it’s not peel fave ‘coronation street’s not really real’ by kevin seisay (“in the supermarket people go up to rita/it’s barbara knox really but they’re still thrilled to meet her”)

Light Entertainment Watch: Nick Berry seems to have been remarkably shy to promote ‘Every Loser Wins’, Top Of The Pops making do with the video on five occasions. His only non-acting TV appearance seems to have been to promote his comeback hit, a weedy Buddy Holly cover version;

WOGAN: with Nick Berry, Mary Black Band, Adrian Walsh (1992)

Tom #7 – Sir, me sir, sir, sir me! Highest charting Corrie-related single was “I’m A Believer”, by Davy Jones, who played Len Fairclough’s nephew or something circa 1961, and his three American pals.

And Noddy Holder made a cameo appearance in (IIRC) Corrie’s 40th anniversary show in 2000, so there’s six more number ones to factor in there.

In fact there was a similar situation to Nick Berry’s, although not as big a hit – “Not Too Little Not Too Much” was a top 20 hit in 1963 for Christopher Sandford, whose Corrie character, milkman Walter Potts, became a pop singer. Sandford went on to be a Radio Caroline DJ and had a minor hit as half of Yin and Yan spoofing Telly Savalas’ “If” in 1975. (I note that Marcello told this same story in the ”If” thread and it’s a pound to a penny he’s posted it again by the time I post this…)

#7: Joint Corrie champ with Davy Jones is Peter Noone, who played Stanley Fairclough and topped the chart in 1964 with “I’m Into Something Good.” Bronze to Adam Rickitt who made #5 with the overwrought “I Breathe Again” in 1999. Honourable mention to Sue Nicholls who reached #17 in 1968 with the shakily-intoned Hatch/Trent country-flavoured ballad “Where Will You Be?” although she was actually in Crossroads at the time. Then there’s Status Quo who made a very funny cameo appearance which culminated in Rossi and Parfitt beating up Les Battersby.

I must congratulate Tom on being a fellow ‘Enders refusenik; my objection to soap on the Beeb having survived hallmates, mother, sister and wife watching the damned thing.

This has got to be a 0. It has nothing going for it at all. Dreadful Hallmark-card lyrical cliches cobbled together without any conviction, little melody, cheap production and a vocal so lacklustre it makes Kevin Keegan’s “Head Over Heels In Love” sound like a soul classic.
Somewone like Barry Manilow could at least have given it some welly but this is bad karaoke at best. Billy at #11 is quite right that Nick was very reluctant to promote it; he seemed embarrassed by the whole episode. You could commend him more for this if he hadn’t returned in the 90s with some pisspoor covers (displaying no improvement in his vocal technique) off the back of “Heartbeat”

I actually quite like Simon May’s self-performed “The Summer Of My Life” hit. He was a low-rent Tony Hatch,even looked a bit like him if I recall. This was actually third time lucky as two previous soap-launched singles the aforementioned De Sykes in 74 and (also through Crossroads)”More Than In Love” by (subsequent supposed comedienne and McCartney relative) Kate Robbins in 1981 had stiffed at two.

This is a lowpoint in the history of the chart.When the parade of shite that was the 90s list of number ones was in full swing I often looked back at this as the start of the deluge.

#7 You have to add mid-80s Brookside to that list. While Corrie and RearEnders (that’s what we called it, weren’t we funny?) presented some fantasy of chirpy Northerners and gritty Cockneys I thought Brookie was the one that actually looked and felt like the 1980s.

This really is spectacularly bad isn’t it? The glow of nostalgia can often give a little polish to the worst of turds but not in this case.

#21. Sorry, yes, that’s obviously completely right, its just that I never got into the habit of being a regular viewer at any stage – two soaps being generally as much as I can follow at a time.

For once I am absolutely speechless.

(Except to say that as far as I know Davy would have had nothing to do with “I’m A Believer,” because that early in the Monkees’ career all tracks were recorded by session men and lead singer, and it’s Mickey singing. But “Daydream Believer” came the next fall, with Davy on lead and Peter doing the arranging, and it reached number 5 in Britain in November ’67, and is a terrific song even though Davy’s meh.)

(EDIT: Actually, “I’m A Believer” has background singing, so Davy may be on there after all!)

BTW, so far average and median Tom-scores for 1986 are running slightly ahead of 1985 (which, you may recall, was the low-scoring flameout year after 1984 to rival 1967’s bummer after 1966’s highs). S. dev is high (behind only 1967 and 1972, which also had pairs of 1s). Chart here if anyone’s interested.

The Banned introduced a couple of new characters specially written for the pop group storyline.

Harry Reynolds: Lefty student, looking like a cross between Rik from the Young Ones and a spotty proto-Mark Lamarr. Reynolds wore his politics (Marxist radical) on his sleeve. He was mates with Kelvin Carpenter and Tessa Parker, Kelvin’s love interest and fellow radical student. Harry’s involvement was as band manager and wannabe songwriter, but when Wicksy’s song was chosen for Battle of the Bands competition, Harry turned saboteur and nobbled the band’s backing tape.

Eddie Hunter: Tubby Limahl-haired mate of Wicksy. Eddie supplied the instruments and played lead guitar in The Banned. He’d got the money from loan sharks, and when he failed to pay back the money, Eddie did a runner to Clacton to work as a Redcoat leaving Wicksy with the debt.

The Banned got their name after their debut gig at the Vic, playing as Dog Market (other suggested band names were So So Reverso, Left Of Arthur, Bottled Up, Conjugal Rights and The Harry Reynolds Quartet). Their amplifier blew a fuse in the pub and Den Watts threw them out telling them they were banned. Cue the name. ‘Enders writers were maybe unaware there had been a punk/new wave band of the same name already, so “Something Outta Nothing” was performed by Letitia Dean and Paul Medford.

ELW comes after The Banned play a shambolic set at Battle of the Bands, thanks to Harry. Simon Wicks writes the song that Lofty adopts as his theme tune after ‘Chelle drops the bombshell, which Punctum describes so eloquently above.

So this particular soap’s invasion of the charts reaches it’s apogee with this dire piece of mawkish drivel.

No forgetting ‘It’s ‘Orrible Being In Love When You’re Eight & A Half’ by Claire & Friends!

This was a golden year for BBC Records, if perhaps less so for pop-pickers…

#17: Which reminds me; Kate Robbins was on “The Chicken Song.”

I’m glad someone else remembers “The Summer Of My Life,” a rather strange top tenner from late ’76, obviously done to hitch a ride on the “Bo Rap”/”Music” extended epic bandwagon with slow bits and speedy interludes and as milky as the Milk Shop, Milk Street, Milktown but really not that bad. Possibly even stranger was his 1977 mash-up of “We’ll Gather Lilacs” and “All My Loving” which got plenty of airplay on Fab 208 but failed to progress beyond #49.

okaaaay.

Harry Hill’s hornophone medley including smoke on the water and eastenders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMyfN5D0s2k

#38 It has to be said that Tom’s murderous assault on “Subterranean Homesick Blues” trumps any other dire Eastenders artefact even this but thankfully the public ignored that one.

Adding words to themetunes is a mugg’s game though, unless it’s along the Emmerdale Farm principle (where the words “Emerdale Farm” are repeat-sung to the tune of Emmerdale Farm). It is very nearly impossible to apply this principle to Eastenders == who if Wicksy ad attempted it, this song would be a little bit better.

The massive intrusive drum pattern actually works pretty well in context of the programme itself.

The irritating joke that I always used to tell whenever I was watching the Home & Away credits in company; “Its good to see that Prefab Sprout are still getting work”

If only that had been the case! Nick Berry stormed back into the charts with his Number 2 smash cover version of Buddy Holly’s Heartbeat in 1992. At least it was a better song than Every Loser Wins.

#44 Well he did make other records so no it isn’t. I’m not sure Telly Savalas or Baz Luhrmann made another record.

#42 Yes, Wings did the Crossroads theme on their ‘Venus and Mars’ album. If memory serves I think it was occasionally used in the actual show too.