SLADE – "Mama Weer All Crazee Now"

I feel the chance to get the first comment should not be missed, sitting here in Savannakhet, Lao PDR. But like Tom, I can’t think of much to say about this. Probably would never have been No.1 if it was their first single, but by now Slade were on a roll and many would have bought it unheard, just to get the latest

Takes me back to a fairly dismal caravan holiday on the Yorkshire coast, listening to the chart rundown as Slade came in at 2 and following the news of the Munich Olympics massacre. This was where Slade really got into their stride, with the “wall of sound” effect on full bore and turning TOTP into a party. Possibly their best intro, a guitar sound to rival Alice, and listen out for Nod going “whoopee!” as it gets, as you say, crazee-er.

Number 2 Watch – this and David Cassidy between them denied T. Rex another number one with “Children of the Revolution”.

“Elders” – blimey! Yes, it was pretty good to be 10 with those two around, and Roxy, Mott the Hoople and “Layla” further down (see http://everyhit.com/retrocharts/1972-SeptemberC.html). In answer to your question, their presence Stateside at the time was virtually nil – I remember a piece in Record Mirror in early ’75 titled “New York gets Slade”, reporting a gig opened by Noddy with the words “This is Central Park and we’re gonna rock’n’roll…” They were on the wane in the UK by then though, and trying to break the US didn’t help their fortunes here as I recall.

Another story relating to a future Slade number one is that their biggest hit single was recorded in New York in the summer of ’73, and they used a harmonium John Lennon was using while recording “Mind Games” in the studio next door. Lennon was one of the few people in New York who knew who Noddy Holder was! Much more on that particular song when we get to it…

I *was* 13 when this and “School’s Out” were out – although only the latter was on the radio. (I seem to recall eventually hearing “Gudbye t’ Jane” once on a Cleveland radio station.) This is my favorite Slade song and it meant a huge amount to me. I probably was the only person in my tiny Ohio town to own this album when it was new – I think it was the album cover, with the band’s name scrawled on their extended hands, and their totally rude, we-don’t-give-a-shit (yet cheeky) haircuts that got me. I hadn’t heard their music, so that’s all I can think it might have been that convinced me to take a shot on it. (Maybe some praise in the rock magazine Circus played a part, too. Or that their producer was Chas Chandler, since I was a big Animals fan.)

I bought the album the autumn after my dad died, and this song was one of the handful that kept me going in a bad period. A lot to hang on what might be seen as a thin reed, but what’s a Pop Heaven for if not that? I knew that for the duration of that great fade, I wanted to BE in that huge mass of people singing along with Noddy, because if all those people could be so filled with life and hope and determination and shared joy, then so could I – at least for as long as the record lasted. That kind of emotional support strikes me as one of the basic purposes that loving music can serve.

Slade were probably my favourite band at the time, around my first flush of passion for pop music, and this is my favourite of their singles. I’d have given it 10, if only for Noddy’s performance.

I remember it being on TOTP at christmas time 1972, weren’t there two editions of it then, I’m sure it was xmas day when there was a new girl in Pans People who was unwrapped.

Does Noddy sing that he wants enough booze “to fill up Dave Hill’s left shoe”? I love that line.

Critic watch:

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010)
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Zig Zag (UK) – Gillett & Frith’s Hot 100 Singles (1975)
Panorama (Norway) – The 30 Best Singles of the Year 1970-98 (1999) 8
Gilles Verlant and Thomas Caussé (France) – 3000 Rock Classics (2009)
Toby Creswell (Australia) – 1001 Songs (2005)
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)

I think it’s my favourite of Slade’s UK #1 hits. Great stuff in my view, 8/10.