Did You Ever

Any anthology, whether it sets out to or not, comes with its own manifesto or agenda. I didn't want A Perfect Day of Pop Radio to be any more than what I'd play if I had Radio 2 to myself for a day but The Rock Show is only included as an outlet for some loud records, and plenty that aren't very loud, that didn't fit in elsewhere. The problem with music that sets out to be 'rock' is that it caters for the aspirations to machismo of teenage boys, and the girls that want to be involved with them. Ideally one would lose interest in it once one had achieved maturity. Thus, compiling this playlist at the age of 62, many of those noisy records I moved on from at the age of about 14 don't get in.

What was remarkable was the innocence of the censors that let such subversive records as Did You Ever through because they sounded so middle of the road, and presumably because Nancy Sinatra was a far better singer than her groany old father, while they didn't get My Ding-a- Ling, The Bellamy Brothers, Dr. Hook or the shockingly mundane Starland Vocal Band. 

By all means, they managed to spot Judge Dread's reggae nursery rhymes, Jonathan King's equally inane, but harmless, St. Cecilia and did the likes of The Sex Pistols and Frankie Goes to Hollywood the most enormous favours by banning them and making them the more notorious. That is exactly what the sinister Svengali, Malcolm McLaren, would have hoped for. But it depended on the heroic, Christian, wholesome Cliff Richard to withdraw his single, Honky Tonk Angel, in 1973 when he inadvertently found out it was about a prostitute. That was the same year that Hawkwind withdrew their Urban Guerilla because sectarian violence had escalated in Northern Ireland.

But, no, none of that. Did You Ever was absolutely fine when The Benny Hill Show, Miss World and Pan's People were mainstays of family entertainment. Some of it was better than other bits but none of it was quite as cute as this blatantly knowing duet, 

 

Could I fix you once more?
No thanks, I just had one
Then how about a nice big?
That would be just fine
Is there any special way?
Oh no, whatever you say
Well, I just wondered, have you ever?
All the time