Whilst writing about the dessert Blancmange the other day I was reminded of the band Blancmange, and it occurred to me that whilst I remembered them being a band, I couldn’t actually remember any of the songs they did.

So a quick Internet search later and I bring to you Living On The Ceiling, a song I definitely remember and I hope you will too. If you’re not sure you do, then check out the video clip at the end of this post.

Blancmange themselves were a two piece outfit consisting of singer Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe, the synthesiser guy. They formed in 1979 and were fairly successful during the early Eighties, with them calling it a day in 1987. The pair did some solo work after that, but they recently reformed, and their fourth album, Blanc Burn, was released in March 2011.

Living on the Ceiling is a catchy song (probably why I remember it), with some interesting lyrics (I’m up the bloody wall!) and a mix of good old Eighties synthesiser and the sort of middle Eastern music you always associate with busy marketplaces and belly dancers. Oh, and surprise, surprise, the video itself contains a lot of middle Eastern style imagery to boot.

I guess going by the style of the video it must have been released around the same time as Spandau Ballet’s Gold and Duran Duran’s Rio, when this was seen as I cool thing to do. I’ve no idea which chronological order these songs come in though, so wouldn’t like to say who copied who!

The Vapors apparently thought themselves that they could become a one hit wonder after writing Turning Japanese, to the extent that they held the song back to be their second released single, in the hope that this damning fate wouldn’t happen to them. Sadly for them the strategy didn’t work, and so they will now forever be known to the masses just for this song.

However, it’s a good song to be remembered for, as its distinctive oriental sounding snatches make it instantly recognisable right from the start. The song is a very lively one with a catchy chorus that you only need to hear once to have it indelibly stamped into your brain (to be fair though the whole chorus does just consist of the following three lines repeated four times, so perhaps it’s no wonder)

The main lyrics talk about someone having a photograph of their big crush which they just can’t stop staring at because they are so besotted by them. So taken is the singer with their love interest that they would even like a Doctor to take a picture so they can look at then from the inside as well (as my particular favourite lyrics from the song state!).

Quite what this has to do with turning Japanese though I’m really not sure.

All in all a great fun song that whenever I hear it always takes me straight back to my youth. I also particularly like it for the weird sound effect that always reminds me of the ace puppet series Star Fleet. Listen out for it at the end of the song, which you can watch and listen to below. It’s when the traditionally dressed Japanese woman is playing the tubular bells.

It was also used as one of the tracks on that rather dubious fad from the late Nineties, the Big Mouth Billy Bass. But let’s move swiftly on from that shall we…

The song was written and performed solely by McFerrin, and by perform I don’t just mean singing the vocals, but the entire music track. The music is an a cappella track, which if you don’t know means that no musical instruments were used to create it. Instead the entire tune is made up of different layers of Bobby McFerrin making musical sounds with his own voice (you know, dooooo-do-do-do-do, that sort of thing).

The song has a very laid back reggae style to it, with lyrics that illustrate several different problems that might (perhaps) crop up in your normal life, problems which you are then told to get over by just not worrying, and being happy.

The song hit the top of the charts in the US and just missed out in the UK as it only reached number 2 (I’m surprised too, I was quite sure it hit number 1 in the UK but apparently not). Whilst this success was predominately down to it being a great song, I’m sure the fact that Robin Williams (wearing something that looks like he’s just come from an Arabian market) featured in the video didn’t hurt either.

Here in the UK, Men At Work are the opposite to Dexys. An Australian band who were pretty successful there, in Blighty they are really only remembered for one song, and that was Down Under (sometimes known as A Land Down Under, thanks to the chorus lyrics).

Down Under was originally recorded in 1981, but when it was reissued the following year it took the world by storm, hitting the number one spot in Australia, the UK and Ireland, the US, and a few more countries besides. I guess it was seen as a bit of a novelty record thanks to the funny lyrics and the catchy tune (but more on that in a bit) and that’s why it did so well.

The song tells the story of an Australian traveller touring the world, who meets various people on the way who befriend him because of his nationality. For a country brought up on Marmite it also introduced the UK to Vegemite, the Australian equivalent of the love-it-or-hate-it foodstuff. I’m sure it must have been because of Down Under that us Brits were even able to buy Vegemite in supermarkets for a while (not sure if you still can, but I don’t think so). For more on this food by product see the rather amusing Vegemite entry in the BBC’s h2g2 (An online attempt at creating a real Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in a similar manner to Wikipedia).

I mentioned earlier the catchy tune, and it is this that has got the band into trouble. It was alleged that the flute solo is in fact the music from the song Kookaburra, a Girl Guides’ song written in 1935 by Marion Sinclair. In 1988 Sinclair died, and the copyright to the song ended up in the hands of publisher Larrikin Music in 1990. Jump forward to 2009 and Larrikin decide to sue Men At Work for ripping off Kookaburra, and get this, they managed to win their case at Men At Work were ordered to pay 5% of their royalties from the song since 2002!

The above case has actually angered many Australians, not just because of how unfair it is to sue someone for something done nearly 30 years ago, but also because until that point Kookaburra had been seen as part of Australia’s heritage and was considered part of the public domain.

Still, it’s a great song, and really takes me back to my childhood. Have a listen and watch the video below…

Joe Le Taxi hit number 3 in the UK charts when it was released at the beginning of 1988, but what is most surprising about this fact is that the song (as the title suggests) was sung in French, meaning most of us in the UK didn’t really have much of a clue as to what the song was saying, other than it was presumably about a taxi driver named Joe who liked the saxophone.

However, it was a very catchy song that you ended up humming or singing along with, despite not knowing what the words meant, so it was nice to see a song do well in the charts because people presumably must have really liked it.

Another surprising fact is that the singer, Vanessa Paradis, was only fourteen at the time, and this wasn’t even her first released song – that honour went to La Magie des surprises-parties (my French is not great but I’m guessing that’s The Magic of Surprise Parties) which was released in 1983, so she must have been just ten for that song!

Vanessa may not be a household name (in the UK anyway) but she has had a successful career in music, film and modelling. Most notably she released another UK hit Be My Baby (sung in English this time) in 1993, and has done several modelling jobs for Chanel. She is also in a relationship with Hollywood star Johnny Depp, and the pair have two children.

Here’s the video to the song to refresh your memory. I’m sure you’ll find yourself at least humming it afterwards, although I’m sure Vanessa would probably rather not be reminded of her rather lame looking dancing, which is a little too drunk-uncle-at-a-wedding at times.

The teachers would first try to keep everyone amused by playing something like I-Spy, but we soon all bored of that and somebody would try and liven the journey with a group song. I’m not talking something sensible like Kumbaya though, no, it would be something in the Ten Green Bottles vein to start off with.

The kids would get down to about 4 or 5 bottles remaining on the wall, whereupon one of the teachers wouldn’t be able to take it any more and would request a change of song. That’s when You’ll Never Get To Heaven started up. This was usually sung by having one person leading, and everyone else repeating the lines to start with, then everyone would join in for a recap of the verse. Here’s an example verse:-

This song could run and run as there were potentially loads of verses. It would start off with all the common ones that everyone knew, then kids would start to make up their own verses, the ruder the better!

Of course the teachers would eventually tire of this song too, but I think they secretly liked listening to it to see what kind of creative their little charges had, otherwise they would have nipped it in the bud before it even got started, wouldn’t they?

Here are some more of the verses I can remember – can you add any?

Do you remember this song, and if so, can you add any more verses to it?

Surprisingly enough, though it only managed to reach number 2 in the US, this was with the original German language version of the song, which was quite an achievement.

The song was a very poppy, bouncy (fitting for a song about balloons) yet still a bit rocky affair, but the story it tells had a rather darker over tone. The two versions tell broadly the same tale, although the English version isn’t actually a direct translation of the words. It goes something like this…

Some friends buy a packet of balloons (perhaps a packet of 100 but one popped during inflation? Who knows?) and decide to blow them all up and let them loose into the sky. Off they merrily bob, only to be picked up on radar and mistaken as a possible UFO or maybe an enemy attack, which leads to fighter jets being scrambled and the brink of war! Ouch!

The song was apparently written by Nena band member Carlo Karges after seeing a bunch of balloons being set free at a Rolling Stones concert. He noticed the shape the mass of balloons made looked somewhat like a strange spacecraft, and what with the Cold War between East and West being at a height, he wondered what could happen if something as innocent as this occured near, say, the Berlin Wall.

99 Red Balloons is therefore considered somewhat of a protest song, and indeed it was released just after a round of missile deployments by the US and Russia, so the song struck a chord with many around the world at this time.

The song remains popular today, and somebody out there obviously really loved it, as in 2006 one viewer of VH1 Classic donated $35,000 during a charity event for Hurricane Katrina so that both the German and English versions of the songs would be played continuously for an entire hour!

The programme has a very memorable theme tune, but it came as quite a surprise to most people when Anita Dobson, aka Angie Watts, the Queen Vic landlady, released a record which put lyrics to the theme song.

The lyrics may well be considered cheesey now (and probably was back in 1986 when it was released) but it has to be said that Anita Dobson didn’t actually have a bad singing voice, so whilst it was most likely the popularity of EastEnders that saw the record reach number 4 in the UK charts, at least there was some talent involved in the production of the record.

The EastEnders theme tune was originally composed by Simon May, with the lyrics added afterwards by Don Black. It was produced by Dobson’s husband Brian May. That’s right, the big haired Brian May from Queen! Well, it’s nice that he supported his wife, isn’t it?

Sadly for Anita, whilst she did release other records after this, none were particularly popular, which I suppose comes as no surprise since she was never going to be popular with the younger market because it would be like buying a record sung by your Mum.

Want to have a listen for old times sake. Check out the video clip below. Sadly I couldn’t embed it, but there’s also footage of Anita performing the song on Top of the Pops. I bet she felt a bit of a plum during the quite long instrumental break.