Squeeze - Cool for Cats

[George 1978]

I just happened to watch NOW 70s (Sky Digital channel 361 for those with dishes outside their properties), and they just happened to be playing songs from 1979 - aka the sexiest year of the 1970s for pop music. Off-air Top of the Pops will always provide the likes of Gary Numan or Tubeway Army, Racey, Lene Lovich (qv), the Skids (also qv), and the Buggles. Even at a time when I was just a few months old, in hindsight, I would have preferred to have been a bit older - 16, or 17, let's say. Even politics was being eccentric - a female Prime Minister indeed! Flares were out in more ways than one!

NOW had just shown the "deputy" number ones (or number two hits as we would know them as) - after five hours, we reach 1979 which meant that we were close to home. Abba has "Chicken Tikka", not in the oven, but as a mondegreen of a title. Costello represented the army for Oliver, while the Village People looked after the navy later parodied by Billy Connolly in the Brownies and also Rory Bremner as Paddy Ashdown (in the Lib Dems), and we get to the hit we had all been waiting for...

The song video starts with two females aged around 18, bouncing around and looking as if they are both on a trampoline and have almost got too high in more ways than one, almost looking like twin sisters - one dark-haired and one blonde and in a ponytail. The dark one on the left has the letters "SQU" written in a white sub-Mistral-type font, looking as if it had been Tippex-ed onto the back of her black leather jacket while the blonde one has the same design with the letters "EEZE" on the back of hers. They put their bodies together to spell out the group's name, (hence my new avatar that I have just changed), and the song starts. They both wear sunglasses, (a la Tracey Ullman in 1984 style), and sing in unison over the microphone just before they are let loose again. Around a minute and half of the song and also two and a half minutes, the both prance around the studio with backs to the camera as if they have had overdosed on Sunny Delight, drawing attention to their red skintight leggings to those at home, (aka sub-"keep-fit" leotards) as we find out in the video (not black a la Leif Garret or Olivia Newton-John, methinks), and reuniting "SQU" with "EEZE" once again with their leather jackets.

Just like the "Bob Holness played sax on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street" myths, the internet insists that one of the girls was actress Michelle Collins while the other could have been Julia "Trisha's sister" Gale or someone like that? Anyone know? They do remind me of the girls from the Masonettes a few years later but it is not them. I bet they were more known for modelling rather than singing. It has always been frustrating that the dancers in pop videos have always been seen as extras a la Legs and Co and so they hardly get a credit to their name, and perhaps they only get recognition 20 years later if they appear in a "Before they were Famous" type programme, by then, gained celebrity status at long last. I think that the dancers are just as much part of the act as the singers are.

I didn't know that Jools Holland cut his musical teeth on this group until recently, and even more ironically, I didn't know that the late Una Stubbs had appeared in a TV show made by Associated-Rediffusion in the early 1960s, also called Cool for Cats - managed to get to her Wikipedia page despite not realising that she was soon to pass away hours after I saw it. The same song was used in the early to mid 1990s to advertise Milk, using a sub-animated premise, and often seen during CITV ad breaks - it was annoying seeing it at the time.

The following it, Up the Junction also got to number two in "Anything Goes in music" 1979 but it didn't gain as much excitement as its previous hit. It is one of those songs a bit like Peter Kay's Amarillo - one doesn't get the benefit of it just listening to it on the radio; it needs to be seen on a music channel or on YouTube as well.

[70s kid]

Blurs Parklife is a 90s version of this song...kind of.

[whitewall66]

I just happened to watch NOW 70s (Sky Digital channel 361 for those with dishes outside their properties), and they just happened to be playing songs from 1979 - aka the sexiest year of the 1970s for pop music. Off-air Top of the Pops will always provide the likes of Gary Numan or Tubeway Army, Racey, Lene Lovich (qv), the Skids (also qv), and the Buggles. Even at a time when I was just a few months old, in hindsight, I would have preferred to have been a bit older - 16, or 17, let's say. Even politics was being eccentric - a female Prime Minister indeed! Flares were out in more ways than one!

NOW had just shown the "deputy" number ones (or number two hits as we would know them as) - after five hours, we reach 1979 which meant that we were close to home. Abba has "Chicken Tikka", not in the oven, but as a mondegreen of a title. Costello represented the army for Oliver, while the Village People looked after the navy later parodied by Billy Connolly in the Brownies and also Rory Bremner as Paddy Ashdown (in the Lib Dems), and we get to the hit we had all been waiting for...

The song video starts with two females aged around 18, bouncing around and looking as if they are both on a trampoline and have almost got too high in more ways than one, almost looking like twin sisters - one dark-haired and one blonde and in a ponytail. The dark one on the left has the letters "SQU" written in a white sub-Mistral-type font, looking as if it had been Tippex-ed onto the back of her black leather jacket while the blonde one has the same design with the letters "EEZE" on the back of hers. They put their bodies together to spell out the group's name, (hence my new avatar that I have just changed), and the song starts. They both wear sunglasses, (a la Tracey Ullman in 1984 style), and sing in unison over the microphone just before they are let loose again. Around a minute and half of the song and also two and a half minutes, the both prance around the studio with backs to the camera as if they have had overdosed on Sunny Delight, drawing attention to their red skintight leggings to those at home, (aka sub-"keep-fit" leotards) as we find out in the video (not black a la Leif Garret or Olivia Newton-John, methinks), and reuniting "SQU" with "EEZE" once again with their leather jackets.

Just like the "Bob Holness played sax on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street" myths, the internet insists that one of the girls was actress Michelle Collins while the other could have been Julia "Trisha's sister" Gale or someone like that? Anyone know? They do remind me of the girls from the Masonettes a few years later but it is not them. I bet they were more known for modelling rather than singing. It has always been frustrating that the dancers in pop videos have always been seen as extras a la Legs and Co and so they hardly get a credit to their name, and perhaps they only get recognition 20 years later if they appear in a "Before they were Famous" type programme, by then, gained celebrity status at long last. I think that the dancers are just as much part of the act as the singers are.

I didn't know that Jools Holland cut his musical teeth on this group until recently, and even more ironically, I didn't know that the late Una Stubbs had appeared in a TV show made by Associated-Rediffusion in the early 1960s, also called Cool for Cats - managed to get to her Wikipedia page despite not realising that she was soon to pass away hours after I saw it. The same song was used in the early to mid 1990s to advertise Milk, using a sub-animated premise, and often seen during CITV ad breaks - it was annoying seeing it at the time.

The following it, Up the Junction also got to number two in "Anything Goes in music" 1979 but it didn't gain as much excitement as its previous hit. It is one of those songs a bit like Peter Kay's Amarillo - one doesn't get the benefit of it just listening to it on the radio; it needs to be seen on a music channel or on YouTube as well.

Up the Junction is by far a superior song than Cool for Cats which is a pastiche if anything. Up the Junction is the definitive Squeeze song and the line it didn't gain as much excitement is wrong and as you were in nappies I don't know how you can claim that. As for Amarillo that was basically a novelty record I'm old enough to remember when it first came out and anything with Jimmy Saville in the video I'll give a swerve

[George 1978]

Up the Junction is by far a superior song than Cool for Cats which is a pastiche if anything. Up the Junction is the definitive Squeeze song and the line it didn't gain as much excitement is wrong and as you were in nappies I don't know how you can claim that. As for Amarillo that was basically a novelty record I'm old enough to remember when it first came out and anything with Jimmy Saville in the video I'll give a swerve

The music video which had that song on has been played many times since then and often gets regular airings on the NOW 70s music channel, hence the fact that I know about that - and even then, I often do research into things like this so that my own understanding would be just as much apparent as if I was actually around back then to remember it. I was too young to remember it in person, yes, but I watch NOW 70s and TOTP2 when it was on, and it is a great way to get a taste of how things were back then.

[whitewall66]

The music video which had that song on has been played many times since then and often gets regular airings on the NOW 70s music channel, hence the fact that I know about that - and even then, I often do research into things like this so that my own understanding would be just as much apparent as if I was actually around back then to remember it. I was too young to remember it in person, yes, but I watch NOW 70s and TOTP2 when it was on, and it is a great way to get a taste of how things were back then.

Are you for real mate ? you think that by watching a minor cable channel and TOTP2 that means you know more about what it was like back then a fan of the band at the time ha ha. It's like me watching any historical documentary about any subject and then make out I know more about that subject then someone with first hand knowledge.

[George 1978]

Are you for real mate ? you think that by watching a minor cable channel and TOTP2 that means you know more about what it was like back then a fan of the band at the time ha ha. It's like me watching any historical documentary about any subject and then make out I know more about that subject then someone with first hand knowledge.

I have noticed that two hours prior to you responding to this thread, some spammer had bumped this thread up, and so therefore I am assuming that if that had not happened, that you wouldn't have responded to this thread either considering this thread has been around for a year and a half and you have been around nearly 12 years - I have made more posts in a month than you have had since joining this forum 12 years ago. I am not saying that you are linked to the spammer in Post #3, but you probably wouldn't have posted on this thread had that not happened.

In answer to your question: yes, I am for real, and I take a great interest in things that had happened in the 1970s and 1980s because I grew up in the latter decade, but also, those two decades are the most interesting and fascinating of the 20th century - so much had changed and had modernised throughout those decades - they look so fascinating to to me and it inspires me to write about them - it's a hobby but one that I enjoy. One does not have to be there at the time to be interested in something that has happened in the past. I like to write about things like that in my own way - telling the story from the way that I see it. I enjoy writing about various subjects on this forum and lots of members appreciate what I write about on here - I was the first member of this forum (who isn't a moderator) to get all my reputation to go orange - and this is because members on here enjoy what I write - I take pride and pleasure to write on here and let people know about my observations on various subjects. I can darn well write about anything on here without any interference from yourself.

I did GCSE History at school and studied the two World Wars - it doesn't mean to say that I was there at the time, but because of that subject I have a clearer understanding of what happened all those years ago. I believe in Articles 9 and 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998, especially Article 10 - freedom of both thought and expression. The fact that I am prepared to write about something that had happened before my time, when I have researched and studied the subject that I going to write about (I would never write about anything that I didn't know about). My motto is variety is the spice of life - at least I don't write about the same thing all the time and that I vary what I write about on this forum and elsewhere.

You know, it is people like you who make me want to leave this forum for good and not come back - I have a good mind to contact Heather and HG and ask them to not only remove the spam message in Post #3, but also your posts whilst they are at it.