"I'd Rather Jack" by The Reynolds Girls

[philipdalton]

The reason behind me posting this is because it's one of the strangest songs I've ever heard. The general theme of the song is someone bemoaning the lack of current music being played on radio stations. However, the first few lines of it is completely irrelevant to the rest of the song. It seems to be a protest against being made homeless.

"All we want to do is have a good time
But then you went and took our house away
No one ever asked for our opinion
No, no, we don't get a say"

Has anyone else ever noticed this?

Could the word "house" possibly JJrefer to the genre of music popular at the time known as "house"?

[catflap]

"I'd rather jack, than Fleetwood Mac" - always makes me smile!

[Richard1978]

It's ironic that most of the musical acts they diss in the song are still around, and about the only one they big up, Yazz soon disappeared from the charts. I heard she was on extended maternity leave & later became a born again Christian!

[George 1978]

I wonder whatever happened to them? They seem to be a Mel and Kim (the Appleby sisters, not Smith and Wilde as in the 1987 Christmas Comic Relief single) type double act, and no doubt that 34 years on, a lot of people would confuse them with the Applebys. Their hit was complete Stock Aitken and Waterman all over.

That hit and Big Fun's Blame it on the Boogie reminds me so much of 1989 - those hits always remind me of leaving Junior School that year and moving to Comprehensive School; as well as: the Hillsborough disaster; Home and Away starting up; Tina Fowler the Rovers barmaid in Coronation Street and also Maurice Jones knocking down Mike Baldwin's factory in the same place. And some hot summer days as well. The final year of the 1980s, and the Reynolds Girls always reminds me of it.

[philipdalton]

Any music which is currently doing well in the charts is current music regardless of the age of the performers.
Andy Williams had a couple of quite big hit singles when he was in his seventies, including a version of "Can't Take my Eyes Off You" performed with Denise Van Outen.
As for Pink Floyd being "out of date" at the time, well ....

[Semi42]

In answer to “What happened to their Reynolds girls?”
I recall watching The Hitman and Her and before the Reynolds Girls came on , Pete waterman said something along the lines of “ These two kept constantly badgering me to make a record with them , I eventually gave in and let them do this”. It was either his further comments or the look on his face after that introduction told me that would be their one and only hit.
I thought it odd at the time because “I’d rather Jack” would have made him a good wedge so why not capitalise with a follow up

[philipdalton]

In answer to “What happened to their Reynolds girls?”
I recall watching The Hitman and Her and before the Reynolds Girls came on , Pete waterman said something along the lines of “ These two kept constantly badgering me to make a record with them , I eventually gave in and let them do this”. It was either his further comments or the look on his face after that introduction told me that would be their one and only hit.
I thought it odd at the time because “I’d rather Jack” would have made him a good wedge so why not capitalise with a follow up

You can find a full explanation of this on Wikipedia if you care to take a look.

In so many cases getting a hit record is just a case of being "one time lucky". When I was nearly 14, back in 1982 I designed an electronic circuit and sent it off to Everyday Electronics magazine. Shortly afterwards I got a letter back from them telling me they were going to publish it in their "Circuit Exchange" feature and that I would be paid £12 for it. Now, at 54, I've been struggling to become a writer for years and am trying to get as much published as what I possibly can, poems, letters, articles, in order to get a good CV of previously published material. I'm still waiting to hear from the Doctor Who Appreciation Society at the moment to see if they will publish my DVD review I sent to them. Even despite my best efforts, that £12 back in1982 might be the last bit of money I will ever earn from writing. The problem is there's simply too much competition.

[philipdalton]

"Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, that's not our music it's out of date?".

If you research the history of Pink Floyd you'll find they actually weren't as out of date as what you might think in the late eighties. They weren't doing too well in the singles chart, of course, so would have been unlikely to be featured on "Top of the Pops", but they had reached number 11 in the album chart in the previous year with a live album, and the year before that their studio album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" had got as far as number 3. As for Dire Straits, well, they were no strangers to the charts during the eighties either.
What about "Money For Nothing?"

The Pink Floyd single "Another Brick in the Wall" topped the charts in 1979. I read in a book on pop music.many years ago that most consumers of modern music were between 15 and 19 years of age. It's hardly surprising that any song that says "Hey teacher, leave us kids alone!" will find a niche among teens.

[philipdalton]

You can find a full explanation of this on Wikipedia if you care to take a look.

In so many cases getting a hit record is just a case of being "one time lucky". When I was nearly 14, back in 1982 I designed an electronic circuit and sent it off to Everyday Electronics magazine. Shortly afterwards I got a letter back from them telling me they were going to publish it in their "Circuit Exchange" feature and that I would be paid £12 for it. Now, at 54, I've been struggling to become a writer for years and am trying to get as much published as what I possibly can, poems, letters, articles, in order to get a good CV of previously published material. I'm still waiting to hear from the Doctor Who Appreciation Society at the moment to see if they will publish my DVD review I sent to them. Even despite my best efforts, that £12 back in1982 might be the last bit of money I will ever earn from writing. The problem is there's simply too much competition.

I made a mistake in that, the year was 1983 sorry. Some of you must have thought it strange that the maths just didn't add up.

[Richard1978]

"Who needs Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, that's not our music it's out of date?".

If you research the history of Pink Floyd you'll find they actually weren't as out of date as what you might think in the late eighties. They weren't doing too well in the singles chart, of course, so would have been unlikely to be featured on "Top of the Pops", but they had reached number 11 in the album chart in the previous year with a live album, and the year before that their studio album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" had got as far as number 3. As for Dire Straits, well, they were no strangers to the charts during the eighties either.
What about "Money For Nothing?"

The Pink Floyd single "Another Brick in the Wall" topped the charts in 1979. I read in a book on pop music.many years ago that most consumers of modern music were between 15 and 19 years of age. It's hardly surprising that any song that says "Hey teacher, leave us kids alone!" will find a niche among teens.

Pink Floyd also set some ticket sales records in the late 1980s during the tour to support A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

[George 1978]

If the X Factor had been around in 1989, no doubt that the Reynolds Girls would have been on it. But then again, a lot of SAW acts would be as well...

[philipdalton]

When you come to think of it, it's pretty obvious to anyone with an ounce of commonsense why Pete Waterman included Dire Straits on his list of supposedly defunct pop groups when he was writing the song. They were the only band he could think of whose name actually rhymed with "out of date".

[George 1978]

I wonder whether the groups mentioned in the song had got royalties? - it wasn't exactly Half Man, Half Biscuit of course, but the Reynolds did name drop a few.

[philipdalton]

I wonder whether the groups mentioned in the song had got royalties? - it wasn't exactly Half Man, Half Biscuit of course, but the Reynolds did name drop a few.

As far as I know you only get royalties from a song you've written don't you?

[George 1978]

As far as I know you only get royalties from a song you've written don't you?

Perhaps, but I often thought that namedropping certain people in songs and literature probably needed the permission of the people concerned? I might be wrong with regards to that, but I had that assumption.