for Sunday 14th August 1966
Last
This
Presented by Ed Stewart
Week
Week
1
1
Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby Beatles
2
2
God Only Knows Beach Boys
7
3
More Than Love Ken Dodd
3
4
I Saw Her Again Mamas & Papas
8
5
Doctor Love Bobby Sheen
10
6
Hi-Lili Hi-Lo Alan Price Set
5
7
With A Girl Like You Troggs
4
8
I Want You Bob Dylan
22
9
Just Like A Woman Manfred Mann
11
10
Headline News Alan Bown Set / Edwin Starr
17
11
Give Me Your Word Billy Fury
16
12
Big Time Operator Zoot Money's Big Roll Band
20
13
All Or Nothing Small Faces
30
14
They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haa! Napoleon XIV/Kim Fowley
23
15
Warm And Tender Love Percy Sledge
24
16
Got To Get You Into My Life Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers
9
17
Summer In The City Lovin' Spoonful
14
18
Tell Her Dean Parrish
13
19
Lovers Of The World Unite David & Jonathan
33
20
So Fine Santelles
21
21
Where Were You When I Needed You? Grass Roots
12
22
Visions Cliff Richard
19
23
Barefootin' Robert Parker
26
24
The Moment Of Truth Three Good Reasons
29
25
Popsicle Jan & Dean
26
Out Of This World Chiffons
39
27
When You Walk In The Sand Tuesday's Children
19
28
How Long Is Time? Odyssey
34
29
Harlem Shuffle Mike Cotton Sound
30
Too Soon To Know Roy Orbison
28
31
I Love How You Love Me Paul & Barry Ryan
32
Tossin' And Turnin' Dave Davani Four
40
33
Summertime Billy Stewart
34
Good Day Sunshine Tremeloes / Glen Dale
37
35
This Heart Of Mine Jimmy James & the Vagabonds
36
Goodbye Bluebird Wayne Fontana
37
I Cast My Fate To The Wind Shelby Flint
37
Stop That Girl Chris Andrews
38
Working In The Coal Mine Lee Dorsey
39
You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd Roger Miller
40
I Can't Turn You Loose Otis Redding
40
You Make Me Feel Like Someone Billy J Kramer

30
14
They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haa! Napoleon XIV/Kim Fowley

Throughout the Big L 2001 RSL, Paul Graham regularly featured tracks from the weird LP by Napoleon XIV, aka Jerry Samuels. Bearing the same title as his much-banned single, They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haa, this album, which unsurprisingly features a collection of bizarre tracks, has now become something of a collector's item.

Norm Katuna, spotting the fact that there are two versions of the single in this week's Fab, asked, did this mean that Kim Fowley had a separate release of this song, along with the original by Napoleon XIV? Kim Fowley released They're Coming... on CBS 202243.

Brian Long, in The London Sound, reveals that the Kim Fowley's B-side is called You Get More For Your Money, On the Flip Side of This Record, Talking Blues. (You certainly got more than on the B-side of Napoleon XIV's version, which was just the A-side played backwards!) The song is published by Pall Mall, the company partly owned by Radio London. (See Tornados story below) The publishing contract for You Get More... credits both Fowley and one Anthony X Bulldog as composers. Bulldog was Mike Stone, a Californian who held the post of Radio London's PR and promotions man. Presumably, the pseudonym 'Bulldog' was chosen with tongue firmly in cheek, because the lyrics of They're Coming... considered so controversial at the time, are about a missing dog, as in, "I'll find you yet and when I do I'll put you in the NSPCA, you mangy mutt!"

The full lyrics to They're Coming... are widely available on the Internet, but for an up-to-date take on the song, see: I'm Going To Ban Your Domain, Ha-Ha!

Besides climbers that were played at the time of the broadcast of the Sunday Fab Forty, Alan kept a note of others
he heard later in the week and incorporated them into his list.


DJ Climbers:    
My Heart's Symphony Gary Lewis & the Playboys Tony Blackburn
Sunny Bobby Hebb Chris Denning
Distant Shores Chad & Jeremy Dave Dennis
I Dig Everything David Bowie & the Buzz Kenny Everett
If You Ever Leave Me Jackie Trent Paul Kaye
Just A Dream Chris Farlowe Mike Lennox
Ashes To Ashes Mindbenders Mark Roman
Distant Drums Jim Reeves Keith Skues
It's Been Such A Long Way Home Garnet Mimms Ed Stewart
Go Where You Wanna Go Overlanders Norman St John
(You Make Me Feel) So Good McCoys Tony Windsor
Climbers:  
Is That A Ship I Hear? Tornados
Turn Down Day Cyrkle
Here There And Everywhere Episode Six
Never You Hurt The One You Love Laurel Aitken
Disc of the Week:  
Step Out Of Line Twice As Much
Album of the Week:  
The More I See You Chris Montez

Is That A Ship I Hear? Tornados Columbia DB 7984

In July 2006, The Guardian published an article by Alexis Petridis in which he describes Do You Come Here Often?, the B-side of Is That A Ship I Hear?, as "the most astonishing record of 1966". The cause of the astonishment is that the otherwise instrumental B-side was boldly enhanced by Joe Meek with a conversation between two men who sound camper than Round the Horne's Julian and Sandy. The recording is regarded as the first indisputably gay single and is highly collectible, mint copies fetching around £40.

The Guardian feature covers the release of a 24-track CD compilation, From the Closet to the Charts: Queer Noises 1961-1978, which includes Meek's 1966 masterpiece alongside the Kinks' See My Friend. The Kinks released their single (apparently regarded as an oblique paean to homosexuality) in 1965, however, Do You Come Here Often? is regarded as the first release of something rather more blatant.

Do You Come Here Often? is published by Pall Mall, the company partly owned by Radio London. The Pall Mall catalogue contained eleven Joe Meek titles. Members of the Tornados are accredited as the ditty's composers, although as Alexis Petridis remarks:
"Quite what the Tornados made of their pill-maddened producer's latest wheeze, let alone anyone who heard the song in 1966, is an intriguing question."

It's possible the Tornados laid down an instrumental and Meek mixed in the risque conversation later. Either that, or the Tornados were so used to the camp goings on chez Meek, that they regarded the recording as 'just another job'. Whatever the case, Is That A Ship I Hear? and its controversial B-side was to be the band's final single. All the original members who had enjoyed an international mega-hit with Telstar, had departed their ranks by this time.

The Radlon management who were later to take exception to the lyrics of Arnold Layne and ban it from the Big L playlist, presumably remained blissfully ignorant of the existence of the 'astonishing' Tornados B-side. Ironically, it would have been perfect for the Camp Coffee Break!

Tune in next week for another Field's Fab Forty!

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