Top of the Pops: 14th July, 1977.

Dave Edmunds by Canada Jack aka Jeremy Gilbert
(Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
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Like Usain Bolt on speed, the nation's favourite music show flings itself into action and we launch straight into it with Kid Jensen giving us an intro I didn't understand, before we get the first act of the evening.

Is it the Real Thing?

It doesn't seem to be.

There seems to be one too few of them.

No.

Hold on.

I think it is the Real Thing. I 'd recognise that nipple-bearing dress-sense anywhere.

Although now convinced it is indeed the Real Thing, I sadly don't recognise the song. My guess, from what they keep singing, is it's called Love's Such A Wonderful Thing.

Someone who'd no doubt concur is Rita Coolidge and what Kid tells us is the Boz Scaggs song We're All Alone.

It's weird that, up until now, I never even knew what this track was called but it's one of a handful of songs I automatically associate with 1977, along with Magic Fly and Nobody Does It Better.

Now it's the Saints, from Australia, and This Perfect Day. It's punk but from the wrong side of the world.

How weird that the first genuinely punky sounding thing to ever appear on Top of the Pops is by an unknown Australian band who don't even look like punks.

As if to celebrate this conceptual breakthrough, there's someone in the audience sort of pogoing.

Now it's Legs and Co dancing to Easy Like Sunday Morning by the Commodores. I always thought this came out a couple of years later.

Dave Edmunds is back with I Knew The Bride When She used To Rock And Roll. Nick Lowe looking vaguely like a Ramone.

“If you were wondering what happened to Jigsaw,” says Kid. I know I was. I've not been able to sleep at night for worrying about it.

In fact I wasn't. I've never heard of them but, whoever they are, they're back again.

It quickly becomes clear just what happened to them. They were busy visiting their singer in hospital after he got his nadgers destroyed by an industrial-strength vice. It's the only possible explanation for that singing voice. He manages to make the Bee Gees sound like Barry White.

On reflection, did Jigsaw do that song that goes, "You've blown it all sky high," or was that someone else?

Whatever the case, with their New Faces manner, they do seem strangely like a band out of time.

Then again, so did Supertramp and that didn't stop them having their greatest commercial successes at a time when they should have been at their least fashionable. This time they're on with Give A Little Bit which is one of my Supertramp favourites.

Roger Hodgson still looks like Jesus and still sounds like Roddy McDowall.

Argh! They didn't play the ending. I love the ending.

But now the unexpected's hit me between the eyes because it's Cilla Black.

Without having yet heard it I suspect that, like the Supertramp song, my favourite bit of this is going to be the end – though not necessarily for the same reasons.

But it is bizarre to see Cilla Black on Top of the Pops in the late 1970s, especially as the song sounds like it was recorded in the 1960s.

A band who could only have been from the 1970s are the Sex Pistols, making their debut with Pretty Vacant, the song they wrote for the Olympic opening ceremony. How angry will they be when they realise they were beaten onto Top of the Pops by the Saints? I bet John Lydon's still bitter to this very day.

It's weird that, after all this time, they seem strangely like a boy band.

So now Top of the Pops does the obvious segue from the Sex Pistols to Kenny Rogers, giving us one of the show's legendary blink-and-you'll-miss-it interviews. It's a noticeably longer interview than we're used to and tells us more about our hero than usual but not anything that's likely to change our lives.

Seemingly not having had their lives changed at all since last week, Hot Chocolate are still Number 1 with So You Win Again, and Errol's still wearing his amulet of power.

Kid gives us his, “Good Love,” sign-off and we play out with Emerson Lake and Palmer.

So, I think we learned two valuable lessons from tonight's show. 1, that Australia was the true heartland of punk and, 2, that Kid Jensen won't give up on it until the entire nation's saying, "Good Love," to each other.

Somehow I suspect he's going to have a very long wait.

Top of the Pops: 23rd June, 1977.

The Brotherhood of Man - Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, Rijksfotoarchief:
Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Fotopersbureau (ANEFO),
1945-1989 - negatiefstroken zwart/wit, nummer toegang 2.24.01.05,
bestanddeelnummer 928-4930 (Nationaal Archief)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

Despite its best efforts to do so, BBC 4 has pitifully failed to catch me out, and this Wednesday evening finds me all rared up and ready to go.

I'm not the only one - because Jimmy Savile too has failed to be caught out and, by the sounds of him, is as full of vim and vigour as ever.

But first we kick off with a miracle, as, for possibly the first time ever, I recognise both the opening act and their song.

It's Dave Edmunds and his Rockpile, with I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock and Roll.

In retrospect, what an odd outfit Dave Edmunds' Rockpile were, somehow managing to feel like they were riding on a New Wave bandwagon despite being as much a 1950s throwback as Shakin' Stevens ever was.

Nick Lowe still looks like he should've been the fifth Beatle though.

Jimmy Savile's back and as well dressed as ever, in a tracksuit covered in crudely sewn-on flags of the British Isles.

Now it's Tony Etoria.

They've saved the act I've never heard of for second on the bill! Can the show survive such a drastic format change?

This seems to be cheerful tune sung from the perspective of a mad stalker.

Sadly for Tony and his oddly creepy song, the audience're clearly more interested in watching the cameramen than in watching him.

Speaking of creepy, Gary Glitter's back.

And it's a lot livelier than his last appearance, which was just plain disturbing.

This is more like the Gary we were familiar with - although you can't help feeling it's a song calling out for a bigger production.

My razor-sharp Steve Senses tell me he might be miming.

Overall you have to say it's one of music's great tragedies that a man who, like Jimmy Savile, could make you smile just upon the mention of his name, had to end up enmeshed in such scandal,  robbing us forever of a small piece of innocent fun in our lives.

Next up, it's Carole Bayer Sager. He still hasn't moved out and she still hasn't got her hands out of her pockets.

Carole's gone and Jimmy's returned. He's back to his old trick of introducing us to strange acquaintances of his. God only knows where he finds his endless supply of discomfiting people.

It's ABBA the Brotherhood Of Man, with Angelo. This is more like it. How could anyone not like the Brotherhood Of Man?

Angelo's resemblance to Fernando is obvious but I'd never noticed before that they've also stolen the piano from Dancing Queen.

There's no two ways about it, this has to be the cheeriest song about suicide ever written.

Now we're back with another of Jimmy's friends who all look weirdly familiar, like they should be someone famous. This time it's a man called Dennis, and the famous person he should be is Mick Fleetwood.

The famous people the Stranglers should have been are the Stranglers and that's the cue for them to give us another airing of Go Buddy Go.

You have to give Top Of The Pops credit. How many other music shows could have gone seamlessly from the Brotherhood Of Man to the Stranglers with nothing to separate them but Jimmy Savile?

Now it's Johnny Nash. I don't know the song but, whatever it is, it's taking its time getting going.

I must admit I know very little of the oeuvre of Johnny Nash but this seems quite nice, with a hint of Otis Redding's Try A Little Tenderness.

Legs and Co are back, dressed as Little Bo Peep and dancing to Oh Lori.

I do feel they should have dancers on Jools Holland's Later to fill in for any acts who can't be bothered to turn up.

I bet Paul Nicholas would never be not bothered to turn up for a TV show. I bet Paul Nicholas would never be not bothered to turn up for for the opening of an envelope. Never have I seen a man of Paul Nicholas's enthusiasm. And we get a chance to experience it all over again as the man who gave us seminal rock classic Grandma's Party is back, doing Heaven on the 7th Floor.

There's a harmonica. For a moment I'm hoping it turns out to be being played by Stevie Wonder.

Sadly it doesn't. But what meeting of the talents that would've been.

I do feel Paul Nicolas was what Brendon could've been if he'd played his cards right.

Jimmy has another friend with him. This time the famous person he should be is Peter Frampton because it is Peter Frampton, popping in to show off his bare chest and say nothing much in particular. Sadly, his tube is notable by its absence. It would've been a wonderful moment in pop history if, in the time since his previous appearance on the show, Peter Frampton had gone so mad he'd taken to talking through his tube as well.

At Number 1, it's the Jacksons with Show You The Way To Go.

I must confess it's not one of my favourite Jacksons tracks.

To be honest not many Jacksons tracks are.

Despite me being a renowned king of Disco, I only ever liked Blame It On The Boogie and Can You Feel It?

What's this show they're on? I don't think it's Soul Train, the studio and stage layout don't look right. Nor do the audience, who seem more of a mixed racial bag than Soul Train's audience ever were.

Whatever show it is, the canned audience seem to be getting well into it.

Sadly, for me, it seems to be dragging on forever.

Jimmy's strangling a woman as we go into a track I don't recognise that's acting as the show's play-out. For a moment it sounds like Cliff Richard then suddenly sounds like Jamiroquai. I brilliantly conclude it's neither of them but don't conclude who it actually is and can therefore only watch in cluelessness as the show fades out.

Well that all flew by. All in all, I think that was one of my favourite editions of the show so far. I don't think I disliked anything aside from from the Jacksons and, apart from it dragging on too long, I don't actively mind that one either. Some people might say I should have disliked the Botherhood of Man and Paul Nicholas but they're always so smiley and glad to be there, how could I ever hope to take against them?