Top of the Pops: 10th November, 1977.

Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music.
By AVRO (Beeld En Geluid Wiki - Gallerie: Toppop 1973)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This week, to avoid the reception difficulties that so plague me whenever I do this, I'm leaping into the 21st Century in a way that only 1977 can make you do, and watching online.

Needless to say, almost the moment the show starts, I lose my connection.

When I get it back, we've already missed the intro and I'm confronted by what I assume to be the Jacksons over the chart countdown.

If it is them, it's a song I've never heard before - unless it's the song they did the other week, that I'd also not heard before.

A song I mostly definitely have heard before is on next, as Tom Robinson's back.

And there's still something about it that doesn't quite work for me. I love the record but this performance feels too pub for my liking. It's 1977. I'm going through an awkward phase. I'm having strange feelings I've never had before. Mostly involving my internet connection going down. I need some proper punk rebellion.

Meanwhile, the camera man's hanging from the ceiling.

I suppose that might count as punk rebellion.

That guitarist's got very untidy strings. I shouldn't be annoyed by that but, somehow, I am.

But now Tom's gone, and Noel claims that both Donna Summer and Ruby Winters used to be in the Four Seasons. I suspect that may not be true

What is true is that Ruby's on next, doing I Will.

Didn't the White Guardian have a chair like that in Dr Who? If he didn't, he should have.

She seems a bit confused in her movements, like she doesn't know where to look.

But who can blame her? Adrift in a sea of whiteness, it's much she's not got snow-blindness.

She needs to watch out. I once knew someone who insisted that, when a polar bear attacks, it puts one paw over its black nose and thus becomes invisible against the polar ice, meaning there could be one stood right in front of you and you'd never know it.

Something for Ruby to think about there as she rambles around the set.

Roxy Music are on with their brand new hit; Virginia Plain.

I wonder if Bryan Ferry was ever young? No matter how old the footage, he always looks middle-aged.

I've just realised, after all these years, I don't have the slightest clue what Bryan Ferry's singing about.

Oops, connection's gone again.

It turns out I've not missed much, as we're back with Boney M still solving all of Northern Ireland's problems by wearing silly costumes and dancing around a bit.

Elvis Costello's back with Watching The Detectives, the song that first brought him to my eagle-eyed attention when he appeared on the Mavis Nicholson show.

Now it's Legs and Company dancing to How Deep is Your Love? by the Bee Gees. A lot deeper than your voices, that's for sure.

For some reason, "Company" seem to be recreating Dick Van Dyke's legendary turn in Mary Poppins.

I don't have the slightest clue why.

But now it's one from left field because we're given Kenny Everett and Captain Kremmen.

I have no memory of this at all.

Obviously I remember Captain Kremmen and I remember Kenny Everett. So elephantine is my memory that I can even remember both of them at the same time but the record itself means nothing to me.

I have to say, it isn't the most thrilling song I've ever heard.

Or the most interesting video.

Now Noel's with two baffling looking women.

And now it's Santana in a video that seems to have been filmed on a mobile phone, which is quite an achievement in 1977.

Then again there's that infamous footage that seems to show a woman using a mobile phone in the 1920s, or whenever it was, so all things are possible.

I still don't have a clue who the singer is. My Steve Senses tell me it's probably not Colin Blunstone, despite what I thought last week.

Have we actually seen Santana yet?

But yes! Hooray! At last we get to see him, fuzzily, just in time for him to be faded out. Poor old Santana. Not even allowed to star in his own videos.

Not needing a video - because she's here in person - it's Tina Charles who, according to Noel, has a Love Bug. What an unfortunate link that is.

Darts are back.

And Daddy Cool's still playing his piano machine. I wonder what exactly a piano machine actually does?

Den's still looking far too inhibited.

ABBA are still Number 1.

And we go out with Rod.

When I say, "Go out," I of course don't mean that in the Rod Stewart sense of the phrase. Despite rumours to the contrary, I'm not, after all, a statuesque Scandinavian blonde.

I have to say this week's show wasn't really up there with last week's blockbuster epic but it did at least give us Darts, Roxy Music and the Bee Gees - and what I'll always regard as Elvis Costello's first Top of the Pops appearance even though it wasn't.

In some ways, tonight's edition was ahead of its time, with mobile phone recorded videos, and in some ways it was behind its time, with a revived classic from 1972. But I suppose that sums up this time of year for you, when we look both forward at what's to come and backwards at what's already been. In that sense, perhaps it captured the quintessence of the pre-festive season. Then again, maybe I'm just desperately trying to think up some philosophical point with which to end this post.

Blimey! Look at that! I've managed it!

Top of the Pops: 1st September, 1977.

Yvonne Elliman in 1975; by Matt Gibbons
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultomatt/120599196/)
 [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Last week brought something of a conceptual break-through into our musical lives. Will this week see the trend continue or will it be back to the mould we all hoped had been broken for good?

Like a herald of the new age, Tony Blackburn welcomes us through the airwaves.

And we leap straight into it with Meri Wilson and her legendary track Telephone Man playing over the chart countdown.

I may be a dirty old man but I think I spotted a momentary moment of subtle innuendo in the lyrics there.

Sadly, the innuendo doesn't last long, as we very quickly launch into... ...erm, someone.

Whoever they are, they sound lively.

This is all very funky. I approve of this.

It has a hint of John Miles, the Bee Gees and ELO about it.

Despite the seeming banality of its lyrics, this is threatening to be my favourite track ever by an opening act I've never heard of.

Apparently it was by Hudson Ford. I don't even know if Hudson Ford's the singer or the band.

According to Tony, it's Noel Edmonds' record of the week. No wonder I've never heard of it.

But now it's someone whose career even Noel Edmonds wouldn't be able to sink because it's Yvonne Elliman with a song that's not by the Bee Gees.

Admittedly, when I say it's not by the Bee Gees, I don't have a clue if it is or not but I'm assuming it isn't as it lacks their usual drama.

Also lacking drama is the video, which isn't the most imaginative I've ever seen, even by the standards of its day. It's basically Yvonne motionless as the camera points at her upper half.

It would seem the song's called I Can't Get You Out Of My Mind and I'm trying to work out if you can sing Tommy Steele's Little White Bull over it.

I decide I'm not sure if you can.

But a man who could rarely be confused with Tommy Steele is Elvis Costello who's singing (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes on what I believe to be his first Top of the Pops appearance.

This makes me happy, as I was a very big fan of Elvis at the time and had been ever since I'd first seen him on TV one afternoon being interviewed by Mavis Nicholson.

It's Legs and Co dancing to Silver Lady - my favourite David Soul track.

It took me many years to realise it but this is about the Virgin Mary, isn't it?

Admittedly he does call her, "Baby," at one point but David's a big star and big stars do things differently from the rest of us. He probably calls Jesus, "Dude," as well.

This is exactly the sort of track Legs and Co should be dancing to. It's hard for even them to mess it up.

We've got to the chorus. I'm singing along with it. The neighbourhood cats are no doubt suitably impressed. They accept me as one of their own.

The acceptance of cats means more to me than life itself.

Just as I say that, I lose reception again. Those dagnabbit cats. It's them. It must be. They're trying to cut me off in my prime. But, damn their vertically pupiled eyes, they won't succeed.

I defeat the local cats in time for the Steve Gibbons Band to return. Is this the third time they've been on?

Now it's the Jacksons and a track with which I'm unfamiliar. This is strange, as I would've thought all Jacksons singles from this era would be famous enough to grant instant recognition. It seems to be called Dreamer and bears some lyrical resemblances to the Supertramp song of the same name.

But didn't there used to be more of the Jacksons?

To be honest, this is rubbish. It's in the same league as the Floaters - and Michael's moving around too much for such a mellow song. He's starting to get on my nerves.

Mink DeVille are back. After all these years, I still don't know what the Spanish bit of this song means.

According to Tony; on Tuesday, David Essex starts the first of his new series. I shall be watching.

Actually, I really shall. In our house, we used to watch the David Essex show and all those other programmes hosted by pop stars like Leo Sayer, Lulu and Cilla Black. I wonder if we'll ever see those days return, with the likes of Adele and Jessie J hosting middle-of-the-road TV for an audience of a certain age?

The track he's doing right now seems to be called Cool Out Tonight.

To be honest I'm not a David Essex fan. Even I can spot his twinkly eyed-charm but his records always seem so wooden to me. Rock On was of course the exception. A genuine classic.

This presumably isn't a classic, as I've never heard it played on the radio ever.

Tempo change. It's all gone a bit Beatles.

And now it's all gone a bit David Essex again.

That guitar solo's very Pilot.

But what does this song remind me of? It's driving me up the wall.

It's time to pass me my Union Jack parachute because we now get Carly Simon and Legs and Co.

To the surprise of no one, Elvis Presley's Number 1 with Way Down.

Legs and Co are getting a good work-out tonight, because they're back, doing a continuation of their earlier David Soul routine. Their sheer energy gives me great pleasure although too many of their moves seem to have been taught them by a chicken.

Some less than flattering photos of Elvis appear on the giant screen, one or two of which give the impression he was inflated with a bicycle pump before the photographer showed up.

But enough of Elvis because we play out with Magic Fly.

Well, apart from Elvis Costello making his debut, it was definitely a return to type for Top of the Pops but I did feel that, despite the anonymous nature of many of its songs, it did get away with it.

And how ironic that Elvis Costello should make his first appearance just as the other Elvis was checking out.

A better man than me would be able to find symbolism in that.