eurovision song contest

[16] Sebastien Tellier, ‘Divine’

Sebastien Tellier and Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo

Pop fluff of a different hue now, and French dance lord Sebastien Tellier’s audacious, doomed attempt to bring a bit of credibility to the Eurovision Song Contest. More doomed than audacious, because a) there isn’t a great deal of cred to an electro doo-wop number performed by a bloke with a beard (with further fake-bearded backing singers) even if he’s ably abetted by the Daft Punk chap pictured above, and b) it’s never going to work, is it? Eurovision is unsenduppable. In the event, even Sebastien’s zany arrival in a golf cart couldn’t stop the backing vocalists utterly messing up the bop-bop-doo-wop harmonies which make up the essential beauty of the song. A lovely bit of chuckaway pop was lost and a rapt continent was left with a French fellow taking the piss.

Junior pigeonholed ‘Divine’ as a “sitting-down song” and thought it had finished when the beat broke down in the middle. Maybe that would’ve been the moment for M Tellier to sneak off and leave the floor for the mighty Andy Abraham.

[20] The Jam, ‘The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)’

1982. ‘A Little Peace’ taking the Eurovision crown, The Falklands “Conflict”, a harrowing single term at boarding school, the Kids from Fame, the Goombay Dance Band, the lion sleeps tonight, dropping out of the Cubs to practise being Zico in the back garden, spending £1.25 on my first 7” single. They’re cheaper NOW.

The Jam’s penultimate single, then. I felt the pain of their break-up keenly, I didn’t understand why they’d stop. Perhaps it was some kind of law. A law that should be enforced more often, come to think. ‘The Bitterest Pill’ has a beautifully succinct lyric, a string-soaked, white-boy soul tune and rousing choruses. Hindsight shows us the tension that was pulling Weller towards the more mannered stylings of his Council.

I’m worried that Junior’s dancing doesn’t discriminate. She rocked out to an arrhythmic beat I was tapping on her toy drum at the weekend, unable to help herself. For what it’s worth, she cut some rug to this song like she hasn’t for a while.

She thought it should be higher up this chart, but I said I had to put some space between the Jam singles.