Sounds on Sunday: 50 years ago – 1976-19

FIFTY YEARS AGO we were humming along to the hits of 1976. Some have magnificently stood the test of time; others have not. Join us on Memory Lane as we review them on their golden anniversaries.

You know what we are going to say. Elton John and Kiki Dee are still at number one. It’s their sixth and last week, so we’ll be back to normal next Sunday. We can’t find anything listenable among those songs that got to number two in 1976, so we’re solving our dilemma in the usual way… playing a 10cc song. Our excuse is that How Dare You, the last 10cc album with the original line-up (and therefore, in our opinion, the last 10cc album) came out in 1976, so this is the last year we can play them in a “50 years ago” slot.

How Dare You reached number 5 in the UK charts. It only topped the album charts in the clearly very discerning New Zealand. It was ranked 19 in the UK’s End of Year Charts. Lazy Ways is the second track on the LP and was never released as a single, so it doesn’t have any chart position and there is no record of it being sung live.

This is an unusual 10cc song in that it has a single writer, Eric Stewart, who also takes lead vocals (and showcases an impressive falsetto, albeit not quite matching Lol Crème’s falsetto in Rubber Bullets or the crystal clarity of Kevin Godley in Cry).

It’s an easy song, musing on the challenge of wanting to get things done while also feeling lazy. That’s a sentiment many of us in England will share over the coming week, as we enjoy the last week of the school summer holidays. Indulge.

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