Peter Dean, an actor best known here in Britain for playing
Pete Beale in the long-running BBC soap opera EastEnders once recorded a
single… and it’s every bit as horrible as you would hope!
Can't Get A Ticket (For The World Cup) was issued in May
1986, the year of Maradona’s infamous ‘hand of god’, which saw England
eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the competition. Possibly knowing that
England were likely to fall over their own feet, the sleeve of the single also
featured the badges of the Scottish and Irish teams alongside England, Dean and
his squad hedging their bets or attempting to appeal to footie fans outside of
England itself. Scotland and Ireland both made it to Mexico, but both went out
in the first round. As did any hope of Mr. Dean scoring a chart hit.
The song was co-written by Ray Fenwick and saxophonist Wesley
Magoogan. Fenwick’s more than a half-century in music has seen him collaborate
with a number of big-name British rock musicians, including members of Black Sabbath,
Deep Purple, Rainbow, Yes and the Spencer Davis Group, as well as with blues
legend Bo Diddly and many others. While with the Spencer Davis Group he wrote
the theme tune to the fondly remembered children’s TV show Magpie – recorded
by the Spencer Davis Group under the pseudonym Murgatroyd. The flipside, Right,
Fine, Don't Panic! is a piece of substandard Chas & Dave-esque tosh written
by Magoogan on his own, which would explain the wailing, atonal saxophone slathered
all over it.
Commenting on his song at the time, Dean said: ‘I’m a great
believer in music. It unites people, and I hope this song can do it for all
those supporters who couldn’t get a ticket for Mexico.’. I’m not quite sure
what Mr. Dean meant by ‘it’ exactly, but the single was a spectacular flop,
failing to chart despite Dean performing the song on Tyne Tees Television’s
live current affairs programme Nightline.
Enjoy!
Download Cup HERE
Download Panic HERE
Ta for this. Looking forward to it.
ReplyDelete"failing to chart despite Dean performing the song on Tyne Tees Television’s live current affairs programme Nightline."
I hope he sacked his manager. Everyone knows that show broke every major act of the last 60 years eg Bowie with his arm draped round a Laughing Gnome singing about pompous Martians.
This has been my white whale. Been looking for this for years. Thank you! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou're more than welcome!
Deleteha "Right, Fine, Don't Panic!" is a fun tune. It's not atonal, they're doing their impression of The Fall!
ReplyDelete