Tone Deaf, Treacle

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