Sunday, July 31, 2011

W.O.C.K On Vinyl - Meaningless Song (Hee Bee Gee Bees - 1980)


Before things get too serious here at Rock On Vinyl, I thought it might be fun to post a song at the end of each month, that could be categorized as being either Weird, Obscure, Crazy or just plain Korny.
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In the words of the late Jimi Hendrix "Have you ever experienced The Hee Bee Gee Bees"?
That is, of course, "Meaningless Songs in Very High Voices," one of the most dead-on and deadly pop parodie
s ever recorded. Inspirational verse: "The world is very, very large...and butter is better than marge." 
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The Hee Bee Gee Bees were a pop group formed initially to parody the Bee Gees towards the close of their sequence of high-pitched, disco-style hits. The 'band' consisted of three brothers; Dobbin, Garry and Norris Cribb performed by Angus Deayton (Garry), Michael Fenton Stevens (Norris), and Philip Pope (Dobbin).
Their song "Meaningless Songs (in Very High Voices)" was released by Original Records in 1980 and reached number two in the Australian singles chart.
They subsequently released two albums, which
include parodies of Supertramp ("Scatological Song" as Supertrash), Michael Jackson ("Up the Wall" as Jack Michaelson), Status Quo ("Boring Song" as Status Quid), The Police ("Too Depressed to Commit Suicide" as The PeeCees), David Bowie ("Quite Ahead of My Time" as David Bowwow), Gary Numan ("Are Trains Electric?" as Gary Inhuman) and others. The albums were recorded in the Strawberry Studios in Stockport, and featured 10cc and Sad Café studio musicians as their band, although neither appear on this single.
The Hee Bee Gee Bees also made guest appearances on the radio show 'Radio Active', where all three of the comedians were cast members. Fenton-Stevens was also a cast member on Spitting Image and later sang lead on their UK number one hit, "The Chicken Song" [extract from wikipedia]
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The single has been ripped at 320kps and includes both sides - including scans of the the picture cover and the record labels. 
Incidentally, the LP this single is taken from '439 Golden Greats' is now available through Possum Records. The B-Side track however, is still unavailable. 
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Track Listing
01 - Meaningless Song (Side A)
02 - Posing In The Moonlight (Side B)

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The Hee Bee Gee Bees Link (16Mb)
New Link 29/06/2022
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3 comments:

  1. Hey man,

    Do you have the LP that this single is lifted from? I have their J&B records follow up "20 big No.2's" which I have ripped but not cleaned up and edited into tracks yet. I'd love to hear the other LP as well

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  2. Hey SoundandFury
    Actually, I do have the LP '439 Golden Greats' which features a similar cover to the Bee Gees 'Saturday Night Fever' and the Sex Pistols 'Never Mind The Bollocks' from which this single was lifted.
    I'll see what I can do......

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  3. I had "439 Golden Greats" on vinyl many years ago and still have fond memories, especially "Boring Song" (still remember all the words) and "Dead Cicada". Trying to explain to my kids just how good this album was difficult. Actually being able to play it to them will make it much easier.

    Thank you

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