As I mentioned last week, the pool of great intros to songs is showing no signs of running dry just yet, so I thought I’d play another set this week. These are a mixed bunch, as ever, both in style and the length of their intros, but they all have one thing in common: you can ‘name that tune’ from the moment they start.

Let’s have something jolly to get us going:

In case you hadn’t noticed, Men At Work are an Australian band. Down Under was a massive global hit in 1981, reaching the #1 spot in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries. The album it came from – Business As Usual – was also #1 in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. That was quite some debut, although this was actually the second single from the album: Who Can It Be Now had initially been released as a single before being included on the album, and was a US #1, #2 in Australia, and had various lower chart placings in other countries including the UK, where it only got to #45 – it deserved much better. This video still makes me smile more than forty years on, and I love the song.

This next one was also a huge hit single:

Another Brick In The Wall was the first single released in the UK by Pink Floyd since 1968 – they were very much an albums band, although singles had been released (reportedly, against their wishes) in other countries – and was #1 in the UK, the US, and several other countries, selling more than 4m copies. It was released at the end of November 1979 and topped the UK charts for five weeks from December of that year, thus making it the last #1 of the old decade and the first of the new one. The album it was on – The Wall, a double album – was #1 just about everywhere except here in the UK, where it only reached #3. This song was known to be hated by the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the single and the album were both banned in South Africa in 1980 after the song was adopted by supporters of a nationwide school boycott, who were protesting against institutionalised racial inequities in education under apartheid. For me, those are two badges of honour! The Wall was later adapted into a successful movie, with a score written by Roger Waters, who also wrote the original album.

This one might be less familiar, but if you know it, you know:

Sweet Home Alabama was a track on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s second album, appropriately titled Second Helping, which was released in April 1974 and peaked at #12 in the US, though it didn’t make the UK Albums chart. The track was released as a single in June of that year and reached #8 in the US: it also made #31 in the UK two years later – too laid back for our own good! It was written in response to two songs by Neil Young – Southern Man and Alabama – because the band thought these “took the entire South to task for the bloody history of slavery and its aftermath, and that Neil was shooting all the ducks in order to kill one or two.” In Neil’s 2012 autobiography Waging Heavy Peace, he commented on his song: “My own song Alabama richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don’t like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue.” That was also a problem Lynyrd Skynyrd had with their record, which was taken by some to support the racist Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, when in fact it does the opposite. Maybe some music fans need a history lesson? It’s not for me to comment on American politics, though, or to remark on some of the imagery in the video: I’m just here for the music.

Three of today’s bands have already featured in previous intros selections, and this is the second of them:

Guns N’ Roses released Patience on their second album – G N’ R Lies – in November 1988, peaking at #2 in the US and #22 in the UK. It was some way short of their debut album – Appetite For Destruction – but still managed to sell a very healthy 5m copies in the US. Patience was the only single taken from it, in April 1989, and it got to #4 in the US and #10 in the UK. I’ve always thought this was one of their best songs, and the second side of the album – the ‘acoustic’ part – is very good. And that whistling on the intro is kinda recognisable, isn’t it!

Today’s closing band is the third to have been in this series before. When I began compiling my list they had six songs that I could have played, and even today I was torn between several. I finally settled on this one:

As if you needed telling, that was of course The Beatles with Day Tripper. This was released in December 1965 as a non-album single – like many of their songs at that time – as a double A-side with We Can Work It Out. In the UK the record got to #1, and in the US, which gave separate rankings for each track, this was #5 and We Can Work It Out was #1. Of course, on combined sales it was a huge hit! The song was mostly written by John, with contributions from Paul, and the vocals are shared between them and George, who plays lead guitar. The lyrics are seemingly about a woman who has ideas above her station and needs to be taken down a peg or two, but the title is ambiguous and both John and Paul alluded to an interpretation of tripping on drugs rather than going on a day trip to the seaside. Naughty boys!

That seems as good a place as any to bring this week’s jollity to a close. Time for me to switch on the tv and get my daily fix of Wimbledon 🎾 and then the Euros ⚽️

See you again soon 😊