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Your favourite 'One Hit Wonder'


colgraff
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Which one-hit wonders that you love? You are welcome to interpret 'one-hit wonder' quite liberally:
[list]
[*]A literal one-hit wonder such as Carl Douglas's Kung-Fu Fighting
[*]A supernova type going from obscurity to heights of fame with a few hits and back to obscurity very quickly. Think Billie Piper.
[*]A performer or band who were around for decades but are only really known for a song or two. Think The Proclaimers.
[/list]

I'm going with Peter Schilling's 'Major Tom', I love both versions of it.
A classical one: Blake/Parry 'Jerusalem'. Hubert Parry isn't a true one-hit wonder, but Jerusalem is virtually the only work of his that is still remembered and most of his output was roundly slated during his lifetime.

Which one hit wonders do you like? Guilty pleasures or otherwise?

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Gary Byrd and the GB Experience - The Crown
Flash and the Pan - Waiting for a Train

These two immediately came to mind. Then it struck me that they were released within weeks of each other in 1983. H[color=#414141]ow's that for laughs?[/color]

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[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1457821197' post='3002161']


In that case:
Andrew Gold: Lonely Boy
Nena: 99 Luftballons
[/quote]

In that case...

Wax, Building A Bridge To Your Heart.

Also, River City People, California Dreaming

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It was the mid 80s. I was 14 or 15 years old, spending my summers in a tiny little village in Spain, falling in love left right and centre, riding a pink Vespino, drinking gin and beer in a disco called Sexifirmio, and there were two songs always playing on the radio. One was Voyage Voyage by Desireless, if anyone remembers that (I've just dredged it from the brackish, silted riverbed of 30-year-old memories):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PDmZnG8KsM

But the one that got to me was The Promise You Made by Cock Robin. It remained half-buried for years and years and in my sun-soaked, gin-fuelled memories, and I only found it again by googling a snippet of lyrics 25 years later.

Plus points:

Led by a bassist (Peter Kingsbery)
Anna LaCazio. That voice. Strained, but controlled. Plaintive, even.
The Eightiesest mullet on the guitarist
I was 15 years old, man. It was 1986. I was drunk and surrounded by magic, mystery, the sun, the moon, gin, beauty, girls, a disco covered in mirrors. Sexifirmio indeed.

Anyway here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pk3A_QSINI

It's guff and not the sort of thing I 'like', but I could listen to it over and over, and it takes me right back to a bar, across the road from that disco, to a girl called Miracles, to the hills, to the road down to the coast, to the heady scent of rosemary in the air.

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[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1457825773' post='3002202']
How about Norman Greenbaum's 'Spirit InThe Sky' ?
[/quote]

Oh yes! I heard that once he did a gig somewhere and every time he tried to play a different song the audience started throwing things so he ended up playing Spirit in the Sky dozens of times.

So many great songs listed here.

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