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This programme contains some strong language | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
'I found out some songs wrote themselves. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:09 | |
'Like, Teenage Kicks wrote itself. Teenage Kicks was written,' | 0:00:09 | 0:00:12 | |
it was a matter of 20, 30 seconds. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
'I remember doing it at the time and thinking, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
"Where's that coming out of?" You know? | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
For the first time, The Undertones and Teenage Kicks. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:23 | |
# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat... # | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
In October 1978, | 0:00:27 | 0:00:28 | |
millions of British viewers got their first taste of Teenage Kicks. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
And their first glimpse of The Undertones. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
Five lads from Northern Ireland | 0:00:35 | 0:00:37 | |
who created some of the most sublime pop music ever made. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:41 | |
# Dressed like that you must be living in a different world... # | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
The Undertones were inspired by the angry anarchy of punk. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:50 | |
But theirs was a different kind of rebellion. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:52 | |
# Boys stop you on the street They wanna know your name... # | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
Their singer was a choir boy. They sang of girls, | 0:00:55 | 0:00:59 | |
or the lack of them, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:00 | |
mummy's boys and their irritating relatives. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:04 | |
# ..my perfect cousin... # | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
They created a perfect and timeless soundtrack to growing up | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
that spoke to teenagers all over the globe. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:13 | |
But their adolescent anthems were revolutionary, nonetheless. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
Startlingly positive protest songs that demanded a life more ordinary. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:23 | |
Because The Undertones came from Londonderry. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
Epicentre of the violent Troubles | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
that tore Northern Ireland apart during the 1970s. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
'What you cannot over emphasise' | 0:01:34 | 0:01:37 | |
is just how unpleasant that place was. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:38 | |
The Undertones were this extraordinary contrast to all that. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
# Little mummy's boy... # | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
For me, The Undertones coming up with those great pop songs | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
was the most wonderful form of protest. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:48 | |
# Jimmy, Jimmy... # | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
'17, 18-year-olds | 0:01:50 | 0:01:51 | |
'in a very ridiculous, absurd stressful situation, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
'still managing to capture the almost abstract,' | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
universal exquisiteness of a great pop song. | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
'The Undertones came from a place which was, on the face of it,' | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
mad with violence, raging with violence. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
# Ooh, baby, baby, what can I do | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
# You know you drive me crazy when I'm looking at you... # | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
'And, yet, they emerged singing songs' | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
of trivial and conventional teenage angst. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:15 | |
# Here comes the summer... # | 0:02:15 | 0:02:17 | |
'Here was a band who somehow managed to produce something big | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
'and operatic and meaningful. And that was something really precious. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:24 | |
'They couldn't have happened anywhere else. And they couldn't have had' | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
the impact they had anywhere else. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
This is the story of the most improbable pop stars | 0:02:29 | 0:02:33 | |
from the most unexpected place. | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
Between 1978 and 1983, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:53 | |
The Undertones had a string of hit records that made them | 0:02:53 | 0:02:57 | |
one of punk rock's most prolific and popular acts. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
# I am an anti-Christ... # | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
They were one of a wave of bands | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
inspired by The Sex Pistols' rousing call to rebellion | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
and punk's DIY assault on the music industry and the world at large. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:16 | |
# You got my number... # | 0:03:16 | 0:03:18 | |
But while The Pistols snarled out anarchy in the UK... | 0:03:18 | 0:03:22 | |
# ..You know my name... # | 0:03:22 | 0:03:23 | |
..and The Clash raged about white riots | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
and Sten guns in Knightsbridge... | 0:03:26 | 0:03:28 | |
The Undertones sang of the everyday trials of teenage life and love. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:32 | |
# If you wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna Wanna have someone to talk to... # | 0:03:32 | 0:03:37 | |
It wasn't as disruptive in an obvious way as The Clash or The Pistols. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
'But what made the whole thing completely unique' | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
was the need to escape, the need to create an alternative world | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
was so much on their shoulders | 0:03:48 | 0:03:50 | |
'that their response to their surroundings and circumstances | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
'was to create this amazing guitar pop music' | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
that was just so infectious and so exhilarating. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
Other punks may have SEEMED more radical | 0:04:00 | 0:04:02 | |
but what made The Undertones' music genuinely subversive | 0:04:02 | 0:04:07 | |
is that it came from a place where bombs and guns | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
were part of the walk to school. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
A city where an ordinary life was something that dreams were made of. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:17 | |
# Why don't you use it?! # | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
MUSIC: "Dirty Water" by The Standells | 0:04:22 | 0:04:24 | |
# I'm gonna tell you a story | 0:04:24 | 0:04:26 | |
# I'm gonna tell you about my town... # | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
The story of The Undertones begins here, | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
in the tight-knit Catholic neighbourhoods | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
around the Bogside area of Derry. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:38 | |
# Down by the river... # | 0:04:39 | 0:04:42 | |
This was the childhood home of five mates. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
Michael, Billy, brothers John and Damian, and Feargal | 0:04:45 | 0:04:50 | |
who became one of Britain's most iconic bands. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
# ..that's where you'll find me... # | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
So, where were The Undertones from in Derry? | 0:04:56 | 0:05:00 | |
Well, start off with the highest altitude, | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
which was us up in Creggan. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
That was our house there, number 36, Creggan Broadway. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
From my house to O'Neill's house I suppose was just...two streets away. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:16 | |
22, Beechwood Avenue. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:17 | |
Undertones HQ. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
22, Beechwood Avenue, this was the headquarters | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
of where The Undertones, kind of, got together... | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
The hub. You know, it was our gathering place. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:28 | |
Billy was a stone's throw from O'Neill's house over the Moor. | 0:05:28 | 0:05:33 | |
We're just here on the Lone Moor Road | 0:05:33 | 0:05:35 | |
and my house is just round the corner. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
'And Feargal would have been about ten minutes' walk.' | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
53, Grafton Avenue. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:43 | |
# Well, I love that dirty water... # | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
Where Feargal lived, certainly, would have been lower middle-class. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
'But, you know, to an outsider,' | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
we would have all been working class. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:52 | |
You know, there was no leafy suburbs here. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
There were no Volvos parked outside. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
'We were very lucky, I think.' | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
I was certainly very lucky in that I was only a couple of streets | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
away from John O'Neill who wrote great songs. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
And only, you know, maybe a mile away from Feargal Sharkey, | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
who's a great singer. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:10 | |
Imagine Feargal had lived over there. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:12 | |
Imagine Feargal had lived on the Waterside. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
Imagine Feargal had been Protestant. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
The Undertones would never have existed. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:19 | |
That's the bizarre thing about Derry. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:21 | |
MUSIC: "All Kinds Of Everything" by Dana | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
# Snowdrops and daffodils... # | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
To the outside world, in the early 1970s, | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
Northern Ireland's second city was famous as the home | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
of Eurovision winner Dana. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
And as the place where the violent struggle known as the Troubles began. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
Already, the stones are flying | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
and there's a whiff of CS gas in the air. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
# All kinds of everything | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
# Remind me of you... # | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
Growing up in Derry was no ordinary experience. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
'Derry wasn't one place, you see.' | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
There was the Derry where the Troubles happened, | 0:07:00 | 0:07:02 | |
which was down at the bottom of William Street. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
In terms of Troubles, I mean the daily riot. | 0:07:05 | 0:07:07 | |
'People in Derry would tell you that it was good craic down there,' | 0:07:07 | 0:07:11 | |
apart from when things happened like the shootings and serious stuff. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
'Guys in my class would talk about being down and throwing stones. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
'And, of course, you had the prize' | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
of the rubber bullet. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:20 | |
# Summer time, winter time... # | 0:07:20 | 0:07:23 | |
You kind of knew it was cool to be from Derry. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
'Whenever punk happened and you read about The Clash | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
'talk the Sten guns in Knightsbridge and so on. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:32 | |
'Great slogans, but The Clash would have killed to come from Derry | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
'because we all had our Trouble stories.' | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
There was in instance here round about the early '70s, | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
I would have been about 14 years old, | 0:07:42 | 0:07:43 | |
that there was a booby-trapped bomb. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
'And that bomb was actually that strong | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
'that it blew me up out of my bed.' | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
The windows came in, glass on top of me, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
the tiles came off the roof, the door came in as well. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
'Then, shortly after the explosion, the army came back again.' | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
I looked over here and I could see the soldier take an aim and he just shot up the road. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:04 | |
There's hundreds of people here. It was just complete... | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
# All kinds of everything | 0:08:08 | 0:08:13 | |
# Remind me of you. # | 0:08:13 | 0:08:18 | |
'Even then, we kind of knew that...' | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
They weren't... They didn't have that in Manchester. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
The history and geography of The Undertones' hometown | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
made it unique. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:33 | |
Derry was a divided city, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
where a large Catholic majority was ruled by a Protestant minority. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
A city with an uneasy, sometimes antagonistic, relationship | 0:08:43 | 0:08:47 | |
between Protestant unionists, who supported ongoing British rule of Northern Ireland, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
and those mainly Catholic nationalists | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
who favoured Irish independence. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
'It's not an accident that the Northern Ireland Troubles started in Derry.' | 0:09:00 | 0:09:04 | |
Here you had a place, the Bogside and the Creggan, | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
the area down beneath the walls here. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
'You had the biggest single concentration of working-class Catholics in Northern Ireland.' | 0:09:08 | 0:09:13 | |
So people felt self-confident in their numbers. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
Catholic working-class people in a place like the Bogside | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
or the Creggan Estate | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
did not have that sense of siege, of being besieged | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
that Catholic working-class people | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
in the epicentres of Ireland and Belfast had. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
It's also important to understand about Derry | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
is that from where we're standing, if you walk in that direction, | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
that direction or that direction, for three miles, | 0:09:35 | 0:09:38 | |
you're in the Republic of Ireland. So there was no sense of isolation here. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
So Derry was a place where, simultaneously, | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
working-class Catholics felt | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
almost uniquely discriminated against, and that was true. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
But at the same time, | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
Derry Catholics felt more self-confident | 0:09:50 | 0:09:52 | |
than Catholics anywhere else in the North, | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
and that was a strange combination. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
So, at one and the same time, it was possible to feel in Derry, | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
"We are being incredibly hard done by by the world." | 0:09:59 | 0:10:04 | |
And, at the same time, "Aren't we great?" | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
To some extent, The Undertones captured that, that Derryness. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:11 | |
You're aware of the political situation. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
There was always rioting, there was always bombs. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
The army checkpoints were there to stop you every time. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
And you were hassled by the police. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
'You just got used to it, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:24 | |
'even though you're aware that was going on and how bad it was,' | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
you still wanted to have some sort of escape. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
'When you're about 14 or 15, and you realise' | 0:10:33 | 0:10:36 | |
you're not going to be a professional footballer... | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
the next avenue open to you would be form a band. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
'So it was myself and John.' | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
I think we might have had a mandolin and a set of bongos. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
'After we played football, we'd come to our house and play some records.' | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
'And there'd always be a guitar lying about,' | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
and Billy might just start... you know, playing the drums. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:01 | |
'There was no great master plan...' | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
initially, you know? | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
And then Vinnie was in the band as well. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:08 | |
'We weren't out to change the world. It was just...' | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
It was just a bit of fun, you know? | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
In 1974, just like boys everywhere, | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
Billy Doherty and John and Vincent O'Neill | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
decided that it might be a good laugh to form a band. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
Their next recruit came from around the campfire. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
This is Bundoran in Donegal. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
And in August 1974, we were camping down here. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
And I officially joined the as-yet-unnamed Undertones. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:46 | |
# Goodbye to you My trusted friend... # | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
He was my best mate. And I think... | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
I think he could play stuff, like, you know? He could tune the guitar. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
And the rest of us couldn't, you know? | 0:11:58 | 0:12:00 | |
Vinnie was the first person who knew | 0:12:00 | 0:12:03 | |
that they announced the new charts on a Tuesday lunchtime. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
He would go to his house, I would go to my house. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
We'd have our dinner, and then on the way back up from school, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:13 | |
we'd discuss what it was. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:14 | |
And I remember you really wanted Seasons In The Sun to be number one. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:19 | |
I remember that because I remember when Seasons In The Sun was number one, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
I remember leaving the house with a sense of, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
"Vinnie'll be happy about that." | 0:12:25 | 0:12:28 | |
# We had joy, we had fun We had seasons in the sun... # | 0:12:28 | 0:12:32 | |
The band was now four. They had friendship. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
They had a shared love of pop music. Next they needed a singer. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
# See the way he walks down the street... # | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
I'm just going to look at the register here for 1971/72 | 0:12:45 | 0:12:49 | |
for my class, which was B4, which was second year. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
So, where am I? | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
"William... Edward Doherty." | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
And on the same class down the list, there you go, | 0:12:58 | 0:13:02 | |
"Sharkey, Sean F," F for Feargal. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
# He's a rebel and he'll never ever be any good... # | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
'Feargal was a cousin of mine but he was also in my class | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
'and whenever we were in music class' | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
with Mr Bonner, he would ask the guys in the class, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
"Can anyone play guitar or sing?" | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
And always Feargal sang, so he had some nerve | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
to stand up in that class with 30 or 34 guys and sing. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:30 | |
Billy's cousin would grow up to become | 0:13:30 | 0:13:32 | |
one of pop music's most original voices. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
# My heart's lost since you been gone... # | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
'Feargal Sharkey,' | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
what a voice. That nasal, brilliant, amazing totally unique, | 0:13:42 | 0:13:47 | |
absolutely characterful voice. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
Which I think was the greatest voice to come out of punk. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
You know, where the hell did THAT come from? | 0:13:56 | 0:13:59 | |
CHOIR BOY SINGS | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
Sharkey was an unlikely punk who's singing career began | 0:14:10 | 0:14:14 | |
long before he joined The Undertones. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:17 | |
Feargal was a child star, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:25 | |
a champion of the annual Irish music festival called the Derry Feis. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
The Feis is actually a showcase for all parts of the arts, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:38 | |
mostly for children of Derry to perform in and also to compete. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:43 | |
It is competitive. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:44 | |
My mother would be anxious that we all sang and played an instrument, | 0:14:44 | 0:14:49 | |
but it turned out he had a lovely boy soprano voice. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
And he had no nerves, you know. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
Feargal was always very confident about his singing. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
When he got into his stride he was unbeatable. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
And one of the adjudicators, he sang How Soft Upon The Evening Air, | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
and she said it brought her to tears. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
It was obvious, he definitely had the balls to go up | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
and sing in front of people, you know? | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
Even though he may not necessarily | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
have been part of the gang as such. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
Was he ever part of the gang? | 0:15:18 | 0:15:20 | |
Probably not. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:22 | |
Which is probably very unfair on him, | 0:15:22 | 0:15:24 | |
because he didn't have any other friends. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
We needed a singer and we sought out a singer, | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
whereas we didn't seek out anyone else in the band. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:35 | |
MUSIC: "Get Over You" by The Undertones | 0:15:35 | 0:15:39 | |
To the record-buying British public, | 0:15:41 | 0:15:42 | |
Sharkey would come to define The Undertones. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
# Dressed like that you must be living in a different world | 0:15:46 | 0:15:50 | |
# And your mother doesn't know... # | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
But he didn't write any of the songs he seemed to personify. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
# Boys stop you on the street They want to know your name... # | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
Feargal, you know, interestingly and unusually, was kind of old school. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
It was a bit like having Shirley Bassey wandering on after | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
the orchestra's put everything down. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:06 | |
Sings the part, "Thanks, Shirl, off you go." | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
# And I don't wanna get over you... # | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
But he had very little input with... Well, no input with the writing. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
He didn't actually originate any material on all the albums. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
He never wrote a thing. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:19 | |
While Sharkey was the charismatic frontman, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
musically the band was driven by its chief songwriter, | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
a self-taught scholar of pop, John O'Neill. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
# Come all you young rebels... # | 0:16:32 | 0:16:38 | |
We used to go on holidays in the summer | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
to Buncrana or Bundoran. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
And there were these folk bands playing all the rebel music. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
# For the love of one's country... # | 0:16:45 | 0:16:49 | |
That was my first experience of hearing music live, I suppose. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
And they sung beautiful, beautiful songs, | 0:16:53 | 0:16:55 | |
like Boolavogue, and Foggy Dew and The Patriot Game. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
# The patriot game... # | 0:16:58 | 0:17:02 | |
MUSIC: "Get It On" by T Rex | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
But also at the same time, obviously, | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
when you're 12, 13, you listen to the radio and what's in the charts. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
The charts at the time, it was a glam rock thing, in particular. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
T Rex, Garry Glitter. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:18 | |
You've got three minutes to make a statement, starting with T Rex. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
Some T Rex songs are two minutes long. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:24 | |
A big influence on me at an early age, too, had been | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
early rock and roll, '50s rock and roll. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
# Why must I be a teenager in love... # | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
And again, the library was quite good for early blues stuff. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
You could go down to the library and get the Howlin' Wolf records | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
and John Lee Hooker. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
# That is true | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
# I love you... # | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
And plus a lot of blues, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
there were just three chords to them. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:53 | |
It was easy to play. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
# The patriot game. # | 0:17:55 | 0:17:59 | |
It was coming up to our GCSE O-Levels, and we did mocks, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
and I did very, very bad. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:11 | |
-HE LAUGHS -It worried me, and I thought, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:13 | |
"I need to start spending a bit of time | 0:18:13 | 0:18:17 | |
"doing a bit of studying if I'm going to do any better than this." | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
In 1976, Vincent O'Neill, aged 16, left the band. | 0:18:24 | 0:18:29 | |
Luckily, his kid brother wasn't a bad guitarist. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
They tried a few guitar players, and it didn't work out. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
So their last resort, they ended up getting me. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
You know, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
obviously, because I felt part of a gang. It was really good. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:49 | |
At 15, Damian was the baby of the band, | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
although all five were still in their teens. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:57 | |
Too young for pubs and clubs, it was here, in the front room | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
of the O'Neill family home, that The Undertones began to absorb | 0:19:02 | 0:19:06 | |
the musical influences that would come to form | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
their distinctive sound. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:11 | |
O'Neill's house was the place where I went every day. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:17 | |
I did everything at O'Neill's apart from sleep. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
Feargal, then, would go down there. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:22 | |
We would just sit in O'Neill's house, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:25 | |
play some acoustic guitar, listen to records and talk rubbish all night. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:30 | |
And it was absolutely brilliant. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
# There's a riot going on... # | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
The boys had a strict, but eclectic music policy, | 0:19:38 | 0:19:41 | |
taking in '60s British R & B, pub rock, glam | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
and American rock and roll, | 0:19:44 | 0:19:45 | |
blues, and garage bands. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:48 | |
And then, this happened. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
# I am an antichrist... # | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
In 1976, The Sex Pistols launched their anarchic | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
assault on middle England. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:02 | |
For many people, it's a bigger threat to our way of life | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
than Russian communism, or hyper-inflation. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
The Undertones became a self-proclaimed punk rock band. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:12 | |
But unlike London, Manchester or even Belfast, | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
there was no live punk scene in Derry, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
and, stranded far from the action, the band found itself drawn more | 0:20:18 | 0:20:23 | |
to the records coming out of New York than London. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
Christmas 1976, I was told that my brother | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
was going to buy me a record. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:33 | |
He didn't ask me himself, he asked my sister which one would I want. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
I ended up with the Ramones' first LP for Christmas. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:42 | |
And anyone who was alive in 1976 | 0:20:42 | 0:20:47 | |
will remember the Ramones' first LP, | 0:20:47 | 0:20:50 | |
because nothing had ever sounded like it before. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
So fast, so simple, just stripping it all down to the basics. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
MUSIC: "Beat On The Brat" by the Ramones | 0:21:02 | 0:21:07 | |
This was where it all started. Absolutely. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
The Ramones' first LP completely re-invented rock and roll. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:13 | |
# Beat on the brat | 0:21:13 | 0:21:14 | |
# Beat on the brat | 0:21:14 | 0:21:16 | |
# Beat on the brat with a baseball bat | 0:21:16 | 0:21:18 | |
# Oh, yeah... # | 0:21:18 | 0:21:19 | |
In 1976, no-one else was singing such simple songs. And funny songs. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
# Beat on the brat | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
# Beat on the brat... # | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
Through records and radio, The Undertones sought out | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
other Stateside punk bands, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:31 | |
discovering music that owed more to American rock and roll | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
than Anarchy In The UK. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
It was almost like joining the dots for us, you know? | 0:21:38 | 0:21:41 | |
Hearing the New York Dolls, and the MC5 and The Stooges | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
and The Velvet Underground, was like, | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
"This is what rock and roll is supposed to be about." | 0:21:47 | 0:21:49 | |
We just decided to start a group, so we borrowed instruments, | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
we learnt a few songs and hey presto. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:58 | |
By 1977, The Undertones had a well-rehearsed set of R & B, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
glam and punk rock covers. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
London's punk bands had the Marquee, | 0:22:07 | 0:22:11 | |
Manchester, the Electric Circus, | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
New York had CBGB's, | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
but all Derry could offer was a makeshift shack in a bomb site, | 0:22:16 | 0:22:20 | |
called the Casbah. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:21 | |
MUSIC: "Casbah Rock" by The Undertones | 0:22:21 | 0:22:26 | |
It's been said that it was a Portakabin which had been | 0:22:26 | 0:22:29 | |
plastered on the outside and placed over a hole in the ground | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
where a former pub had been, until it was blown up. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
# Cos you'll never get pop at the Casbah Rock... # | 0:22:35 | 0:22:38 | |
The Casbah was the hippy/ alternative/indie scene in Derry. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:45 | |
It was the only place you could go to, | 0:22:45 | 0:22:47 | |
this pub where they didn't mind about what religion you were, | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
but they also... They would welcome anybody. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
The Undertones debuted at the Casbah on 10th March, 1977. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:59 | |
It became their spiritual home for the next two years, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:04 | |
and a godsend to a bunch of disaffected Derry kids | 0:23:04 | 0:23:07 | |
desperate for any kind of scene to call their own. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:10 | |
MUSIC: "Jump Boys" by The Undertones | 0:23:10 | 0:23:12 | |
# Jump boys # We're all jump boys... # | 0:23:12 | 0:23:15 | |
For me it was the first live experience of a group I'd ever seen. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:19 | |
So we sat there, and we sort of sat in a corner, and it was amazing. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
It was just a great, dramatic night. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
# Jump boys are crazy They don't have no sense... # | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
They were just excited. And they were different. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
And it was ours. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
There was a different crowd, too, that went there. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
And that made it a bit more unique as well. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:37 | |
We all became a bit of a community, | 0:23:37 | 0:23:39 | |
because at that stage the band had no recognition. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
We were the people who knew they were any good. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:46 | |
So you were, sort of, a group of, sort of, believers. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
15 years before the peace process, | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
the Casbah became a humble retreat for a generation that refused | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
to be defined by Derry's deep-seated sectarianism. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:00 | |
I got to know this guy, called Gordy. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
And he's from the Waterside, and we're chatting, | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
and it came out that he happened to be a Protestant. | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
And I clicked, "That's the first time I've actually known that | 0:24:08 | 0:24:12 | |
"I'm talking to a Protestant. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
"And it means absolutely nothing to me." | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
He's on to the same music, he's on to the same ideas and stuff like that. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
I thought, "Ah, we're just here to have a carry on and a good craic. | 0:24:20 | 0:24:24 | |
"Get away from reality." | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
You couldn't ignore what was going on, because you lived it. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:32 | |
But it wasn't there when they were playing. | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
Something else was going on as well. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
And that was political as well, because it was a challenge. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
It was different. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:41 | |
# Jump boys are crazy They don't have no sense... # | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
There's a whole community, like a family of people, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
that met through The Undertones, for whatever reason and became friends. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
So therefore you just felt like a big family. | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
We were absolutely aware of how people felt that we were | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
expressing how they felt. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
That was a large motivating fact to why we did get signed up, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
that we stayed in Derry, we didn't leave. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
Because we felt we were part of that whole scene anyway. | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
In the summer of 1977, inspired by regular sessions at the Casbah, | 0:25:14 | 0:25:19 | |
19-year-old John O'Neill wrote The Undertones' first original song. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:24 | |
The idea was, every week we played the Casbah, | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
to have either a new song or a new cover version. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
And it just seemed obvious, to me, anyway, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:34 | |
that if you play these three chords, that three chord trick, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:39 | |
that trying to come up with a few words along with it | 0:25:39 | 0:25:43 | |
couldn't be that hard. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:45 | |
First one I showed to the band was I Told You So, | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
which was a basic R & B rip off. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
# I wake up in the morning I've been looking for a bed | 0:25:52 | 0:25:57 | |
# Somebody tells me you've been sleeping in too late | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
# I told you so... # | 0:26:00 | 0:26:01 | |
Me, Mickey and Billy, actually, contributed our songs | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
over the years, but John, he's just got it, you know? | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
Most great bands have got an amazing songwriter. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
It was just trying to get words that sounded right. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:15 | |
That Beat movement thing of first thought, best thought. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
The less you thought about it, the easier it was, you know? | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
# I told you so I told you so... # | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
By the end of the year, The Undertones had a full | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
set of original songs and were ready to make a record. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:30 | |
# Well, it's too late to stop I told you so. # | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
There was nowhere to record in Derry, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
but there was a guy in Belfast. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
I suppose as an old hippy, | 0:26:42 | 0:26:44 | |
punk to me was my hippy's revenge on the world. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:47 | |
"You didn't listen to us in the '60s, now look what you've got." | 0:26:47 | 0:26:51 | |
# Take a look where you're livin' | 0:26:51 | 0:26:53 | |
# You got army on the street | 0:26:53 | 0:26:54 | |
# And the RUC dog of repression... # | 0:26:54 | 0:26:56 | |
The Belfast scene was characterised by the muscular, political punk | 0:26:56 | 0:27:00 | |
of Stiff Little Fingers, who raged about rubber bullets and car bombs. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:04 | |
# It's an alternative Ulster... # | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
The boys from Derry had something slightly less obvious to offer. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
At the time I was quite friendly with Terri Hooley in Belfast. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
I'd heard that he was starting | 0:27:15 | 0:27:16 | |
to record some young punk bands in Belfast. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
I said to him, "Well, look, there's a band in Derry | 0:27:19 | 0:27:21 | |
"and I'm convinced that they're better | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
"than any of the bands in Belfast. You really should get them up." | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
So I pestered him for a while, and eventually he said, | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
"Look, there's a thing happening | 0:27:30 | 0:27:32 | |
"next weekend up at Queen's, the Battle of the Bands. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:34 | |
"We get them up to play the Battle of the Bands, | 0:27:34 | 0:27:36 | |
"and we get them into the studio." | 0:27:36 | 0:27:38 | |
MUSIC: "True Confessions" by The Undertones | 0:27:38 | 0:27:41 | |
On June 15th, 1978, | 0:27:41 | 0:27:43 | |
The Undertones stole the show at Terri Hooley's battle of the bands. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:48 | |
And the next day they went into the studio, | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
and recorded the four tracks that would make up their first record. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
# Don't be so surprised | 0:27:57 | 0:27:58 | |
# You've been telling me lies | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
# It's hard to wake up to your make-up | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
# Take off that disguise | 0:28:02 | 0:28:04 | |
-# True -# True, true, true | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
# True confessions... # | 0:28:06 | 0:28:07 | |
Got chance to do four songs, and it was called Teenage Kicks EP, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:10 | |
because we were teenagers, more or less. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:12 | |
So it was just a good title for the EP, for four songs. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
We preferred True Confessions. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:17 | |
-# True -# True, true, true | 0:28:17 | 0:28:19 | |
# True confessions... # | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
As far as I was concerned, anyway, | 0:28:22 | 0:28:23 | |
the best song on it was True Confessions. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:25 | |
But it was obvious that if we were going to call it | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
Teenage Kicks EP, that should be the first song on the EP. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:32 | |
Something of a happy accident, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
because the title track would come to be regarded by some | 0:28:37 | 0:28:41 | |
as the most perfect pop record ever made. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:43 | |
MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
Just the first few seconds of it, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:49 | |
everything you enjoy about a certain sort of music comes with it. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
Because they've tapped into it, like an aerial. They've tapped into it, | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
so you're not just hearing a cheap, shoddy guitar | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
through a cheap, shoddy amp play obvious chords, | 0:28:58 | 0:29:00 | |
you're hearing millions of other things floating through it. | 0:29:00 | 0:29:04 | |
It's everything they've been influenced by. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
And they were influenced by the best things. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:08 | |
They had incredible curating tastes, | 0:29:08 | 0:29:09 | |
if you like, which we think of nowadays. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat? | 0:29:12 | 0:29:15 | |
# Every time she walks down the street | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
# Another girl in the neighbourhood | 0:29:19 | 0:29:23 | |
# Wish she was mine She looks so good | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
# I wanna hold her Wanna hold her tight | 0:29:25 | 0:29:29 | |
# Get teenage kicks right through the night | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
# All right... # | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
Emerging from the front line of a major conflict, | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
The Undertones could claim greater cause for voicing anger | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
and rebellion than any of their punk peers. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:44 | |
Instead, they sang a song about a teenage boy's | 0:29:44 | 0:29:47 | |
frustrated yearning for a teenage girl. | 0:29:47 | 0:29:50 | |
Poignant, universal and profoundly ordinary. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:55 | |
# I'm gonna call her on the telephone... # | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
Unfortunately, none of London's record companies were interested | 0:29:59 | 0:30:02 | |
in The Undertones juvenile lament. | 0:30:02 | 0:30:04 | |
In fact, the world might never have heard it | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
if it wasn't for a maverick DJ at BBC Radio 1. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:12 | |
# Get teenage kicks right through the night | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
# All right. # | 0:30:15 | 0:30:17 | |
And that's the end of tonight's programme, on which you heard | 0:30:21 | 0:30:23 | |
the Desperate Bicycles, The Slits, | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
The Mekons, Alternative TV, the UK Subs and Sham 69. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
More of the same unpleasant and disorientating racket | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
on tomorrow night's programme. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:33 | |
Until then, from me, John Peel, goodnight and good riddance. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:36 | |
I said, "Why don't we phone John Peel? | 0:30:36 | 0:30:38 | |
"I think he mentioned Stiff Little Fingers." | 0:30:38 | 0:30:40 | |
And I says, "Well, we're better than Stiff Little Fingers." | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
You know, how cocky is that? So I pick up the phone, and I says, | 0:30:42 | 0:30:47 | |
"My name's Billy, I'm phoning from Northern Ireland." | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
Straight through. He picks up the phone, John Peel, | 0:30:50 | 0:30:52 | |
and goes, "Hello, who's this?" | 0:30:52 | 0:30:53 | |
'This afternoon I had one of those embarrassing experiences | 0:30:53 | 0:30:56 | |
'when you're talking to someone and neither of you | 0:30:56 | 0:30:58 | |
'can understand what the other's saying. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:00 | |
'I was speaking to a member of the band The Undertones, | 0:31:00 | 0:31:02 | |
'who come from Londonderry, and the chap I was speaking to - | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
'and it was a long distance line, so it wasn't too clear - | 0:31:05 | 0:31:08 | |
'had such a strong accent, I had difficulty | 0:31:08 | 0:31:09 | |
'figuring out what he was saying.' | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
He couldn't understand me. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:12 | |
I had like a really broad Derry accent. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:14 | |
So I had to speak very slowly. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
And I mentioned to him, "There's a band from Derry | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
"called The Undertones. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:19 | |
"We've recorded an EP, but it's not released yet." | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
And he says, "When the record comes out, send it over." | 0:31:22 | 0:31:24 | |
'And he asked me to play something for a whole bunch of people | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
'there in Derry. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:28 | |
'I've probably got some of these names wrong, | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
'so if I have I apologise to all of those concerned. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
'But the names seem to be Eddie McLaughlin, Joe Breslin, | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
'Paddy Crawford, Dick Tucker, the McGillys, the McGanleys, | 0:31:36 | 0:31:40 | |
'I think it was, Maillies, and, | 0:31:40 | 0:31:42 | |
'anyway, all of the band's fans in Derry. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:44 | |
'I'm sorry if I got the names wrong.' | 0:31:44 | 0:31:46 | |
So finally, when Teenage Kicks EP came out, I phoned John Peel, | 0:31:46 | 0:31:50 | |
and I says, "This is Billy, I've been speaking to you on and off | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
"for the past few months. We now have the EP." | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
We knew he was playing it that night, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
so we were all at Beachhead Avenue. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
I was like, "Yeah! We got a record played!" | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
Not only a record played on Radio 1, | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
but John Peel played it as well. We were so delighted. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat? Every time she walks... # | 0:32:09 | 0:32:12 | |
Thanks to John Peel, in the Autumn of 1978, | 0:32:12 | 0:32:15 | |
listeners all over Britain got to hear The Undertones. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:18 | |
Among them, a genuine music biz mogul from America. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
I was driving down to one of those little seaside places | 0:32:25 | 0:32:30 | |
about 90 minutes outside of London. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
My head was killing me. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:34 | |
And the one relief was we were listening to John Peel. | 0:32:34 | 0:32:39 | |
The Peel Show was on the radio, and Teenage Kicks came on. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:44 | |
Paul McNally was driving and I start yelling at him, "Pull over! | 0:32:44 | 0:32:49 | |
"Pull over!" He turned white. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:51 | |
He must have thought I was having some kind of attack, | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
because I was complaining about my headache. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
Yeah, there was a bit of excitement in the car at that point! | 0:32:56 | 0:33:00 | |
I said to him, "I've got to sign this band. They are fucking amazing. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:06 | |
"It's unbelievable. What a voice and what a song." | 0:33:06 | 0:33:11 | |
I think it's one of the greatest records of all time. | 0:33:11 | 0:33:14 | |
Seymour Stein, | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
the man who, four years later, would famously sign Madonna, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:20 | |
owned Sire Records, the American label | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
whose roster included the Ramones. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
MUSIC: "Family Entertainment" by The Undertones | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
Days after hearing Teenage Kicks, | 0:33:30 | 0:33:32 | |
Stein dispatched Paul McNally to Derry to sign The Undertones. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
We'd the comical scenario | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
where we went to Feargal's house for a meeting with Paul. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:41 | |
He was going to tell us the details of the contract. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
And there was us five in the band, plus we had all our friends, | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
10 or 12 people. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:49 | |
In good faith we thought, | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
"Feargal and Mickey will go to London to meet Seymour Stein, | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
"we'll sign a contract meanwhile, here in Derry, for Paul, | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
"they'll go over there and they'll negotiate a bit more, and maybe, | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
"if it's good enough, they'll sign." | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
In October 1978, two lads from Derry arrived in London | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
to play hardball with the man who signed Madonna. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
MUSIC: "Smarter Than You" by The Undertones | 0:34:16 | 0:34:18 | |
# I'm a little intellectual Someone who knows it all... # | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
Feargal smoked at the time, he would smoke like that, and go... | 0:34:22 | 0:34:26 | |
And just looked at the guy like that. And you'd think, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
"I'm dealing with a real shrewd character here." | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
But Feargal had no idea either. He would smoke sort of like... | 0:34:31 | 0:34:34 | |
You had savvy Seymour Stein, record company mogul, talking to two weans, | 0:34:34 | 0:34:38 | |
basically, who hadn't a clue about anything about the music business. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
He must have thought he was dealing with two idiots. | 0:34:42 | 0:34:45 | |
And you know what? He was! | 0:34:45 | 0:34:47 | |
# Smarter than you, smarter than you | 0:34:47 | 0:34:49 | |
# Smarter than you Can't you see... # | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
I remember, vaguely, them trying to renegotiate at the last minute. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:57 | |
They phoned us, and I said to Michael, "Well, ask him how much he's going to give us." | 0:34:57 | 0:35:02 | |
And it was 6,000. And I said, "6,000 each, or 6,000 what?" | 0:35:02 | 0:35:05 | |
He said "6,000 between 5 of us over three years." | 0:35:05 | 0:35:08 | |
6,000 divided by 5 over 3 years is not a lot of money. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
So I got on the phone to Michael and says, "Michael, say to Seymour we want 100,000." | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
Billy was certainly shouting in the back. "The Rich Kids got 60,000!" | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
The Rich Kids, Glen Matlock's band, they signed to EMI. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
I said, "The Rich Kids got 60,000!" And Seymour went... | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
I could hear Seymour in the background going, "You guys are crazy!" | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
"What do you want me to say?" | 0:35:28 | 0:35:29 | |
So Seymour came over, took the phone off Michael, and I think | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
he made some offer of, I don't know, 30,000, out of sheer panic. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:35 | |
I said, "That's fine, that's OK, that's the deal." | 0:35:35 | 0:35:37 | |
# Can't you see I'm smarter than you... # | 0:35:37 | 0:35:40 | |
I think it was originally 8,000, we managed it up to 10,000, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:43 | |
but the royalty rate was shocking. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:44 | |
I think it was worse than the Bay City Rollers, | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
and they didn't even write their songs. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
My only memory is that I signed them. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
In the end, that's what counted. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:53 | |
# Can't you see I'm smart? # | 0:35:53 | 0:35:55 | |
Whatever the terms of the record deal, | 0:35:57 | 0:35:59 | |
Sire immediately re-released Teenage Kicks as a single. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
And just weeks later, The Undertones, | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
a band used to playing to 100 fans in the Casbah, | 0:36:05 | 0:36:09 | |
made its debut in London for a TV audience of over 10 million. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
At number 38, first time in, Undertones and Teenage Kicks. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
'I remember, she must have bought them, | 0:36:19 | 0:36:21 | |
'but my mother had a pair of new pyjamas for me,' | 0:36:21 | 0:36:23 | |
because it was like a hospital stay. "You're staying in a hotel, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
"in London, you're not going to show us up." | 0:36:26 | 0:36:27 | |
All my aunties bought me pyjamas to go over to do Top Of The Pops. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:31 | |
First time I was ever on an aeroplane. I was 18, | 0:36:31 | 0:36:34 | |
never out of Ireland, never on an aeroplane. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
And armed with tonnes of pyjamas. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:38 | |
# Are teenage dreams so hard to beat? | 0:36:38 | 0:36:42 | |
# Every time she walks down the street... # | 0:36:42 | 0:36:45 | |
Britain's musical landscape was shifting. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:47 | |
The Undertones formed part of a new wave of music inspired by punk, | 0:36:47 | 0:36:51 | |
and independent in spirit, | 0:36:51 | 0:36:53 | |
that challenged the corporate rock and smooth pop | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
that had come to represent the mainstream status quo. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
They're a young band, they come from Ireland. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
It's The Undertones and Jimmy, Jimmy. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
# Little mummy's boy | 0:37:13 | 0:37:16 | |
# He wasn't very old | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
# Though he was very small | 0:37:19 | 0:37:22 | |
# He did what he was told | 0:37:22 | 0:37:25 | |
# Jimmy, Jimmy... # | 0:37:25 | 0:37:27 | |
The bands that bands like Undertones were influenced by | 0:37:27 | 0:37:29 | |
were not getting anywhere near Top Of The Pops, | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
or the charts, or the mainstream world. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:34 | |
They were obscure bands and The Undertones were in that period | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
just after punk when, suddenly, the records that previously | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
you would've only heard on John Peel and not in the charts, | 0:37:40 | 0:37:43 | |
suddenly started to break into the charts. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:45 | |
That was the great moment of a new kind of strange, | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
lovely pop music getting into the charts. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:49 | |
# Ooh, baby, baby, what can I do? | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
# You know you drive me crazy When I'm looking at you... # | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
Three more singles from The Undertones' first album | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
made them regulars on Top Of The Pops. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:59 | |
# Here comes the summer... # | 0:37:59 | 0:38:02 | |
But at a time when the charts | 0:38:02 | 0:38:04 | |
began to open up to ever more shocking and extravagant acts, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
what was most remarkable about The Undertones | 0:38:07 | 0:38:10 | |
was that the band and their songs were so down-to-Earth, | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
they seemed positively exotic. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
Predominantly, the songs are just about fun and games with your mates. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
That seems to be the general message. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
'They were being themselves,' | 0:38:23 | 0:38:25 | |
and I think that's why people found them so attractive, | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
There was this tremendous honesty about them. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:30 | |
# Here comes the summer | 0:38:30 | 0:38:32 | |
# Here comes the summer | 0:38:32 | 0:38:34 | |
# Here comes the summer... # | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
They were just nice kids who seemed | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
sort of uncorrupted and sweet | 0:38:39 | 0:38:40 | |
and you can see why they wrote about | 0:38:40 | 0:38:43 | |
Jimmy, Jimmy and Here Comes The Summer and Teenage Kicks, | 0:38:43 | 0:38:46 | |
because there was an innocence to them. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:48 | |
This rather cheerful, Derry ordinariness. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:50 | |
But back home in Derry, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:52 | |
The Undertones' ordinariness had special meaning. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:55 | |
A significance brought into focus when, in 1979, | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
they played a concert at a local school. | 0:39:02 | 0:39:04 | |
They were on Top Of The Pops on Thursday, | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
and then they were in my school, on the stage, on Friday morning. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:13 | |
The Undertones created a universal soundtrack to growing up. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
The everyday world of their music had particular | 0:39:21 | 0:39:23 | |
resonance at home in Derry, where an ordinary adolescence | 0:39:23 | 0:39:27 | |
was something the band and audience alike could only have imagined. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:31 | |
Looking back, you can see | 0:39:33 | 0:39:34 | |
that there was more to it than they saw. I think. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
They were able to put into words what a lot of us felt | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
and they were able to... show a dimension of our spirit. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:49 | |
Because our spirit was bursting to get out, | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
because we'd been suppressed for so long. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:53 | |
# If you hate the British Army | 0:39:53 | 0:39:56 | |
# Hate the British Army | 0:39:56 | 0:39:58 | |
# Hate the British Army Clap your hands. # | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
These children would see shootings and bombings | 0:40:00 | 0:40:03 | |
and their houses would have been raided, | 0:40:03 | 0:40:05 | |
their brothers would be in jail or their brothers would be dead. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:08 | |
I wanted them to see that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:14 | |
So, I feel that they were saying that... Maybe they were just saying | 0:40:14 | 0:40:18 | |
that they were young and they wanted to enjoy themselves | 0:40:18 | 0:40:21 | |
and they wanted a bit of freedom and not to be stood on and suppressed. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:25 | |
In Derry, and throughout Northern Ireland, | 0:40:28 | 0:40:30 | |
The Undertones gave an alternative voice | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
to a generation caught in the crossfire of their turbulent times. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:36 | |
One way to understand it | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
is as an alternative to what was really going on around them. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:46 | |
I mean, if you came from Derry at that time, | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
almost the most rebellious thing you could do is be ordinary. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
# Little mummy's boy | 0:40:51 | 0:40:54 | |
# He wasn't very old... # | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
I went to see them in concert in Ballymena, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
which is this terrifying Protestant town north of Belfast. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:03 | |
The street had armoured vehicles in it. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:08 | |
There was police with guns everywhere. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:10 | |
But once you'd gone in there, it was like a big youth club. | 0:41:10 | 0:41:15 | |
The kids that were running around were so grateful | 0:41:15 | 0:41:18 | |
that here was a band that wasn't singing about getting blown up | 0:41:18 | 0:41:22 | |
and the IRA and the Troubles, but was singing about ordinary things. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
They were like a window onto | 0:41:25 | 0:41:27 | |
the kind of life everybody else takes for granted. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:30 | |
# Jimmy, Jimmy, oh... # | 0:41:30 | 0:41:33 | |
I was at a wedding about a month ago and they played Jimmy, Jimmy. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
I'm a good age, and I was like a child! | 0:41:36 | 0:41:38 | |
Just, that excitement, that... | 0:41:38 | 0:41:41 | |
It's still there. It's just fabulous. | 0:41:41 | 0:41:43 | |
In 1980, The Undertones released their second album. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
A record that took them beyond | 0:41:49 | 0:41:50 | |
the three-chord punk-ish thrashes of their debut, | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
bringing their tales of everyday life and love | 0:41:53 | 0:41:57 | |
to a much broader audience. | 0:41:57 | 0:41:59 | |
# Here she comes | 0:41:59 | 0:42:02 | |
# To say goodnight | 0:42:02 | 0:42:05 | |
# I'll get no sleep tonight... # | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
I was starting to get into The Velvet Underground at that stage. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:13 | |
'I loved the slow songs, that juxtaposition,' | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
of these experimental things with these lovely soft, beautiful songs. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:21 | |
So, Wednesday Week was my attempt | 0:42:21 | 0:42:22 | |
to write a slow, ballad-y type thing. | 0:42:22 | 0:42:24 | |
# Wednesday week, she loved me... # | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
'I remember thinking,' | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
"We're going to be OK. We're going to last a few more years | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
"if John's going to come up with songs like this." | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
But the biggest song on the album, | 0:42:41 | 0:42:42 | |
and The Undertones' biggest hit, wasn't from John O'Neill. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
It came courtesy of Michael, Damian and an unsuspecting relative.. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:50 | |
..by the name of Kevin. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:54 | |
I was sitting in a pub in Derry having a quiet pint | 0:42:54 | 0:42:56 | |
with some friends and another friend of mine came in | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
and sniggered in my general direction | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
and said my ears must be burning. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
'I hadn't a clue what he was talking about.' | 0:43:08 | 0:43:09 | |
It was only later on in the evening that he said | 0:43:09 | 0:43:12 | |
that I should go talk to my cousins in The Undertones. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:15 | |
# I've got a cousin called Kevin | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
# He's sure to go to Heaven | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
# Always spotless, clean and neat | 0:43:21 | 0:43:24 | |
# As smooth as you'll get 'em... # | 0:43:24 | 0:43:26 | |
Myself and Damian were working on it for quite a while, | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
and it was kind of based on a real-life cousin of Damian's. | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
'Very unfairly, but, sure, life's not fair.' | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
# My perfect cousin | 0:43:36 | 0:43:39 | |
# What I like to do he doesn't | 0:43:39 | 0:43:41 | |
# He's his family's pride and joy | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
# His mother's little golden boy | 0:43:44 | 0:43:49 | |
# He's got a degree in economics | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
# Maths, physics and bionics... # | 0:43:51 | 0:43:54 | |
I got a bit of stick. People would sing certain lines at me. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:57 | |
# Cos I hate University Challenge... # | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
I suppose at the time, I was probably a bit annoyed about it. | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
Now, it doesn't cause me any difficulties at all. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:06 | |
I can see the fun in it. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:07 | |
My Perfect Cousin, a comic rant against swotty relatives, | 0:44:10 | 0:44:14 | |
was The Undertones' only top-ten hit. | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
Hip film director Julien Temple was hired to shoot the video. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:22 | |
And the location for this domestic drama was... | 0:44:23 | 0:44:27 | |
of course, the O'Neill's house in Derry, where the English film crew | 0:44:27 | 0:44:31 | |
got their first taste of what it's like to live in a militarised town. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
# Now, I've got a cousin called Kevin... # | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
We had a cable coming out of a house and we were lighting this thing, | 0:44:37 | 0:44:41 | |
and the next thing I knew, I was slammed up against the wall | 0:44:41 | 0:44:43 | |
with a machinegun against my head, | 0:44:43 | 0:44:45 | |
with this 15-year-old Cockney skinhead saying, | 0:44:45 | 0:44:48 | |
"What the fuck are you doing?" | 0:44:48 | 0:44:49 | |
# He always beat me at Subbuteo... # | 0:44:49 | 0:44:51 | |
'And it kind of made a lot of sense that despite the real, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:55 | |
'hard facts of war and bullets flying around,' | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
they were singing, you know, | 0:44:58 | 0:44:59 | |
things about cousins who got on their nerves. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
# He's his family's pride and joy... # | 0:45:02 | 0:45:04 | |
There was also an innocence there, compared with the London punk scene. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:08 | |
So, when I got there, I thought, | 0:45:08 | 0:45:10 | |
"This is amazing, cos it's a really, kind of different, family world." | 0:45:10 | 0:45:15 | |
You know, like you imagine the 1940s or something like that. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:19 | |
They were deeply entrenched in this culture of Catholic Derry | 0:45:19 | 0:45:22 | |
and were able to find poetry in it. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:25 | |
# Girls try to attract his attention | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
# But what a shame, it's in vain... # | 0:45:28 | 0:45:30 | |
It was a little bit like some kind of surreal soap. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:32 | |
They were creating a landscape full of their chums | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
and relatives and people they'd bumped into. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:37 | |
# My perfect cousin... # | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
Very mundane. Very domestic. And it seemed, oddly enough, | 0:45:39 | 0:45:43 | |
quite punk, to talk about stuff that wasn't Americana. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:45 | |
It actually seemed part of their down-to-Earth-ness, | 0:45:45 | 0:45:49 | |
that was actually quite potent. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:50 | |
Oh, yes, I like that one. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
My Perfect Cousin from The Undertones. | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
And now, it's time for our perfect inflatable Scrabble... | 0:45:55 | 0:45:58 | |
As well as chart success, | 0:46:03 | 0:46:04 | |
The Undertones earned a reputation as a formidable live act. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:08 | |
# Wake up screaming in the middle of something wrong... # | 0:46:09 | 0:46:15 | |
They had this power live | 0:46:15 | 0:46:17 | |
that a lot of bands never, ever get together. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
They became one of the best live bands that I've known. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
# So boys will be boys | 0:46:24 | 0:46:26 | |
# When they haven't got nothing to do... # | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
But whatever ambitions their record company and management team | 0:46:30 | 0:46:33 | |
might have had for them, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:34 | |
The Undertones were unusually indifferent to life on the road. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:39 | |
We used to have a phone, right here. | 0:46:39 | 0:46:41 | |
And many a time, me or John would be sitting on the stairs, going, | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
"No, but it means leaving home for more than a week. | 0:46:45 | 0:46:47 | |
"We don't want to do that." | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
They would come away from Derry for three weeks and three weeks only. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:53 | |
They would do a six week tour but they would need to have | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
a week to ten days' break in the middle of it. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
Billy and myself were really bad in the sense that we really hated | 0:46:57 | 0:47:01 | |
leaving our wives, or girlfriends that became our wives, or whatever. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
Myself and Caroline were just so madly in love | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
that it took a shine off having to leave, | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
because we were both in tears leaving the house. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
We just missed each other so much. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
It was that simple. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
We just yearned to be with each other. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:21 | |
Getting a girlfriend was a big deal for boys | 0:47:24 | 0:47:27 | |
whose music seeped teenage angst. | 0:47:27 | 0:47:29 | |
But there was more to their attachment to home | 0:47:29 | 0:47:32 | |
than the pull of young love. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
They seemed troubled by the fact that they had to enter | 0:47:35 | 0:47:37 | |
what they deemed to be a kind of routine. | 0:47:37 | 0:47:39 | |
They were already feeling that | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
somehow they'd compromised themselves, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:44 | |
because there was a very pure, punk spirit in the air back then | 0:47:44 | 0:47:46 | |
that you didn't do certain things that looked like | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
you were compromising yourself. | 0:47:49 | 0:47:50 | |
And to some extent, with them, that even meant leaving their town, | 0:47:50 | 0:47:54 | |
leaving their house, leaving their girlfriend. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:56 | |
All of these strange things, to them, were a compromise. | 0:47:56 | 0:47:58 | |
It meant they'd sold out, and they hadn't sold out. Not by any means. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:01 | |
They'd just begun to have success. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:03 | |
But they didn't know what to do, didn't know how to process it. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:06 | |
In September 1979, | 0:48:08 | 0:48:10 | |
The Undertones supported The Clash on an American tour. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:14 | |
This was a chance to break America, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:18 | |
and to party with perhaps the hippest band on the planet. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:21 | |
I was on that tour, the Clash tour in America | 0:48:23 | 0:48:25 | |
with The Undertones on support, and it was incredibly, unbelievably... | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
Literally, you'd be walking into a room and Andy Warhol would be there. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
But my memory of it is that The Undertones were like shadows. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:36 | |
It's almost like they felt they'd wanted to be this kind of group, | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
full of integrity and suddenly they were in the equivalent | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
of The Sound Of Music or something. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:49 | |
The reason I wanted to be in the band is not to party or | 0:48:49 | 0:48:53 | |
to take drugs or drink or whatever, I just wanted to play my drums | 0:48:53 | 0:48:57 | |
and I wanted to play my drums with my mates. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
So I found it hard to cope with, to be honest. | 0:48:59 | 0:49:04 | |
I was actually relieved to get back home. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:06 | |
You know, I've worked with a lot of bands where they go out all night | 0:49:09 | 0:49:12 | |
and experience the town, you know, Munich or Budapest or Barcelona. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:17 | |
They stay up all night and experience what that is for. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:21 | |
But, no. Fairly early to bed. | 0:49:21 | 0:49:24 | |
We didn't play the game, and we didn't want to play the game. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:28 | |
We hated that rock star crap that you were fed. | 0:49:28 | 0:49:31 | |
Limousines and, you know, it was back to a punk rock street thing. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:37 | |
We were part of the street. We didn't want to be rich and famous. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:40 | |
# So sad to see you've got silver... # | 0:49:40 | 0:49:45 | |
For many bands, | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
success offered the chance to leave behind their normal, everyday lives. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
Not for The Undertones, despite the ongoing violence | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
and conflict in their home town. | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
# Julie Ocean | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
# Always on fire... # | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
The release of their third album in 1981 coincided | 0:50:02 | 0:50:07 | |
with one of the darkest episodes of the Troubles. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
After a period of relative calm in Northern Ireland, | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
a serious of hunger strikes by Catholic Republican prisoners | 0:50:14 | 0:50:17 | |
brought violence back onto the streets of Derry. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:21 | |
The hunger strikes were carried out by Republican prisoners, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:24 | |
IRA prisoners, who were demanding political status. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
They were in prison, having been sentenced for bombing, | 0:50:27 | 0:50:30 | |
shooting, possession of arms, murder, attempted murder, etc. So, | 0:50:30 | 0:50:33 | |
as far as the state was concerned, they were serious criminals, | 0:50:33 | 0:50:37 | |
To treat them as prisoners of war, | 0:50:37 | 0:50:40 | |
or give them special, political status, | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
is to give them a licence to kill. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
On the other hand, Republicans regarded themselves, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:47 | |
and were seen by their community, | 0:50:47 | 0:50:49 | |
sort of as having taken part in an uprising, if you like. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:54 | |
Although The Undertones had previously avoided writing | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
about the Troubles, they found the hunger strikes impossible to ignore. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:03 | |
It was in streets everywhere in Derry, Belfast, Northern Ireland... | 0:51:03 | 0:51:07 | |
You couldn't escape it or get away from it. | 0:51:07 | 0:51:09 | |
It was a really, really grim time. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
So, I tried to write a song about it. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:15 | |
It turned out to be It's Going To Happen. | 0:51:15 | 0:51:17 | |
# Happens all the time It's gonna happen, happen... # | 0:51:17 | 0:51:20 | |
"It's gonna happen all the time" is about hunger strikes, | 0:51:20 | 0:51:23 | |
cos Ireland's got a history of hunger strikes, from way back. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:27 | |
"Until you change your mind", till the Government changes their mind. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
# Best story I've ever heard... # | 0:51:31 | 0:51:34 | |
Basically, it was quite crass, so I gave it to Mickey and said, | 0:51:34 | 0:51:37 | |
"Can you rescue this song?" | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
I can't remember if he said, "This is about the hunger strikes." | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
But I decided it wasn't going to be about the hunger strikes, | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
because I still hold to that it's very difficult to write | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
something good and valuable about a situation like that. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
So I came up with verses which are vaguely alluding | 0:51:52 | 0:51:55 | |
to someone in trouble. | 0:51:55 | 0:51:56 | |
# Happens all the time... # | 0:51:56 | 0:51:58 | |
Good evening from Belfast. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:00 | |
The province is quiet after the early-morning rioting | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
that marked the death of Bobby Sands. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:05 | |
Coincidentally, the night we did Top Of The Pops | 0:52:05 | 0:52:08 | |
was the same evening Bobby Sands had died. | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
# Everything goes when you're dead... # | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
As a sort of mark of respect, I thought it would be a good idea | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
if we all wore black armbands. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
But when it came to doing it, they didn't refuse but they just... | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
No... But I did anyway. Because I did feel that angry about it. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:29 | |
I wasn't trying to make statements that I support the IRA, | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
but I did sympathise with the aims of the hunger strikers. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
Millions of Top Of The Pops viewers were oblivious. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:40 | |
But for the first time, The Undertones were attempting, | 0:52:40 | 0:52:44 | |
with characteristic bashfulness, | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
to reflect something of the momentous events | 0:52:46 | 0:52:48 | |
they were living through. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:50 | |
Strangely enough, although The Undertones were more affected, | 0:52:51 | 0:52:55 | |
through their community, by the hunger strikes, | 0:52:55 | 0:52:57 | |
than any other contemporary band, | 0:52:57 | 0:52:59 | |
it was out of character for them to be commenting on those things. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:03 | |
And once again, you see | 0:53:03 | 0:53:05 | |
The Undertones are really a very complicated phenomenon, | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
a complicated musical and cultural phenomenon. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
Very complicated political phenomenon. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
It's Going to Happen reached 18 in the charts in Spring 1981. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
It was to be The Undertones' last top-20 record. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:22 | |
Good evening, good people of Hitchin. | 0:53:24 | 0:53:27 | |
And anyone else who's just joined us. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:29 | |
Once again, Sight and Sound comes from the Regal Theatre, | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
and I'm sure you'll be only too glad to be reacquainted with a band | 0:53:32 | 0:53:35 | |
who we haven't seen or heard very much of for the last year or so. | 0:53:35 | 0:53:39 | |
So, please welcome, all the way from Derry, ladies and gentlemen, | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
The Undertones. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
I always say we split up because we didn't sell records. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
If Sin Of Pride, which is a record I don't like, | 0:53:50 | 0:53:53 | |
but if that had have been a success, | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
we would probably have stayed together. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:57 | |
# It makes me wonder how to read or understand you | 0:53:57 | 0:54:01 | |
# Makes me wonder what's in your mind... # | 0:54:01 | 0:54:04 | |
In March 1983, The Undertones released The Sin Of Pride, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:09 | |
their fourth and, as it turned out, final album. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:12 | |
We just knew we weren't going to have a hit single, | 0:54:16 | 0:54:19 | |
and also we knew that Feargal was not happy in being in a band | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
who maybe got good reviews, but were struggling financially. | 0:54:23 | 0:54:27 | |
I remember saying, "Well, if you make good records | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
"and you get a good review in the end, will that be enough?" | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
And I said that to Feargal, I said, "Will you not be happy with that?" | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
And he says, "Nope." | 0:54:39 | 0:54:41 | |
And then I saw writing on the wall. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:43 | |
None of the three singles from the album troubled the Top 40 | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
and, as record sales declined, | 0:54:50 | 0:54:52 | |
the band and its lead singer began to drift apart, | 0:54:52 | 0:54:55 | |
as differences that had lain dormant until now began to surface. | 0:54:55 | 0:55:00 | |
# My heart's lost since you've been gone... # | 0:55:00 | 0:55:07 | |
As the Rolling Stones say, it's the singer, not the song. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
You know, I knew that. | 0:55:10 | 0:55:12 | |
The song's only as good as the singer. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:15 | |
I was getting more and more frustrated | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
at the way Feargal sang the songs. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:19 | |
Feargal wasn't really into music, you know. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
As I listened to things, I had maybe a certain idea in my head, | 0:55:27 | 0:55:31 | |
the way it should be sung. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:32 | |
Trying to get Feargal then to listen to things, to give him an idea, | 0:55:32 | 0:55:37 | |
"It's this kind of way that I'm thinking the song should be..." | 0:55:37 | 0:55:41 | |
He was always dismissive. | 0:55:41 | 0:55:43 | |
He'd go, "I'll sing the song the way I think it should be sung." | 0:55:43 | 0:55:48 | |
John was very, very protective and very precious of his music. | 0:55:48 | 0:55:52 | |
I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just the way he was. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:55 | |
And there was maybe that kind of personality clash. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:58 | |
Feargal probably had different aspirations, | 0:55:58 | 0:56:00 | |
and all that was starting to come to the surface. | 0:56:00 | 0:56:02 | |
So I think he had enough of that. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:03 | |
And to be honest, if it was me, I'd think the same as well, | 0:56:03 | 0:56:06 | |
I'd say, "Look, I've had enough of this. I'm a good singer. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:08 | |
"I'm actually a better singer than what you are musicians. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:11 | |
"I'm going to head off." | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
Finally, in May 1983, The Undertones decided to call it a day. | 0:56:14 | 0:56:18 | |
# Got to have you back... # | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
We were in Sweden, | 0:56:22 | 0:56:23 | |
and there was a photographer taking photographs of us. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:26 | |
And, for some reason, we weren't playing ball with the photographer. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
Feargal knew this was happening and just says, "Right, boys, that's it." | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
And before the sound check, | 0:56:32 | 0:56:34 | |
we had a wee sit-down meeting. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
He was probably smoking, and he says, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
"That's it, I'm leaving the band." And no-one argued with him. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
No-one said, "Oh, why? What's happening?" We all kind of knew. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
There was no fun any more, | 0:56:46 | 0:56:48 | |
and it was almost like someone's got the balls to do it and that was great. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:53 | |
So let's just break up. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:54 | |
Then again, that's what's good about being a band. | 0:56:57 | 0:56:59 | |
You look at The Beatles, they fell apart spectacularly too. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:03 | |
Five years, four albums and 13 singles | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
after bursting onto the scene with Teenage Kicks, | 0:57:10 | 0:57:13 | |
The Undertones' story was over. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:16 | |
But coming from the darkest of places and situations, | 0:57:18 | 0:57:21 | |
their enduring achievement is to have created timeless music | 0:57:21 | 0:57:25 | |
of startling positivity that touched teenagers all over the globe | 0:57:25 | 0:57:30 | |
while daring a generation at home to dream of a life more ordinary. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:35 | |
MUSIC: "Get Over You" by The Undertones | 0:57:35 | 0:57:37 | |
# Dressed like that you must be living in a different world | 0:57:37 | 0:57:42 | |
# And your mother doesn't know | 0:57:42 | 0:57:44 | |
# Why you can't look like all the other girls | 0:57:44 | 0:57:48 | |
# Boys stop you on the street They wanna know your name | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
# Try to reach you on the phone Cos they know your game | 0:57:51 | 0:57:54 | |
# Always running up the alley trying to get home | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
# Or standing on the corner never alone | 0:57:56 | 0:58:01 | |
# And I don't wanna get over you | 0:58:01 | 0:58:04 | |
# It doesn't matter what you do | 0:58:04 | 0:58:06 | |
# I just can't get over you, over you | 0:58:06 | 0:58:12 | |
# And I don't wanna get over you | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
# It doesn't matter what you do | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
# I just can't get over you Over you. # | 0:58:18 | 0:58:22 |