Interestingly, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep was also a minor hit at the same time as Middle of the Road‘s version for Mac and Katie Kissoon, reaching a high of No. The guys in my year at school who knew about ‘serious’ music, the ones who walked around the playground with a copy of Rory Gallagher’s ‘ Blueprint‘ or ELP’s ‘ Brain Salad Surgery’ under their arm, would have taken the piss relentlessly out of me if they’d known I’d purchased it, but I loved it.

There are few throwaway songs from that period 50 years ago which have had the staying power of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep.Firstly, its melody was gossamer-thin to the point of being undetectable, secondly it sounded exactly like his previous other hits and, most heinously, it perpetuated a number of myths. It’s the sort of band your grandparents would like because they played NICE tunes and they looked NORMAL (you know, suits, ties, short back and sides, Laura Ashley dresses). It may be ridiculed today, as it was on its release but in Q Magazine’s list of the 50 worst albums of all time it only reached a fairly impressive 45.

While listening to Stuart Maconie’s wonderful ‘ Freakzone‘ on Radio 6 Music recently, he played a track by a band from the 70s I remembered vaguely, Stavely Makepeace. It seemed an obvious single but clocking in at over 7 minutes, Stevie didn’t want to cut it down to suit the single format and released Sir Duke and I Wish from the album to great chart success.In 1965 Schroeder teamed up with band leader Johnny Pearson at Oriole Records and between them formed Sounds Orchestral who released 14 preposterously successful albums of easy listening orchestral arrangements of well known pop songs and film and TV themes.

Stavely Makepeace‘s manager was not impressed with this waxing and SM, therefore, became Lieutenant Pigeon for the purposes of performing MOD. In desperation he was asked to deliver the lines in a suitably faux Shakespearian style, which he, of course, was only too happy to do and the rest is camp history.

According to lead singer Sally Carr, Benny and Bjorn admitted on a TV interview they had used MOTR to develop their sound.