Sting –Thief Of Baghdad/Stay, Goodbye –EMI C006-95604 (1974 German issue)
Thief Of Baghdad has an imaginative Red Bus production from Roberto Danova (who also had some involvement with Mungo Jerry and Geordie). Opening with a silly opening chant (bubble bubble bubble bah???) the song then shifts into Polka Glam mode until it breaks into a West Coast Sunshine Pop massed choir. There’s a lot crammed into the 2:58 and the result is rather splendid. The songs are written by Howman/Dare who also wrote and produced the last Wishful Thinking single in the 80’s. Apart from that, who knows…
Click on title for sounclip
6 comments:
Just a GREAT song!
Sooo good to hear this song after so many years. I wrote the song for our singer, I won't say why. I went on to write songs for the Pythons, Every Sperm Is Sacred, and Brian for the Life of brian. and kids TV themes like Boo! and BB3B, more TV stuff like One Foot in the Grave, other British films including Chemical Wedding with Bruce Dickenson of Iron Maiden, and Himalaya with Michael Palin which got me my second BAFTA nomination. Still Composing and decomposing a bit and playing with my band The Ruthless Brothers.
Love this song. The baahlu baahlu chants were used cos Roberto our producer said there was a baluba tribe in Africa and we would sell a lot of records there if we mentioned their name! I went on to write songs for the Pythons, Palins Himalaya lots of films and TV themes and I'm still doing 'em and playing with my band The Ruthless Brothers. Take a look at davehowman.com And thanks ever so much for finding and posting this!
Hi Dave
Great to hear from you. Can you confirm the link between Sting and Sun Chariot? Fire Water is another real favourite of mine
Yup! Red Bus (sic) suggested we change the name to something more snappy, we suggested crocodile but we settled on Sting. I like to think that on one of our North East tours a young Gordon Sumner saw us and was inspired!
...and the killer question: Do you have any unreleased acetates from the period? If so please contact me via email (on my profile page)
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