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The Goodies weren't just a comic trio, they had a number of hits in the mid-'70s eventually peaking at #4 with Funky Gibbon. Although credited to The Goodies most of these recordings were Bill's songwriting, vocals and, in the vein of his favorite genre, Funk.

Discography:

Albums:

    open/close all folders 
    Sing Songs From The Goodies 
Side 1
No.Title
1All Things Bright And Beautiful
2Ride My Pony
3Stuff That Gibbon
4Mummy I Don't Like My Meat
5Show Me The Way
Side 2
6Goodies Theme
7Sparrow Song
8Taking You Back
9Sunny Morning
N/A"Butterfly" (Sparrow Song reprise)
10Winter Sportsman
11Spacehopper
    The New Goodies LP 
Side 1
No.Title
1Goodies Theme
2Please Let Us Play
3Custard Pie
4Cricklewood
5Good Ole Country Music
6Baby Samba
7Rock With A Policeman
Side 2
8The Cricklewood Shakedown
9Nappy Love
10I'm A Teapot
11Working The Line
12Funky Gibbon
13Wild Thing
    Nothing To Do With Us 
Side 1
No.Title
1Policeman's Opera
(A major Work in four parts-with a couple of bits in between)
 Overture-"Pig's Lament"
 Dreadcop's Comin'
 Third Bit
 Photofit Love
 Aria-"She Does Not Exist"
 Rhapsody In Blue
 Finale
2Cactus In My Y-Fronts
3Elizabeth Rules-U.K!
Side 2
4Blowin' Off
5I Wish I Could Get High
6Synthesizer Man
7She Wouldn't Understand
8I Wish I Had Something To Say
    Beastly Record 
Side 1
No.Title
1Melody Farm
2Taking My Oyster For Walkies
3Spring Spring Spring
4Terrapins
5A Man's Best Friend Is His Duck
6Spank That Hamster
Side 2
7Rastashanty
8Ironing My Goldfish
9Funky Farm
10There's A Walrus In My Soup
11Why Doesn't An Elephant Go Tweet Tweet?
12I Am A Carnivore
13Elephant Joke Song

Non-album Singles:

  • The Inbetweenies
    • Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me
  • The Funky Gibbon (a very slightly different version to the one found on "The New Goodies LP")
    • Sick-Man Blues
  • Black Pudding Bertha
    • Panic
  • Make A Daft Noise For Christmas
    • The Last Chance Dance
  • Bounce!
  • M*I*C*K*E*Y M*O*U*S*E

Bill's Music Tropes

  • Album Intro Track: "Goodies Theme" from The New Goodies LP.
  • Album Title Drop: "Baby Samba".
    "...while our boring old mothers were buying Jensen Interceptors, caviar New Goodies LP that sort of thing..."
  • All Drummers Are Animals: Bill played percussion on the albums.
  • Behind the Black: Any time the incidental music was cut/edited and/or faded in/out for broadcast. Less than half of a 6 minute recording could end up being used, for example.
  • Book Ends. The melody of "All Things Bright And Beautiful", the first song on their first album and début single, is reprised in "I Am A Carnivore" which is the penultimate song on the final album. It was kind of Bill's way of saying goodbye to a fantastic 5-year discography.
  • The Cast Showoff: Keyboardist Dave MacRae who joined series sessions in Season 3 and became MD and arranger himself after the departure of Mike Gibbs. His playing is at its best during Season 5, especially during the more energetic pieces such as “Big Brave Bold Hunka Man”. He was also the only player, other than Brian Odgers, Mike Morgan, and Bill himself, to cross over onto the albums. As if that wasn’t enough, he arranged half of “New LP”, all of “Nothing To Do With Us”, which he also produced, and “Beastly Records”.
  • Christmas Songs: Two, "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me" and "Make A Daft Noise For Christmas".
  • Concept Album: Beastly Record contains songs about animals.
  • Cover Version: Famously "Wild Thing".
    • "Land Of Hope And Glory", "We'll Keep A Welcome In The Hillside", "Waltzing Matilda".
    • "Brother Can You Spare A Dime", "Cotton Fields", "I’m In Love For The Very First Time".
    • "Night Fever", "Staying Alive", "Summer Nights", "You're The One That I Want", "Onward Christian Soldiers", "Tiger Rag", "Bright Eyes".
    • "All Things Bright And Beautiful" really is its own song but the melody and lyrics are, of course, much the same!
    • "M*I*C*K*E*Y M*O*U*S*E" which is arranged in typical Goodies funk style.
  • Dance Sensation: "Funky Gibbon" became one when The Goodies went on Top of the Pops.
  • Epic Riff: At least one per series. "Bad Bad Lot", "I’m Coming To Get You", "Taking You Back", "Bonecrusher".
  • Epic Rocking: A large amount of the series incidental music, since Bill and Co. had to record enough material to fill out the filmed segments of the show. These could range from 3 minutes all the way to 7. Specific examples from “The Cricklewood Tapes” are: Away From It All, The Philharmonic Glee Club Rock 'n' Roll Band, Square Dance, Far Away, Superman, Bonecrusher; from the studio albums: Elizabeth Rules – U.K., “The Policeman’s Opera” taken as a whole.
  • Fake Band: Although Bill played percussion and Graeme contributed banjo once or twice, all the musicians were reputable session musicians.
  • Funk Metal: Bonecrusher. It has the strong groove rhythm section for funk and the harsh melodic temperament for metal, what with the piercing guitar work. Also it contains lyrical themes not then heard outside the most extreme genres of music. It is probably the first recording of its kind for those reasons. note 
  • Genre Roulette: Although their albums mostly contained funk there were strong Country & Western, ballads, rock, Both Beatlesque and standard pop, and, in the case of Beastly Record, trad jazz songs.
  • Genre Shift: Goodies albums contained a wide variety of genres concurrent with the contemporary music of the time or recent times gone by. However there are a couple of songs which deserve a mention:
    • The Policeman's Opera from Nothing To Do With Us:
      • "Pig's Lament": Rock.
      • "Dreadcop's Comin'": Reggae.
      • "Third Bit": Bee Gees-like Disco.
      • "Photofit Love": Funk.
      • "She Does Not Exist": by its own admission an Aria.
      • "Rhapsody In Blue": Rock again.
      • "Finale": Harder Rock.
    • "I Wish I Had Something To Say" goes from pop ballad on Tim's verses to funk and then reggae on Bill's bridges.
  • Heavy Mithril: Taking You Back. Although possibly written to parody the recent fantasy-oriented rock, this song really does stand up on its own.
    "Back to the ages of peasants and pages"
  • Longest Song Goes Last: Played Straight with “Sings Songs From The Goodies” and “Beastly Record” with “Spacehopper” and “Elephant Joke Song”
    • Inverted – Longest Song Goes First – with “Nothing To Do With Us” and “The Cricklewood Tapes” with “The Policeman’s Opera” and “Away From It All”.
    • Inverted – Shortest Song Goes First – with “The Goodies New LP” with “The Goodies Theme”.
  • Lyric Swap: "Please Let Us Play". The 3rd verse echoes the 1st - the singers have become famous.
    "Please Let Us Play - NO! NO! NO!"
    "We don't want money - just don't send us away"
    becomes in the 3rd chorus
    "Please Let Us Play - YES! YES! YES!"
    "We've got money - and they don't send us away"
  • Metal Scream: All Things Bright And Beautiful, Custard Pie, etc.
  • Miniscule Rocking: Land Of Hope And Glory, Kitten Kong, Sparrow Song, The Goodies Theme, parts of “The Policeman’s Opera”: Third Bit, Photofit Love, Rhapsody In Blue, Finale; On The Road, Rock Goodies, Goodies Split, Meanwhile, A Few Days Later, Punky Business, etc.
  • Missing Episode:
    • Until 2018 there was no way of hearing the original sound cues for “Kitten Kong”. With the release of “The Cricklewood Tapes” the mock advert of “Universe” (so full of cow it almost moos) and “Kitten Kong” itself could be heard for the for the first time in 45+ years. This is because when “Kitten Kong” was remounted for Montreaux ’72, Bill and Co. rerecorded “Kitten Kong” and the “Universe” sketch was dropped. “The One That Got Away (Version 1)” from “Scotland” or “The Loch Ness Monster” and “Changed (Version 2)” from “Pollution” remain unreleased. “50 Men In My Life (aka Dreaded Wheat)” was a major rarity since that advert got cut from reairings of “The Lost Tribe”, but it was recovered from the National Archives Of Australia in the end of 2009/beginning of 2010.
    • Any of the incidental music not released on “The Cricklewood Tapes”. That’s all of Series 1, 3, 4 (except “Taking You Back”) and 1/2 of 5 for Mike Gibbs, and all of 6, 8, and 9 for Dave Mac Rae. All recordings of "Goodies Theme" except "Version 4" (S 6-8), since this is the version from "New Goodies LP", and the rerecording of "Version 2" (S 3+4) are missing, since they existed on tapes which are not known to exist.
  • New Sound Album: Beastly Record mostly has 1930s-esque songs on it.
  • New Sound Album: The music got harder and harder over the years, with new textures and sounds being explored and innovated. We begin with rather standard fare for the time, but end up with an unmistakably unique sonic signature.
    • Series 1 – psychedelic pop with “Needed”, “Catch Me If You Can”, “Are You Coming Out To Play”.
    • Series 2 – jazz with “Square Dance”, “Fun Palace”, “Dumb Animals”, “Berserk”; R'n'B with “A Woman’s Work”, “Spacehopper”, “Bad Bad Lot”.
    • Series 3/4 – jazz funk with “It’s My Home”, “I’m Coming To Get You”, “Ride My Pony”, “Do The Bunny”; hard rock with “Storm On”, “They’re Taking Over”, “Taking You Back”.
    • Series 5 – funk with “Crazy Man”, “Boomerang Love”; funk rock with “Here Come The Clowns”, “Lay Your Weight”, “Play The Game”, funk metal with “Bonecrusher”.
  • Non-Appearing Title:
    • "Goodies Theme" obviously.
    • "The Last Chance Dance" by the skin of its enamoured enamel.
    • "The Policeman's Opera" (and several of its parts too!).
    • "Elizabeth Rules-U.K!" unsurprisingly.
    • "Funky Farm" being an instrumental and all.
    • "Square Dance", "Front Page News".
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: All of the music recorded for the show. All of the killer funk recorded with Michael Gibbs and Dave Macrae. Most of it is in mono and has a laugh track over it so listening to it is unsatisfactory.
    • Andrew Pixley from goodiesruleok.com compiled a list of the songs here and various threads have specified that it is extant in SFX and laughter-free format but Oddie won't release it for various reasons.
    • This was remedied somewhat in the September of 2018 when “The Cricklewood Tapes” was released as part of “A Binge Of The Goodies”. It contained 95% of the music for Series 2, around 1/2 of Series 5, and everything from Series 7. Everything is still in mono, but the tapes, some of which are almost 50 years old, sound pristine. Needless to say, the fandom rejoiced and, despite its limited initial run, it was re-pressed later. The best part is that its rerelease retailed for £9.99. That’s right. Less than 10 pounds for 3 discs of killer music.
  • One-Hit Wonder: in the USA, where the only Goodies song that charted, briefly, was Funky Gibbon. Apparently the US Dance and Disco Chart took it as a straight disco number played for real and a real dance craze. It took them a while to work it out...
  • Oop North: Black Pudding Bertha (she's the queen of northern soul, y'know)
  • Pun: Bill uses these with abandon. Lampshaded in "I Am A Carnivore" where Bill reels off 14 meat-based puns. What a rump-us!
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Done on two songs intentionally.
    • "Goodies Theme":
    G (Gee) you need a helping hand
    O (Oh) you know we'll understand
    O we'll give right to the end
    D we'll show you definitely
    Y (Why) you should employ us three
    • "Funky Gibbon":
    G (Gee) the world would be good
    I (I) know how nice it could
    B (Be) with just a bit of Gibbon take
    B just like that Gibbon
    O (Oh) feel the rhythm
    N (aNd) you'll groove and dance up to the planet of the apes
  • Record Producer: For the most part Miki Antony.
  • Rearrange the Song: Although Bill wrote plenty of new material for The Goodies, sometimes he needed to rework songs he wrote for I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again.
    • "Goodies Theme" got a spring-clean every series or so...
      • Version 1: Series 1+2 (1970-1972), Version 2: Series 3+4 (1973-1974), Version 3: Series 5 (1975), Version 4: Series 6-8 (1976-1980), Version 5: Series 9 (1981-1982).
    • "The Philharmonic Glee Club Rock 'n' Roll Band" of Nigel Carter-Smith’s Society Band.
    • "Square Dance" of Square Bashing Dance.
    • "Kitten Kong" of the Andy Pandy segment of TV Personalities.
    • Most of the tracks from "Sings Songs From The Goodies" are rerecorded songs from the first three series of the show. "Taking You Back", while appearing in "Camelot" (the first episode of the fourth series), actually came from the episode's original session tape. In track order:
SongEpisodeEp. No.Series
Ride My PonyHunting Pink243
Stuff That GibbonThat Old Black Magic263
Mummy I Don't Like My MeatSuperstar293
Show Me the WaySnooze21
Goodies Theme(title sequences)23-363+4
Sparrow SongSuperstar293
Winter SportsmanWinter Olympics253
SpacehopperCharity Bounce192
  • In addition, “Sunny Morning” was originally recorded for Series 2, Episode 10, but was unused in production. The full, unedited version – missing bars 5 to 25 of the coda – wasn’t released until “The Cricklewood Tapes”.
  • "Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me" is set to the tune of "Battle Hymn Of The Republic".
  • "The Funky Gibbon" has the same chords as "Goodies Theme".
  • "Cricklewood" of Denmark Street.
  • Recurring Riff: The brass intro to "The Funky Gibbon" may sound familiar as might the guitar intro to "The Inbetweenies". (Goody goody yum yum!)
  • Self-Backing Vocalist: Bill used to rerecord Tim and Graeme's backing vocals late into the night. He put his voice through a studio harmonizer so they couldn't tell the difference.
  • Singer-Songwriter: Bill really fits this to a tee. Not only was he totally serious about it all he has a voice that really does deserve its own recognition. In fact, he did release a couple of straight pop singles in the middle 1960's; a record company thought he had the looks and the voice to make it work.
  • Singer Namedrop:
    • "Baby Samba".
    • Tim's little almost-theme song "I'm A Teapot".
    "Oo look at Tim ... You be like him"
  • Something Blues:" Sick-Man Blues".
  • The Something Song:
    • "Sparrow Song".
    • "Elephant Joke Song".
  • Song Parody: Oh yes!
    • "50 Men In My Life (aka Dreaded Wheat)" of "2 Men In My Life" by Affinity, recorded for Shredded Wheat adverts in the early 70s.
    • "Stretching" of "Sailin'" by Rod Stewart.
    • "Bless This Horse” of the hymn "Bless This House" by Helen Taylor and May Brahe.
    • "Greased Cycling" of "Greased Lightning" from Grease.
  • Sound-to-Screen Adaptation: A fair number of the songs, written by Oddie, first aired on the 1960's radio ensemble comedy precursor to The Goodies, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, others, like The Funky Gibbon, are extened allusions to the themes and concepts of the original radio show.
  • Step Up to the Microphone: Bill occasionally passed the mic to his two co-stars...
    • Graeme sang: "Stuff That Gibbon", receives first credit on "Sparrow Song", 3rd verse of "Panic", "Good Ole Country Music", "Dreadcop’s Comin'", "Blowin' Off". Graeme actually wrote "Sparrow Song" and, therefore, its reprise "Butterfly".
    • Tim sang: "Mummy I Don't Like My Meat", "Winter Sportsman", 2nd verse of "Panic", "Please Let Us Play", "Cricklewood", narrated the intro to "Baby Samba", "Cactus In My Y-Fronts", "I Wish I Had Something To Say"
    • "Beastly Record" features a much more even spread of performances from Bill, Tim and Graeme.
  • Video Inside, Film Outside: An interesting case. Since filmed segments would often be overdubbed in post with sound effects, the music track was recorded and left as it was lyrical or otherwise. Anything sound-wise in the studio would be recorded live. Therefore Mike and Bill would often prepare instrumental backing tracks when necessary, and all vocals were performed on set. This was used for songs such as “Nothing Like A Dame”, “Mummy, I Don’t Like My Meat”, “I Don’t Want Your Love”, “Goodies Medicine Show”, “Les Girls”.

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