30 December 1977

John Peel’s best sessions of 1977
This Peel show is an absolute gem for many obvious reasons (look at the songs he plays), but for those of us obsessed with the annual festive fifty lists, it provides some invaluable new info regarding the mythical 1977 list. The fabulous Rocklist website, along with John Horne’s page, was instrumental in getting me started on the road to my JP music quest, and was infamously the source of about half of Mick Wall’s banal, insipid Peel biography which, given that it was released in time for Christmas 2004, Wall must have started cobbling together within minutes of JP’s death, the bastard.

Don’t buy this…

Mick Wall: John Peel

Buy this instead…

John Peel: Margrave of the Marshes

Anyway, back to the ’77 festive chart. Very little was known about this chart, apart from rumours that one existed. Peel first did a 50 in 1976, which followed the format that later charts would use, listeners writing in with their favourite tracks, which JP would compile into a chart. Rocklist has full charts for every year bar 1977, for which it currently lists only a top 13. Well, the end-of-year show you’re about to be dazzled by confirms categorically that Peel did indeed broadcast a full festive chart at the end of 1977, although from what he says in this show, he seems merely to have chosen his favourite sixty tracks for that year.

This show isn’t Peel’s festive 60 for the year; it is the show broadcast the night after he’d completed the list. It is, however, an absolute belter, as Peel showcases his favourite session tracks of the year. This was quite an eye-opener: despite Peel’s later admission that he had tended to let punk dominate his shows during this period, there are many other genres represented, although I can’t imagine why that would surprise me to much.

Track Listing
Part One

The Motors – Dancing the night away

JP confirms the existence of a festive chart, a festive 60 which he appears to have chosen himself, and that this track was his number one.

Frankie Miller – Ain’t got no money

The Lurkers – Then I kissed her

Mick Wall seems to have based his lame Peel biography entirely around a two-minute encounter with Peel during which they discussed this band.

Steel Pulse – Prodigal son

Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Mystery dance

Begs for tickets for the Chelsea v. Liverpool cup match

Lone Star – Bells of Berlin

The Fabulous Poodles – When the summer’s through

The Stranglers – Bring on the nubiles

Coliseum 2 – Intergalactic strut

The Boomtown Rats – Looking after number one

June Tabor – Riding down to Portsmouth

The Slits – Love and romance

The Motors – Freeze

The Lurkers – Freak show

Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Less than zero

Frankie Miller – Name of the track please! Download failure at this point

Part Two

Lone Star – From all of us to all of you

Steel Pulse – Bad man

The Boomtown Rats – Mary of the fourth form (Bob Gelding?)

The Slits – New town

The Fabulous Poodles – Mr. Mic

The Lurkers – Total war

June Tabor – No man’s land

The Stranglers – No more heroes

Frankie Miller – Be good to yourself

Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Red shoes

Coliseum 2 – Lament

The Motors – You beat the hell out of me

Frankie Miller – Be good to yourself (yes, for the second time in the space of 15 minutes)

Where you can find this show
Fades in Slowly