London Bangla A Force for the community…
FIFTY YEARS AGO we were humming along to the hits of 1976. Some have magnificently stood the test of time; others have not. Join us on Memory Lane as we review them on their golden anniversaries.
This week we say good-bye to Abba, thank them for their service – and move on to Mississippi by “Pussycat”. We’re cheating slightly, as Pussycat didn’t reach the top spot until 7th October 1976, but we were impatient for change, so here they are now.
When you first hear the opening strains of Mississipi, the twang of the guitar immediately makes you think “country”, and you may well imagine that this is a US band with a simple country hit. Not so: Pussycat were from The Netherlands, a band whose pop products often had a country feel. This was their first, and biggest, hit – a breakthrough song that led to them being signed. They had a decent enough career in Europe for 15 years, after which they had a small number of revivals and comebacks.
The name is rather jarring and probably typical of the 1970s, with its implicit sexual stereotyping of a band centred on three sisters. Then again, 1995 brought us the Pussycat Dolls, so who are we to talk?
The song is pretty catchy while also being something you could fall asleep to. On the face of it, the lyrics bemoan the passing of country music as rock ‘n’ roll takes over – although the reference to the Mississippi river rolling on suggest that country music will do so too. However, the nostalgia in the song could also refer to past loves and/or to a past way of life. It’s a shame these themes were not made explicit in more developed lyrics.
The video shows a performance on Top of the Pops. Have a look at the two young girls who were chosen to sit on the front of the stage: they are totally unimpressed and have a quick chat too. They must be in their 60s now. We wonder what happened to them. Maybe they’re spending their time chatting while they write record reviews for a news portal, who knows?
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