Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3

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Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 is a song and single by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, initially released as the single BUY 50 Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3 / Common as Muck issued on July 20th 1979 and reached number 3 in the UK singles Chart the following month. It is the last single to be released by the band in their original line-up

Reasons to be Cheerful was not recorded at The Workhouse, Fulham with the material that made up the Do it Yourself album but in Eretcia Studios (owned by RCA) in Rome during a long European tour that would eventually cause Chas Jankel to leave the band. According to its author Ian Dury, who has told the story often including in Sex And Drugs and Rock And Roll: The Life of Ian Dury, The song was inspired by a near fatal accident involving a lighting roadie Charley who was electrocuted in Italy by a microphone stand while leaning over a mixing desk but saved by another roadie (hence why 'no electric shocks' is included in the song's lyric). The song was written in the band's hotel the aftermath of this and a fight that broke out at the venue when the band were forced to cancel the show because because of the safety issues and both it and b-side Common As Muck were recorded in the break in the tour caused by the cancellation of the Italian shows.

Contents

[edit] The Song

Musically Reasons to be Cheerful is noticeably different from Ian Dury's other output, even from the funkier, softer tracks from Do It Yourself and his hit single Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and radically different from New Boots and Panties!! and the material that would follow Reasons on Laughter. Instead the music owes much to Disco records and soft funk with rapped lyrics making it, essentially Ian Dury's Heart of Glass.

The song has been described as a 'shopping-list song', it is a simple list of a number of reasons to be cheerful as Ian Dury sees it and in that respect is almost identical to his previous track England's Glory a song that Dury had refused to revive when asked the previous year. The list of reasons to be cheerful includes:

Common as Muck has a much more 'classic Dury' sound and is an amusing number written sometime before its A-side celebrating being 'common' (working class) though like its A-side it is filled with namechecks including Lionel Blair, Evonne Goolagong, Jack Palance and Fred Astaire.

[edit] Re-releases and Versions

[edit] Re-releases

As with Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick before it, Reasons to be Cheerful can now be found easily having been included on every Ian Dury compilation to date being as it was his second biggest hit, but like all of Ian Dury's singles this was not originally the case and in keeping with Ian Dury's singles policy at the time the song was omitted from the next album (Laughter) and was not made available again his compilation Jukebox Dury two years later in 1981.

Demon Records chose to bizarrely add Reasons to Be Cheerful as the sole bonus track to their CD re-issue of Laughter, an unusual choice considering it has no relation to the album which was recorded by another line-up of the band including Dr. Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson and that the song was already included as a bonus track on their re-issue of Do It Yourself

[edit] Versions

For the 12" version of the single, a longer remixed version of the track was released, this was later included as a bonus track for both Demon and Edsel Records CD re-issues of the Do it Yourself album

A live version of Reasons to Cheerful omitted from the original record, was added as a bonus track to the CD re-issue of Ian Dury and The Blockhead's Live Album Warts 'n' Audience it closes the band's set and features Ian Dury promising to make an album in the near future.

[edit] Name

Similar to Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll Reasons to Be Cheerful can be found spelt various ways, including on some official Ian Dury records. Variations included Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3, with no comma, Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 3), Reasons to Be Cheerful pt. 3, Reasons to be Cheerful (Pt. 3), and simply Reasons to be Cheerful without the Part 3 at all, the original single spells it 'Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3' with the comma (though the Part 3 is missing from the sleeve artwork, the full title is included on the actual record).

[edit] Trivia

  • According to Mickey Gallagher in Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song 'Balabalabala' is a reference to a story he told Ian Dury about when he was in another band Chosen Few and the success of a joke song in Germany, the song's only lyrics were 'balabalabalabala' repeated over.
  • While recording the album Lord Upminster Dury and Jankel were mobbed by rock band Smokey under the misinterpretation that the line 'singalong a Smokey' was about them (it is in fact Smokey Robinson as confirmed by Jankel in Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song by Song) and asking them to listen to their new album, Dury politely listened but his co-writer snuck out.

[edit] Sources

  • Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll: The Life Of Ian Dury by Richard Balls, first published 2000, Omnibus Press
  • Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song By Song by Jim Drury, first published 2003, Sanctuary Publishing.
  • BBC.co.uk's guide to the reasons to be cheerful
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