Robin Sarstedt: My Resistance is Low

There was a hashtag popular on Twitter earlier this week (#songsofsummer1976) that people used to boast about having been at famous early punk gigs.

To those of us outside London and reliant upon Radio One for our music, 1976 was very different. It was a year of disco and novelty hits.

The song that reminds me of taking my O levels early that summer is If You Leave Me Now by Chicago. I had thought of choosing that today, but listening to it now it is pretty awful. Silly voice, silly hair.

So let's embrace the novelty hit vibe with Robin Sarstedt.

He was the youngest of the Sarstedt brothers. His two elder brothers - Eden Kane and Peter Sarstedt - both had number one singles in the UK in the Sixties.

Robin did not quite match that - My Resistance is Low made number three - but by 1976 he had already enjoyed an interesting musical career He recorded with Joe Meek and was part of a successful Swedish band called The Deejays.

Looking back on that era, it is remarkable that so little was made of the Indian heritage of popular performers like Cliff Richard, Engelbert and the Sarstedt brothers.

I wouldn't claim My Resistance is Low is a great record, but Danny Baker continually maintains that the world would be a better place if there were a radio channel devoted to play just the few seconds of it.

And it does give a chance to the single the three Sarstedts released together in 1973: Chinese Restaurant.