Mr Big: Romeo

Here's a number 5 hit from 1977 that I can't recall hearing since. Listening to it today, I suspect Mr Big had themselves been listening to Jon Anderson.

It was Mr Big's only top 30 single and was probably helped when the BBC announced a temporary ban on it becausse of  complaints from Mary Whitehouse.

The band's leader, who calls himself Dicken (as is his right in a free country), explained in an interview:

But why was Romeo banned by BBC? What was wrong with it?

Mary Whitehouse was involved with it; it was banned because of the explicit lyrics. "'Step back inside me, Romeo,' she said" and "Fall on me, make me grow": they said it implied innuendo. Sex! 

I didn’t write it with that in mind! I just thought it was a love song about the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. So BBC banned it for a while.

As well as reminding us what Whitehouse was like, the interview reveals that Mr Big toured with Queen. But it has to be admitted there's a "It's a shit business" vibe to it.

I've been thinking about Mr Big after coming across an episode of Softly Softly: Task Force that features a fictional band called Slim Slavey and the Slavers.

Slim Slavey is Paul Nicholas, who was soon to become a solo pop star for real having started out as a member of David Sutch's band, and The Slavers are Mr Big.

You can see them in the clip below and the band gets a mention in Alwyn Turner's invaluable list of fictional bands in British television crime dramas: Rockin’ the detectives.