Artist: The Bevis Frond
Title: Summer Holiday EP
Format: 7" single
Label: Woronzow
Catalogue Number: WOO20
Year of Release: 1993
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Tracklisting
A1 Summer Holiday
A2 Big News
B1 Dancing Shoes
B2 Round & Round
After the Fred Bison Five album...
"I went out on the European festival circuit, and decided to call it the 'Summer Holiday' tour. I did an EP to go with it, playing four tracks from the Cliff Richard film - "Summer Holiday", "Round & Round", "Dancing Shoes" and "Big News". It took half a day to record, and the same again to mix." (from the same Record Collector interview.)
The only track of the four I know, not having seen the film of the same name, is the title tune, and I only know that through Cliff, naturally. It's hard to think that Cliff was ever thought 'dangerous', or a British Elvis, from this vantage point in history, but Bevis' version of Summer Holiday gives the tune considerably more balls and rock-oomph than the Botox-faced virginal tennis-bothering Peter Pan of Pap ever did, or could. And that's even with a bit of father-daughter dialogue at the start about packing a bucket and spade.
Big News sounds like a pretty simple 60s guitar pop tune, the Big News in question being that someone is in love with someone else, and - Heavens to Betsy! - that their love may be reciprocated. Nice enough.
B-side opener features the daughter again on lead vocals, and the thrust of the lyrics on this number is that any given fairytale character can get over their troubles by dancing. Bo Peep, Humpty Dumpty, Jack & Jill. Although I'm pretty sure the majority of them were OK in the end anyway. All except the egg man. Child's voice does not grate, which was a surprise.
Round and Round finishes things off with an instrumental, the kind of thing one would expect that, were it in an American film of the same era, The Kids would be dancing in their socks to. All good clean fun.
