12 September 1981
The record that tops the Irish charts this week in September 1981 instead of Soft Cell also deals with tainted love.
At first it seems like just another old Irish ballad; ‘A Bunch Of Thyme’ literally begins with the words “Come all ye…” However, it soon gets bizarre and a little icky; the narrator is warning young girls not to give their “thyme” (virginity) to any “lusty sailor” (lusty sailor) who will only leave them with the memento of a “rose” (sexually-transmitted disease). No question, of course, of the narrator advising our fine Irish girls to do a Baby Spice and finger-wag at their guys to “put it on”. I hear the B-side was that traditional Irish medley ‘Love Boat To Liverpool/Gone To Visit Her Relations In England’.
Amazingly, this is not the most bizarre and embarrassing thing about Foster & Allen’s ‘A Bunch Of Thyme’. Having wormed its way into the UK charts the way a lusty sailor would plant a rose in a maiden’s thyme patch, the pair of them performed the song on Top of the Pops (see video below) dressed as what they may have thought were Barry Lyndon costumes but to all and sundry looked like leprechaun outfits. I imagine this did little for the national inferiority complex of the time.
Still, maybe this song and those outfits went down well for audiences at Foster & Allen’s shows in apartheid-era South Africa.
