27 June 1987
I was in primary school when ‘Star Trekkin” was in the charts, so I can confirm it was a big hit in my then-demographic. We were a bit young to be Star Trek fans or even watchers, but we knew the main gist of it, so we took the song’s characters and lines on faith. The one that got repeated most by us was Uhura’s “There’s Klingons on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow”, possibly because that’s the one repeated most in the track itself. We were impressionable like that.
I don’t know how die-hard Trekkies feel about it; perhaps they saw it as affectionate and helped get it to number one in Ireland and the UK. The stop-motion animated video, similar to the one for ‘Reet Petite’ a few months earlier, probably helped too. Obviously the track is intended to get manic and annoying by the end, when it’s basically a screech of high-pitched jabbering. But it was fun and catchy then, and still is today. Here is that rare thing: a novelty record that is actually enjoyable. Not that I’m saying it’s good or anything, just that you can listen to it more than once, though perhaps with several years between listens.
