31 March 2005
Just to clarify, Peter Kay doesn’t feature on the actual single, nor is this a bespoke charity re-recording. It’s the exact same 1971 version of ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’ that gave Tony Christie a no. 3 hit in Ireland, topped the charts in Germany and Spain, but oddly only peaked at no. 18 in the UK. Its new lease of life, ultimately as a second 2005 Comic Relief number one in quick succession, came from its use in Peter Kay’s hit TV comedy Phoenix Nights. So, Peter Kay is credited on the single but only features in the video.
As with the McFly Comic Relief song that preceded this at number one, the video is a parade of famous UK TV faces – literally, as the gag is that they all take turns striding Amarillo-wards to camera alongside Peter Kay. Cheapness demands that it’s all filmed in the long corridors of a TV studio. There’s plenty of ITV soap heads, so fans of Ken Barlow no doubt got their rocks off at it. Again, this is an interesting case study of how British light entertainment casts a large shadow on Irish pop culture. (As a child of the ’80s two-channel wild Atlantic way, I blame the numerical advantage of the UK-channel-having Dubs and their known West Brit tendencies.)
Also in the video for this 2005 Comic Relief ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’: Jimmy Savile. Just to clarify further, the revelations of Savile’s horrific serial crimes, many of which exploited the respectability and goodwill of high-profile charity projects similar to Comic Relief, only emerge publicly in 2012 – a year after his death and too late to give his victims justice. Any repeat TV showings of that Comic Relief video since then have—one hopes—edited him out, but the ghoulish among you can still find it on YouTube. You won’t find it here.
That sobering digression puts the cornball crapness of Neil Sedaka into context, although ‘(Is This The Way To) Amarillo’ is less schmaltzy than his usual compositions. I imagine Sedaka and lyricist Howard Greenfield had pinned ’24 Hours From Tulsa’ and ‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose’ on a cork noticeboard in their Brill Building cubicle, with a big red circle drawn around each to remind themselves of their project brief. The finished Christie product does the dog on the cabaret bounce and whimsical sunniness of both those progenitors, hence its number one spot in schlager-loving Germany and kitsch value elsewhere. Also, those two tracks are Bacharach & David joints, and Sedaka and Greenfield are no Bacharach & David. In the Brill Building order of merit, Neil Sedaka ranks below the janitor.
Still, in the most homeopathic of micro-doses ‘Amarillo’ can be fun. It’s impossible to listen to it without at least one reflex urge to air-punch or air-kick with every double stab of brass in the chorus, which is no bad thing if your cholesterol level or lactose tolerance permit such cheese. It’s a lot of cheese, though. Also, that video.
Irish Number Ones 