30 September 1971
There ain’t nothing like shaggin’. My baby sure can shag. Hey, what’s the matter? I’m only telling you the names of the 1987 comeback hit by The Tams and its 1988 follow-up single! The shag was the name of an early-’60s dance style which formed the basis of a 1988 US retro teen movie called Shag, and those two songs plus movie seem to have got swept up in what I assume was a minor US revival of interest in shagging. Banter antennae twitching, UK and Irish punters noted these releases with glee, and The Tams had themselves a minor chart hit with ‘There Ain’t Nothing Like Shaggin” on our side of the Atlantic. Smash Hits helpfully deep-dived on the innuendo in their review of the film, and I recall Larry Gogan reading out the title in his chart countdown with an audible twinkle of the eye; small-child me lapped it up agog. ‘Fern Hill’ by Dylan Thomas never captured such childhood glories.
Suffice it to say, there’s a lot less shagging going on in ‘Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me’. For one thing, the title girl is getting the brush-off, so there’s no meet-cute, let alone a meet-horny. (Underneath the smooth sound, the lyrics are that tired old sexist trope of some guy accusing a woman of being “a flirt”.) Just like The Tams’ 1987 shagfest, though, this track is retro even for 1971 – because it’s actually a 1964 record that apparently got a new lease of life through the UK northern soul scene. I have trouble imagining casualwear mods spinning and splitting vigorously to this avuncular doo-wop on the floor of the Wigan Casino, nor does the sentiment suggest itself to slow sets. Yes, that chorus hook sounds goofily pleasant, and perhaps already in 1971 some witty sub-editors were headlining newspaper articles on philosophy with Hegel, Don’t Bother Me. Otherwise, what was this song’s chart-topping appeal, and to whom? Shagged if I know.
