After Hours

Sheila. Les rois mages

Remember Sheila from last week? Well, by the early seventies she was all grown up. She had gotten some much better hair and she was singing about the Three Kings. OK, it's a song about those guys, but, if my hearing and understanding are worth a damn (and I hope they are), there isn't a single mention of the Jesus by name. Hey, if I've misheard let me know. Even if there is a full-on reference to the Son of Man, you have to admit that it's a pretty super-groovy track. It's got a memorable tune, solid production and it makes wish that my bottoms were more belled.

In case you've fallen in love with it, here's another version from 1972. All is chaos - including the video itself, which drops out of synch a few time, but miraculously recovers. Golly, they could never put anything on like this nowadays! It's way too disorganized and crazy for modern culture. You have all these backup singers standing everywhere, an orchestra who look like they just stepped off a cruise ship, terrible camerawork and a singer in a sparkly jumpsuit constantly hectoring the audience. And it's all in black & white! It's fantastic!