Basil: You’re looking very smart today, Major.
Major: It’s St. George’s Day, old boy.
Basil: Ah, the warding off of May the 8th. Good old St. George, eh Major?
Major: Hmmmm?
Basil: He killed a hideous fire-breathing old dragon, didn’t he?
Polly: Ran it through with a lance, I believe.
Major: But why did he kill it?
Basil: I don’t know, Major, better than marrying it.
Major: But he didn’t have to kill it. He could’ve just not turned up at the church!
— Fawlty Towers, Communication Problems (1979)
St. George’s Day is celebrated on April 23 every year. But who was this George chap, and how did he become the Patron Saint of England when he wasn’t even a Brit?
The only Christian saint to be mentioned in the Koran, St. George was not a knight of the garter as is often claimed but a Roman soldier who was born more than 2,000 miles away from the Sceptred Isle in Cappadocia, in what is now modern day Turkey.
Bold as brass, Georgie boy rose up and protested against the persecution of Christians in 245-313 AD. As a result, the horrid Emperor Diocletian ordered him to be imprisoned, tortured and eventually beheaded on the 23rd of April 303 AD, in either Nicomedia, an ancient Greek city that had become the eastern and most senior capital of the Roman Empire, or Lydda, in the Roman province of Palestine that is now in the State of Israel.
Despite George never crossing the Channel, the red cross of St. George on its white background was adopted by English monarch Richard the Lionheart who brought it back from the Crusades in 1192, and whose soldiers wore it on their tunics to avoid confusion in battle.
St. George was erroneously adopted as the Patron Saint of England after the Anglais won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and thus, 23 April was declared a national feast day and public holiday in that southern chunk of Britain in his honour.
To mark the splendiferous occasion, a Perfect 10 of gorgeous and grand Georgian tunes.
Don’t mention the warding off of May the 8th.
George Gershwin — Rhapsody In Blue (1924)
The son of Russian Jews, Gershwin had taken piano lessons as a kid growing up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. After dropping out of school to become a song-plugger on Tin Pan Alley, he landed his first Broadway show at 20 and began his meteoric rise as one of the US’s leading popular tunesmiths, penning standards such as Swanee and Summertime, often in collaboration with his brother Ira.
At 25, Gershwin was the toast of Broadway. However; he’d always harboured ambitions in classical music, and Rhapsody In Blue challenged notions regarding the divide between that and popular music. Its relatively free-form structure flew in the face of symphonic traditions, and combined a sparkling freshness with an irresistible accessibility.
Indeed, the place that Rhapsody In Blue holds in popular culture is hard to overstate, especially as 2025 marks the 101st anniversary of the piece’s premiere. It’s also one of George Gershwin’s most recognisable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age, inaugurating a new era in American musical history and solidified Gershwin’s reputation as one of its most glorious composers.
George McRae — Rock Your Baby (1974)
George Warren McCrae Jr didn’t set out to be disco’s John the Baptist. With a joint reputation as Florida’s most stellar session vocalists, he and wife Gwen McCrae were prime movers on the early disco front. Indeed, it’s a sobering thought to think that George temporarily retired from singing to become the missus’s manager when Gwen’s solo career took off before his.
Enter his own fabulous floor-filler in 1974. Rock Your Baby wasn’t the first disco hit — there were several proto-disco ditties already — but it’s widely regarded as the first major disco smash; the one that crossed over internationally to Europe. The song was written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band.
It’s hugely ironic that one of the era-defining disco 45s was written by a couple of white dudes. They delivered an absolute monster of a song that imitated what they’d heard in black and gay clubs, blending funk, psychedelic and Philly soul with some pop-smart R&B to make an Irresistible sonically lush concoction.
There’s the groovy electric piano chords, as well as a dab of light wah-wah guitar, giving the track just a touch of funk without overdoing it. McCrae’s vocals really stand out too. He soars yet sounds super sensual and smooth as silk.
The other thing that drives the song is its rhythm. It’s tight but laidback, with just enough bounce to make you move without being overwhelming. The drum machine (a Roland rhythm machine, super cutting-edge for the time) gives it a steady, hypnotic pulse. The syncopated hi-hats and soft percussive flourishes keep things light, airy, and hugely danceable. A UK No.1 in the summer of ’74 when Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson had two tunes of their own bubbling under, those eagle-eared Swedes were taking notes, and it’s fair to say ABBA’s Dancing Queen would sound very different without Rock Your Baby paving the way.
George Baker Selection — Paloma Blanca (1975)
Johannes ‘Hans’ Bouwens is a Hoornbag from the Netherlands who, under his slight less Dutch sounding band moniker George Baker Selection, scored three international hits. The first of which was 1969’s Little Green Bag, a weirdly compelling slice of Traffic-esque garage rock which found itself reopened as an oddly appropriate opening salvo on Quentin Tarrantino’s Reservoir Dogs.
Venturing into mash potato schmaltz, his biggest success in the UK was the easy-listening ear-worm (Una) Paloma Blanca, a 1970s cheese slice propelled by an irritatingly ‘jaunty’ flute riff that sounds irredeemably kitsch to modern ears.
Capitalising on the fall of Franco and the opening up of formerly fascist Spain, I’m including the hurdy-gurdy package tour travesty for sentimental reasons. Like it or not, I can vividly recall the Jonathan King version being piped over the tannoy while my sister and I waited at the Wembley Stadium turnstiles for a red suit day: ie our first Bowie concert, the iffy arachnoid that was 1987’s Glass Spider.
The rush-release cover by controversial BBC presenter King actually surpassed the original, shooting to No. 5 the same October 1975 week, and ultimately is a reflection on the price of freedom dressed up as harmless summer favourite. It was playing on the radio when Gary Gilmore, an American double murderer who became something of a cause celebre after demanding his own death sentence, was being driven to his state sponsored execution by firing squad in 1977. None of that stopped ‘hilarious’ comedy bumpkins the Wurzels stealing the tune for their ode to West Country life, I Am A Cider Drinker. I’ll stick to half a pint of shandy booze, thanks.
George Benson — Give Me The Night (1980)
Arguably one of the jazz guitar greats, Pennsylvanian ‘Yinzer’ George Washington Benson was something of a child prodigy and ended up playing with a number of legends in the sixties, including Miles Davis. After various works, including a Westernish instrumental reworking of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and a Beatles covers set The Other Side Of Abbey Road, his breakthrough came with 1976’s Breezin’.
Other hit albums followed, including Give Me The Night at the turn of the decade. By this time, Benson’s guitar had been relegated to the background, putting his vocals and more polished R&B-flavoured pop formulas at the centre during the last gasp of the disco era.
Coming hot on the heels of Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, this another example of the swirling funky flash hit-making recipe that producer Quincy Jones was becoming known for. Also from Team MJ, Rod Temperton penned the title track, which saw Jones daub echo on Benson’s guitar riffs, which gives the sonics a defiantly lush almost three-dimensional sound.
Patti Austin squeezes out scat vocals through the verses too. And this is arguably one of GB’s most groovy performances, not to mention his biggest hit on both sides of the pond, the same August week that saw the UK top ten stuffed full of enduring classics from ABBA, Diana Ross, David Bowie and Roxy Music.
George Harrison — All Those Years Ago (1981)
Surely this is one George that needs no introduction. Many musicians such as Queen and Roxy Music rose to the occasion with John Lennon tributes in the aftermath of his senseless murder, though you could make the argument that it took those that had been closest to him and shared in the cabin fever experience of The Beatles to do it best.
From 1982’s Tug Of War (which I knew from the cassette my father purchased in WHSmith Milton Keynes), Paul McCartney’s Here Today imagined how Lennon would react to such a tribute. Though it remained unbought in our household, I remember hearing George Harrison’s All Those Years Ago at Springfield school, and thinking it rather lovely and poignant.
The song is incredibly nostalgic and evocative and demonstrates just how melancholic life can be in the most beautifully haunting way. The lyrics reflected Lennon’s standing in pop culture as an outspoken and polarising figure, while also reconciling his own feelings about his departed colleague, with Harrison’s wry sense of humour on display with lines like “They’ve forgotten all about God/ He’s the only reason we exist/ You were the one that they said was so weird”.
Notably, All Those Years Ago was the first recording on which Harrison, McCartney and Ringo Starr all appeared since the Fab Four’s I Me Mine on 1970’s Let It Be. There’s also contributions from Al Kooper, Herbie Flowers and Elton John’s percussionist Ray Cooper, who co-produced the track with George. It was only kept from the US No. 1 by Kim Carnes’ behemoth Bette Davis Eyes, while in Blighty it peaked at unlucky 13 the week Adam & The Ants’ Stand And Deliver was in its penultimate showing at the top spot.
George Clinton — Atomic Dog (1982)
Oh, make no mistake, Carolinian-born conceptualist bandleader George Edward Clinton revolutionised funk and R&B in the late sixties and early ’70s as mastermind of Parliament and Funkadelic. Versed in soul, gospel and doo wop, Clinton enjoyed a baptism of fire as staff songwriter at Motown, scoring his first hit as author and vocalist of the Parliaments’ (I Wanna) Testify.
While the animated colourful collective P-Funk temporarily lay dormant following a clutch of animated and everlasting funk 45s, Clinton went solo (wink, wink) with 1982’s Computer Games, a nod to the burgeoning wave of techno-funk that was starting to overtake most forms of American dance music; rather than reject the new technology, he did a Prince and adapted it in his own unique way.
The LP’s second single was Atomic Dog, a thumping electro-funk pop jam overflowing with squiggly synths and squelching bass. Composed with P-Funk singer-guitarist Garry Shider, the subject matter is almost a Diamond Dogs for the eighties: a typically kooky conceit of man as canine (or vice versa).
While simultaneously leaving an open playbook for emerging hip-hop producers to borrow from, the track put Can, Kraftwerk and old man Gary Numan on notice, finding a middle-aged Clinton vibing out on a new type of hybrid, colliding with new wave confections by Thomas Dolby, answering the call put out by Soul Sonic Force and eventually hitting number one on Billboard’s R&B chart, kicking Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean down the illuminated sidewalk. Hee hee.
Sophia George — Girlie Girlie (1985)
From Kingston Town, Jamaica, Sophia George was working as a teacher for hearing-impaired learners when she record this song. Although a top tenner in Britain and a No. 1 in her homeland, she’s the definition of ’80s one-hit wonder, sharing a solitary page in the history book with a host of blink-and-you’ll-miss-thems like Martha And The Muffins, Fiction Factory, Bobby McFerrin, The Lotus Eaters and The Look.
No strangers to dishing out a bit of white reggae, Girlie Girlie was faithfully covered by Blondie on their 2011 album Panic Of Girls. Written by someone called Sangie Davis, it’s actually a gender-flipped remake of an early dancehall cut (one which never really made outside of the Caribbean) that concerned a girl with too many male “friends”. Come the eighties and it’s about a boy, who “jus a flash it round the worldie”, and the whole dynamic flips.
At turns twee-sounding and alluring, it made No. 7 for a fortnight in January 1986, the same two weeks where pole position was filled by a mysterious new pop duo called Pet Shop Boys. From West Indies to West End Girls, now that’s what I call batty.
Boy George — The Crying Game (1992)
Seven years after that commercial breakthrough, PSB — Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe — found themselves helming a one-off single for that Hampstead heathen with a penchant for radiators, Culture Club campster George Alan O’Dowd. Coming slap bang in the middle of the quartet’s decade-long hiatus, the drama chameleon provided one of the most soulful vocal performances of his career: a plaintive, evocative heartfelt croon that rises to an almost angelic falsetto.
Frank DeCaro from Newsday found that The Crying Game contained “the most mesmerising vocal since Annie Lennox first asked Why last summer.” And it was all for a sublime cover of an old Dave Berry ballad for a film, the exceptionally intelligent independent political thriller The Crying Game, directed by Neil Jordan.
A combination of wistful, melancholic lyrics (via Geoff Stephens, who went on to pen Lights Of Cincinnati for Scott Walker, among others) updated with Pet Shop Boys’ dark, swirling keyboards ominous in their minor key splendour, Anne Dudley’s haunting orchestration and a brilliantly twangy reverb-laden guitar that could pass for Hank Marvin, the result is a moving ode to sadness and represents the exploration and frustration of lost love in the film.
Though it only reached a criminally under-appreciated No. 22 in Britain, The Crying Game did much better across the water, peaking at the ten spot on the US Cash Box Top 100, and No. 1 in Canada and Iceland. It became George’s biggest solo hit in North America, becoming a much-played radio hit that elevated the status of the entire movie. Let that music play, then.
George Michael — Jesus To A Child (1996)
What can you say about the self-styled “singing Greek”, Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou? One of the most talented singer-songwriters Britain has ever produced, and on his third solo set, the melancholic magnum opus that is Older, it’s hard to reconcile that this is the same man responsible for the bum-wiggling cheesefest that was Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
From the album cover inwards, Older reflected the artist’s quest for artistic maturity and earnest control of his entire oeuvre. The themes of grief, recovery and mortality threaded through the LP was symbolic of the dark and despondent place Yog was in at the time: the goateed man with the severe Caesar haircut with the tiniest hint of a smile and the faintest of confidence; half his face was hidden in shadows. He looked like Mephistopheles as pickup artist.
Britpop was at its peak, but Yog was in no mood to latch on to the coattails of such a parochially Anglocentric movement. With his trademark stubbornness, Older’s reference points remained his trademark touchstones of soul, R&B and pop, only this time often given a jazzier, more bossa-novan twist.
In the context of the album, lead single Jesus To A Child set the scene for that new direction – brooding, mature, reflective and introspective, an almost unbearably poignant ballad that served as the first of many tributes to his under-wraps partner Anselmo Feleppa, who died in 1993. In an unintentionally perverse way, it may be the most honest song George Michael ever made.
Zippy, George, Bungle and Geoffrey — It’s A Rainbow (2002)
From the sublime to the ridiculous. Ooh, Zippy! Not to be confused with the heavy metal bores of the same name, Rainbow featured the puppet stars of one of Blighty’s best known kids shows in a contemporary context.
It’s A Rainbow spliced the psychedelic folk-based theme of Rainbow with club-oriented beats and vocals, made a creditable showing on the charts, debuting at number 15.
The single’s success capped off a year of newfound interest in the show, which ran from 1972-1992 and revolved around the adventures of George, a camp pink hippo with a fondness for playing the plinky-plonker and occasionally dressing up as his “cousin Georgina”; Zippy, a one-armed, zipper-mouthed gregarious rascal with a chronic craving for sausages and cake; Bungle, a six-foot tall, avuncular bear that only puts clothes on when he’s going to bed; and Geoffrey, their long-suffering human chaperone.
George and Zippy also celebrated the 30 year anniversary of the show by appearing in Marmite ads and embarking on the Rainbow Disco Roadshow, a DJ tour of clubs and bolly-wolledge universities. I caught them purely by accident doing a photocall and, I think, signing session to plug a new video and DVD collection in the upstairs video department of the HMV store in London’s Oxford Circus. I only caught the tail end of the PA and remember the assembled throng guffawing loudly as Bungle skipped over to the soft porn titles, asking so-terribly-innocently, “Oh, what are these?”
Obviously, I have absolutely no idea.
Steve Pafford
