The illustrated Hello

It's a Bank Holiday weekend, and how better to mark the *checks Wikipedia* crucifixion and resurrection of a chap than a slightly strained special feature?

Hello by The Beloved is one of the truly great list songs. Clearly, Jon Marsh is of an age where he would have spent much of his youth listening to the Annie Nightingale Request show on Radio One, and as such would have been more than familiar with The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's Intro And The Outro, to which Hello owes a Joe McIntyre-sized debt:



[The Bonzos doing The Intro And The Outro on Do Not Adjust Your Set]

It's something of a surprise to discover that Hello only made it to Number 19, although that was still quite a lot of money in those days - January 1990. It's also a bit of a surprise to discover that it wasn't the Beloved's biggest hit - that would be Sweet Harmony, which came three years later.

Still, their finest hour, even so:



The question, though, is who were all these people and - more to the point - how tenuously can they be linked back to pop?

so welcome to the world, yeah...
all you late-comers, just step onboard
i'm happy, glad you came
so welcome home again!
sometimes i feel we must be going mad
hello peter, hello paul
saints and sinners, welcome all
tommy cannon and bobby ball
hello, hello, hello, hello
consider, if you will
this great big question, unanswered still
oh, can you spot the difference that lies between
the colour blue and the colour green?
sometimes i feel we must be going mad
little richard, little nell
willy wonka and william tell
salman rushdie and kym mazelle
hello, hello, hello, hello...
so welcome to the team
oh, have you worked it out yet?
yeah - the riddle, i mean
what's the answer?
it's plain to see - blue is blue and it always will be
sometimes i feel that the whole world's going mad
mork and mindy, brian hayes
barry humphries and paris grey
little neepsie, chris and do
hello, hello, hello, hello...
billy corkhill, vince hilaire
freddie flintstone, fred astaire
desmond tutu, steve and claire
hello, hello, hello, hello...
charlie parker, charlie brown
leslie crowther, come on down
mary wilson, di and flo
hello, hello, hello, hello...
sir bufton tufton, jean paul sartre
zippy, bungle, jeffrey archer
andre previn and the lso
hello, hello, hello, hello...
hello!

Over the weekend, we'll be obsessively finding out.

[Buy: Single File: The Best Of The Beloved
Cornology - The collected Bonzos]