1963
THE BIRD'S THE WORD * THE RIVINGTONS * LIBERTY 55553 * USA
After Papa Om Mow Mow this was the Rivingtons only other hit record. It's a up-tempo song extolling the virtues of a dance known as the Bird, a dance, like many others sung about at the time, that is of dubious existence. Ever since the phenomenon of Hank Ballard's Twist record companies, writers and recording artists were always looking to repeat the success and while some of the many dance records were popular it was, at least as far as the British Mods were concerned, only for their musical content and not because they danced the dances sung about on them. The last thing you would see in one of the big Mecca ballrooms during the early 1960s is any of the 'faces' dressed in detachable collar shirts, suits and Oxfords, or Modernist girls, dressed in tweed suits and 'Granny' shoes, flapping about like birds, ducks, barking like dogs or hopping about like frogs, or any other beast of land, sea or air. So when the revisionists, myth makers and assorted experts say these dances were popular you now know different; because like now, back then folk generally stood there and wiggled about a bit like everybody else, unless, they were in a Hollywood Teenage film, that is.