Madness scores with "My Girl"

Madness : My Girl

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In January of 1980 Madness became the first band of the decade to perform on Top of the Pops. They played "My Girl" on the January 3 show before setting off on a tour of Europe. In the meantime, their second single from the debut album One Step Beyond spent ten weeks in the UK charts peaking at UK#3. Madness could do no wrong for most of the decade.

Keyboard player Mike Barton wrote the song in 1978 when he was delivering Flyffes bananas. He told the Kent Messenger Newspaper "The bloke I worked with on the lorry was always talking about 'My girl and me, we're going to live in Essex. My girl and me, we're going to the coast this weekend."

He adds "I didn't last at that job long, but after that, when I was writing that song it just came to me. My girl this. My girl that. Cuz it wasn't something I would ever say, my girl. "

Here's Barson explaining the inspiration for the song with a surprise appearance from a former girlfriend who claims to be his muse. She complains that Barson would never talk to her thus the lines "My girl's mad at me /Been on the telephone for an hour 'We hardly said a word".

And here's Barson teaching us how to play it on the keyboards.