Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick - History

History

Co-writer Chaz Jankel has repeated a story both in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll: The Life of Ian Dury and Ian Dury & The Blockheads: Song by Song that the song was written in Rolvenden, Kent during a jamming session between him and Dury. Jankel relates that the music was inspired by a piano part near the end of Wake Up And Make Love With Me (a song on Dury's solo debut New Boots and Panties!! that Jankel had co-written) and that after listening to it, Dury presented the lyrics for Rhythm Stick to him the same afternoon. This was later corroborated by Dury.

Dury mentioned a number of origins for his lyrics, including claiming that he had written them up to three years earlier and it had just taken him all that time to realise their quality. John Turnbull (guitar) gives a different account, claiming the lyrics were written while on tour in America six months prior to the song's recording and that he was still adjusting in-studio. He said the line "it's nice to be a lunatic" was originally "it don't take arithmetic".

Whilst researching his biography of Ian Dury (due for publication in 2010), Will Birch discovered that Ian wrote the lyrics for Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick as early as 1976. Ian's typed manuscript, which differs only slightly from the later recorded version and with hand written notes about arrangement and instrumentation ('drums and fuzz bass doing Roy Buchanan volume trick' after first chorus, for example), was posted to a friend in September of that year. The 'lunatic' line reads 'one two three fourithmatic'. 'O'er the hills and far away' was originally 'down to Hammersmith Broadway'.

The song was recorded in The Workhouse Studio on the Old Kent Road, London, the same place Dury's debut album, New Boots and Panties!!, was recorded. At least 11 takes of the song were recorded before one, reportedly an early take, was chosen for the single release. Mickey Gallagher (keyboards) remains jaded about this method and much of the band as well as producer Laurie Latham remain unhappy with the chosen take's mix, claiming it to be too dominated by piano and vocals. Despite this, Chaz Jankel often re-tells the story that after recording it he phoned his mother and told her, "I've just recorded my first number one".

On radio Rhythm Stick was a popular song from its release, but the single was initially kept from the number one spot in the charts by The Village People's smash hit YMCA, which was at number one for five consecutive weeks. However, on the 27th of January 1979, Watt-Roy, Turnbull and Charley Charles (drums) were waiting outside the Gaumont State Cinema, Kilburn, London, listening to a car radio when it was announced that Rhythm Stick was the new number one. Ian Dury was on holiday in Cannes, where he was at the beach when the hotel staff brought him a bottle of champagne and told him the news. For their appearance on Top of the Pops the whole band bought Moss Bros suits. Laurie Lewis, a friend of Ian Dury's from college, shot the promotional video for the single; while it simply showed the band playing on stage, it was an important piece of footage for Ian Dury, who for the first time appeared in public without his pink jacket or another long sleeved shirt hiding his left arm, withered by Poliomyelitis as a child.

In 2006, its popularity was boosted by its appearance in a British advertisement for Capital One. It has sold 1.11 million copies in the UK as of November 2012.

The single cover was designed by Stiff's Barney Bubbles, anonymously as usual.