"It's Good News Week" is a song and single by the British band Hedgehoppers Anonymous. Written and produced by Jonathan King, it was first released in 1965.[1]
| "It's Good News Week" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Hedgehoppers Anonymous | ||||
| B-side | "Afraid of Love" | |||
| Released | 1965 | |||
| Genre | Pop rock | |||
| Length | 2:05 | |||
| Label | Decca (UK) Parrot (US) | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Jonathan King | |||
| Producer(s) | Jonathan King | |||
| Hedgehoppers Anonymous singles chronology | ||||
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Background and chart success
editThe song is a protest song that comments on the media's obsession with bad news.[2] It reached #5 in the UK Singles Chart and stayed on the chart for 12 weeks.[3] The group released four other tracks before breaking up.[4] Lack of further chart activity leaves them labelled as one-hit wonders.[3] It was issued in the U.S. on Parrot, reaching #48 on the Billboard Hot 100.
This song was used as the theme music for Good News Week, a satirical news-based comedy quiz show on Australian television which ran from 1996 to 2000 and was revived in 2008.[4] It was also used in the UK comedy series Dead Man Weds in 2005.[5]
Two versions of the song were recorded. The original recording had the line "lots of blood in Asia now, they butchered off the sacred cow, they've got a lot to eat." At the insistence of the record company, that line was changed to "families shake the need for gold by stimulating birth control, we're wanting less to eat." The birth control version was released in the UK. The sacred cow version was released in the USA.[6][7]
Finnish band Four Cats made a Finnish language cover version Suurten uutisten päivä (A Day of Great News) in 1965.[citation needed]
References
edit- ^ "It's Good News Week". www.discogs.com. September 1965. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ^ Thompson, Dave. "It's Good News Week". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ^ a b "Uk Chart — Hedgehoppers Anonymous". www.officialscharts.com. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ^ a b "Biography by Steven McDonald". Allmusic.com. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ^ Barber, Lyn (27 March 2005). "Yours faithfully". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 November 2015.
- ^ "Radio London - Big L Fab Forty 26th September 1965".
- ^ "Antiwar Songs (AWS): Hedgehoppers Anonymous - It's Good News Week".