Song Of The Day 8/20/2014: The Dancing Did - "Human Chicken"

If It Ain't Stiff...: Today marks the point where this series turns to songs I'd never heard before sitting down to plan out this theme week. I was surveying the Stiff Records Singles series for titles that would jump out at me. So I was predisposed to respond to titles like "Human Chicken." For one thing, I have a track record of endorsing songs about chicken. In the first few seconds of my hearing this track I knew it was a lock for the blog, because I also have a track record of endorsing songs with a bunch of people shouting stuff a cappella. And blog history is made.

I wasn't able to find a ton of information about The Dancing Did, but they did merit a Wikipedia entry in which they were described as "a cross between the Clash and Steeleye Span." Again, you're just making me foam over with fishing lures like that. Cherry Red Records, a label I adore that's going to get a tribute week of their own on this blog at some point in the future, thoughtfully re-released their only album And Did Those Feet a few years back. "When Mick Mercer, one of the most respected music journalists with some 30 years in the trenches, cites The Dancing Did as his favourite English band of all time, you know we're talking about something a little special," says the Cherry Red website. From what little I've been able to glean about The Dancing Did over the past twenty minutes, they sound like they took benchmarks of goth and fed them through the sausage grinder Roger Waters used on schoolchildren in The Wall, though they thoughtfully waited until he was done.

Oh, hell, why don't I just post the whole album here? That'll solve the pressing deadline issue. Here, interact with this: