Forty-four years ago this August, pop-synth duo Yazoo released their debut album, Upstairs at Eric’s. On it was “Only You,” an emotional ballad that would become one of the most recognizable synth-pop ballads of the era.
Written by Vince Clarke and sung by Alison Moyet, it reached No. 2 in the U.K. But waiting in the wings was another pop group about to take the song all the way to the top.
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In 1983, “Only You” got a complete makeover, courtesy of an a cappella vocal group called The Flying Pickets. Stripping the song of all its instrumental polish, they transformed the track into a rich wall of soulful harmonies, re-creating its signature arpeggios from raw human breath and vocal cords. It was a radical choice for a pop song in the ’80s, but it worked.
Released in November 1983, the song spent 12 weeks on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart, with five weeks in the top spot, and became the country’s all-coveted Christmas No. 1. Entirely unprecedented, The Flying Pickets’ “Only You” not only became the group’s first chart-topper, but it eventually became the very first a cappella No. 1 in the U.K.
While the original Yazoo version of the song charted on the Billboard charts—peaking at No. 67 on the Hot 100 and No. 38 on the Adult Contemporary charts–The Flying Pickets’ version didn’t chart in the U.S. at all. Its massive success across the pond and legacy, however, have more than made up for the American slight.
Founded in the early 1980s, The Flying Pickets was formed by a group of professional actors including Welsh actor Brian Hibbard and his co-stars from John McGrath’s socialist 7:84 Theatre Group.
According to The Guardian, they developed their harmony style during a production of the 1981 play One Big Blow, about a miners’ brass band. With minimal props and no set, the production relied on the cast’s unaccompanied vocal talents to imitate the soundscape of a traditional British brass band.
“To amuse ourselves in the tour bus, we used to improvise a cappella harmonies around our favorite songs,” singer and arranger David Brett told the outlet. “When we did this in pubs between shows, the reaction seemed out of proportion to the effort we put into it. We thought we might be on to something.”
They loved performing together so much, they continued the gig outside the theater. Naming themselves The Flying Pickets to reflect their own activist backgrounds in the 1970 miners’ strikes, they launched their first single, “Only You,” followed by their debut studio album in 1984, Lost Boys, which peaked at No. 11 in the U.K.
“[‘Only You’] was our first serious studio recording, and it was certainly a challenge translating a synthesizer hit for voices,” Brett said. “It took ages to piece it all together. The single went nowhere at first, then suddenly it was at No 9. I was in the antenatal clinic awaiting my daughter’s birth when I heard we were No. 1.”
The band had fans across the political spectrum. In fact, Margaret Thatcher, the U.K.’s longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century and leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990, was reportedly an admirer, especially of “Only You.”
“I don’t think Radio 1 knew what a flying picket was, so the name never stopped us getting airplay,” singer Rick Lloyd said in the same Guardian piece. “Somebody told us that ‘Only You’ was Margaret Thatcher’s favorite record.”
He added, “The following year, the miners’ strike happened, and the media cottoned on to what flying pickets were [groups of people who travel from other workplaces to participate in industrial action]. It was funny and pretty subversive, really.”
A song that began as an electronic love tune became an a cappella Christmas anthem performed by socialist actors, and somehow it found a fan in the Conservative prime minister whose government was at odds with the movement they supported.
“I’d always wanted to be in the studio when someone made a No. 1 record,” Lloyd added. “I never imagined it would be us.”
Now, that’s a story.
Related: 19th-Century Nursery Rhyme, by Sarah Hale, Became Fuel for Some of Rock’s Greatest Guitar Solos
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