Mark Goodier took listeners back to two very different October chart weeks, and the best bits were the little-known footnotes behind the hits. The standout came with David Bowie's The Laughing Gnome, a 1967 flop that became an unlikely top ten smash six years later once Bowie was a superstar. Goodier revealed that when sound engineer Gus Dudgeon, who helped create the song's effects, died in 2002, Bowie sent flowers to the funeral with a touching note: "a fond farewell to the laughing gnome."
Bowie reappeared in the 1983 half via Modern Love, while Goodier also relayed how John Lydon was stunned that Public Image Ltd's deliberately cynical This Is Not a Love Song became their biggest ever hit, climbing ten places to number five that week. There was fun history too around Bobby "Boris" Pickett's Monster Mash, which the BBC originally banned as "too morbid" in 1962 before finally letting it chart as a hit in 1973.
Elsewhere, Goodier noted that Howard Jones wrote New Song while working in a factory, and that his fan club was once run by his mum – a nice link to Genesis's Mama a few places above it in the same 1983 countdown. The hour ended on familiar ground, with Culture Club's Karma Chameleon holding firm at number one as 1983's biggest seller, while 1973 closed out with the Simon Park Orchestra's Eye Level still unmoved at the top.
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