Another Shakin' Stevens single, another obscure-ish cover ver....oh, hang on, it's not. 'Oh Julie' is a bona fide Stevens original. As far as pastiche can be original that is.Freed from the constraints of covering other people's songs, Steven's doesn't stray too far from the feel good, good time music tree (wouldn't it have been something if he'd gone Goth?), but far enough to replace the backbeat driven R&R rhythm of old with an accordion lead Cajun whirl that wouldn't be out of place soundtracking a barn dance.
For the lyrics, Stevens has taken down his 'Big Boys Book Of Rhyming Words' from the shelf and constructed some verse that any eight year old with learning difficulties would be proud to call their own:
"Whoa Julie, if you love me truly"
"Julie, love me only, Julie, don't be lonely"
"Baby, don't leave me, honey, don't grieve me",
"Stay with me, baby, lay with me maybe" (steady on Shaky!)
and so on, giving the the sneaking suspicion that there never was a girl called Julie and that he just chose the name because it had the most (and most convenient) rhymes.
'Oh Julie' sounds like something that was knocked up in minutes during the sound check and even Stevens' normally excitable delivery sounds more akin to a shoulder shrugging 'will this do' here. And clearly it did do because it got to number one, but I can't for the life of me imagine who would want to listen to this in the privacy of their own homes. Or anywhere really, because it commits the chief cardinal sin of any dancing party song - it's boring as hell.
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