Mick Hartley

There used to be a better version on YouTube, but this is good enough:

That, of course, is Tracey Ullmann, from 1983. A classic slice of Eighties pop music, and a great video - if we ignore that Bay City Rollers bit in the middle. And Paul McCartney at the end - oh dear. The boyfriend is so well played, although the storyline is a little confusing. Why's he stacking shelves in the supermarket near the end, and pinching her bum? No matter: that whole suburban Eighties feel, and the slightly ambiguous paean to love-as-it-really-is for most people as against the romantic hype, is spot-on.

Kirsty MacColl wrote the song, and performed the original version in 1979. Here's the story. By rights the MacColl version should be the better one – after all, there's no doubt she was by far the better singer, and it is her song. But in fact I think justice was done here: it was Tracey who had the big hit, and rightly so. For whatever reason - perhaps because it's all ever so slightly naff, and Tracey could carry that off with more panache - she does the song more justice than Kirsty's rather flat version.

And here's Tracey on Top of the Pops from 1983.