I'm Simon Tesler. Welcome back to another hour of songs on the theme of NUMBERS, kicking off with Kraftwerk.

**

Electronica pioneers Kraftwerk there, reintroducing us to our theme this week of numbers. That's a track from their 1980 album Computerworld. The original four-man ensemble from Duesseldorf were arguably the originators of the synthesiser rhythms that came to dominate the music of that decade. "Robot pop" is how co-founder Florian Schneider liked to describe it. Sadly he passed away in 2020 but his original colleague Ralf Hutter, who turns 80 this year, is still going strong, still touring the globe on a regular basis, with dates coming up this summer in the UK.

Back in the 1970s, Kraftwerk's breakthrough albums Autobahn, Radioactivity, TransEurope Express and The Man-Machine were required listening for serious music buffs, but it's debatable just how influential their style might have been had it not been adopted by one particular British artist: David Bowie. You might reasonably argue that it was Bowie who was the real catalyst for the explosion of electronic beats in British music as a result of his plunge into synthesiser rhythms with the album Low. And you could probably draw another two lines from Bowie to the Human League and Ultravox, and so the floodgates were opened. It might all have been so very different.... but we'll never know.

Let's leave all that philosophising behind now and go back to Square One. Or more accurately two songs called One. In a few minutes, the climactic song from what was possibly the greatest new Broadway musical of the 1970s, A Chorus Line. But first, Aimee Mann's cover of a song originally written and recorded by Harry Nilsson. It was recorded by Mann for the soundtrack of Paul Thomas Anderson's extraordinary 1999 ensemble movie Magnolia. More about all of that in a few minutes, but first One and One.

**

Aimee Mann with One from the Magnolia soundtrack, followed by One from the musical A Chorus Line, conceived by Michael Bennett with music and lyrics by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban. So, I mentioned before that Aimee Mann's One was originally written and recorded by Harry Nilsson, a fine songwriter in his own right in the 1970s, but who ironically had his own greatest successes with covers of songs written by other people, principally Everybody's Talking from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack -- actually written by folk singer Fred Neil -- and Without You, originally written by the Welsh rock group Badfinger.

Now the movie Magnolia was actually constructed by director Paul Thomas Anderson -- who you might also know from There Will Be Blood and his latest epic One Battle After Another -- around songs from Aimee Mann's first three albums and characters described in them. They were friends already, and Anderson used to hang out at a LA club where Mann had a regular live slot. So having come up with the framework for the movie, Anderson asked Mann to write the songs for the soundtrack. He later said "Simon and Garfunkel is to The Graduate as Aimee Mann is to Magnolia", referring to the way The Sound Of Silence, Mrs Robinson and other songs by Simon & Garfunkel had knitted together Mike Nichols' earlier movie The Graduate. Aimee Man had already recorded her version for the compilation album For The Love Of Harry, a tribute to Nilsson following his early death, and its air of sad loneliness was perfectly suited to Magnolia's ensemble of characters adrift in Los Angeles. Incidentally that's a sample of Harry Nilsson's voice at the beginning of the track -- "OK Mr Mix" -- lifted from another song.

Now when it comes movies, probably best to skip the film adaptation of A Chorus Line, generally regarded as a significant failure in its attempt to bottle the magic of what was then in the 70s the most successful Broadway musical in history, until overtaken by Cats 20 years later, and then Chicago. If you don't know it, it's a musical about musicals, telling the story of a group of young hopeful singers and dancers all auditioning for roles in the chorus line of a new upcoming production. One is the song from that musical that they're all trying to learn and is its signature tune, performed once as they audition and then again as the closing number of the final show. If you don't already know the song, I guarantee the hook from One will burrow into your brain like an earworm and you'll find yourself humming it for days. 

OK, let's jump now from Broadway in New York to Kingston Jamaica for tracks from two undisputed Kings of Reggae, Toots Hibbert and Bob Marley. In a few minutes, one of Marley's most famous tracks Three Little Birds, but first Toots & The Maytals and 54-46 That's My Number.

**

Toots & The Maytals with 54-46 That's My Number from 1968, followed by Bob Marley with Three Little Birds, from his globe-conquering Exodus album in 1977. Toots & The Maytals were really the pioneers in the export of reggae music to a wider international audience, and in fact 54-46 was among the first reggae songs to get a wider official release outside Jamaica. That same year of 1968 saw the release of their song Do the Reggay which was the first song to coin the term for a style of music that had previously been known as blue-beat or rocksteady. Different artists had different claims for the origins of the word, but there's no denying that Toots & The Maytals were the first to popularise it in music. 

Toots Hibbert said in 2009, "There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat."

So what's 54-46 actually about? Well 54-46 was Toots Hibbert's prison number after he was jailed in Jamaica for possession of marijuana in 1966. The song was the first he released following his release two years later.

And then Three Little Birds from Bob Marley. Many people assume the song is actually called Don't Worry 'Bout A Thing, but it's actually named after the three little birds that Marley claimed inspired him to write it. That really happened, he said later, claiming that the same three birds would frequent the porch outside his house in Hope Road in Kingston. His friend Tony Gilbert later told journalist Vivien Goldman, "Bob got inspired by a lot of things around him, he observed life. I remember the three little birds. They were pretty birds, canaries, who would come by the windowsill at Hope Road."

As was the case with many of Marley's songs, other claims surfaced after his death. Marcia Griffiths, one of his backing singers the I-Threes, said it was about them, or at least became a reference to them. She told Vivien Goldman "After the song was written, Bob would always refer to us as the Three Little Birds. After a show, there would be an encore; sometimes people even wanted us to go back onstage four times. Bob would still want to go back and he would say, 'What is my Three Little Birds saying?'"

We're going to stay in the groove now with another three, and then we'll roll a five. First up De La Soul with the Magic Number, and then Carmen McRae and Dave Brubeck with the vocal version of Brubeck's legendary Take Five.

**

The Magic Number from De La Soul's debut album 3 Feet High & Rising, followed by Carmen McRae with the Dave Brubeck Quartet for a vocal version of Brubeck's jazz standard Take Five. 

De La Soul were quite possibly one of the most unusual rap groups of the late 1980s in that they had made a conscious decision not to follow in the footsteps of existing acts such as Public Enemy, LL Cool J or NWA, all gangsta swagger and political fury. De La Soul co-founder Dave Jolicoeur, known as Trugoy, told Uncut magazine "A lot of hip-hop solo artists were braggers and boasters, lyricists who talked about how good they were and were up for any battle. Those were things that we loved and respected, 'cos it was hip-hop, it was happening and it was amazing. But for us it was a little different to how we planned on approaching it... We could've touched on a lot of those things, but we wanted a different perspective."

Although the three members of De La Soul had grown up in the same touch environment as those other groups, they made the conscious decision to rap instead about a more positive life experience, drawing on the good things in their everyday lives rather than the bad. One of the biggest influences of course was television. "Saturday morning obviously, for any kid, was the highlight of the week," said Dave, "when you'd wake up early and watch all these kiddy shows." A particular favourite of all three members was Schoolhouse Rock, a kids' TV series offering cartoons set to light-hearted educational songs composed by jazz musician Bob Dorough, many of them designed to teach the multiplication tables, like the Four-Legged Zoo, Naughty Number Nine and of course Three Is The Magic Number. 

**

Using that as their starting point, they also layered on top a whole load of other samples, especially in the playout including bits of Johnny Cash, Eddie Murphy and their other favourite records. What might not expect is that the repeating drum sample throughout....

**

...is actually a speeded-up and edited version of John Bonham's beats from Led Zeppelin's The Crunge from the Houses Of The Holy album.

**

Nothing quite so complex on Dave Brubeck's Take Five, or at least not so you'd notice. Under the surface, though, it's a very different story. The original version of Take Five -- I'm sure you know it -- is an instrumental, recorded in 1959. It was actually composed not by Brubeck himself, but saxophonist Paul Desmond and musically is exceptionally unusual. The track came about because drummer Joe Morello challenged Desmond to compose a piece in a quintuple time signature, with five beats to the bar as opposed to the usual four/four time. Thus the name Take Five. 

The first time the Quartet tried to record it, it took them 20 attempts before they could get the beat right. But Desmond thought the track was just a throwaway -- he once joked he would use his entire share of the royalties to buy a new electric shaver. As it happens, he could probably have bought the whole factory. Released as a single, the original instrumental version of Take Five is the biggest selling jazz record of all time. re-recorded and covered countless times. In fact, on his death in 1977, Desmond left his royalties to Take Five and all of his other compositions to the American Red Cross, who earn around $100,000 a year from them.

One of the first covers came just two years later when the Dave Brubeck Quartet teamed up with jazz singer Carmen McRae to release two albums of vocal interpretations of his songs. Brubeck's wife Iola composed the lyrics to all the songs, including Take Five.

Let's stay in a mellow mood for our next pair of tracks. In a few minutes, Grover Washington Jr and Bill Withers with Just The Two Of Us. But first, Paul Simon and 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.

**

Paul Simon's 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, from his 1975 album Still Crazy After All These Years, and then Just The Two Of Us, which is officially credited to saxophonist Grover Washington Jr, featuring Bill Withers, and comes from Washington's 1980 album Winelight.

50 Ways was Paul Simon's biggest solo hit, the only one to reach #1, but despite its upbeat character it's actually a divorce song, even though Simon always avoided ever confirming that fact. Yet the woman in the song is telling the singer to go. As it happens Simon had just split from his first wife after six years of marriage, but instead of getting sad about it he framed it as a light-hearted tale of how to end a relationship. The rhyming chorus was inspired by the times he spent teaching his three-year-old son how to rhyme. Steve Gadd is the drummer responsible for that fabulous shuffling military beat. 

Just The Two Of Us was one of several records released in 1980 prompted by the sudden popularity of smooth jazz in the wake of The Crusaders' Street Life, released a year earlier. Randy Crawford's vocals on that track had suddenly catapulted a widely admired but not especially well-known or commercially successful jazz group to the top of the charts, and several other noted musicians were quick to follow suit. The Crusaders saxophonist was back again in 1980 with the album and single Inherit The Wind, featuring Bobby Womack, and Grover Washington was quick to follow with another soul legend, Bill Withers. 

Heading into the final stretches of this week's show so it's time to ramp up the tempo a little. A couple of British performers now, offering up a seven and an eight. First up, a dose of what used to be called rivvum and blues -- that's rivvum with two v's - from harmonica player supreme Lew Lewis. And then our one and only 8 on the show -- Hazel O'Connor with her tale of machines gone mad, Eighth Day.

**

Lew Lewis with Lucky Seven, followed by Hazel O'Connor with the climactic number from the movie Breaking Glass. Lew Lewis was one of the supporting players in that great r&b revival that centred around Canvey Island in Essex. Its best known champions were of course Dr Feelgood and Eddie & The Hot Rods, and Lewis was close to both. Lucky Seven was one of two singles he released under his own name on Stiff Records - that's Dr Feelgood serving uncredited as the backing band because they were already signed to a different label. 

And then we had Hazel O'Connor, catapulted to comparatively short-lived fame in 1980 as the star of Breaking Glass in which she played an unknown singer who gradually navigates a tricky path through the unscrupulous late 70s music biz, eventually becoming a sort of Bowiesque semi-robotic superstar. It's actually a great movie, worth tracking down on one of the streaming services.

To close the show, we're going back to One again for a fantastic track by U2 from their superb 1991 album Achtung Baby. By the late 80s, after the release of Rattle & Hum, U2 were suffering a sort of collective breakdown. The critics who had once praised them were now writing them off and they felt creatively empty and musically stagnant. At one point they actively considered breaking up, but eventually agreed to have one last attempt to find a new direction by removing themselves to Berlin's Hansa Studios to try to reinvent themselves. For the first two months, it went very badly, and there were frequent arguments between the band members and with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. But with the song One, however, the band finally found some common ground, acknowledging their differences but agreeing to stick together and carry on. "We're one but we're not the same /
We get to carry each other, carry each other"

This is U2 and One.