Claire and Friends (original) (raw)
Claire and Friends were a UK one-hit wonder, consisting of schoolgirl Claire Usher and her friends, from St Winifred's Roman Catholic Primary School in Stockport. Their one hit single was with the novelty record "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're 8½)", which entered the UK Singles Chart on 7 June 1986, and reached number 13. The song is about a girl who has a crush on a boy in her class.The song consists of:
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | Claire and Friends were a UK one-hit wonder, consisting of schoolgirl Claire Usher and her friends, from St Winifred's Roman Catholic Primary School in Stockport. Their one hit single was with the novelty record "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're 8½)", which entered the UK Singles Chart on 7 June 1986, and reached number 13. The song is about a girl who has a crush on a boy in her class.The song consists of: It's 'orrible being in love when you're eight 'n 'arf.I got your picture on me wallGot your name upon me scarfOh it's 'orrible being in love, 'orrible being in love when you're eight 'n 'arf. The song was intended as a kind of follow-up to the number one hit "There's No One Quite Like Grandma", which the St Winifred's School Choir recorded at the start of the 1980s. The song was written and produced by another act who had reached number one in the UK singles chart with their only credited entry called Brian and Michael, with Mick Coleman writing the song (under the name D.M. Coleman) and Kevin Parrott ('Brian') producing it. This was because Brian and Michael's 1978 number one hit "Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs" had featured an uncredited St Winifred's School Choir as backing vocalists (with the choir going on to release an album called The Matchstalk Children). The demo was submitted to a talent-spotting feature on the BBC children's television programme Saturday Superstore, where it beat a thousand other entries. Claire and Friends' hit was released on both 7" and 12" vinyl by BBC Records and Tapes (now part of BBC Studios) in 1986, with the 12 inch version also featuring the 'Megaminormix' version of the song. However in January 1987, future Music Week chart analyst Alan Jones reported in his Record Mirror column that only 0.2% of the sales of "It's 'Orrible Being in Love" were on 12 inch, the lowest proportion of any hit single available on the format in 1986. This equated to fewer than 200 copies being sold on the larger format. After "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're 8½)" was a Top 40 success, the BBC followed it up with a solo single by Usher. Called "Superman", this single was credited simply to 'Claire' and continued the story from the original single, but was not a Top 75 hit. Claire also issued an album, mostly of cover versions but with a few further originals by Coleman. Entitled Super Claire, this release also was not a commercial success, missing the UK Top 100 albums chart (as number 100 was seen as a hit in the 1980s until 1989). In adulthood, Claire Usher (later Usher-McMorrow) obtained a degree in drama and became a dancer, and appeared in the stage show Riverdance on Broadway in 2000, and in the show's UK tour. She later wrote songs for indie pop band Shrag. (en) |
| dbo:activeYearsEndYear | 1986-01-01 (xsd:gYear) |
| dbo:activeYearsStartYear | 1986-01-01 (xsd:gYear) |
| dbo:hometown | dbr:Greater_Manchester dbr:Stockport |
| dbo:recordLabel | dbr:BBC_Records |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 7605053 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 6745 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1123792134 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Saturday_Superstore dbr:One-hit_wonder dbr:Hit_single dbr:Riverdance dbr:United_Kingdom dbr:Gramophone_record dbr:Shrag dbr:12-inch_single dbr:Cover_version dbr:Greater_Manchester dbr:St_Winifred's_School_Choir dbr:Stockport dbr:Demo_(music) dbr:Matchstalk_Men_and_Matchstalk_Cats_and_Dogs dbr:Music_Week dbr:BBC_Records dbr:BBC_Studios dbr:UK_Singles_Chart dbr:Album dbc:British_pop_music_groups dbr:Brian_and_Michael dbr:Broadway_theatre dbr:Television_program dbr:There's_No_One_Quite_Like_Grandma dbr:Record_Mirror dbr:Novelty_record |
| dbp:label | dbr:BBC_Records |
| dbp:name | Claire and Friends (en) |
| dbp:origin | Stockport, Greater Manchester, England (en) |
| dbp:pastMembers | Claire Usher (en) |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Citation_needed dbt:Infobox_musical_artist dbt:More_citations_needed dbt:Poemquote dbt:Reflist |
| dbp:yearsActive | 1986 (xsd:integer) |
| dct:subject | dbc:British_pop_music_groups |
| rdf:type | owl:Thing schema:MusicGroup schema:Organization dul:Agent dul:SocialPerson dbo:Agent dbo:Group wikidata:Q215380 wikidata:Q24229398 wikidata:Q43229 dbo:Band dbo:Organisation |
| rdfs:comment | Claire and Friends were a UK one-hit wonder, consisting of schoolgirl Claire Usher and her friends, from St Winifred's Roman Catholic Primary School in Stockport. Their one hit single was with the novelty record "It's 'Orrible Being in Love (When You're 8½)", which entered the UK Singles Chart on 7 June 1986, and reached number 13. The song is about a girl who has a crush on a boy in her class.The song consists of: (en) |
| rdfs:label | Claire and Friends (en) |
| owl:sameAs | freebase:Claire and Friends wikidata:Claire and Friends https://global.dbpedia.org/id/4i9YL |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Claire_and_Friends?oldid=1123792134&ns=0 |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Claire_and_Friends |
| foaf:name | Claire and Friends (en) |
| is dbo:wikiPageRedirects of | dbr:Claire_and_friends dbr:Claire_&_Friends |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:Saturday_Superstore dbr:St_Winifred's_School_Choir dbr:BBC_Records dbr:Claire_and_friends dbr:Brian_and_Michael dbr:Claire_&_Friends |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Claire_and_Friends |