My Top 1000 Songs #503: Hey, St. Peter

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Ah, those pre-internet days! When you could hear a song on the radio you really liked, and if you missed the DJ's intro, you'd have the hardest time tracking it down... if you could at all.

I probably heard this some time in middle school, late 70s, on Chicago's WXRT. Really catchy track--a little disco, a little new wave, some odd vocal effects, kinda proggy bridge, and a killer shout-along chorus. No idea what it was or who sang it, and it quickly receded from memory, yet I'd find myself randomly singing that chorus to myself every now and then. Finally, some 5 or 6 years later, combing through the record stacks at the college station, I came across the song again. Still great.

Anyway, "Hey, St. Peter" was a 1976 song by Australian band Flash And The Pan, later released on their 1978 eponymous debut. The band was fronted by the core of 60s pop band the Easybeats (including, yes, the older brother of AC/DC's Angus and Malcolm young). It's definitely of its era, but I still get a nostalgic kick out of it. Kinda filed alongside the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" as a nifty souvenir of keyboard-driven new wave kitsch, in a good way.

Slightly different video: