It’s Friday night, and in my head, I’m back in ’79 and the big question is where’s the party this weekend? I still remember frantically recording mix-tapes on a Friday night on my neighbour Anu’s Technics tape deck / turntable so we would have a fabulous 60 minutes of non-stop disco hits for our party on Sat night. And a lot of those tapes included one-hit wonders that were lighting up the music scene like shooting stars.

Anita Ward was one such one-hit wonder with her amazing ‘Ring My Bell’. Originally the song had been written for a 10 year old and was all about young kids innocently calling each other up on the phone but it was discarded. Anita, was a school teacher trying to break into the music business when she arrived at the label. The lyrics were rewritten with an adult theme, innuendos and all and given to Anita to record.. The elementary school teacher and practising Christian apparently resisted the (happy) sex-laden lyrics, but was very reluctantly coaxed into recording it to round off her debut album. And, it turned into a juggernaut! But the lyrics are not really why this song is engraved on our collective memories. In fact I bet none of us even remember the lyrics. It was always about the music on the song – the synths, the deep bass, the drums going ‘one-ah-two-ah’ and a cowbell. And that amazing hook – “You can ring my beeeeellllllll…Ringit, Ringit Ringit ooooo” – is the perfect earworm. It was literally impossible to not get up and dance when this song played.

I first heard it on A Date With You and remember hitting the record button about 30 seconds into the song! If memort serves me right, even with the starting lyrics missing, it was a hit that weekend!