"Angelo" is a song by British pop group

Brotherhood of Man Brotherhood of Man are a British pop group who achieved success in the 1970s. They won the 1976 Eurovision Song Contest with " Save Your Kisses for Me". Created in 1969 by songwriter and record producer Tony Hiller, Brotherhood of Man was initi ...

. Released as a single in June 1977, it became the group's second UK number one hit.

Background

Written by

Tony Hiller Anthony Toby Hiller (30 July 1927 – 26 August 2018) was an English songwriter and record producer. He was best known for writing and/or producing hits for Brotherhood of Man, including " United We Stand" (1970) and "Save Your Kisses for Me" (19 ...

Lee Sheriden Lee Sheriden (born Roger Pritchard; 11 April 1944 in Horfield, Bristol) is an English singer/songwriter and musical director, best known as a member of pop group Brotherhood of Man. Early career As a child, Roger Pritchard learned the piano and ...

and

Martin Lee Martin Lee Chu-ming, SC, JP (; born 8 June 1938) is a Hong Kong politician and barrister. He is the founding chairman of the United Democrats of Hong Kong and its successor, the Democratic Party, Hong Kong's flagship pro-democracy party. He ...

and produced by Hiller, it was the band's second UK number one single (after their Eurovision winner, "

Save Your Kisses for Me "Save Your Kisses for Me" was the winning song of the Eurovision Song Contest 1976, performed for the by Brotherhood of Man in The Hague, Netherlands. The lyrics and music were written by Tony Hiller, Lee Sheriden, and Martin Lee, the latter two ...

" the previous year), spending a single week at the top in August 1977. The song remained on the UK Chart for 12 weeks - 10 of them in the Top Ten - and was the 9th biggest selling single of the year. It was awarded a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

in August 1977 by the BPI. The song also was a number one hit in Ireland, Japan and South Africa (for two weeks). It featured on the group's album ''

Images An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...

,'' which was released later in the year. The main melody of the song was derived from the dual guitar solo of the 1976 hit by

Kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

, "

Detroit Rock City "Detroit Rock City" is a song by the American hard rock group Kiss, released on their 1976 album ''Destroyer''. The song was written by Paul Stanley and producer Bob Ezrin. The song is one of the band's most popular and is a classic rock staple ...

." The song tells of a shepherd in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

who falls in

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...

with a rich girl, but he is met with resistance from her family. Both aware that her family would never allow the union, they run away together and commit suicide. According to co-writer Hiller, the lyrics were based on "'' Romeo and Juliet'' - the great love story. The idea was to create a modern day Romeo and Juliet romance". The song is a moderate 117 beats per minute, and played in C Minor with the vocal range: G3-C5. The song is sung by the two female members of the group,

Sandra Stevens Sandra Stevens (born 23 November 1944, Leeds, Yorkshire) is an English singer and member of pop group Brotherhood of Man. Early career Sandra Stevens first entered into a singing career in the 1960s when she joined the club band, The Track (w ...

and

Nicky Stevens Nicky Stevens (born Helen Maria Thomas in Carmarthen, Wales, 3 December 1949) is a singer, famous as a member of pop group Brotherhood of Man. She is the only Welsh person to have won the Eurovision Song Contest. Early career Nicky Stevens be ...

, although Sandra sings the opening lines alone. "Angelo" was performed by the group at the '' Silver Jubilee Royal Variety Gala'' in November 1977 in front of Queen Elizabeth II. UK comedy group

The Barron Knights The Barron Knights are a British humorous pop rock group, originally formed in 1959 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire,Colin Larkin, ''Virgin Encyclopedia of Sixties Music'', (Muze UK Ltd, 1997), ), p. 32 as the Knights of the Round Table. C ...

parodied this song on their "Live in Trouble" single, a top ten hit in 1977.

Track listing

#"Angelo" (3:15) #"All Night" (2:59) French and German version: #"Angelo" (3:15) #"Circus" (3:20) All tracks written by

and

Chart performance

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angelo (song) 1977 singles 1977 songs Brotherhood of Man songs Irish Singles Chart number-one singles Pye Records singles Songs about Mexico Songs about suicide Songs involved in plagiarism controversies Songs written by Lee Sheriden Songs written by Martin Lee (singer) Songs written by Tony Hiller UK Singles Chart number-one singles