“It’s a strange little song. It’s weird and off its trolley - but people love it and everybody knows it”: We speak to The Selecter’s Pauline Black about their breakthrough 1979 single - and 2 Tone's moment as the sound of British youth culture

The Selecter.

In the early autumn of 1979, an offbeat, infectious and highly-energetic song could be regularly heard over the English airwaves. With its driving, Motown-style backbeat, choppy guitar, chunky Hammond organ and strange, call-and-response chorus (partly made up of an eerie female falsetto vocal line) On My Radio, the debut single by UK ska-revivalist seven-piece The Selecter, stood out from a lot of what was being heard elsewhere… on the radio.

With a beautiful irony, it also criticised the repetitive nature and commercial pop programming of the very medium it was being played on: ‘It's just the same old show on my radio,’ sang uber-stylish vocalist Pauline Black.