"The lyrics weren't a celebration of excess or debauchery, but a detached description of what was going on": The story of Ian Dury's biggest hit, a song that was never actually a hit at all

Ian Dury & The Blockheads studio portrait.

In life, there are certain things you take for granted: British summers are wet, Arthur Brown really does live in a crazy world and Ian Dury’s Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll was a huge hit single in 1977. Well, whatever the arguments about the first two points, surprisingly the last one is way off the mark. While many assume the Dury classic must have been his biggest chart botherer, in reality it didn’t tickle even the lower reaches of the UK Top 75.

“The single did well on the independent charts, but failed completely on the national one,” agrees Chaz Jankel, who co-wrote and played guitar on it. “One of the problems was that, because of the title, the BBC refused to pay it on air. Annie Nightingale recently told me that she did spin it during the evenings. But it got hardly any daytime plays.”