Any poll to decide Slade’s second-most famous song must include Mama Weer All Crazee Now, the band’s third UK No.1 hit, in 1972. Unlike with the Midlanders’ previous chart-toppers Coz I Luv You and Take Me Bak ’Ome, Slade had released Mama three months before its parent album, Slayed?, hoping for it to enter the singles chart in pole position – a feat previously accomplished only by The Beatles with Get Back, three years earlier.
Slade’s record label, Polydor, had considered the feat impossible. But when Mama Weer All Crazee Now debuted at No.2 before leapfrogging Rod Stewart’s You Wear It Well, the stops were pulled out to try to make the next single, the non-album track Cum On Feel The Noize, an instant chart topper. Such was the measure of Slade’s popularity in 1972, it worked.
