Toyah and Robert Fripp were inescapable last year with their Sunday Lunch services and it looks like they’re going to be just as relentless in 2022.
At this point the pair are like those theatre kids who are kind of annoying but you let them do their thing anyway because they’re clearly having a really good time. Especially Toyah.
Their latest cover sees them put trademark theatrical spin on ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones, one of the greatest punk songs of all time reduced to something decidedly un-punk.
“What a year 2021 was, lets kick start 2022 as we mean to carry on….. Direct from the most famous kitchen of lockdown – this is a version of Teenage Kicks you wont forget!!!” is how the YouTube description puts it.
And the pair ham it up as usual. Robert sports some black eyeshadow and plays the guitar as Toyah rocks out. She holds a box of tissues and removes them one by one as she sings. I really don’t know why. Toyah’s outfit might also be her most revealing yet, which takes some doing.
‘Teenage Kicks’, released in 1978, was the debut single for the Irish punk rockers. Although it only reached number 31 on the U.K. Singles Chart, it’s had a long-lasting impact. Iconic BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel repeatedly named it as his favourite ever song. He loved it so much that he requested some of the lyrics to be engraved upon his tombstone. A 2016 poll to find the best indie song of all time saw ‘Teenage Kicks’ place second.
It was notably covered by One Direction in their 2013 charity single ‘One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)’, in a medley with Blondie’s ‘One Way or Another’.
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Check out ‘Teenage Kicks’ (The Undertones cover) by Toyah and Robert Fripp:
