It was the way everyone played it on the record, and especially Danny Kustow’s guitar work, that finally persuaded EMI they had a future hit on their hands. Motorway" was their first single, released in late 1977, which got into the top five of the UK singles charts and stayed there for over a month. The B-side is a cover of Bob Dylan's " I Shall Be Released" which Robinson performed many times, including as part of the supergroup "The Secret Police" at The Secret Policeman's Ball in 1979. The chorus hook was a straight lift from my favourite chant at Gay Lib demos - ‘2,4,6,8, Gay is twice as good as straight.

Tom Robinson Band – 2-4-6-8 Motorway (1977, Vinyl) - Discogs Tom Robinson Band – 2-4-6-8 Motorway (1977, Vinyl) - Discogs

The band's debut single " 2-4-6-8 Motorway" was a top five hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1977, and their third single, "Up Against the Wall", is seen by some as a classic punk rock single; [2] [3] while their debut album, Power in the Darkness (1978), is regarded as a definitive late-1970s punk album. Tom Robinson began gigging in London in 1976 with a constantly shuffling lineup of musician friends backing him and by the end of the year, he had decided to put together a permanent band. Robinson wrote the song between leaving Café Society in 1976 and forming the Tom Robinson Band the following year, at a time when he was performing with whichever friends were available on the night; thus, the song had to be simple enough to learn in a few minutes.

Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Robinson came up with the tune 'trying to work out the chords to Climax Blues Band's " Couldn't Get It Right"' which he could not really remember. Also, Richard Thompson taught Hugh Cornwell (of The Stranglers) how to play the bass guitar in a band when they were both at the same school (Emil and The Detectives? Taylor's eventual replacement was Charlie Morgan who had played for Kate Bush, and went on to drum for Elton John for a further fifteen years. Robinson later described this period, saying "Within nine months we'd made the transition from signing on at Medina Road dole office to Top of the Pops, Radio One, EMI Records and the giddy heights of the front cover of the New Musical Express".

Tom Robinson Band – 2-4-6-8 Motorway Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

As each date came up, I would ring musician friends in other bands to see who was available to play on the night. When they started recording, Chris Thomas, who had produced their first album, was at the control deck. With a career spanning 50 years and playing with two of my heroes (French and Cornwell) Thompson has produced a fascinating EP. Power in the Darkness reached number 4 in the UK album charts and won the band a gold record, and TRB were voted "Best New Band" and "Best London Band" for the year 1977 by listeners at the Capital Radio Music Awards.The line in John Mellencamp's "Cherry Bomb" that sounds like "that's when a smoke was a smoke" is actually "that's when a sport was a sport," according to the published lyric. The verse lyric came from having done cheap gigs around the country with my previous band Cafe Society, and driving back through the night from places like Scarborough and Rotherham.

2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band (1977) [Play along 2-4-6-8 Motorway - Tom Robinson Band (1977) [Play along

However, after touring the band became much tighter, and guitarist Danny Kustow expanded his riffs, which persuaded EMI to release the record. in Sweden on 27 January 1978, and staying at the top for 4 weeks, while in the US (Harvest 4533) has "2-4-6-8" on both sides. It contained the songs "Don't Take No for an Answer", "Martin", "(Sing if You're) Glad to Be Gay" and "Right on Sister". After Sam Ryder’s Space Man turned the page on two decades of Eurovision misery for the UK in 2022, this year’s representative Mae Muller is bidding to go one better this time around with her electropop gem I Wrote A Song. TRB made leaflets and fliers about their political views and sent them to everyone who attended their gigs.John Drumbo French from Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band worked with Thompson on two albums along with Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser.