Because they are usually an excuse to put together a collection of tracks not quite good enough to be singles.

A really interesting post from you JK! It reveals a lot about your character without you realising (its O.K. its nothing bad!) and answers a lot of questions I have long had about your recording career but have not wanted to appear 'over enthusiastic' by asking. The one question it does bring to my mind that I would like to ask though is why bearing your opinion in mind did you release the song 'Colloquial Sex' (Lawrence's Song)' as a single back in the day? Its not a bad track but was not a hit and (to me) did not obviously sound like one. For a man renowned for 'knowing a hit single when he hears one' I have always wondered whether you had a special reason for releasing that song ahead of some of the more likely material on 'Pandora's Box'?

I do not mean to offend you JK - I'm just intrigued?

I suspect it was a B Side and not an A side Tony; I loved it but never thought it a hit.

Indeed, I see it was the B side of Let It All Hang Out (a hit)... I seem to remember it was inspired by the writings of DH Lawrence and the attitude towards sex at the time.

Thanks for the reply JK. What a fool I am! I have a single with 'Colloquial Sex (Lawrence's Song)' on one side and 'Help Me Make It Through The Night' on the other. With all of the old U.K. seven inch singles you had to read the catalogue number on each side and find the one with the lowest number to work out which side was the A side because, for some reason, the letters A and B did not appear on the labels (perhaps they did on promos). For some reason, the first time I inspected the single I came away with the impression that 'Colloquial Sex' was the A side and thus have always deemed it to be so.

When you said that it was a B side and not an A side I double-checked myself and found that I was wrong and that 'Help Me Through The Night' is actually the A Side. This does not surprise me in the slightest as I always thought your version of that deserved better than to be shoved on a B side!

Oh well, even record NUTTERS like me make mistakes every now and then! Maybe you can now tell me how and why 'Cherry, Cherry' failed to make the U.K. chart? That record SCREAMED of being a hit and you were very much flavour of the month at the time of its release! Sometimes there really is no way of understanding the British public... or was it because you dared to put 'Gay Girl' on the B side!

Yes, being gay had only just become legal! But no, I just think radio failed to support it in the UK... I wasn't "flavour of the month" then - only one hit since Moon - but it was a huge hit in Europe, especially Holland and Belgium, and I did many TVs over there on it... it was the time when Neil Diamond was still considered more of a writer than performer (wrongly).

Make It Through... is on our new UK Records collection, by the way; I still consider it an excellent version of a great global hit song.