The Cover Of "Radio Times"

So it seems that Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show's "Cover of the Rolling Stone" peaked on the BILLBOARD charts on this date in 1973, according to our friends at KZMZ. That makes today a golden opportunity to discuss something that has been sitting in my bookmarks for awhile.

BBC Radio has (or at least, had) rules prohibiting what they considered advertising in songs. This is why there are two versions of the Kinks' "Lola" - one which names Coca Cola, the other which substitutes "cherry cola." It's why Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" wasn't even pushed as a single in the U.K. Such a fate seemed to await Dr. Hook's song as well. But someone decided to try something different.

"The Cover of 'Radio Times', credited to "Dr. Hook and Friends" is an imaginative attempt at getting around the ban. By overdubbing "Radio Times" (the name of the BBC's own publication) for "Rolling Stone", the hope was to get airplay on BBC 1. Alas, the DJs couldn't even promote "Radio Times" on the air! So this version of the song more or less fell into obscurity almost immediately.

I must admit that I am very curious to hear the results, but it looks like the 45 is so rare that the odds of that happening are remote at best.