Credit: Far Out / Lieutenant Pigeon / Record Sleeve
Tue 22 September 2026 0:00, UK
The 1970s saw the release of some of the greatest music of all time, and it’s the decade that gave us disco.
We can, of course, be guilty at times of glorifying everything that went before, so just like the goofy novelty songs of the 1950s and ’60s before it, the ’70s had a lot of songs that were hugely successful at the time, but which haven’t really stood the test of time.
Some songs were weird at the time but seem quite quaint now, like everything that Devo or Sparks ever did, and even 50 years later, some people still love and revere all the bizarre noises that groups like Pink Floyd, Hawkwind and Jethro Tull were turning out. Then there were things like Chuck Berry’s ‘My Ding-a-Ling’ (an absolute travesty that this was his only ever number one in the UK), and whatever you would categorise the song that Lieutenant Pigeon took to the top of the UK singles charts (for an entire month, by the way) at the end of 1972.
There were plenty of performers keeping it in the family in the era, and seeing huge chart success with their singles and albums. More often than not, those groups were singing-sibling acts, but sometimes, including cousins and other close relations, like The Osmonds, The Nolans, The Bee Gees, The Kinks, Sparks and The Carpenters. But when Lieutenant Pigeon hit the top with their supposed song ‘Mouldy Old Dough’, they became the first ever group to feature a mother and son to make it to number one (a feat that you’ll be unsurprised to hear has not yet been repeated).
Actually, the fact that it’s a mother and son playing on this track is probably the least weird thing about it. Originally written by songwriters Nigel Fletcher and Robert Woodward for their other, more serious band, Stavely Makepeace, the song will always be associated with their novelty spin-off, Lieutenant Pigeon. Actually, the only real difference between the two groups was the presence of Woodward’s mother, Hilda. And her presence was to be expected, because Stavely Makepeace HQ (and recording studio) was in the Woodward family living room, in Coventry.
Hilda rolls through a blend of boogie-woogie, honky-tonk and ragtime style piano riffs, while the rest of the group shuffle and sort of march through a relatively innocuous instrumental. In fact, the track would be entirely unremarkable if not for the horrible, atonal and grating penny whistle played by Rob (although, it’s said that those sections of the song were popular enough to lead to most musical instrument shops around the UK soon sold out of tin whistles) and those growled and guttural rumblings from Nigel Fletcher, who spits out the songs title phrase every now and again, sounding like Tom Waits clearing his throat, in the process.
To find out a little more about this family affair, I reached out to a member of my own family, asking my grandad if he remembered the song, and whether it would have been a popular choice on the dancefloors of the day, to which he replied that yes, he did remember it, and could also remember it being a floor filler and a popular number on the dance floors in the discos of the early 1970s.
Further reading: From The Vault
It’s not really clear exactly which part of this mix of mother-and-son bandmembers, home-made recording novelty factor, nonsense non-vocal and ear-splitting whistle anti-melody caught the attentions of listeners across the world (as well as spending a month at number one in the UK, ‘Mouldy Old Dough’ also topped charts in New Zealand, Belgium and Ireland, and also landed in the top ten in Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland as well. Perhaps it was the mix of all of it, or the good-humoured and playful nature of the song.
When he picked ‘Mouldy Old Dough’ as one of the few records he’d take with him if cast away on Desert Island Discs, Jarvis Cocker explained his fondness for the song, saying, “It’s one of those records that, for some reason, I find quite moving. There’s something about it, even though it is silly. There’s something quite touching about it.”
