Words can’t express how much I have loved this song from the very first time I heard it, with its litany of cultural icons that we all admire.

I can almost picture myself in 1979 slipping it out of its cool picture sleeve (a drawing of an old-fashioned radiogram), eagerly putting on the 7-inch single, placing the needle on the outside groove and…

BOOM!!

Richard Butler’s roar seemed louder than anything I’d ever heard before – louder even than Blitzkrieg Bop. Then the guitar riff, the the scattergun drums, Richaand rd Butler’s sneering rasp of a vocal: “I’m in love with Catholics.”

Then, along with numerous recitations of his favourite word (“stupid”), a list of all the other things he’s in love with: Frank Sinatra (“Fly Me To The Moon”), The Supremes (“Baby Love”), Althea and Donna (“all that shit that goes Uptown Top Ranking”), Sofia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, the BBC, nuclear bombs…

I saw a lot of the Furs’ gigs in 1979 when they were making a name for themselves and loved their unique sound: dark, gloomy and ominous, in which the most distinctive features were the sax playing of Duncan Kilburn and the sarcastic snarl of Butler.

In those days, before they became bright and shiny and popular with Pretty In Pink, they were quite a different affair: half their set had a satisfyingly punk/New Wave energy in songs like We Love You and Fall, and the other half featured longer, slower numbers like Sister Europe and Imitation Of Christ that blended Bowie and the Velvets.

This, though, was the one that kicked it all off – and it’s fun to see them playing, apparently after being up non-stop for 36 hours on a gruelling US tour schedule, in front of what looks like a school gymnasium filled with excited teenagers.