Someone should write a book about all great songs that began life as B-sides. Here is another.

Inspired by the popularity of Bruce Lee’s film Enter The Dragon and the resulting trend for the lamentably-titled genre of “Chopsocky” movies, Kung Fu Fighting seems such an obvious hit that it’s hard to imagine anyone thought otherwise.

Yet it was initially intended as a B-side to a song by an unknown Jamaican singer called Karl Douglas, produced in England by an unknown Indian producer called Biddu.

Biddu had booked a three-hour studio slot and hired Douglas to sing I Want To Give You Everything, a song written by Larry Weiss, who penned huge hits like Rhinestone Cowboy, Hi-Ho Silver Lining and Bend Me, Shape Me.

Two hours later, as they took a break, Biddu asked Douglas whether he had anything for the B-side. The singer, who had been born in Jamaica and grown up in California before coiming to England in his teens, showed the producer some lyrics he had – and the novelty of the kung-fu song caught Biddu’s eye as a throwaway tune.

Coming up with a melody himself, he and Douglas recorded it in just two takes during the final ten minutes of their studio time, with Biddu deliberately exaggerating the comic effects – the grunts and chops, the huhs and hahs – because he thought no one would listen to a B-side.

Thankfully, the people at Pye Records knew better, and flipped it so that Kung Fu Fighting became the A-side. At first they seemed to have erred, as the song sold next to nothing and failed to garner any airplay for the first five weeks.

But then, like Rock Your Baby (which also failed to sell at first), it caught fire in the disco clubs and began its unstoppable rise to the top of the charts all over the world with its cheesy ‘Chinese’ intro, exotically daft lyrics, and irresistible grunts and chops punctuating what is just a massive CHOON, taking disco to the next level.

In the end it matched the astonishing 11 million sales of George McCrae’s hit a month earlier, helping put disco firmly on the music map everywhere. And it still sounds every bit as great today.