Ian Dury’s debut single is one of the most iconic singles in the pantheon of punk – recorded by a man twice the age of some punks.

I once had the poignant pleasure of watching Ian Dury’s biopic in the company of his son Baxter – the kid on the cover of that landmark album New Boots And Panties.

The film is called Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and so is the landmark single that preceded the album in August 1977.

It’s one of the most iconic singles in the pantheon of punk. A one-off. One of those rare songs that appeals to people who like literally every kind of music.

It’s almost a nursery rhyme in its simplicity, and of course its title has gone down as an epithet all of its own – a phrase that must be used countless times daily, summing up a certain kind of person, a certain kind of lifestyle… of which Dury was certainly one.

We know the story. Childhood polio. Professional Cockney (though he was born in Harrow). Bit of a naughty boy when it came to the song’s titular activities. Started out in a cult pub rock band called Kilburn & The High Roads. Then, in his mid-30s, somehow leapt on to the punk bandwagon and never looked back.

Musically, it’s a reminder that punk was a broad church: The Blockheads are essentially a jazz-funk outfit and Dury was a Dickensian music hall character of his own invention.

He was a master of the rhyming couplet and a dab hand with a double-entendre, and he could put them both together with perfect precision.

Released 24 hours after Wreckless Eric’s wonderful Whole Wide World on the same label, Dury’s debut single put Stiff Records firmly on the map as the place to find the most interesting records of the day.