Every night, every day, in every possible way

Artist: R & J Stone
Title: We Do It
Year: 1976
Chart peak: 5

Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. R & J Stone? It's amazing they had time to do anything else. Employing the sort of fnaar-fnaar euphemism that was so blatant, you wondered why they didn't just use a good old blunt anglo-saxon word instead (actually, most of those so-called "anglo-saxon" words came later via a mish-mash of other languages, but that's another story), husband and wife Russell (British) and Joanne (American) proclaimed their passion from the rooftops.

Gloating is not normally considered an attractive trait, but what else could you call it? "We've got a lot of real love and a deep affection / And we do it / Every night, every day, in every possible way". And what's more, you know they probably did. And we must assume that they weren't the only ones at it like rabbits in 1976, because the song clearly struck a chord with enough people that it raced up the charts to a very respectable peak of number five.

Alright, so I'm being a bit mean here - after all, what could be more sweet than two young(ish) people in love and not afraid to show it? Sweet and a bit sickly, I reckon, but then I've always been a cynic so don't mind me.



That this filth (I jest, of course... well, half-jest) made it onto the radio and into the charts in 1976 appears frankly baffling, but then you can get away with a lot if you look clean-cut enough. Having met in the James Last choir, Russ 'n' Jo had just the right "safe" credentials, and the sweet sound of "We Do It" wasn't too far removed from, say, The Carpenters. Besides, for some reason, even in 1976 you actually could get away with referring to "It", as if anyone wouldn't know what you meant. And there was clearly something in the air (raw animal passion, perhaps) in 1976 as if anything, Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight", a hit a few months later, was both more cloying and more graphic.

Sadly, R & J didn't get much opportunity to follow up their hit. The immediate follow-up was a song called "No Other Way", and they issued an LP of the same title which did nothing. Joanne died tragically young from a brain tumour in 1979, while Russell continued to sing back-up for other acts (his credits as a back-up artist include Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Adam Ant, Tony Bennett, Twisted Sister, Cliff Richard and Right Said Fred), until putting his musical career on hold in 1995 in order to become a counsellor. Nowadays he uses a musical technique called "Sounding" (a sort of random vocal improvisation) as part of his therapy, and has been working on new music as The Atman Project with film composer Craig Pruess ("Bend It Like Beckham", "Bride And Prejudice").

Further reading:
Russell Stone website
Russell writes about his life and career