When Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was released in 1975, the tinkering, giddy, ebullient track had millions bobbing their heads in joyful unison.
Yet what was widely received as a cheerful song had been borne of hard feelings. By 1974 Steve Harley’s band, Cockney Rebel, was at the height of its success. The group had had hits with Judy Teen and Mr Soft, and had ignited a degree of hysteria around a sold-out UK tour which, Harley was not shy in pointing out, could be so packed that during one concert police on horseback were installed to evacuate the band in the event of an emergency.
“It was every young man’s dream,” he told The Guardian in 2017. “Or so I
