A one-off DIY label from 1970. Butterfly's main interest is that is one of only two records on the site to feature a member of parliament. As can be seen from the scan in this case the M.P. concerned was Labour politician Marcus Lipton; the record featured the tracks 'Hand In Hand' and 'Friends In Need'. The catalogue number was MP-6500 and the single came out in June 1970, with distribution by Keith Prowse. According to 'Record Retailer' of the 13th of June the catalogue number was supposed to reflect the number of votes cast for Mr. Lipton at the last election, but as the numbers 65,000 (too high) and 6500 (too low) are mentioned in the article there seems to have been a hiccup somewhere - the actual number of votes was 16634. Apparently he sang on the single, after a fashion, which is more than people got on the other politician's record (that merely featured extracts from a speech by Edward Heath - see the 'Campaign' page). Reportedly he was critical of the Pop music industry in the mid '70s, but his attitude was inspired by the industry's excesses rather than the commercial failure of this single. The two labels, Butterfly and Campaign, have the same perimeter text, suggesting that they may have been made through the same company; which is slightly odd, as they came from different sides of the political divide. This particular single was pressed by Pye. According to the Record Retailer article Keith Prowse had refused to take on distribution of the Campaign label's single, which may suggest where the company's sympathies lay at the time.
Copyright 2015 Robert Lyons.