In the 1980s people had had enough of punk, disco and prog rock. Kids were tired of wearing jeans and rebelling all the time. What they really wanted to do was dress up and look smart and fashionable again. Above all though they wanted to have fun. They were the generation born in the era of the free love sixties and now it was time to make some money. They were the New Romantics; stylish and outlandish. It was even finally ok for Men to wear makeup if they wanted to and look just as good as the lady next to them.
This was mainly David Bowies fault, but out of the Punk movement grew a new figure head who was going to take the whole concept of this new wave of music, especially the use of video, and turn in it totally to his sales advantage. He was Adam Ant of Adam and the Ants. It was time for him to put thed words “wah diddely qua qua” in to the world. These appeared in his famous video for Stand and Deliver where he celebrates the disruption of the eighteenth-century mail service. If you would like to avoid the intervention of a Dandy Highwaymen when you need a parcel delivered and only a Same day Courier Service will do, then I would suggest that you have a look at http://allaboutfreight.co.uk/same-day-courier-service.
The tune was a good one and followed on a good run of form that the band were having. It was the video that really made a splash and for a time it was one of the most expensive made. The use of the promo film video was still very new but there was a large demand for it from new channels like MTV that were set up just to showcase them. The only problem was that there weren’t that many around at the time. At one point every fourth song played was by Rod Stewart as he was the only artist putting any out.
Adam plays the Dandy Highway man holding up a stage coach and then smashing through a window to take all of the rich noble’s cash. The song was not about being a real highway man but was actually about the changing state of music. The days of looking rough like a punk were gone and now the age of image and the use of video were here to stay.