"House of Cards" is a song written by Lynsey de Paul and

Barry Blue Barry Blue (born Barry Ian Green, 4 December 1950) is an English singer, producer, and songwriter. As an artist, he is best known for his hit songs "Dancin' (on a Saturday Night)" and "Do You Wanna Dance" (both 1973). Blue has also been a pro ...

and is one of their most covered songs. It was first released as a single by Chris Kelly (who went on to become the lead singer for Blackwater Junction and then became "Hollywood" with his wife Lynda Clarke) on the

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

label on 7 April 1972, credited as being written by Rubin (de Paul) and Green (Blue). The song was a radio hit in Italy, receiving multiple plays on national radio stations.''Radiocorriere'', p. 99, 3 December, 1972 A few weeks later a second version of the song was also released as a single by the UK artist Heart, produced by

Phil Swern Phil "The Collector" Swern (born Anthony Philip Swern, 30 June 1948) is an English radio producer and music collector, who earned the nickname "The Collector" from working on ''Sounds of the 60s'' with Brian Matthew. Born in Ealing, London, he w ...

and

Johnny Arthey John Raymond Arthey (24 September 1930 – 27 October 2007) was a British conductor and composer. He was responsible for arranging many hit pop records in the 1960s and 1970s. Life and career Johnny Arthey started his career as a pianist ...

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

. The UK born but New Zealand based singer,

Rob Guest Robert John Guest (17 July 19501 October 2008) was a New Zealand-Australian actor, television personality and host and singer, who started his career in pop music in New Zealand, before becoming best known for his work in Australian musical th ...

, also released his version of "House of Cards" as his first solo single on

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

in 1972. It also appeared as the lead track on Guest's album ''Sing''. The song was also covered by the

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

Tony Blackburn Anthony Kenneth Blackburn (born 29 January 1943) is an English disc jockey, singer and TV presenter. He first achieved fame broadcasting on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC, on the BBC L ...

and appeared as a track on the self-named album released in 1972 on RCA which received favourable reviews. Blackburn performed his version of the song on the ITV prime time programme ''2G's & The Pop People'' on 17 June 1972. When reviewing the single released by "Heart" in Disc and Music Echo,

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey (DJ) and radio presenter. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly fr ...

wrote ""This sounds very much like Tony Blackburn singing under a pseudonym and if so puts me in a certain amount of difficulty". It was released for the first time on CD in 2012 on the Tony Blackburn compilation album ''The Singles Collection 1965-1980''. In 1975, the Australian singer/pianist composer, John Christie, released a more uptempo, rockier version of the song, in contrast to the previous versions all of which had been ballads. Christie's version was produced by his mentor Dave Clark, as a single on Polydor. This version reached No. 15 on the Hessen chart, securing it a listing on the Hessen chart's year end listing. Christie and Clark went on to co-write “Time,” for the musical of the same name and performed by

Freddie Mercury Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the ...

. The song was also recorded by Gil Montana and featured as the

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

to his soul single "I Can't Live In The Dark Anymore", produced by Blue and arranged by

Graham Preskett Graham Donald Harry Preskett is a British composer and musician who has been active since the early 1970s. He appeared on the Mott the Hoople albums ''Mott'' (1973) and ''The Hoople'' (1974), playing violin on both, and arranging and conducting o ...

. Barry Blue recorded the song with new lyrics and the title "Billy", which was released as a single on 4 February 1977 in the UK on the

Private Stock Records Private Stock Records was a record label that operated from 1974 to 1978. The label was founded by Larry Uttal after he was ousted from Bell Records. The label primarily focused on pop music and had numerous hit records, many of them one-hit wo ...

label and credited to Blue, de Paul and Stephen Worth. It was also released in Germany on EMI Electrola, and in France on Sonopresse. Promotion for the single included a full page featured in the industry magazine ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

'', together with the lyrics to the song. The track appeared on CD for the first time on Blue's ''Singles Collection'' compilation album released in 2002. According to the CD information booklet that was part of the Lynsey de Paul 2013 CD anthology release, ''Sugar and Beyond: Anthology 1972-1974'', her version of the song was originally recorded in 1972 as a demo for possible inclusion on her debut album, '' Surprise'', but it was not included. Thus the de Paul version had its first official release on ''Sugar and Beyond: Anthology 1972-1974''. However, a live version of "House of Cards", along with "Sugar Me" by de Paul, as well as an interview with her, was released on the

BBC Transcription Services The BBC Transcription Services started life in the mid-1930s as the London Transcription Service to license BBC Radio programmes to overseas broadcasters who were authorised to broadcast the programmes for a set period, usually two or three years. ...

album, issued to radio stations around the world in September 1972.

References

Songs written by Lynsey de Paul Songs written by Barry Blue 1972 songs {{1970s-song-stub