Peak UK Chart Position: #9 in September 1996.

Tommy Scott, lead singer, principal songwriter and guitarist of the Liverpool indie Band Space, celebrates his 53rd birthday today. He originally started out as the band’s bassist, but switched to guitar after David ‘Yorkie’ Palmer joined in 1997, partly so that he could concentrate on vocals. Space had formed in 1993 and released three studio albums, plus a number of charting singles, before eventually disbanding in 2005. In 2011, two years after the death of original drummer Andy Parle, the band announced they would reunite with Tommy Scott, Jamie Murphy and Franny Griffiths returning alongside three new members, crowd-funding their first Album in a decade, “Attack of the Mutant 50ft Kebab”. A follow-up album is due early 2017.

Quick facts:

• “Me And You Versus The World” was the first of three top ten hits for Space, the biggest being their duet with Cerys Matthews, “The Ballad Of Tom Jones”.
• They did actually work with Tom Jones, having contributed to his 1999 “Reload” album, duetting on the track “Sunny Afternoon” (originally by The Kinks).
• In 2016, the band announced that they were working on a new album entitled “Give Me Your Future”. Steve Levine (producer for much of Culture Club’s output, amongst many others) has been confirmed as producer, and is due for release sometime in early 2017.
• On April 1st 2009, Scott was the victim of a hoax email purporting that he had died of heart failure. His ‘death’ was reported in various media, and Scott refuted it in the Liverpool Echo, saying, “I can’t say how angry I am about this. I’m alive and well, but to have my mum believing I was dead was beyond a joke. I just can’t believe this has happened…The phone hasn’t stopped, but now we just want to find out who is responsible. There’s going to be hell to pay.”

Here’s “Me And You Versus The World” as performed on the 6th September 1996 Top of the Pops, hosted by (but not seen in this clip) Julia Carling – a show that also included Kula Shaker, the Charlatans, Rocket From The Crypt, and Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” at number one.