PJ Court, vocals, guitars

The Primitives formed in the summer of 1984 with a singer called Keiron, who brought me in to write songs. When he left, we pinned up an advert in Coventry library and Tracy, who I’d actually met before on a Youth Opportunity Programme, answered. At that point, we sounded more like the Birthday Party or the Gun Club, so I wrote three new songs – Through the Flowers, Across My Shoulder and Crash – to test a more pop direction. Crash was simple and noisy, with a basic guitar line that became the “Na na na” hook.

It was in our live set, but we dropped it quite quickly. We thought we already had enough bubblegum, Ramones-style songs, and we more or less forgot about it until 1987, when our producer Paul Sampson suggested we revisit it. We’d had a couple of covers in the music press – Melody Maker and NME in the same week – and the record companies were beginning to sniff around. So we used Crash as bait to generate interest. We never thought of ourselves as power pop: more 60s jangle and glam, which not everyone responded to. One live review said: “If their new single Crash is anything to go by, this band are finished.”

We went on Top of the Pops, The Roxy and Saturday Live. On Saturday morning ITV show No 73, I looked down mid-song and realised my fuzz box wasn’t plugged in – my guitar sounded like a banjo for the entire performance.

I was in a studio in Coventry when the owner’s daughter, who lived in the US, came in and said: “Crash is in this film that’s doing quite well.” She meant Dumb and Dumber. The song was released again as Crash (The ’95 Mix) – about 40 seconds longer, with a repeated chorus and added layers of ukulele, steel guitar, organ and percussion, none of which we were involved in. Had it been by Paul McCartney, I don’t imagine they would have told him they were bollocksing around with it, but we couldn’t complain. It gave the song a second life and it became a worldwide hit.

I’ve heard a few covers. Belle and Sebastian’s is probably closest to how it sounded when I first wrote it – a gentler, almost Jonathan Richman-type thing. People get the words wrong. These days it’s easy to check lyrics, but years ago someone misheard them on a fan site and wrote “you should watch your stay”, instead of “you should watch your step / if you don’t look out, gonna break your neck.” Belle and Sebastian use the wrong line, as does Matt Willis.

Tracy Tracy, vocals

I’d been living in Australia. I did a few vocal jobs, but I wasn’t very successful. So when I came back to Coventry, my aim was to get into a band, but nothing was coming together. I was about to go to London when I saw an ad in the library. It said that they wanted a male singer, but I thought: “Why not?” and auditioned. I remember it was dark and dingy. I think one other person applied – a guy – but he didn’t turn up so they thought: “We’re going to have to stick with her.”

We’d meet every week at the house of Steve Dullaghan – our original bassist who sadly passed away in 2009 – to practise and eat toasties, like a little ritual. You could hardly hear me at first over all these strong, powerful guitars. Everything had to be toned down. Our first gig in a pub in Coventry, mainly to friends and family, was exciting, but I was very nervous.

When we played Top of the Pops, we stood out because we simply didn’t fit it. It wasn’t because we had a female singer – there did seem to be more female artists around then. It just felt like we were this independent little band playing bubblegum pop, when the rest of the charts was all Stock Aitken Waterman. The first time we did TOTP someone stole my leather jacket that had loads of badges on and I’d had for years. The record company gave me some money to buy a new one, but it wasn’t the same.

I don’t get to sing a lot of Crash these days because our wonderful fans just sing it back to me. I simply hold out the microphone. I think the song has stood the test of time because it’s got all the ingredients: there’s a great melody, catchy lyrics and, at just over two minutes, it’s a perfectly timed pop song.