Three friends record a song in a language none of them speak. It scrapes the bottom of the UK chart at number 92. Within two years, two of them are on a Wembley stage with Paul McCartney, singing 'Let It Be' for a charity single that rockets straight to number 1. That's the Bananarama origin story — a band formed in London in 1980 by Sarah Dallin, Siobhan Fahey, and Keren Woodward, whose career would bend from chaotic post-punk covers to defining the sound of 80s pop.
A flat above the Sex Pistols' rehearsal room
Dallin and Woodward had relocated from Bristol, while Fahey moved in the same London fashion college scene where she and Dallin studied journalism. Woodward worked at the BBC. They shared a flat above a rehearsal room once used by the Sex Pistols, soaking up the city's raw energy. The name Bananarama was a playful collage, partly lifted from the Roxy Music track 'Pyjamarama', setting the tone for a group that treated pop as a found-object art project.
That Swahili-language demo of 'Aie a Mwana' in 1981 was their accidental calling card. It landed on Demon Records, who offered a contract. The single became an underground hit, catching the ear of Terry Hall from Fun Boy Three. By 1982, the collaboration 'It Ain't What You Do (It's The Way That You Do It)' crashed into the top 5 of the UK Singles Chart. The trio had no formal musical training — just an instinct for hooks and a refusal to be smoothed into industry polish.
Debut album 'Deep Sea Skiving' arrived in 1983 and hit number 7 in the UK, eventually earning a silver BPI certification. The tracklist reads like a hit parade: 'Really Saying Something' reached number 5, 'Shy Boy' climbed to 4, and their cover of Steam's 'Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye' matched that peak at number 5. The sound was ramshackle girl-group pop with a punk edge, three voices weaving around each other like a conversation you couldn't stop overhearing.
A murder in Belfast enters the pop canon
The self-titled second album in 1984 pushed into stranger territory. 'Cruel Summer' hit number 8 in the UK and cracked the US top 10 at number 9, later seared into memory through its inclusion on 'The Karate Kid' soundtrack. 'Robert De Niro's Waiting...' reached number 3, a single about escaping fear through fantasy. Then there was 'Rough Justice', written for their tour manager Thomas Reilly, murdered in Belfast in 1983. Pop music rarely carried this kind of weight so lightly.
That same year, the original trio joined the Band Aid chorus for 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', their voices part of the wall of sound that defined a generation's conscience. By 1986, 'True Confessions' delivered their most unexpected weapon: a cover of Shocking Blue's 'Venus'. It hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, driven by a music video in heavy MTV rotation. The song transformed them from UK chart regulars into international stars.
The Brit Awards and the televised fracture
Album four, 'Wow!', released in 1987, topped the Australian chart and spawned a run of precision-engineered singles. 'I Heard a Rumour' reached number 4 in the US. 'Love in the First Degree' hit number 3 in the UK and earned a Brit Award nomination. But at the ceremony in early 1988, Fahey performed the song and then walked away for good, later founding Shakespears Sister. The fairytale had fractured on live television.
Jacquie O'Sullivan stepped in by March 1988, and the machine kept moving. 'I Want You Back' was re-recorded with her vocals and reached number 5. A cover of The Supremes' 'Nathan Jones' hit number 15. The 'Greatest Hits Collection' landed at number 3, and Bananarama entered the Guinness Book of Records as the female group with the most chart entries in UK history. In 1989, they recorded 'Help!' with comedy troupe Lananeeneenoonoo for Comic Relief, another number 3 single, before embarking on their first world tour.
The 1991 album 'Pop Life', produced by Youth and Shep Pettibone, pushed into club territory with 'Preacher Man' reaching number 20. O'Sullivan departed that year, and Dallin and Woodward continued as a duo. A 2005 single, 'Move in My Direction', returned them to the UK top 40 at number 14. In 2017, Fahey rejoined for a one-off reunion tour, bringing the original trio back to stages they'd first conquered four decades earlier.
Sarah Dallin was born on September 10, 1957, which makes this her 69th year. The arc from that Swahili demo to a Guinness record spans a career built on friendship, grief, reinvention, and an almost accidental relationship with the top of the charts. The 'Wow!' LP, pressed in 1987 with its glossy Stock Aitken Waterman sheen, captures the peak of their imperial phase — a document of three voices before the split that changed everything.