I Start Counting were David Baker and Simon Leonard, a couple of Middlesex University students who started DJing then recording demos together. Daniel Miller was sufficiently impressed to sign them to Mute in 1984, with their debut album My Translucent Hands debuting in 1986.
In July 1988, a month after the release of second album Fused, I Start Counting released their sixth single. In an unusual move, the pair combined the closing track of Side 1, a cover version the theme from 1950s/60s US TV Western, Rawhide, with a deadpan take on a Boney M. song. Thus, Ra! Ra! Rawhide was born. I'm guessing this might have been a crowd-pleasing mix from their DJing days and Mute were prepared to take a punt, releasing the single on 7", 12" and limited edition 12" remix by Mark Moore and Mark McGuire.
There was even an official video, which I'd not seen until researching this post but YouTube happily offered up.
I got the 12" single secondhand in the 1990s, probably as a multi-buy, bargain bin job lot, and repeated plays regularly veer between morbid fascination, in-on-the-joke amusement and grimacing at how truly awful it is. If the four-minute version wasn't enough for you, here's the Moscow Chicks Mix by I Start Counting which features on the 12" and throws in the synth riff from Kraftwerk's Radioactivity for good measure.
I Start Counting released what proved to be their seventh and final single, Million Headed Monster, in May 1989. David Baker and Simon Leonard recorded new material but subsequently decided that it warranted a rebirth and so in 1990 I Start Counting transformed into Fortran 5. That story is for another post.
In September 2021, the duo released two albums of outtakes, demos and early versions of tracks from I Start Counting's 1980s albums, Re-Fused and Ejected. Both are available on Bandcamp, the latter containing an (excuse the pun) raw version of Rawhide.
For people of a certain age, the definitive version of Rawhide of appeared in 1980, courtesy of The Blues Brothers:
And if all that has whet your appetite for the original versions, then here's the opening and closing credits of the Rawhide TV series from 1959, sung by Frankie Lane, and featuring a horse-riding cast including a certain Clint Eastwood...
...but nothing can match this clip of Boney M. performing Rasputin on Italian variety show La Sberla ("The Slap") in 1978. As scottyunitedboy2925 comments on another YouTube clip of the same song,
"A group of Jamaican performers, founded in Germany, singing in English
about a Russian with a Turkish backing track. That probably achieved
more cross-country unity in 4 minutes than many diplomats achieve in
their entire lifetime."
