Month: March 2025

The relatively recent passing of Rick Buckler went unmentioned on the blog.  It wasn’t as much an oversight on my part as the fact that I really couldn’t find the right words to say at the time.  To be honest, I still really don’t think I can really add to the many hundreds of fine tributes that can be found out there across mainstream and social media outlets, other than to mention that I found it incredibly sad to realise that one of the first of my genuinely musical idols had died, at the all-too-young age of 69.

I was sure that I had written a review of That’s Entertainment : My Life In The Jam, the booked penned by Rick and published in 2017, but I can’t find it in the archives.  Maybe there was no review, and it was only it was mentioned in passing perhaps as a recommendation for adding to your Xmas lists.  Either way, I’m going to dig it out an re-read it, and this time pen something for the blog.

The Jam, as I’ve mentioned on so many occasions, were the first band I fell for in a very big way, and although it is now more than 40 years since they last made music together, I still find myself going back and playing the singles and albums on a frequent basis, never tiring of anything…well, almost anything as much of The Modern World album hasn’t aged well.

There’s been two previous ICA’s, the first being #52 back in December 2015 and the second being #152 in January 2018.

They were both a bit unusual in that neither featured any singles or b-sides.  The logic behind that was ICA 52 came almost immediately on the back of a long-running series on the band’s singles, while I self-imposed a rule for #152 that nothing on the previous ICA or any singles could be used.  But as my delayed tribute to Rick, I thought I’d try and come up with a definitive ICA.  I think it’s a more than decent selection, but there’s so many incredible tunes that I’ve had to leave off.  Many of the words in the description of each song have been lifted from previous postings.

SIDE A

1. Funeral Pyre (single, 1981)

One of the great things about The Jam is just how instantly recognisable so many of their tunes are, even after all these years.  The post-punk riff of In The City, the bass and organ which kick off A Town Called Malice, the acoustic strum of That’s Entertainment, the rat-a-tat first three notes of Going Underground….the list is endless.  Right up there among the best must be Funeral Pyre, which opens with a tour de force from the rhythm section before the lead/guitar and vocals come in.

There can be no better way to to acknowledge and appreciate Rick Buckler than to open the ICA with the one song on which his drumming prowess really stands out across the Jam’s entire output, and indeed the one song on which he was given a writing co-credit.  When I heard about Rick’s death, my mind went back to those amazing live shows at the Glasgow Apollo and how the lights shone directly on him as he smashed his way through the song’s final few seconds, inevitably and rightly leading to a huge roar from a very appreciative audience.

2. Strange Town (single, 1979)
3. The Butterfly Collector (b-side 1979)

All Mod Cons, released in November 1978, will, I suspect, be my all-time favourite album until my own dying day.  But just as I thought there was no way  The Jam could top its magnificence, they released an incredible new single and arguably an even better b-side in March 1979.

There surely can be no disputing that this remains an incredible record. The A-side is powerful and fast while the B-side is slow and haunting….but both contain really sad and moving lyrics. The A-side being the tale of someone lost, lonely and alienated having been lured to the capital by the bright lights and promises of streets paved with gold, while the B-side is a sorry and lurid tale of a groupie whose best days are behind her, but not that she has cottoned on. It’s worth remembering that back then, Paul Weller was a young musician very much in love with a long-term girlfriend, and this was his response to the sorts of offers which come the way of rock musicians while they are out on tour.

4. Saturday’s Kids (from the album Setting Sons, 1979)

As a 16-year-old who was becoming increasingly aware of politics and the difference between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, the sentiments of this lyric really hit home.  The fact it came accompanied by a killer, albeit atypical post-punk new wave tune, gave me a sense at the time that it was one of the greatest songs anyone had ever written and had recorded.  I’m old enough to know better, but I will never forget the euphoric feeling throughout my brain and body every time the needle hit the groove on this one.  The fact that Weller, Foxton and Buckler didn’t want the studio albums to be full of singles is the only reason this one never became a huge and memorable chart hit.

5. Town Called Malice (single, 1982)

One of the things I most loved about Town Called Malice was that it felt such a return to form after what, to me, had been the disappointing Absolute Beginners 45.   Looking back, I probably wasn’t alone in having such sentiments, given it came straight in at #1.

OK, there was the fact that, kind ahead of its time, Polydor Records indulged in a form of multi-formatting by releasing the studio version on 7″ and a live version on 12″ thereby just about guaranteeing it would go in at #1 given just how many fans that band had at the time.  The thing is, if Malice had been a bit of a duff number, then there’s every chance the 12″ version would have gathered loads of dust in record shops; after all, who would shell out for a live version of a song that was brand-new if it hadn’t been an instant classic? It could very well be argued that it has become the band’s best-known song, given it is very much a staple of the golden oldies slots on UK radio. And it still remains a belter to sway your hips to on the dance floor.

SIDE B

1. When You’re Young (single, 1979)

The anthem of my late(ish) teens.  The one which said it all, with a few, what felt like prophetic lines from the man who could do no wrong.

Life is timeless, days are long when you’re young
You used to fall in love with everyone

Life is new and there’s things to be done
You can’t wait to be grown up

but then there’s the words of warning, which really didn’t make sense at the time, but certainly did just a few years later after the halycon days of university were disappearing in the rearview mirror

And you find out life isn’t like that
It’s so hard to understand
Why the world is your oyster but your future’s a clam
It’s got you in its grip before you’re born
It’s done with the use of a dice and a board
And let you think you’re king but you’re really a pawn

I look back and there’s an increasing astonishment that Paul Weller, born in May 1958, wasn’t barely out his teens when he wrote so many of his greatest lyrics.

2. Going Underground (single, 1980)

In 1980, singles didn’t enter the charts at the #1 position. Instead, they came in somewhere in the 20s and that got you onto Top of the Pops. The single would sell well on the back of this TV appearance, would climb a few places and then again the following week into the Top 10. The second TOTP appearance would follow, and if it was different enough from the first one and Radio 1 was still playing it, then the Top 5 and a chance at #1 would follow. It was always a 3-4 week cycle to hit the top slot.

Going Underground broke all the rules of the game. It flew in at #1 and stayed there for three weeks, and in doing so, confirmed that my favourite band was also the biggest and best band of the time.

3. All Mod Cons
4. To Be Someone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)

OK….this means the ICA goes beyond the normal ten tunes, but I do find it hard to ever separate the opening two tracks which open up All Mod Cons…and besides with them having a combined running time of under four minutes, then it’s not as if I’m going to be accused of overcrowding this side of the vinyl.

It didn’t make too much sense to me at the time that there could actually be any downside to being famous and rich from being a footballer or a rock singer.  But then again, I never actually appreciated back in the day that, along with perhaps being a professional boxer, there were very few avenues open to working-class boys to really make it big.  Things might have been bad back in the late 70s when Weller offered up his cautionary words, but it surely was nothing in comparison to the horrific media frenzies which have become ubiquitous with celebrity life in subsequent decades, accelerated by the horrors of social media.

5. Thick As Thieves (from Settings Sons)

This is one of the key tracks from the band’s fourth and most ambitious album. There’s no doubt that in Weller was intending to go against the grain of the post-punk/new wave era by attempting to come up with a concept album telling the story of three childhood friends whose lives don’t go the way of their youngdreams with everything changing after them fighting, but surviving, a war.

The concept wasn’t fully realised, but then again to have taken on and complete such a task would probably have meant having to get off the treadmill when the band was at the height of its fame and popularity, and besides, the dangers of the fickle music media turning against Weller if he had realised such an audacious ambition were all too real.

6. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (from All Mod Cons and also a single, 1978)

There are days when I think this may well be the greatest record of all time, especially with each passing year.  I almost always instantly offer up Temptation by New Order if asked the specific question, but depending on my mood, especially if I’m a bit more reflective than normal, then I could easily change my mind.

An incredible tune with an incredible lyric which, to a 15-year old who hadn’t yet set foot in London, was genuinely terrifying.  Not only did I never want to bump into the muggers but please don’t ever let me cross the path of the atheist nutter who sprays ‘Jesus Saves’ onto walls.  My first trip on the London Underground came in 1983. It happened to be on the Piccadilly line at King’s Cross, and I was genuinely intrigued at how deep down I had to go to get to the platform.

All the way down on the escalators I was quietly singing this song to myself, and to my amazement when I finally reached the end of the escalator ride down into the bowels of the city, I found I could indeed make out the distant echo of faraway voices boarding faraway trains.

Thankfully, I never met the atheist nutter, not knowingly at least.

The album version is closing out this ICA just as it did with the All Mod Cons album.  Where the single version fades out, the album version ends abruptly, followed by the  sound of a train departing the platform and a musical refrain of a guitar solo. It always felt as if this was the ‘real’ version of the song, with the horrific realisation that the victim of the mugging had in fact been murdered…….

I know it’s not the most upbeat of thoughts on which to end an ICA, but that’s entertainment.

 

JC