Category: Jam

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON MONDAY 5 MAY 2008

Oh…..I’m going to be in bother for giving this a chart placing as low as #15. Especially as I’ve used dozens of past postings to tell the world of my adoration for The Jam.

This was the first band that I ever got infatuated with. They were the first band that I ever queued up for tickets overnight, lying on a cold and wet Glasgow pavement in a sleeping bag.

The minute the record shop opened on the day the band released a new single or LP, I was waiting to go in and buy it. My part of the bedroom wall in the room that I shared with my brothers was covered in posters of The Jam.

On day when I saw a friend’s wall had all the picture sleeves from the singles stuck to his bedroom wall, I went home and did the same. My shrine to Buckler, Foxton and Weller had to be better than that of anyone else I knew.

The break-up of the band didn’t send me into a sulk. Instead, I thought this was a chance to watch and enjoy each of their new bands and wait for the inevitable reunion (got that last bit spectacularly wrong, didn’t I???)

Even when The Style Council broke up and interest in The Jam was at a low, I could still be relied to keep talking about them to anyone who was interested. I think it was 1992 when myself and a mate were 40% of the audience at a theatre-show at the Edinburgh Fringe, all about the story behind the formation, success and break-up of The Jam. The other 60% in the audience were Sean Hughes, Phil Jupitus and some mate of theirs who probably worked for Channel 4 or the BBC…

No other band gave me such agony choosing which single to select for inclusion in the run-down. It could easily have been In The City which introduced me to them at an early stage. Or Down In the Tube Station At Midnight, a song that on release I thought would always be my favourite record of all time. Just as equally, Strange Town and When You’re Young are singles that mean so much to me – often because with The Jam, the B-sides were just as good as the single, and this was very much the case with The Butterfly Collector and Smithers-Jones respectively.

In the end, after much agonising, I’ve gone for Going Underground, and I’ve done so because it was the song that allowed me to say, to the watching world and all those who had cast dispersions on the band, YOU WERE WRONG, AND ALL THE TIME I WAS RIGHT.

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.

Critics of the band said it only did this as the initial copies of the single came with a limited edition live EP, and thus fans rushed out and bought it immediately. The fact that The Jam would repeat the straight in at #1 on two more occasions soon disproved that theory.

Going Underground is my favourite Jam single for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it proved that in March 1980, The Jam were by far and away the biggest and most popular band in the UK – despite which, the band still managed to make long-time fans feel they were still something special.

Secondly, it was an attack on the Thatcher government’s policy of increased spending on nuclear weapons, and as a member of CND (weren’t we all in those days), this song seemed significant in spreading the word to a wide audience.

Thirdly, the B-side was another brilliant Jam song. So brilliant, it was originally intended as a double-A release, only the printing press got it wrong. Allegedly.

Finally, it did in fact come with a great live EP which didn’t bleep-out the swear words on The Modern World……

mp3 : The Jam – Going Underground
mp3 : The Jam – Dreams Of Children
mp3 : The Jam – Away From The Numbers (live)
mp3 : The Jam – The Modern World (live)
mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (live)

This was another single that I lost in the Edinburgh flit. But it was one that I chased up on e-bay not long after I got the USB Turntable and re-kindled the interest in vinyl.

So why only #15 in this rundown? Well, its just too good to be at #16 or lower…..

NB : This 45 was of course featured just a few months ago in my look back over all the singles ever released by The Jam.  Click here for a reminder.

So having got all the singles out-of-the-way, I thought I’d be completely self-indulgent and try to pull together a decent ICA without any of the songs that ever appeared on the 45s – and that includes those which were featured live versions on bonus discs. Despite the fact that well over 40 songs were ruled out from the outset, it still proved a challenge to settle on these particular two sides of vinyl.

Side A

1. Art School (from In The City)

Time hasn’t been all that kind to the first two LPs which is why the opening track of their debut is the only one to make the cut. This was seen as a potential single by Polydor Records with a promo video (of sorts) being filmed on the same day as In The City. Most bands would have gone for a second single to boost the sales of the debut album but given that Paul Weller was writing songs at a prestigious rate at the time, and that he was desperate to get the new material out as quickly as possible, then any thoughts of Art School being a 45 were shelved. It’s a more than decently energetic tune, with a lyric that basically said punk/new wave was the modern-day equivalent of art schools where you could dare to be different and challenge the traditional ways of thinking. These were also of course the type of establishments where so many well-respected British musicians of the 60s and early 70s had started out….

2. Thick As Thieves (from Setting Sons)

It is astonishing to look back and realise that Weller was barely 21 years of age when he wrote the songs that made up Setting Sons, the band’s fourth and most ambitious album. There’s no doubt that in his head he wanted to pull together 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, possibly being down to him deciding it was an ‘unpunk’ thing to do or perhaps it became just too big a challenge in too short a timescale.  It’s a real pity and begs the thought ‘if only….’ for the foundations that were laid down, as exemplified by Thick As Thieves, make you think that the result could well have been a record forever feted to be near the top of the all-time classic lists.

3. Billy Hunt (from All Mod Cons)

Another great anthemic Jam song that many had marked out as a potential 45.

Billy Hunt is actually a pitiful figure of disaffected youth when you analyse it. He hates the idea that he is always getting picked on by everyone, unafirly in his mind, and he dreams of somehow inheriting the powers of fictional film and TV characters and taking his revenge after which he’ll happily head down to a pub that has strip shows for entertainment. He’s not exactly answering the call to arms that so many punk bands were making at the time.

Incidentally, I always thought that the character Ziggy Sobotka from Series 2 of The Wire is a 21st Century Billy Hunt….

4. Little Boy Soldiers (from Setting Sons)

A song like no other in the history of the band and perhaps the new wave era’s equivalent of Bohemian Rhapsody – or at least that’s how I initially felt when listening to this as a 16-year old back in 1979. It was earnest and it was thought-provoking stuff but above else it was unsettling, thanks in part to its constant changes in pace and rhythm but also as a result of the doom and gloom nature of the lyric.

OK, I was sure that I was going to leave school, head off to university and find myself some sort of job  linked to whatever qualifications I manged to get but I knew quite a few folk who were hell-bent on joining the armed forces and seeing what happened from there….none of them of course even remotely considered that in doing so they were putting their young lives at risk. I wanted so much to give every one of them a cassette with this song on and ask them to have a serious think about things….

5. Boy About Town (from Sound Affects)

It doesn’t do well to dwell for too long on the implications of Little Boy Soldiers otherwise you’ll end up depressed, miserable and worried about where the world is heading, so it’s important to bounce back with a great bit of pop music that puts a a smile on your face and makes you leap off the settee/chair/bean bag and flip your 12” piece of vinyl with its classic red Polydor label over to the other side for another fifteen or so minutes of class.

Side B

1. Happy Together (from The Gift)

Let’s get this party pumping. This is one where Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler really come into their own, driving the song along at a tremendous pace and in the bass players’s instance adding an essential backing vocal. The ending where Paul Weller chants out NOW!!!!!!! Is one of my favourite moments on any Jam song – single, b-side or album track.

2. Saturday’s Kids (from Setting Sons)

And let’s keep things moving along apace with this paean to growing up in a working-class household.

At 16, I had no idea what the line ‘stains on the seats – in the back of course’ was all about. Nor did I know who smoked Capstan Non-Filters (Embassy Regal? yup….that was my dad’s choice of habit) and for Selsey Bill and Bracklesam Bay you would have had to substitute places a little nearer home or insert Blackpool which around half of Glasgow seemed to migrate to in the last two weeks in July back in the mid-70s.  Otherwise it was a song that resonated with me and even now I can recite every single word of the lyric.  But I do accept that, with its descriptions of things that aren’t part of modern society then it’s a lyric very much of its time and so probably won’t resonate much with today’s kids….except perhaps the bit about hating the system. Some things just never change.

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

It will seem strange hearing this out of context with it not being preceded by the title track of All Mod Cons.

As a teenager, there’s just no possibility in your own mind of there being any downside to being famous and rich from getting paid wads of money for doing something you loved like football or music. And yet, here’s someone who I’m looking on as a bit of a role model (despite the fact he’s only 5 years older than me  – although at 14/15 that is such a huge age difference) warning me off. All these years later, and the growth of celebrity and its associated frenzied media feeding makes me glad that I’ve got myself through life without ever reaching the giddy heights of being a someone – I’d never ever want to get as angry or as pissed off with my lot as Mr Weller was in 1978.

4. Man In The Corner Shop (from Sound Affects)

There’s something intrinsically sad about this mid-paced number which I’ve always thought is a hidden gem of a song.

I’ve never thought its central message was that everyone is born equal; nor do I think Paul Weller thinks that to be the case and so his tongue is very much in his cheek when he sings those particular lines. The sadness come from the fact that neither of the factory worker or shop owner are happy with their lot and both believe the grass on the other side is a much more favourable shade of green. Even sadder isturning your thoughts to what was likely to have happened to the protagonists in real life over the subsequent 2-3 years….a factory closure and redundancy for the blue-collar worker and the end of the family business for the shop owner as the supermarkets take over?  Most likely…..and and as for the factory owner….well, he was never really ever any better off than the other two….maybe just a little bit richer in financial terms. In other words, the central message of Man In The Corner Shop is really quite simple……………………….

Life Sucks.

5. The Gift (from The Gift)

Just as Art School as the opening song on Side A of the first album served the purpose of announcing the arrival of a new and exciting band, so the final song on Side B of the final album serves the purpose of providing us with a very fine sign-off.

Go and shout it from your roof mountain top – The Jam were a fucking ace combo and one of the greatest things to happen to music in my generation.

mp3 : The Jam – Art School
mp3 : The Jam – Thick As Thieves
mp3 : The Jam – Billy Hunt
mp3 : The Jam – Little Boy Soldiers
mp3 : The Jam – Boy About Town
mp3 : The Jam – Happy Together
mp3 : The Jam – Saturday’s Kids
mp3 : The Jam – To Be Somone (Didn’t We Have A Nice Time)
mp3 : The Jam – Man In The Corner Shop
mp3 : The Jam – The Gift

That’s the last of The Jam for the time being……

 

On 30 October 1982 it was officially confirmed that The Jam would be splitting up at the end of the year.  Prior to that there would be one last single and dates on the winter tour of the UK would be fulfilled.  The news was greeted with some dismay but no real shock as the songs were now a long way removed from how they had started out and it was clear that Paul Weller wanted to go in a totally different direction from Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler.

On Thursday 26 November the band began the farewell tour at the Glasgow Apollo.  Having camped out for tickets some months previously, long before the band break-up had been announced, I had a very hot and in demand piece of paper but there was no way I was giving it up no matter how much I was offered.

The following day, the band’s last single was released in standard 7″ a double-pack of 7″ singles and in a 12″ format.  It went straight to #1 where it stayed for two weeks:-

mp3 : The Jam – Beat Surrender
mp3 : The Jam – Shopping
mp3 : The Jam – Move On Up
mp3 : The Jam – Stoned Out Of My Mind
mp3 : The Jam – War

It was a gloriously upbeat end to the band’s career. Not their best single by a long way but still a decent ending. They had scored eighteen successive Top 40 hit 45s with two of these being via the very unlikely and unusual import-only route. The standard 7″ came with Shopping on the b-side while the double pack and 12″ offered the three soul covers that had been made famous originally by Curtis Mayfield, The Chi-Lites and Edwin Starr.

No other versions on offer today.  And that would be that except that I want to offer a little bonus.

At the very height of their popularity, the band made a one-off recording available for publication called Flexipop which had the gimmick of offering an otherwise unreleased recording by some of the best selling artists of the day.  The Jam offered something very unusual indeed along with a different recording of a track from Sound Affects:-

mp3 : The Jam – Pop Art Poem
mp3 : The Jam – Boy About Town (flexipop version)

And that seems as good a way as any to bring the series to a close.

Next up for the singles treatment……The Style Council.

(Well it had to be didn’t it????)

Enjoy

It might well have turned out to be the band’s penultimate 45 but even then it managed to achieve a couple of firsts, not least having a contribution from a female backing vocalist in the shape of Jennie McKeown of The Belle Stars (and NOT Tracie Young as many folk mistakenly believe) while the b-side had the very unusual combination of two tracks running seamlessly into one another, with the first song being a new original and the second a cover of an old R&B number….

mp3 : The Jam – The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)
mp3 : The Jam – Pity Poor Alfie/Fever

Released on 10 September 1982, it was another surprise to fans in that this was more a classic pop number in the long history of break-up songs while the new original track on the b-side immediately brought to mind the theme tune of The Sweeney, a very popular and at the time ground-breaking TV cop show in the UK from the mid-1970s.

It reached #2 in the singles chart but it couldn’t quite dislodge Eye of The Tiger…….

It was going to be interesting to see where the band went from there.  But what happened next was a shock even if it had been on the cards for some time…

A couple of alternative versions are available courtesy of the Direction Reaction Creation box set.

mp3 : The Jam – The Bitterest Pill I Ever Had To Swallow (first version)

Rather different in tone and sound with much reliance on piano and no backing vocal from Jennie.

mp3 : The Jam – Pity Poor Alfie (swing version)

Totally different sounding (ie nothing like The Sweeney!!) with the bass guitar to the fore and a rather different vocal delivery. It also extends out to well over four minutes with a sax solo and major contributions on the Hammond Organ….

The Bitterest Pill wasn’t re-released in 1983 at time whan all the other old singles came out again, presumably on the grounds it was just too soon after the original release. However, it did appear again in 1997 as a CD single to promote the release of yet another compilation album where it was backed by the first version of the song together with The Butterfly Collector and That’s Entertainment.

It reached #30 in the singles chart

Enjoy

Malice/Precious had been followed a month or so later by the LP The Gift which had given the band their first ever #1 album. The problem was the album only had 10 tracks with two of these having been the previous double-A sided single and there was reluctance on the band’s part to authorise any further releases in the UK.

However, such was the clamour for material that a single from the parent album, released only in Holland, sold in such amazing quantities on import that it reached #8 in the UK singles chart in July 1982.  The demand was partly driven by the fact that its two b-sides were previously unreleased material, one being a cover that reflected Paul Weller‘s ever-growing infatuation with CND while the other was a completely new composition:-

mp3 : The Jam – Just Who Is The Five O’Clock Hero
mp3 : The Jam – War
mp3 : The Jam – The Great Depression

Can’t offer any alternative versions of any of these today….standards are slipping.

And just like That’s Entertainment, the previous import hit, this particular 45 was later given an official UK release in the UK but it didn’t break into the Top 100…..

Enjoy

So there I was, on the back of Absolute Beginners full of fear for what the first single of 1982 might offer up.  I was also bemused by the fact that it was to be released in two formats including the first ever 12″ single by The Jam.  The music papers advised that the 7″ format would have two standard studio versions of what was officially a double-A side 45 while the 12″ would be a live version of one of the tracks and an extended version of the other.

It was a brave or perhaps foolish move to issue a live version of an as yet unreleased song wasn’t it?

7″
mp3 : The Jam – Town Called Malice
mp3 : The Jam – Precious

12″
mp3 : The Jam – Town Called Malice (live)
mp3 : The Jam – Precious (extended)

The single went straight in at #1 on its release on 29 January and caused a bit of a row with other record labels complaining that fans were buying both versions of the single and that it was this use of multi-formatting that had lifted to straight into the top slot. That argument might have held water if the single had immediately dropped down the following week but it stayed at #1 for three weeks, helped by the band being the first in something like 15 years to be asked to perform two songs on the same edition of Top of The Pops. And arguably, Malice remains the most instantly recognisable song by The Jam nowadays and is very much a staple of the golden oldies slots on UK radio.

All of which disguises that many fans were bemused and indeed some were appalled by Precious which was a straight-up funk/soul effort as far removed from In The City just five years earlier as can be imagined.  It took me a while to get used to it, but I fell in love with Malice immediately

The live version had been recorded just a few weeks previously on 14 December 1981 at a gig at the Hammersmith Palais in London. Five days later it would also be captured in the live setting at the fanclub gig at Golders Green Hippodrome

mp3 : The Jam – Town Called Malice (live at Golders Green)

as indeed was the other side of the release:-

mp3 : The Jam – Precious (live at Golders Green)

And finally, from the Direction Reaction Creation boxset here’s a demo version:-

mp3 : The Jam – Precious (demo)

When the decision was taken in 1983 by Polydor to re-release all the old singles it was only the 7″ version that was made available.  It reached #73.

Enjoy

We have now reached 16 October 1981 and the band’s fourteenth single.  And the first since I had fallen head over heels with them that left me disappointed.

I didn’t quite understand at the time that it was impossible for any musician or and to maintain incredibly high standards in their career and that at some point in time there has to be a dip in quality.  It would happen in due course with almost every other band that sustained any sort of lengthy career without a break but as this was the first time I’d seen it happen to one off mine I just didn’t get it….

In addition to fourteen singles The Jam had also released up to this point five studio LPs and all in a little over four years during which time they had toured almost non-stop on those occasions when they weren’t in the studio.  And Paul Weller had barely passed his 23rd birthday….

mp3 : The Jam – Absolute Beginners
mp3 : The Jam – Tales From The Riverbank

I much preferred the b-side but still thought it inferior to many earlier b-sides and album tracks that were unknown to the wider public.   Little did any of us know at the time that the band were going through a bit of a crisis at the time in terms of future musical directions that would only become apparent over the next twelve months….

The first alternative version today again comes from the Studio B15 live show on 25 October 1981.  This time you have to tolerate 17 seconds of jingles and DJ waffle before the song kicks in

mp3 : The Jam – Absolute Beginners (BBC live version)

and then sadly, there’s more waffle from the DJ in the closing few seconds.

From the same show, and again spoiled somewhat by chat at the start and end:-

mp3 : The Jam – Tales From The Riverbank (BBC live version)

The band would play both songs at the Golders Green gig at the end of December 1981:-

mp3 : The Jam – Absolute Beginners (live)
mp3 : The Jam – Tales From The Riverbank (live)

And finally…..a version recorded in November 1981 and issued the following year as a flexidisc to fan club members (and no, I never did sign up and join….for some reason or other I never did that with any singer or band that I liked)

mp3 : The Jam – Tales From The Riverbank (flexidisc version)

Oh and I almost forgot to mention. The single did reach #4 on its original release and then #83 when it was part of the batch of 1983 re-releases.

Enjoy

The thirteenth single contained a first in that it was a joint composition with the words attributed to Paul Weller and the music credited to The Jam.  It was also the first single to have the lyrics appear on the back of the sleeve.

It was released on 6 June 1981 and climbed to #4 in the singles charts. It’s 1983 re-release would only reach #82. Not bad for a song that was very untypical of the band.

mp3 : The Jam – Funeral Pyre
mp3 : The Jam – Disguises

The b-side was the second occasion the band had dipped into the back catalogue of The Who (the previous time being So Sad About Us as the flip-side to Tube Station and a poignant tribute to the then recently deceased Keith Moon).

There’s one additional version available today.  Lifted from The Jam at the BBC 2xCD, it is from a show entitled ‘Studio B15 live’ on 25 October 1981 (which was the day after the band had played for free at a CND rally in London). The downside is that after the cracking version of  the song ends you have to put up with about 40 seconds worth of an interview.

mp3 : The Jam – Funeral Pyre (live)/ interview

Enjoy

The first of the singles that I didn’t buy on the date of its release for the simple fact that it was only available on import from West Germany and thus it was a bit hit’n’miss as to when it would arrive in the my local record shop in the east end of Glasgow.

I remember having to shell out a bit more than I would normally have to do for a standard single with this being attributed to the cost of getting the record over from mainland Europe.  I recall being initially disappointed as for some reason or other I was expecting the recording to be slightly different from the version made available a few months back on the Sound Affects LP but nope, it was identical:-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment

The fact that this reached #21 purely on import sales shows the folly of Polydor Records in not choosing any second single from the parent LP.  The b-side was a live version of Tube Station but it was the same recording as had been made available previously as a song on the extra record with the initial copies of Going Underground.

A gritty and bleak snapshot of life in a decaying Britain with its lyrical blend of youthful boredom and frustration at the inability to change things this masterpiece was claimed by Paul Weller to have been written in about 10 minutes one night after he’d come home drunk from the pub.   In fact, it was a lyrical re-working of a poem called ‘Entertainment’ which he had previously written for a fanzine-type publication which isn’t to say he initially churned most of the song out rather quickly while pissed.

Two alternative versions available today.  The first is a demo version in which the drums are more prominent :-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment (demo)

And then there’s the version from the Dig The New Breed live album in which your humble scribe, along with about 3,000 other fans, can be heard in the background at the Glasgow Apollo on 8 April 1982:-

mp3 : The Jam – That’s Entertainment (live)

Worth mentioning that Polydor would give the single a proper release in the UK in 1983 (at a time when all of the band’s 45s were re-issued) and it reached #60.  Fast forward to 1991 and the release of a Greatest Hits album that was promoted by another re-release of That’s Entertainment backed by two live recordings of Tube Station and A Town Called Malice, neither of which were new or previously unreleased recordings.  Despite this rip-off, the 1991 single reached #57.  I didn’t buy it…

I thought for a change that I’d offer up three cover versions by some very well known English singers/bands, none of whom do anything to better the original – indeed there’s a case to be made that at least two of the versions are shit – which is evidence that The Jam delivered something akin to a perfect recording :-

mp3 : Billy Bragg – That’s Entertainment
mp3 : Morrissey – That’s Entertainment
mp3 : The Wonder Stuff – That’s Entertainment

Enjoy

Five months after getting their first #1 single, The Jam hit the top spot with the follow-up to Going Underground.

Start! was not exactly what folk were expecting and it was an uneasy time for those of us who were fans and who didn’t hide their disdain for The Beatles as it was impossible to deny the tune was a rip-off of Taxman.  It didn’t go straight in at #1 but it did climb to the top of the pops some three weeks after its 15 August 1980 release.  In 1983, upon its cash-in re-release by Polydor Records it reached #62.

mp3 : The Jam – Start!
mp3 : The Jam – Liza Radley

I don’t think I was alone in initially preferring the ballad that was released as the b-side although over the years I have grown to appreciate the a-side, thanks primarily to enjoying how it was performed in concert with the accompanying horns section that were a feature of the later tours.

The album version, released fully three months later, has an extra ten seconds or so tagged on at the end :-

mp3 : The Jam – Start! (album version)

The fact that many fans were bemused by the song can be evidenced by the lukewarm reception afforded it when it was introduced at a gig at Golders Green Hippodrome in London on 19 December 1981:-

mp3 : The Jam – Start! (live)

And finally for today here’s a demo version of the b-side, recorded in April 1980, in which Paul Weller sounds as if he is battling a bit of a cold judging by the occasional raspiness in his voice:-

mp3 : The Jam – Liza Radley (demo)

Enjoy.

 

The first of the singles to hit #1 in the week of its release in March 1980.

There are still some who claim it only did so thanks to the initial 100,000 copies coming with a free live EP and while that was a factor in getting the single off the shelves and into homes very quickly there is a case to be made that the then rarely achieved feat was simply reflecting the fact that The Jam were by far the most popular post-punk band in the UK at the time and there was huge demand for this the first new songs since the release of the Setting Sons album.  And it shouldn’t be forgotten that the two songs which made up the double-A side 45 were great bits of music:-

mp3 : The Jam – Going Underground
mp3 : The Jam – The Dreams Of Children

The free EP contained three live tracks from a concert at the Rainbow in London in November 1979, two of which (The Modern World and Down In The Tube Station At Midnight he already featured in this series. Here’s the third:-

mp3 : The Jam – Away From The Numbers (live)

There’s a couple of very special (for me anyway) live versions on offer today.  They’re lifted from Dig The New Breed the post break-up release that featured 14 recordings captured over the best part of a five-year period:-

mp3 : The Jam – Going Underground/The Dreams Of Children (live)

The record makes it sound as if the songs were played back-to-back but I know different as I was part of the audience as the recording dates from 8 April 1982 at the Glasgow Apollo.  This was the second of the two nights at the famous old (and long demolished) venue as part of the what was called The Trans Global Express tour  – it was also the conclusion of what must have been a gruelling tour which had seen 25 gigs in 28 nights right across the UK. And t’internet confirms that Going Underground was the fourth song of the evening while Dreams was the eighth track aired.  Looking back at the full set list I can see how privileged I was:-

Pretty Green; Carnation; Happy Together; Going Underground; Ghosts; Town Called Malice; Just Who Is The 5 O’Clock Hero?; Dreams Of Children; That’s Entertainment; Tales From The Riverbank; Precious; Move On Up; In The Crowd; Running On The Spot; Trans Global Express; Private Hell; The Gift; The Butterfly Collector; Start!; Strange Town; The Eton Rifles.

Enjoy.

The first of the singles to hit the Top 10 reaching #3 just after its release on 26 October 1979 around the same time as the Setting Sons album gave The Jam their first Top 5 LP.

mp3 : The Jam – The Eton Rifles
mp3 : The Jam – See-Saw

The album version is also getting an airing today.  It’s not much different except that there’s an extra 30 seconds or so of incendiary guitar playing after the three-minute mark and it was this version that tended to feature in the live setting:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Eton Rifles (LP version)

Two more bonus versions, the first being from the Peel Session recorded on 29 October 1979 and broadcast on 5 November 1979. To be honest it sounds a little limp compared to the studio versions:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Eton Rifles (Peel Session)

Finally what could well be the best version of the lot…

mp3 : The Jam – The Eton Rifles (demo)

Recorded in July 1979 as a solo recording by Paul Weller.

Enjoy.

The second non-album single of 1979 and every bit as good as its predecessor in terms of quality on both sides of the plastic.

mp3 : The Jam – When You’re Young
mp3 : The Jam – Smithers-Jones

This was THE anthem of my teenage years.  The song that said all that had to be said.  It should have been a much bigger hit than just #17 after its release on 17 August 1979.  But the really massive hits were just around the corner…

There was a John Peel session recorded on 29 October 1979 and broadcast seven nights later:-

mp3 : The Jam – When You’re Young (Peel Session)

It’s a version that captures the band in very fine form…it’s a sort of hybrid between the single version and the way it was performed on stage

Almost exactly a year later, the band played it live on 28 October 1980 at the Newcastle City Hall where it was captured for inclusion on the NME Dancin Master cassette issued a year later:-

mp3 : The Jam – When You’re Young (live)

The b-side, one of the last Bruce Foxton compositions to be released by the band, was re-recorded for the Setting Sons LP that hit the shops in November 1979.  The orchestral version really took fans by surprise but it was a version that fitted in magnificently to said LP:-

mp3 : The Jam – Smithers Jones (album version)

As with all of the band’s UK 45s it was re-released by Polydor Records in 1980 and 1983. It didn’t chart in 1980 but it did hit #53 in 1983.

As mentioned earlier in the week, I’m now away to Toronto for a few days.  Bear with me if you send an e-mail and hear nothing back.

 

Just when you thought there was no way the The Jam could top the majesty of All Mod Cons they only go and release an incredible new single and arguably an even better b-side on 9 March 1979:-

mp3 : The Jam – Strange Town
mp3 : The Jam – The Butterfly Collector

A #15 hit on its initial release it too would be issued by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983  hitting #44 and #42 respectively.

Now I know from hearing both songs in concert during the six times that I saw the band (five times at the Glasgow Apollo and once at Edinburgh Ingliston – all between November 79 and November 82) that there are live versions of these songs floating around.  I just don’t have any to hand….so instead here’s a solo version from many years later:-

mp3 : Paul Weller – The Butterfly Collector (live)

And I’ve also dug out a track only made available on the 1997 boxset.  It was an unreleased demo, recorded back in 1978, with Paul Weller tinkling away on the ivories.  It’s a song whose verse didn’t warrant a proper recording and release, but have a listen to the bridge section and you’ll quickly clock on to where some of it ended up:-

mp3 : The Jam – Worlds Apart

Enjoy

There are days when I think this may well be the greatest record of all time….and yet I didn’t include it in my 45 45s at 45 rundown back in 2008.  But I’ll probably come back to that later in the series.

By now I was determined to buy the singles and albums on the day they came out and so it proved with this record that hit the shops on 6 October 1978:-

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight

A belter of a 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.

Incidentally, when I first visited London, which would have been in 1983 by which time I was at University, I couldn’t wait to take my first trip on the Underground.  This turned out be at King’s Cross as that was the nearest tube station to the ‘bus park’ where the overnight service from Glasgow dropped us off just as rush hour was beginning to take hold.   I was catching a service on the Piccadilly line as this took me onto where my digs were for the next few days (at the home of a professional footballer no less who was also a huge fan of The Jam and had been to see the band with me a few times in the past – some of my close friends will know this person’s identity!!).

I was intrigued at how deep down I had to go to get to the platform and all the way down I was singing this song to myself….and amazed to discover as the escalator dropped me off deep in the bowels of the city that 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.

Two new studio songs were on the b-side:-

mp3 : The Jam – So Sad About Us
mp3 : The Jam – The Night

The former was recorded on 13 September 1978 by the band as a tribute to Keith Moon who had died at the age of 32 just six days previously.  It is a cover of a song by The Who which had originally featured on the LP A Quick One back in 1966.  A photo of the late drummer was also put on the back of the Tube Station picture sleeve.  The latter is a Bruce Foxton song which just demonstrates that while the song-writing of Paul Weller was really maturing and developing the bass player was still composing tunes that wouldn’t have been out-of-place with material from the previous twelve months.

Tube Station reached #15 in the charts and would go onto be re-released as a 7″ single by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983. The first re-release didn’t reach the Top 75 but the 1983 issue did climb to #30.

Now to the additional recordings….

I’m of the view that the album version which subsequently saw light of day on All Mod Cons a month later is different enough to warrant an airing.  Where the single fades out the album version ends abruptly and the sound of a train departing the platform is aired and then there is a musical refrain of a guitar solo.  This version is even more scary as it made me think that the victim of the mugging was now dead….

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (album version)

The next version was offered up as one of the tracks on the bonus 7″ offered up with the initial 100,000 copies of Going Underground from a gig at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 3 November 1979. You can tell that this was very much a crowd favourite by the reaction when it is introduced and then from the singing along going on in the background.  It also featured what would become very familiar over the years in the live setting with a sort of mini-drum solo from Rick Buckler just before ‘the last thing that I saw…….’:-

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (live, 1979)

Here’s another live version, taken from a fanclub gig that closed out what had been an unusually quiet 1981 (by the band’s previous high standards) at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London that was specially arranged and recorded by BBC Radio 1 for its In Concert series that was usually broadcast on Saturday evenings.

mp3 : The Jam – Down In The Tube Station At Midnight (live, 1981)

One other wee bonus courtesy of the Direction Creation Reaction box set and it’s a demo of The Who cover as recorded back in February 1977 during the initial sessions for the In The City material

mp3 : The Jam – So Sad About Us (demo version)

Enjoy

This is just about where I really picked up on The Jam.  It’s not that I wasn’t aware of the earlier singles and first two albums but I had reached that great age (I had turned 15 a couple of months earlier) where I could really begin to understand the wider impact of great music and to think beyond just how good something sounded on the radio.   It was a time where music overtook football as the singularly most important aspect of things in my life.  And more than any other, it was The Jam who stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Mind you, I thought at this point that Bruce Foxton was the main man.  I’d bought a copy of News of The World on which he was lead vocalist and then on the day of its release on 26 August 1978 I bought the band’s new single on which the bass player again took on the singing duties.  I had no idea however, who this Ray Davies was…maybe the band had taken on a fourth member and I hadn’t noticed..but that can’t be right as there’s still just the three-man line-up in the small photo adorning the sleeve and Bruce is standing at the front.  It was so easy to be confused….

I know I promised that I would simply use this series to feature the songs and nor ramble on aimlessly within the postings.  I just can’t help myself today.  I still get really excited thinking back to this particular time in my life…just about to start my fourth year at secondary school the end of which would see me sit exams that would hopefully get me on the right foot for university.  Growing more confident with each passing week in my abilities to fit in with the cool crowd at school and discovering that music was by far and the best way to do so. Falling in love with a band for the first time….and nobody ever forgets their first time.

mp3 : The Jam – David Watts

It was of course a double-A side but I can’t recall too many occasions when this was aired on Radio 1:-

mp3 : The Jam – ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street

The single reached #25 in the charts and It would go onto be re-released as a 7″ single by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983  hitting #54 and #50 respectively.

The Direction Reaction Creation box-set provided a demo version of the better known side:-

mp3 : The Jam – David Watts (demo)

The Paris Theatre in London gig on 1 June 1978 recorded for the BBC series Sight and Sound included this cracking version which at the time was a very new song as explained in the intro:-

mp3 : The Jam – ‘A’ Bomb In Wardour Street (live)

Enjoy

The first of the singles to have Bruce Foxton on lead vocal.  The third single in a row by The Jam to feature ‘World’ in the title.  The first single NOT to appear on an album with the band and label shying away from lifting a second single from the critically beaten-up This Is The Modern World album.

Released on 11 March 1978, it performed reasonably well by reaching #27 in the charts.

mp3 : The Jam – News of the World

The b-side had two new songs, one of which was a Weller composition and the other being from Foxton:-

mp3 : The Jam – Aunties and Uncles (Impulsive Youths)
mp3 : The Jam – Innocent Man

It would go onto be re-released as a 7″ single by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983  hitting #53 and #39 respectively.  It’s worth noting that the 1983 chart showing was much higher than most of the other singles re-released at that time showing that newer fans were very keen to get their hands on three songs otherwise unavailable.

Just the one additional recording on offer today and it’s from the Paris Theatre in London gig on 1 June 1978 recorded for the BBC series Sight and Sound:-

mp3 : The Jam – News of the World (live)

It’s one where you can appreciate that Weller was actually a decent guitarist in the live setting….it was I’m guessing easier for him to concentrate on his playing when he wasn’t having to also sing lead vocal.

Enjoy

The first of the singles to have its lyrics altered to enable radio play (not that we knew that until we heard the album version!!).

Released on 15 October 1977, the first single to be lifted from the as yet unreleased second album stumbled a bit in that its peak of #36 was a long way removed from the near Top Ten achievement of the previous 45.

mp3 : The Jam – The Modern World

The b-sides were taken from a gig at the 100 Club in London on 11 September 1977 and featured two cover versions as well as one original:-

mp3 : The Jam – Sweet Soul Music/Back In My Arms Again/Bricks and Mortar (live)

The first of the covers was originally released in 1967 by Arthur Conley, hitting #7 in the UK charts, and with its lyrics mentioning other well-known songs from the genre it is regarded as an homage to soul music.  The second had been a #1 hit in the USA for The Supremes back in 1965 but it had been a flop in the UK only reaching #40 which in those days was regarded as not actually reaching the charts. The third of the tracks, from the In The City LP wasn’t listed on the record sleeve which is no real surprise as the recording on the record fades out very quickly even though it obvious the band were playing the song to its natural conclusion. Very peculiar.

The Modern World would go onto be re-released as a 7″ single by Polydor Records on two more occasions – in 1980 and 1983  hitting #52 and #51 respectively.

Three additional recordings on offer today. The first is from the band’s second session for John Peel recorded on 19 July 1977 and broadcast six days later:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Modern World (Peel Session)

The date of the session predates the single release by three months and you’ll note the band, in accordance with what was expected during Peel Sessions, refrained from recording the sweary version.

The song was also aired at the Paris Theatre in London gig on 1 June 1978 recorded for the BBC series Sight and Sound:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Modern World (live, 1978)

Again, you’ll note that the BBC used technology to blank out the word ‘fuck’ when they broadcast the show.

The song was also included as one of the tracks on the bonus 7″ offered up with the initial 100,000 copies of Going Underground from a gig at the Rainbow Theatre in London on 3 November 1979:-

mp3 : The Jam – The Modern World (live, 1979)

Paul Weller doesn’t hold back with his vocal delivery on this occasion.

Enjoy