Album: Extended Play EP
Year: 1980
. . .
In 1980 and 1981, Pretenders released two world-beating singles in the U.K.: “Talk of the Town” b/w “Cuban Slide” and “Message of Love” b/w “Porcelain.” All four songs — plus a smokin’ live version of “Precious” — were released on an EP called Extended Play in the spring of 1981.
And it killed me. Dead. To the point where I’m pretty sure that Pretenders were my favorite band in the world that spring and early summer. Or least up until the point where Pretenders II came out. But we’ll talk about that soon enough. First, lets talk about the songs on an EP that I treasure as much as Chronic Town or The Cost of Living EP, leading off with this incredible single, a pure pop confection as good as anything Hynde ever wrote.
. . .
“Talk of the Town” opens with a tangle of electric and acoustic guitars, Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott weaving in and out of each other until Martin Chambers stops the song with a pair of snare beats in order to let Honeyman-Scott play a simple repeating riff that you instantly want to hear again, but you’re gonna have to wait, son, because Chrissie Hynde is singing.
Such a drag to want something sometime
One thing leads to another I know
Was a time wanted you for mine
Nobody knew
You arrived like a day
And passed like a cloud
I made a wish, I said it out loud
Out loud in a crowd
Everybody heard
It was the talk of the town
That Chrissie Hynde is one of our greatest singers is totally and completely indisputable; and “Talk of the Town” just might be her finest moment. Just check out all of the amazing things doing on that first verse: the quick rushing of “another I know”; the way she adds syllables to “crowww-howdd” and “hear-eeerrd”; and her quiver on “towwwwwn” as the song collapses around her.
Meanwhile, Chambers & Honeyman-Scott are right there as well. At the back half of the long verses, Chambers switchs to a double backbeat as Honeyman-Scott interjects one-note chimes. Both are way buried in the mix when compared to the vocals, but once you notice them, they become utterly indispensable.
Also indispensable: the chorus, featuring overdubbed and echoing Hyndes all singing one of her most lovely melodies.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
You’ve changed (you’ve changed) (you’ve changed)
Your place in this world
You’ve changed (you’ve changed)
Your place in this world
No guitar solo on the highly efficient “Talk of the Town,” instead, they head into one last sublime verse, the opening couplet one of the most true things Hynde has ever written, the rest of it also insanely lovely.
Oh but it’s hard to live by the rules
I never could and still never do
The rules and such never bothered you
You call the shots and they follow
I watch you still from a distance then go
Back to my room, you never know
I want you, I want you but now
Who’s the talk of the town?
Once again, her singing is off-the-charts sublime (which doesn’t seem like it should be a thing, but in this case it is), and they even goose it up by adding handclaps in the background, but buried too deep in the mix to fully invoke The Handclap Rule.*
*(Handclaps make good songs great and great songs timeless.)
All in all, it adds up to an utterly great and timeless single, not just the best song on Extended Play, but the best song on Pretenders II, on which it got recycled later on in 1981. In any event, “Talk of the Town,” which would have been an absolutely perfect successor to “Brass in Pocket,” never got released as a single here in the U.S., but it sure as shit did in the U.K., where it went to #8, cementing the Pretenders as reliable singles artists there. It would take a little bit longer here.
“Talk of the Town”
“Talk of the Town” 1980 video (muddy sound)
“Talk of the Town” on Rockpalast, 1981
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