Certain Songs

Certain Songs #2445: Squeeze – “Black Coffee in Bed”

September 12, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Sweets From a Stranger
Year: 1982

. . .

Clearly, after Squeeze’ minor splash with the Paul Carrack-sung “Tempted,” they figured that they’d venture into blue-eyed soul again. But this time, with Paul Carrack one-and-done on the keyboard front, and that meddling Elvis Costello not their producer this time around, Chris Difford would be singing.

And so we got “Black Coffee in Bed,” which Glenn Tilbrook sang the absolute fuck out of, without ever once pretending to be a soul singer.

Certain Songs #2444: “Squeeze – “F-Hole” / “Labelled With Love”

September 11, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: East Side Story
Year: 1981

. . .

One of the things that has essentially been decimated by the streaming era is the sense of a pair of songs that absolutely belong together. Like, for example, how could you possible separate “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “With a Little Help For My Friends?” Or you know, the Abbey Road medley.

Sometimes, like with those two, or Elton John’s “Funeral For a Friend” / “Love Lies Bleeding,” or XTC’s “Summer Cauldron” / “Grass” they were so purposely intertwined, I just think of them as one song, no matter how musically disparate they were.

And believe you me, “F-Hole” and “Labelled With Love” are totally dissimilar.

Certain Songs #2443: Squeeze – “Is That Love”

September 10, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: East Side Story
Year: 1981

. . .

Emboldened by the success of Argybargy, East Side Story was designed to be Squeeze’s big album statement. To the point where they were going to make it a double album, with a different producer helming a different side of the record. Given that the four producers they chose were Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, it could have been a helluva thing. Or it could have been a disaster.

Certain Songs #2442: Squeeze – “Tempted”

September 9, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: East Side Story
Year: 1981

. . .

Let us now consider the strange case of Paul Carrack, who first surfaced as the lead singer of Ace, whose sole hit, “How Long,” made it all the way to #3 on the Billboard Singles charts in 1975. A song that I will charitably describe as “proto-Yacht Rock,” “How Long” seemed to set the table for the Michael McDonald incarnation of the Doobie Brothers, though the Doobies had wayyyyyyyyy more success than Ace with that sound, as Ace were prototypical one-hit wonders.

Certain Songs #2441: Squeeze – “There At The Top”

September 8, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Argybargy
Year: 1980

. . .

Squeeze ended 1980’s Argybargy with one of their very best deep cuts, the rocking soul stomper “There at The Top,” which opens with fantastic unison lick from Glen Tilbrook’s guitar and John Bentley’s bass which is almost immediately by a double-time snare-driven beat from drummer Gilson Lavis and an organ fanfare from Jools Holland. It’s one of those songs that grab you totally before Tilbrook even starts singing.

Certain Songs #2440: Squeeze – “Another Nail in My Heart”

September 7, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Argybargy
Year: 1980

. . .

1980’s Argybargy was well and truly where Squeeze started getting their shit together, as it contained both classic singles and classic album cuts all the while showing off Difford and Tilbrook’s ever-sharpening songwriting craft.

That said, because it was 1980 after all, Argybargy didn’t sound that different from a lot of other “new wave” bands — usually it was the vocals that would define the difference to outsiders — so the best songs where the ones where the songwriting craft was the sharpest. Which, duh.

Certain Songs #2439: Squeeze – “Up The Junction”

September 6, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Cool For Cats
Year: 1979

. . .

One of the more interesting things about the musical partnership of Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook was that while Difford wrote most of the lyrics and Tilbrook wrote most of the music, it was Tilbrook who sang the songs the songs, meaning that the words would be mostly associated with him.

Obviously, rock history is rife with bands where the guy who sang the songs didn’t write the words — The Who & Oasis are two examples from the top of my head — but usually that meant that the singer didn’t write the music, either. But not in this case: which means that Tilbrook had to memorize the veritable short story that was their second big U.K. hit, “Up The Junction.”

Certain Songs #2438: Spoon – “Trouble Comes Running”

September 2, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Transference
Year: 2010

. . .

After the big-hearted and big-sounding Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Britt Daniel went more insular and experimental for the follow-up, 2010’s Transference, and I didn’t like it nearly as much.

Which means, of course, the song I liked the most from it is probably my very favorite Spoon song, the low-fi basher “Trouble Comes Running,” which starts with a faded guitar in one speaker until Daniel’s “owwwww!” kicks it off properly, with monster drummer Jim Eno alternating being restrained on the verses and letting loose on the choruses.

Certain Songs #2437: Spoon – “The Underdog”

September 1, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Year: 2007

. . .

Like a lot of Spoon’s greatest songs, the bouncy, infectious single “The Underdog” covers a lot of ground with a few instruments. In this case, it’s bass, drums, acoustic guitar and — of course — an expertly-deployed horn section.

That horn section — Jason Freese on sax, Ron Blake on trumpet and Francicso Torres on trombone — is there from the opening, but kinda muted, not yet giving away how important they’re gonna be to the song. So at first you focus on the rolling, tumbling opening, led by drummer Jim Eno, who then mostly drops out, leaving Britt Daniel to sing the opening verse over his own acoustic guitar, some percussion and eventually bassist Rob Pope.

Certain Songs #2436: Spoon – “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb”

August 31, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Year: 2007

. . .

Way back last week, I wrote about how “Take The Fifth” was definitely influenced by Elvis Costello’s soul-drenched Get Happy!!!, and that’s probably one of the reference points for the horn-driven stomper “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb,” as well.

But there’s a huge difference: “Take The Fifth” was also stripped-down, and “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” is anything but, so I’m going to say that in this case Daniel went straight to Motown for this joyous piece of soul, and so it’s all decorated up rather than stripped own.