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.
She’s independent
She’s a modern woman
She needs no prompting
On her should ‘n’ shouldn’t
It’s always bosses
Who wish that she wouldn’t
Files in the cabinet so neatly numerical
Makes all the clients so neatly alphabetical
It gets even better as they all storm into the call-and-response chorus, with Bentley and Holland both totally on fire, but still not distracting you from all of the vocal goodness happening.
(Turn of 21)
She’s looking at her map (Looking at her map)
And looking at her watch (Looking at her watch)
Bags on the rack (Bags on the rack)
Seems like she’s there
Seems like she’s there at the top
Seems like she’s there at the top
Everybody singing “seems like she’s there at top” two times followed all of the instruments dropping out by Lavis’s snare is absolutely sublime, especially after it’s followed by Bentley then Tilbrook reprising the opening riff before they go into the second verse.
After the second chorus, both Jools Holland and Glen Tilbrook take solos because at this point why not break things up with solos before you cruise into the final verse.
Shorthands a letter
Heading on the paper
Slimline her lunchbreak
Will it ever make her
Slender and modern
So all the men will take her
Back to the mirror in the Empress Hotel
Where the businessman smiles and the object is sell
In the end, Bentley & Tilbrook play the opening riff over and over and over as everybody else chants “there at the top” as the song fades out, and I feel like Adam Schlesinger (RIP) must have listened to this song a about a million times before writing Welcome Interstate Managers.
“There At The Top” was the final song from the initial incarnation of Squeeze, as Jools Holland left to try a solo career — and more apropos, a film & TV career — and while he would be back in the band for a couple of albums in the late-80s, he’s now probably most famous from his long-running Later… with Jools Holland TV show, which celebrates its 30 anniversary in about a month or so.
Ironically, Holland’s departure led directly to the song that would end up being their American breakthrough and pis robably their most enduring song. But we’ll talk about that tomorrow.
“There At The Top”
“There At The Top” Live 1980
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