East Side Story

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.