By Andy Ford, Warrington South CLP
The centre of Warrington was thronged with middle-aged men in Fred Perrys and Harringtons last Friday night – From The Jam were playing at the Parr Hall.
From The Jam are the band formed by the Jam’s former bass player, Bruce Foxton, and with at least one original member it was a great chance to hear again the Jam’s bitter, barbed and uplifting songs from the 1970s and 80s. This tour is a complete performance of The Jam’s 1978 album All Mod Cons, perhaps their best, and the one that launched the mod revival.
They began with the actual song All Mod Cons, Paul Weller’s cutting view of music industry parasites, and continued with Mr Clean which is a venomous attack on the stockbroker types Weller would see as a young boy growing up in Woking, Surrey. The sheer level of hatred in the song can appear disconcerting – “I hate you and your wife, and if I get the chance I’ll f*ck up your life” – but you have to remember that the class disparity in these Surrey towns is especially extreme, where gated communities for people who do ‘Something in the city’ (really nothing) co-exist with the working class suburbs which provide the cleaners, gardeners and builders for the suited executives.
Next was David Watts, a neglected Kinks B-side, rescued from obscurity by the Jam, with its ironic and double-edged appreciation of a school over-achiever, followed by In The Crowd with its dreamy, almost psychedelic finish. Then it was Billy Hunt which describes a young worker getting pushed around by the foreman at work, dreaming of ultimate success and vindication – “No-one pushes Billy Hunt around, well they do but not for long…”
The band got out the acoustic guitars for English Rose, Weller’s love song for his then girlfriend, Gill Price, in the style of late 60s English folk; and then Private Hell which looks at life from the point of view of a frustrated and alienated working class woman. It worked better acoustically than the rocky version on the album Setting Sons.
Then it was back to the classic Jam singles where the band’s music and Weller’s lyrics really peaked. ‘A’ Bomb in Wardour Street perfectly captures the violent, edgy atmosphere of many punk and mod gigs of the 1970s where gangs of skinheads quite often marauded outside and occasionally inside the venues looking for someone to kick to bits if they could.
Down in a Tube Station at Midnight is for me a pinnacle of The Jam’s achievement, reaching the level of an urban, working class poetry (see full lyrics below). Its tale of a commuter being beaten to death on a tube station was inspired by a real event at Elephant and Castle underground station and shows a humanistic empathy for the sort of commuter derided in Mr Clean. It was good to hear the whole crowd singing along: “They smelt of pubs, and Wormwood Scrubs, and too many right wing meetings”
A Town Called Malice is about Weller’s feelings looking back at Woking from his new place in London, the hard choices a working class family have to make and the small horizons. Then it was a slower pace for Butterfly Collector which is Paul Weller’s gloomy and resigned take on the groupies the band would come across, who sought to sleep with more and more famous rock stars, like a butterfly collector gathering specimens.
“A police car and a screaming siren…”
Smithers Jones was the next song and could be regarded as an antidote to Mr Clean with one of Bruce Foxton’s best lyrics, seeing that the city commuter himself is a victim of the system, used up and spat out again when no longer useful. That’s Entertainment is another fantastic lyric and describes Weller just sitting in his Pimlico flat watching TV and hearing the city’s sounds – “A police car and a screaming siren, A pneumatic drill and ripped up concrete…” it begins, going on to list the sounds of the city.
Then another Foxton song, one of The Jam’s angriest; News of the World is an eloquent attack on Britain’s corrupt Tory press – “Don’t believe a word, find out for yourself”, followed by Start and Strange Town which again describes Weller’s loneliness and alienation in London, and does it very, very well.
The band finished there but we knew there would be an encore and yes! – they did In The City from the 1977 punk explosion, then Eton Rifles which describes an actual event where an unemployed workers demonstration faced off against a group of pupils from Eton. There may be a dig in there against the SWP who organised the demonstration: “What a catalyst you turned out to be, loaded the guns and then run off home for your tea, left me standing like a guilty schoolboy”; the listener can decide!
And then to finish it was the Jam’s first number one, Going Underground, Weller’s cry of despair at the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 – “You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns” they sang, and weren’t they right?
From The Jam, are not the actual Jam but Russell Hastings does a fantastic job of singing Weller’s lyrics and his guitar was in places better then the great man’s own. A night with Bruce Foxton and his band allows a new generation to experience The Jam’s anger, working class passion and social conscience, and for some of us to remember it all over again. Recommended.
Down in a Tube Station at Midnight
The distant echo
Of faraway voices boarding faraway trains
To take them home to
The ones that they love and who love them forever
The glazed, dirty steps, repeat my own and reflect my thoughts
Cold and uninviting, partially naked
Except for toffee wrappers and this morning’s paper
Mr. Jones got run down
Headlines of death and sorrow, they tell of tomorrow
Madmen on the rampage
And I’m down in the tube station at midnight
I fumble for change, and pull out the Queen
Smiling, beguiling
I put in the money and pull out a plum
Behind me
Whispers in the shadows, gruff blazing voices
Hating, waiting
“Hey boy” they shout, “have you got any money?”
And I said, “I’ve a little money and a takeaway curry
I’m on my way home to my wife
She’ll be lining up the cutlery, you know she’s expecting me
Polishing the glasses and pulling out the cork”
I’m down in the tube station at midnight
I first felt a fist, and then a kick
I could now smell their breath
They smelt of pubs and Wormwood Scrubs
And too many right wing meetings
My life swam around me
It took a look and drowned me in its own existence
The smell of brown leather
It blended in with the weather
Filled my eyes, ears, nose and mouth, it blocked all my senses
Couldn’t see, hear, speak any longer
I’m down in the tube station at midnight
I said I was down in the tube station at midnight
The last thing that I saw as I lay there on the floor
Was “Jesus saves” painted by an atheist nutter
And a British rail poster read “Have an away day, a cheap holiday
Do it today”
I glanced back on my life, and thought about my wife
‘Cause they took the keys, and she’ll think it’s me
I’m down in the tube station at midnight
The wine will be flat and the curry’s will be cold
I’m down in the tube station at midnight
Don’t want to go down in a tube station at midnight
Don’t want to go down in a tube station at midnight
Don’t want to go down in a tube station at midnight
April 29, 2019
