The Jam: In The City - 1977
"If you don't like them - hard luck, they're gonna be around for a long time" - Barry Cain - Record Mirror
A barked-out "1-2-3-4" and we are straight into a lively opener, Art School. Exactly what were art schools by the way? Even in the 70s I had no idea! Musically, we had heard nothing like this, though. It was like The Who, but punked-up to the max. To me, it felt somehow more genuine than The Sex Pistols and somewhat contrived posturings. The Jam really were just three lads from Woking who wanted to form a band. You could relate to these three because they were like you and your friends. The Sex Pistols you would cross the street to avoid. The Jam had an intrinsic energy and anger that made this album a punk one, but Paul Weller already had an instinct for a hook that would serve him well as he developed his craft. Among his lyrics, too, despite a bit of teenage naiveté, was a pertinence and wisdom way beyond his years and average Secondary Modern school education. This was somebody who could be special. Time would prove that to be the case. His career flourishes to this day, as we know.
I've Changed My Address was another jet-powered thrash of a song. Nothing more nothing less. The levels of energy are already exhausting. Weller goes all John Lennon with regard to relationships - "nobody's gonna tie me down, nobody tells me what to do...". A typically youthful male attitude, avoiding responsibility, but what the hell, he was eighteen/nineteen, a point that I will make several time when reviewing this album's material.
Think the pace is going to let up? No chance. This blistering cover of Larry Williams' Slow Down (also covered by The Beatles) is superb and indeed, sounds like it was made for The Jam. Weller's vocal is so breathlessly irrepressible that he almost gets tongue-tied at one point, singing "show down". On I Got By In Time Weller sings enthusiastically on another breakneck number about being "young and full of ideas". Not a truer word was said, although the song's context finds the line being sung by a rueful Weller, sad at the drifting apart of a teenage friendship.
Now we are into this mini-epic, Away From The Numbers, which is very Who-ish, chunky and powerful, with a mature lyric that introduced us to a regular Weller leitmotif of being far from the madding crowd. At nineteen, he was already longing for solitude. This solid, quite dramatic number is probably The Jam's first "serious" song - as I said, musically and lyrically it has a maturity to it. It is almost traditional rock in its structure, big and crashing, not really punk at all and it chugged along, backed by Rick Buckler's drum rolls, instantly standing out the from the punky thrash of the rest of the material. It showed that if The Jam had to diversify and develop in time, then they would be able to do so.
The Batman Theme had already also been covered by The Who on A Quick One in 1966. It seems hard to believe now, but the mid-sixties were less than ten years back in time. Even the more routine numbers like this one bristle with an incredible energy and excitement. The Who meets Dr. Feelgood and listens to some fast-paced Motown. It hits you right between the ears. Just stick this on and play it loud. There was hardly time to pause for a breath as we careered like sixties mods on scooters up to Carnaby Street.
Sounds From The Street sees Weller bemoaning coming from Woking - “I know I come from Woking, and you'll say I'm a fraud, but my heart is in the city, where it belongs..” - he often felt he was a fraud back then, longing to be a "proper" London kid. Weller also proclaims his preference for his UK home - "the USA's got the sea, but the British kids have got the streets..", the sentiments sort of echoing The Clash in I'm So Bored With The USA. It was a recurring punk theme to slag off the USA.
More amphetamine-driven r'n'b come next in the frantic Northern Soul tribute, Non-Stop Dancing. It has a Motown-style vibrancy and punch, a name check for James Brown and the sound fully reflected Weller's mod pre-occupation. with a lot of the lyrics apeing The Who's mid-sixties "sense of teenage identity/The Kids Are Alright" themes. It also contains a mild drug reference in the line "truly out of my head but I ain't sleepy..".
Now for some slightly embarrassing cod-politics - Time For Truth was a pre-Thatcher Labour government they were railing against in 1977, remember, led by "Uncle Jimmy" Callaghan - with its riff seemingly lifted directly from The Who's The Good's Gone. You can forgive the nineteen year-old Weller for that, though, and for the naive political views.
Another highly energised number is Takin' My Love, very Slow Down-influenced and in the same vein as much of the album. I like it a lot, it has remained one of my favourites of these early punkers. It was also the band's earliest known recording, dating from way back in 1973, although the version here is an improvement on the original pre-album one. It contains some decidedly rock 'n' roll-style lyrics too - "you're rockin' and rollin' and I dunno what to say, but Daddy's little cat's gonna rock all day...". Perhaps luckily for the band, in those anti-rock 'n' roll that had gone before days of 1977, Weller's speedy, aggressive bark rendered the lyrics somewhat indecipherable.
Finally, in Bricks And Mortar we were served up a short and bitter piece of cynicism regarding wealth disparity and some actually quite misguided views on town planning - Weller criticises the decision to create new green spaces. They were views that had not yet fully developed, which was understandable. The song also contains the line "a man whose house has cost forty grand.." - hard to conceive of that now, isn't it? Forty grand wouldn't buy you a toilet. Anyway, before we knew it, it was all over in a blast of vicious, crashing feedback designed to imitate the sound of buildings crashing to the ground.
Wow. What next? This was The Jam's equivalent of The Clash - another album with a few similarities, and, as with The Clash, soon it was on to considerable diversification. What also has to be remembered and acknowledged is the sheer sonic and artistic shock that this album gave people like me at the time. A few years earlier it was all the artiness of David Bowie and Roxy Music, the faux-glam of Mott the Hoople or the theatrical preening of Queen for me. Here I had three brash young lads from Surrey council houses and their toilet wall spray-painted minimalist, aggressive album to take in - the difference was seismic, believe me, it really was. Late 1977 changed my musical world forever.
The non-album tracks that dated from this period were their first big hit All Around The World, which reach number 13 and its b side, Carnaby Street. The former was not only the first Jam record that I bought, it was the first punk record I bought too. I loved it, from its rat-a-tat drum intro, via Weller's barked "oi!", to its crashing Who-like guitar, angry, spat out vocals and even its metallic silver inner label with that Jam calligraphy. "All around the world I've been looking for new...". Well, it certainly was "new" to me. I couldn't get enough of this bristling, exciting new music.
The 'b' side was Bruce Foxton's first attempt at songwriting and it bore the trademarks of his work from the time - somewhat embarrassing fifth-form fashion ranting about some perceived injustice. In this case, Foxton's earnest ire is aimed at the apparent decline of the iconic sixties London thoroughfare Carnaby Street. "The street that was part of the British monarchy....reflects the rise and fall of our nation....the street that was a legend is a mockery, a part of the British tradition gone down the drain....". Bruce is annoyed at the fact that the street still sells Kaftans and he feels it should move on and give the kids what they want. As you can see from the lyrics above it all gets a bit confused. Even as a teenager myself at the time I was not convinced by this. Musically it is very formulaic too.
