The Jam: About The Young Idea

Out of punk's foaming 1977 maelstrom came two bands that would become seminal - The Clash and The Jam. Both would be "punk" for one album only before progressing, evolving, developing and diversifying. Both called it a day in 1982. Yes, I know The Clash limped on in another form for a few years, but you know what I mean. Both of them produced some truly great music in that time - The Clash five albums, The Jam six. It was The Jam, though, that really did something quite remarkable and seriously conquered the UK singles market, scoring four number ones, which was pretty unthinkable when they began back in 1977. Punks didn't have big hits, surely? The Jam broke that stereotype, big time, with their energetic merging of punk, Who-style r 'n' b, Revolver-era Beatles influences and several nods to The Small Faces too, along with sixties/seventies soul. 

They were a three piece - the militarily metronomic Rick Buckler on drums, the extremely talented bassman Bruce Foxton and, of course, the acerbic, cleverly cynical realist Paul Weller on lead guitar and lead vocals. For five short years, these three Woking, Surrey lads were a match made in Heaven.

My first memories of The Jam are of buying the singles In The City and All Around The World in the summer of 1977 and then going to see them live on Saturday 26th November 1977 at Friars, Aylesbury. They were fantastic (they had, incidentally, performed a matinee gig earlier that afternoon due to ticket demand). I had not experienced an atmosphere like it, it was electric. They wore those black mod-style suits and Bruce Foxton was doing his "jump" while playing his bass (as featured on the rear cover of This Is The Modern World). For details on that show check the fine Friars, Aylesbury website.

https://www.aylesburyfriars.co.uk/jam77.html

The three of them played with such an intensity and commitment for ones still relatively young (only just into their twenties). As just a bit younger than Paul Weller, I loved this. They were punk, but not punk as well. They had that mod thing going on, a clear sixties influence and they played some breakneck Motown covers. That began a love affair with The Jam for me. 

I was lucky enough to catch them live on ten occasions between the above-mentioned gig and their final tour in December 1982, before Weller, controversially, but possibly wisely, broke up the group. The Jam inspired football-style lads' loyalty from their parka-clad fans (no, I never wore a parka - although I did back in 1972) and the band always reciprocated with energetic, honest, committed live performances. 

Weller, as he probably still is, was always, shall we say, a "complicated" personality and, while I respect him immensely, I never particularly warmed to him as a person. That is from someone who has bought every recording he has ever released. Obviously, I don't know him, so take my comments with a huge pinch of salt. 

Incidentally, I was walking along Oxford Street once, around 2006, and looked at a man walking straight towards me on the pavement. Bugger me, it was Weller. I had a few seconds to react, so I just almost imperceptibly nodded, just enough to let him know I knew who he was but without bothering him. A tiny smile and tiny half-nod came back and he went into Selfridges. I quite like the way that all worked out. 

Anyway, on stage, The Jam came on and did the business with the minimum of fuss and there was something to be said for that. They were never as ground-breaking, musically, as The Clash were, largely due to their obvious Who, Small Faces, Beatles and overall mod influences, but they definitely created their own style and the sound they produced for a simple three piece of guitar, bass and drums was immense. Weller suffered every now and again from lyrical naivety, not surprising as he started writing stuff in his teens, but he also proved to be an excellent songwriter - observational, cynical, tongue-in-cheek at times and also surprisingly sensitive and tender. He has taken that on into his remarkable, impressive solo career. On then to those sounds of the street....

Let's take a look at this, their best compilation. The 47 tracks - almost half the band's total output - are positioned chronologically, unlike on The Clash's similar collection, The Clash Hits Back. You can clearly hear the band's development as you progress through it. 

We kick off, appropriately, with the towering In The City, a candidate for the best punk single, ever. Guitar, then bass, then drums then Paul Weller spits out his hymn to urban London youth, his call-to-arms. It was a celebration of being young, of feeling that the city is yours, while simultaneously condemning Police violence. Jam Heaven. Punk Heaven too, one of the genre's best-ever singles. What could be better when you're nineteen, as I was when it first heard it. Even now, I just can't get enough of it. I remember scrawling the lyrics out on the white paper sleeve of my 45 rpm single. (I didn't have a picture sleeve one). My God what a record that was. Bloomin' marvellous. There was a Who 'b' side with the same title back in 1966, but I can't hear too many similarities. The iconic riff was used by The Sex Pistols on Holiday In The Sun, but they slowed it down considerably. 

A barked-out "1-2-3-4" and we are straight into a lively number, 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. 

Now we are into a 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. 

A highly energised number, Takin' My Love (included here in an impressive demo version), was in the same vein as much of its breakneck parent 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. 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.

The first Jam song I ever heard, and immediately bought, was the 1977 single All Around The World. From Rick Buckler's first drum pounds on the intro I was totally hooked. It blew me away, to be honest - its youthful vigour, aggression, energy was wonderful to my ears. These young blokes were just like me and ranting about the state of the world just as I did. Give me some of this!

On The Modern World, Weller proclaims his personal independence and determination to prove everyone wrong who questioned him in his youth. The song's "I don't give two fucks about your review" line should never be changed by editing to "a damn" as it is on some releases. The original album version contained the correct, visceral vernacular and quite right too, it is the song's best line. Maybe Weller doesn't give two fucks about this review either, also quite rightly. 

From its pounding Rick Buckler drum intro, the punchy, frantic In The Street Today positively bristles with punky energy. Check out the bit where Weller's guitar comes slashing in. All these years later it still excites me to hear it. It also contains a great line in "the kids want some action, and who can fucking blame them now". Quite.

While Bruce Foxton was a bassist supreme, a songwriter he wasn't. He had already given us a pretty dreadful 'b' side to All Around The World in Carnaby Street and on the stand-alone single News Of The World he moaned about the gutter press in a way that you would expect someone of his age to do, I guess. Unlike the clever Weller, though, poor old Bruce was a clichéd writer, both lyrically and (perhaps surprisingly) musically. The song's lumpen melody matches its dire lyrics. Sorry Bruce. Oh look, it's ok, but not a patch on Weller's work, let's be honest.

The upbeat, singalong and more than welcome hit single David Watts is next (together with Top Of The Pops appearance) and it was a rousing, lads-together fist-pumping cover of The Kinks' almost-forgotten 60s album track. Funnily enough, its lyrics sound as if they could have been written for The Jam, all that class difference stuff that is the cornerstone of this album in many ways. David Watts, of course, is the very opposite of the Billy Hunt character we would later meet. 

Jam Heaven for you now. Down In the Tube Station At Midnight is a nearly five minute masterpiece of violent, grimy, urban imagery dealing with a man being mugged in the bleak underground setting of one of London's tube stations. Underpinned by Bruce Foxton's magnificent, rumbling bass, it is musically excellent, but, as with so much of its album, 1978's All Mod Cons, it was the evocative, image-laden and almost filmic lyrics that took centre stage. 

The afore-mentioned Billy Hunt is a song about a working class lad who works on a building site and dreams of something better. It sounds a little like a cast off from the previous album, slightly punky in its guitar attack and pace and just a little lyrically clumsy - if I didn't know that it was a Weller creation, I'd swear it was a Bruce Foxton song. 

To Be Someone is a cynical-before-his-time song from Weller about the pitfalls and immorality of the "fame game" and music stardom. "Didn't we have a nice time" he wryly observes, amongst all the cocaine and "guitar-shaped pools". Great bass from Bruce Foxton on this one, as was now always the case - he was so important to The Jam's sound, wasn't he?

English Rose was the "surprise" unannounced track from the original All Mod Cons album. A tender, acoustic guitar-based love song with accompanying wave noises, wind swirls and tugboat horns. Maybe it was not mentioned on the track list because Weller was genuinely embarrassed to include a love song on the album. A soppy love song? On a "punk" album? Are they punks or what? There's an establishment to rail at. In fact, in the song Monday on 1980s Sound Affects, he claims "I will never be embarrassed about love again". Maybe he genuinely was coy about it, as he looked down and spat on the ground between his teeth after dragging on his fag, as so many "lads" did.  

In The Crowd is a somewhat rambling song (despite its atmospheric and subtle bassline) where Weller expresses his feelings when swept along in a crowd of people, his disconnection, his alienation, maybe even traces of self-loathing. It was quite a mature song for one so young, but musically it is a little bit uninspiring and never really gets going. Look, it's ok, but nowhere near The Jam's best. It does, however, convincingly highlight Weller's increasing "far from the madding crowd" outlook. 

Now we get the short, sharp shock of 'A' Bomb In Wardour Street. A Honky Tonk Women style cowbell intro leads into a staccato punky guitar riff-driven tale of a disturbing, violent incident in a gig venue, with mentions of London's Vortex punk venue and, of course, Wardour Street itself. This, unsurprisingly, was a great live rabble-rouser. 

The Jam seemed to specialise in releasing absolute knockout stand-alone singles. One of these was the excellent Strange Town, a rock song full of many musical changes. Lyrically, Weller explores those feelings of being isolated in a crowd again - "I've got blisters on my feet, trying to find a friend on Oxford Street". Its 'b' side was the beguiling The Butterfly Collector, a semi-folky, semi-rock verse and chorus number that told a tale of a groupie. From Weller's personal experience, maybe? He said it was about a journalist, but somehow I don't believe him.

Another non-album 45 rpm twofer is up next in the rousing, slightly Who-ish youth anthem When You're Young, complete with a brief dub reggae-influenced bridge and it 'b' side, Smithers-Jones, Bruce Foxton's best song for The Jam. It is presented here in its superior "full band" version, as was the case on the single, as opposed to the Setting Sons album's somewhat wishy-washy orchestrated version. Lyrically, it covers the story of a long-serving office worker who is made redundant and is by far Bruce Foxton's best song that he composed for The Jam, although it is said that the middle "put on the kettle and make some tea" verse bit was written by Weller. Foxton's own father's redundancy has been noted as an inspiration for the song, but, in my opinion, that is only an initial starting point for the song, as I doubt Foxton's father would have worn a pin-stripe suit and tie and bought The Times. 

A magnificent, barnstorming Jam-anthem, The Eton Rifles takes the rousing feel to the max on ex-Prime Minister David Cameron’s (supposed) favourite song. “There’s a row going on down near Slough” indeed. At times Weller’s lyrics - about school vs. town/toffs and oiks in Eton and Slough - reflected the early twenty-something that he was ("some of the lads said they'll be back next week"), on other occasions they showed the insight and wisdom of a much older man ("what chance have you got against a tie and a crest"). It is fair to say, though, that these days I do not quite hang on his every word as I did as a similar-aged "fuck 'em all" youth back in 1979 (neither would Weller himself, I would proffer), but there is still considerable relevance to its beautifully rebellious overall tone. The song also remains a classic fist-pumper with its "hello hooray" chorus. Perfect for an audience full of lads. 

1979's Thick As Thieves is all pumping bass runs, thumping, resonant drums and choppy guitar, Weller spitting out heartfelt stuff about loyalty among friends on the way. It is possibly the best, most cohesively constructed track on the Setting Sons album. I love the drums, bass and vocals interaction on the song's final section that exemplifies just what a (cliché alert) tight band these three lads were - classic Jam. On first hearing this back in 1979 I was struck by just how far they had come in such a short time. This was certainly no punk thrash, despite its pace. There was a new subtlety there, both musically and lyrically. 

In contrast to Thick As Thieves, the fuzzy and dense guitar-driven grind of Private Hell is stark and somewhat depressing, concerning a depressed housewife, similar to the theme of The Rolling Stones' mid-sixties kitchen sink moaner Mother's Little Helper ("what a drag it is getting old"). Her grown-up children have no time in their busy lives for her anymore and the "man that she once loved is bald and fat, and seldom in, working late as usual...". 

A riffy and catchy, vaguely Stonesy number, Saturday's Kids was about teenagers who "work in Tesco's and Woolworth's" (as I did, well, Tescos at least). It is its album's most blatantly "rock" number, bringing to mind The Who of the mid-sixties or David Bowie's Diamond Dogs (the track). Some find it a throwaway number but I have always loved its ebullience. 

Burning Sky is included here in tinny demo form (a mistake in my view), so I will talk about the "proper" version that appears on Setting Sons. It is one of its album's most pertinent songs as Weller sings from the point of view of a condescending member of the group of friends ("how are things in your little world?") who doesn't want much to do with them any more - "business is thriving and I'm showing a profit...some bonds severed and others made".  Class, money and bourgeois aspiration are never far from the surface on this album, they are its cornerstones, forget any supposed concept, there are still hard-hitting themes a-plenty. Funnily enough, I feel the lyrics of this song could apply to Weller's attitude to Foxton and Buckler and his time with The Jam after splitting the group in 1982 - "...and I must admit we had a laugh but that's all it was and ever will be...". 

The Jam went straight to UK number one with Going Underground, a non-album single that rated about nuclear weapons and governmental financial wastage  and corruption in general. Personally, while enjoying its "up and at 'em" aggression and its worthy sentiments, I have always found it a bit clumsy, musically. I can't really express it in any more detail, though, so I won't try!

Its 'b' side saw The Jam's first foray into Revolver-era Beatles-style psychedelia on the dense, trippy, guitar-driven Dreams Of Children. 

Time for another straight in at number one tune. Start! was certainly a most odd, short song for a single - a number one at that - straight in - but it has a quirky, staccato appeal that has lasted. Just check out Bruce Foxton's huge bass sound on it too. The very essence of The Jam. The interplay between him and drummer Rick Buckler was integral to their sound. No fuss was made about the blatant Taxman purloining, other than by multiple reviewers, both at the time and subsequently. No legal sound was heard from George Harrison or "his people", surprisingly. To me, when I hear it, I just think "Start!", I don't automatically think "Taxman". It is a strong enough creation to stand on its own, what you give is what you get. Its 'b' side, Liza Radley, was a deliciously bucolic, acoustic piece of airy, hippy-trippiness that would have seemed incomprehensible as a Jam song in 1977. 

About the green one pound notes of the time, Pretty Green kicked things off on its album, late 1980's Sound Affects, with a robust minimalism as we all hurriedly put this on our turntables to hear Bruce Foxton’s rumbling bass let us know our favourite lads' band were back. It is a song with no obvious hook, yet at the same time it seems to have lots of them - witness as an example the live crowd's "oi" fist-pumping on the backbeat reaction to the bass intro. 

The gentle, simply-constructed but charming Monday saw Weller going all romantic, with his clumsy S.E. England accent to the fore - “rainclouds came to cloud my funder”. It's a "th", Paul, not an "f". No matter, though, it's a little-known treasure of a song, its attraction very much in its almost McCartney-esque simplicity. There is also something just so very Weller about it too. "I will never be embarrassed about love again", he sings, harking back to his own blushing reaction to English Rose, on the All Mod Cons album. 

That's Entertainment is a pure Jam classic, isn't it? Written by a semi-drunken Weller late one night in fifteen minutes, sung against a stark acoustic guitar backing, it is a slice of late 70s urban, dark, rain-soaked British life in three minutes. Magnificent stuff. An alternate version exists with Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler on bass and drums which is more powerful but lacks the plaintive bleakness of the original. I love the lines "cuddling a warm and smelling stale perfume" and "paint-splattered walls and the cry of a tomcat". That's just two of them, the song positively overflows with almost pictorial images, gushing out from Weller's beer-addled brain like rain down a drain. 

Man In The Corner Shop was another singalong semi-tragic Jam social conscience anthem, highlighting the perennial, age-old conflict between rich and poor and the latter's limited aspirations. There is a stark melodiousness and pathos to the song that is quite captivating. 

Boy About Town, a Small Faces-ish and poppily brassy offering, a catchy and enjoyable short song that highlights the band's new use of a brass section, something that would continue via the Absolute Beginners single to The Gift album.

Coming up are three non-album tracks - firstly, Funeral Pyre, a dense, linear, drum-powered single from the late spring/early summer of 1981 that never caught my fancy, particularly. I wanted to think it was great but had to admit it was rather dull. Even worse was the brassy, tinny Absolute Beginners from the autumn of 1981. Weller was trying to go sort of sixties soul but didn't quite get there. It carried a hippy-ish message of "love is in our hearts". Better, though, was its 'b' side, Tales From The Riverbank, a mid-paced and thoroughly appealing number full of rural images of the Surrey countryside Weller grew up near to. This period, however, had been a strange underwhelming one for the Jam.

Things would change soon. But we are reaching the beginning of the end for the band.

A Town Called Malice was, of course, a huge chart topping single. Its infectious beat slightly masked the fact that it was a dark song that dealt with the daily grind of urban working-class life in graphic, depressing detail. Other tracks with a similar bassline were Hall & Oates' Maneater, The Clash's Hitsville UK, Phil Collins' Two Hearts and the Motown original that inspired them all, Diana Ross & The Supremes' You Can't Hurry Love. 

The 'b' side to the A Town Called Malice single, Precious, was a worthy first stab at funk that left some early punky fans of the band a bit in two minds. Did they really like this funk stuff? Come on, not really. They would certainly have to learn to like it though, particularly if they stuck with Weller into The Style Council phase of his career. The band convincingly show off their funk chops on the extended instrumental outro. I like the track far more now than I did at the time. I remember with shame throwing a huge sulk at my girlfriend at the time because she preferred this to Malice. How could she, how bloody well could she? Because she was a groovy little funker who liked to dance her God-given ass off, that's why, and this suited her right down to the ground, just as Kid Creole & The Coconuts' Stool Pigeon did too at the same time. 

Ghosts was a short little beauty of a song. It shuffles rhythmically along, Weller's evocative vocal sung over a typically deep Foxton bassline, enhanced by the group's new brass section of Keith Thomas and Steve Nichol. there's something immediately appealing about the song, although it is far too short, but maybe therein lies its simple effectiveness.  

....so The Jam asked. A catchy little drum intro leads into this retro-sounding rant against "that Prince Philip" who "tells us we've got to work harder". Basically it is a succinct and melodic gripe against privilege and snobbery and failure to recognise the dignity of labour. 

Carnation was another of Weller's delightfully simple love songs, but one that this time was laced with a Lennon-esque cynicism - "if you gave me a fresh carnation, I would only crush its tender petals, with me you'll have no escape, and at the same time there'll be nowhere to settle...". Charming. It was a pointer to Weller's state of mind at the time, however, as he no doubt struggled with his personal and musical relationships. It was no surprise that he split with his girlfriend and The Jam around the same time.

We have now reached The Jam's death throes - no more albums. We got a lush, mightily different single in The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow), which had a real seventies soul vibe about it, followed by the band's final number one in the poppy Beat Surrender. The song had a strange chorus in that the lyrics went thus "come on boy, come on girl, succumb-er to the beat surrender" with "succumb" pronounced with a hard 'b' making it sound like "cucumber". Anyway, it was the Jam's last big hurrah.

The collection ends with a hint to Weller's future work with The Style Council on a brassy cover of Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up and the two genuine Jam deep cuts in Weller's wistful and atmospheric hymn to the high street in Shopping and the throwaway but strangely addictive Pop Art Poem. 

"If it don't work as least we still tried" said a confrontational Weller on In The City. Well, mate, it did work. Cheers!