— Josephine Collins
In an age when bands never really breakup anymore, it's almost impossible to imagine a group closing the curtain when things were only just getting started. The Housemartins had only been a name act for two years and it naturally caught a lot of people in UK pop off guard. And this was still a time when groups did decide to end things early. The Police were only just reaching a mass international audience when they went on permanent hiatus. Similarly, Wham! wereat the height of their powers when George Michael concluded that going solo was what was best for all concerned — except for Andrew Ridgley. Paul Weller took The Jam to pasture as he began to realise that his musical ambitions were beyond his bandmates.
Speaking of which, the last time this blog dealt with a farewell single was when we looked at "Beat Surrender" by "La confiture". It was Single of the Fortnight as much for its place as an event in British pop than for its quality. The Jam did many, many better singles in their day and their finale could well have been their weakest since the Bruce Foxton-penned "News of the World" (and that was done when they were still finding their feet) but try telling that to their still-loyal following: the group went out on a high note with an exciting, piano-driven rocker with some of Weller's patented sloganeering. It hit number one so who am I to question it?
The breakup of The Housemartins was caused a similar out-of-nowhere shock. They weren't huge like The Jam or The Police or Wham! but, then, they never gave themselves a chance to get that big either. They never did much in America (and sales of their records in New Zealand were never anything special) and weren't quite critical darlings the way The Smiths had been. (For all of its end of decade embrace of all things pop, Smash Hits got behind them more than the weekly music journals for students, venues one might assume would have been a more natural home for ver Hoosies) They were just two albums in and who's to say how much bigger they would have become?
Looking back to childhood is a popular subject for songwriters — and the results generally resonate with fans. "In My Life" was described by John Lennon as his first "serious" composition and reflective songs of this sort have since been taken up by many (including by former Housemartin Paul Heaton with "I'm Your No.1 Fan" from The Beautiful South's 0898 album). Others go for a more playful look back at younger days. Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" is filled with fond reminisences of youthful hijinks of hanging out with "hoodlum friends" and "playing doctor" while "Baggy Trousers" by Madness just lists off examples of "all the fun we had" in spite of some terrifying teachers. There's more than a little of this going on in "There Is Always Something There to Remind Me" too: "drawing mustaches and glasses on the ruling classes" does appeal to boys bored and bratty alike but there's also something less-than savoury going on. There's some real fear in some of Heaton's lyrics and they still manage to nag at him in adulthood.
A seemingly playful song like "Baggy Trousers" is able to hide its dark side underneath all that nutty boys fun but there's less of that here with the equally goofy Housemartins (their image as merry men of pop was something they all despised and it likely contributed to how The Beautiful South were received as confrontational and prickly just a year later). I listen to it and think of the many slights I have felt at the hands of teachers, students and even friends and how they still come back to me on occasion. I am also reminded of stupid things I said or did that still cause me to shudder. "I've more than you" — incidentally, I always thought it was "Our mother knew": I am always finding new mondegreens — is not a phrase that haunts me but I imagine it would stick with young people growing up in a class-based society like Britain. We finish school and get on with our lives but we never quite move on from those incidents that were traumatic.
While last singles like "Beat Surrender" and Wham!'s "Edge of Heaven" were both number ones, "There Is Always Something There to Remind Me" underperformed, only reaching a peak of 35 in May of 1988. This broke a nice streak of six top 20 hits on the bounce and it's bizarre that such a good single would fail where others had done well, especially as it was their swan song. A problem, however, was that the single wasn't brand new. It had been recorded several months' earlier for a John Peel session and buyers may have been turned off by the group calling it a day with some recycled product. (They admitted in Smash Hits that they weren't interested in prolonging the end by playing a farewell concert which stands to reason considering they couldn't even be arsed to record a proper final single) More importantly, there's little that's self-congratulatory to it nor does it bring the group to an end by bringing tears to the eyes of their fans. They went out the way they wanted to go out and didn't much care what anyone thought. Luckily, they left plenty behind to remind us of them.
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Also of some cop
Joyce Sims: "Walk Away"
"Come Into My Life" had been a hit single that made you wonder why there weren't more songs just like it. A rare groove with stylish soul and a club hit that managed to crossover to the UK charts. It's still a great song but why weren't there more? No one managed to emulate it and Joyce Sims herself struggled to match it. "Walk Away" is perfectly acceptable eighties' soul-pop but it suffers from being not up to scratch alongside its predecessor. Well sung by Sims and it's not a song I'd turn off though nor is it anything that commands the listener's attention. She never did another "Come Into My Life" but just be glad she pulled it off the once.
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