— Deborah Steels
A remarkably prescient — not to mention amusing — farewell to The Jam from Deborah Steels there. Deliberately confusing their name with preserves may be a bit too obvious (did others do so at the time? I wonder if the Melody Maker considered using the headline The Jam Are Toast at this point...probably didn't) but to do so in French looks ahead to Paul Weller's future organization The Style Council. An E.P. called The Style Council à Paris, debut album called Café Bleu (featuring "The Paris Match"), a song called "Down in the Seine" on their follow-up Our Favourite Shop — and all from a band that drank cappuccinos and wore espadrilles, which I believe are some sort of European footwear.
Even at a time when bands would still break up with some regularity (nowadays they go on "hiatus", a term I probably ought to loathe but for its sheer honesty: why bother with the farce of bringing a group to an end if they're only going to get back together again at some point?), Weller's decision to close up The Jam shop was stunning. The group was still in its imperial period, if only in the UK, and there didn't seem to be any indication that things were about to slow down either. But Weller had had enough and felt there nothing else they needed to accomplish. They were going out on top.
Except they were going out with something that is just sort of all right. While the call-to-arms choruses of "The Eton Rifles" and "Going Underground" still resonate, the attempt to emulate them on "Beat Surrender" falls flat. Weller's suggestion that we "succumb unto the beat surrender" (or "succumber to the beat surrender", it's impossible to tell) reads like he was struggling over quite what he had to say. (While I used to puzzle over 'succumber' being a possible portmanteau of succumb and cucumber, I'm now dismayed by the unnecessary redundancy — see what I did there? — of succumbing to a surrender) Of course it doesn't help that this is Paul Weller whose enunciation has never been muddier.
"Beat Surrender" is one of the hundred and forty-three songs that Andrew Collins has selected for his Circles of Life blog. Acknowledging that latter period Jam led into Paul Weller's next project the following year, he is emphatic that it's not a "Style Council number-in-waiting, a dry run, a handover of power" even if it's inevitable that we hear it that way now. Quite how well do the Greatest Hits of The Jam and Style Council segue into one another? Not as seamlessly as you might think. "Beat Surrender" closes out the first chapter still half-clinging a rebel-rousing spirit; "Speak Like a Child" kicks off the second with a looser, more joyous feel, that old curmudgeon Weller with a spring in his step. While ver Council would deliver far better piano-pounding pop works ("Shout to the Top", "Walls Come Tumbling Down") they had soul, jazz, hip-hop and folk to get out of their system first. (And even if "Beat Surrender" is a TSC song in waiting then why stop there? Shouldn't their entire output from "Absolute Beginners" on be one great, big Council-esque tease?)
Steels admits that she'd been expecting a "wrist-slashing epitaph" of a finale and is pleasantly surprised by how bouncy this is. This being Weller, however, you'd think she would know he wasn't going to touch the sentimentalist route. "And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end / That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names": yes, I'm sure he had in mind Jim Callaghan in '77, Mrs Thatcher in '82 and punk being the big thing then, new pop the big thing now: bullshit indeed. Still, I suspect he's taking a blowtorch to his own legacy here as well. You're favourite band just broke up? Big deal. Other groups will come along and it doesn't matter in the end. Feeling like all he's been all talk, no action ("All the things that I shout about (but never act upon) / All the courage and the dreams that I have (but seem to wait so long)"), Weller seems to be setting himself up for his headlong dive into the Red Wedge movement which dominated the next half-decade of his career.
There's a lot here to be said but the song itself is just okay. Weller has written far better songs throughout his lengthy career but this is the only one that could close out The Jam — and for that it probably deserves its SOTF. (Who says it has to go to the best tune?) Some singles are events and "Beat Surrender" works best as an event. "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" could have brought things to an end with a stronger song but one lacking a statement. Steels even brings up the value-for-money second disc featuring "passable covers of "Movin' on Up", "Stoned Out of My Mind" and "War"" (the latter of which, far from being passable, is plodding failure) as if to reaffirm its significance ("Not only a number one but a fab way of bowing out" she closes). Playing up to their last waltz, it entered the charts at number one, it was played live on The Tube and Top of the Pops and the band embarked on a farewell tour. La confiure est fini.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Trevor Herion: "Kiss of No Return"
There's no way this should work. The accordion is so quintessentially European that it could easily be mistaken for a parody, there's little beyond a bass and a trim synth in the way of backing and then there's the lothario baritone on top. Scott Walker managed to pull it off and so too does Trevor Herion. A doomed hero turns idealistic notions of love and the lush life into anti-romantic wistfulness which is magnificent. Steels is smitten and who can blame her? As an added bonus, this beautiful pop song is set in Paris, a city that would soon be familiar to a member of la confiture. A sure-fire SOTF at any other time when the biggest band in Britain wasn't blowing itself up.
Even at a time when bands would still break up with some regularity (nowadays they go on "hiatus", a term I probably ought to loathe but for its sheer honesty: why bother with the farce of bringing a group to an end if they're only going to get back together again at some point?), Weller's decision to close up The Jam shop was stunning. The group was still in its imperial period, if only in the UK, and there didn't seem to be any indication that things were about to slow down either. But Weller had had enough and felt there nothing else they needed to accomplish. They were going out on top.
Except they were going out with something that is just sort of all right. While the call-to-arms choruses of "The Eton Rifles" and "Going Underground" still resonate, the attempt to emulate them on "Beat Surrender" falls flat. Weller's suggestion that we "succumb unto the beat surrender" (or "succumber to the beat surrender", it's impossible to tell) reads like he was struggling over quite what he had to say. (While I used to puzzle over 'succumber' being a possible portmanteau of succumb and cucumber, I'm now dismayed by the unnecessary redundancy — see what I did there? — of succumbing to a surrender) Of course it doesn't help that this is Paul Weller whose enunciation has never been muddier.
"Beat Surrender" is one of the hundred and forty-three songs that Andrew Collins has selected for his Circles of Life blog. Acknowledging that latter period Jam led into Paul Weller's next project the following year, he is emphatic that it's not a "Style Council number-in-waiting, a dry run, a handover of power" even if it's inevitable that we hear it that way now. Quite how well do the Greatest Hits of The Jam and Style Council segue into one another? Not as seamlessly as you might think. "Beat Surrender" closes out the first chapter still half-clinging a rebel-rousing spirit; "Speak Like a Child" kicks off the second with a looser, more joyous feel, that old curmudgeon Weller with a spring in his step. While ver Council would deliver far better piano-pounding pop works ("Shout to the Top", "Walls Come Tumbling Down") they had soul, jazz, hip-hop and folk to get out of their system first. (And even if "Beat Surrender" is a TSC song in waiting then why stop there? Shouldn't their entire output from "Absolute Beginners" on be one great, big Council-esque tease?)
Steels admits that she'd been expecting a "wrist-slashing epitaph" of a finale and is pleasantly surprised by how bouncy this is. This being Weller, however, you'd think she would know he wasn't going to touch the sentimentalist route. "And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end / That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names": yes, I'm sure he had in mind Jim Callaghan in '77, Mrs Thatcher in '82 and punk being the big thing then, new pop the big thing now: bullshit indeed. Still, I suspect he's taking a blowtorch to his own legacy here as well. You're favourite band just broke up? Big deal. Other groups will come along and it doesn't matter in the end. Feeling like all he's been all talk, no action ("All the things that I shout about (but never act upon) / All the courage and the dreams that I have (but seem to wait so long)"), Weller seems to be setting himself up for his headlong dive into the Red Wedge movement which dominated the next half-decade of his career.
There's a lot here to be said but the song itself is just okay. Weller has written far better songs throughout his lengthy career but this is the only one that could close out The Jam — and for that it probably deserves its SOTF. (Who says it has to go to the best tune?) Some singles are events and "Beat Surrender" works best as an event. "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" could have brought things to an end with a stronger song but one lacking a statement. Steels even brings up the value-for-money second disc featuring "passable covers of "Movin' on Up", "Stoned Out of My Mind" and "War"" (the latter of which, far from being passable, is plodding failure) as if to reaffirm its significance ("Not only a number one but a fab way of bowing out" she closes). Playing up to their last waltz, it entered the charts at number one, it was played live on The Tube and Top of the Pops and the band embarked on a farewell tour. La confiure est fini.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Trevor Herion: "Kiss of No Return"
There's no way this should work. The accordion is so quintessentially European that it could easily be mistaken for a parody, there's little beyond a bass and a trim synth in the way of backing and then there's the lothario baritone on top. Scott Walker managed to pull it off and so too does Trevor Herion. A doomed hero turns idealistic notions of love and the lush life into anti-romantic wistfulness which is magnificent. Steels is smitten and who can blame her? As an added bonus, this beautiful pop song is set in Paris, a city that would soon be familiar to a member of la confiture. A sure-fire SOTF at any other time when the biggest band in Britain wasn't blowing itself up.
