![]() ![]() Bands like The Streets have taken that subject of ordinary life and Saturday-night drinking and turned it into careers. Now me and Rick are playing The Jam’s songs again, it’s one of the most popular at gigs, because people still relate to it, 26 years on. He had a sense of frustration, and thought, ‘There must be more to life than this’. It’s an opinion on a society that he was part of at the time and felt bored with. A lot of great songs like that come straight away. He lived in Pimlico at the time, and he wrote it after a bit of a session in a pub. Lyrically it’s great observation from Paul. Written – so legend has it – in 10 minutes flat during a lager-fuelled burst of creativity at Weller’s Pimlico flat, “That’s Entertainment” provides a beautifully desolate, scrapbook of surburban lives played out “feeding ducks in the park and wishing you were far away” to rival Ray Davies at his peak.īruce Foxton, The Jam: It’s such a simple song. Blame it on the occasion, but I totally blanked on the lyrics in the second verse, so I cranked up the guitar and did “In The City” instead! When I was on tour a few years ago I started playing it in the encore at Guilford Civic Hall, the scene of The Jam’s legendary homecoming gig. Another appealing fact about it is it’s also one of the very few songs that Paul has written that I can play on the guitar myself. Those sound effects, the lapping water and then the ships horn before the first notes are essential parts of the track.Īs a teenager, it became the serial theme song for every girl I got a crush on. It was proof there was some frailty behind all that wonderful anger. For many Jam fans, it was the song that proved he was no one-trick pony. Arriving in the jagged splendour of all the other tracks on All Mod Cons, its tranquility is all the more affecting. It’s effortlessly beautiful in exactly the same way as “Blackbird” or “In My Life”. ![]() ![]() The exhibition Town called Malice, Stanley Road Revisited: Photographs of Paul Weller is on until 25 September.Phill Jupitus, comedian: Of all the great early songs Weller wrote for The Jam, this is the one that elevated him up to a level of songcraft to match The Beatles.
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