From England’s green and pleasant land, an unprepossessing and pleasant band—Squeeze aren’t out to change your life, just to provide you with friendly and understated pop gems, domestic and romantic tableaux of the sort that won me over even when I was at the height of my Anglophobia.
The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau more or less summed up my sentiments when he wrote of Squeeze’s 1982 compilation Singles – 45’s and Under, “They’re so principled in their unpretension, so obsessed with the telling detail, that their lesser moments are passively minuscule—not unfine when you squint at them, but all too easy to overlook.”
People are always talking about Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook as if they’re the McCartney and Lennon of the early eighties, but back me against a wall and the only Squeeze songs I can name are “Tempted,” “Pulling Mussels from the Shell,” and “Black Coffee in Bed.” And I considered myself a fan. Not a huge fan, but I saw them live on a pier in New York City once. Pity I was three sheets to the wind and almost fell off the pier.
But just because I don’t remember most of the songs on Singles – 45’s and Under doesn’t mean they’re not worth hearing. There’s a real warmth to Squeeze’s music, even if Difford and Tilbrook are rather cool customers. They’re Apollonian formalists, and pure popcraft is their strong suit. I’m talking immaculately put-together songs with smart words about heartbreak and occasionally irresistible melodies.
Singles – 45’s and Under collects most but not quite all of the singles Squeeze released between 1978 to 1982. And what strikes me is that while Squeeze has been called the consummate singles band, that hardly translated into chart success. Only three of their singles cracked the top ten in the UK, and they never scored a number one. Here in America, they may as well have never happened.
Maybe Difford and Tilbrook were too smart for their own good. Elvis Costello is a smart guy, too, and he’s only scored three top ten hits over the course of his long career as well. And when you look at the singles on the Squeeze compilation, the chart positions of some of their songs are inexplicable. “Tempted” didn’t crack the UK top forty. Ditto “Black Coffee in Bed” or “Pulling Mussels from the Shell.” What’s wrong with the English? Do they have ears?
My ears don’t much like opener “Take Me I’m Yours.” It’s a synthpop number that has way too much in common with Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” for its own good. Trouble is it isn’t as catchy as the Eurythmics’ song, and the vocals lack the warm touch that make the best Squeeze songs so personable. “Goodbye Girl” is more like it—it tells a good story, boasts a danceable beat and a fetching melody, and while it still has a bit too much synthpop in its DNA, it manages to exude the human touch that characterizes all of their best songs.
On “Cool for Cats” I begin to hear that classic Squeeze sound. The lyrics take you from the Wild West to gangland England to the pub and then on to the disco, where Difford—who didn’t handle lead vocals very often—takes a girl home and is invited in and gives her dog a bone. The song’s uptempo, Difford’s got this wonderfully thick accent, and the whole thing’s a very likeable lark, right down to the instrumental interlude where things get a bit weird. I don’t remember hearing it back in the day, but then I think I only owned one of their albums.
“Up the Junction” is Squeeze at their best, an infectious slice of domestic life and strife on which Tilbrook is downright charming, and the melody is happy-go-lucky. Boy meets girl, they live in a smelly flat, she gets pregnant and has a kid, he drinks too much, and she splits, and he ends up in the kitchen alone, knowing he’s blown it. Or has he? Childbirth has left his girl looking just like her mother, and when he sings, “No more nights by the telly/No more nights nappies smelly” you have to wonder what he’s moping about. He should be dancing! Which is what makes the song so great.
The story line of “Slap and Tickle” (seduction that never seems to go anywhere) wins me over from the opening lines (“She was frigid like a bible/When she met her boyfriend Michael”) and I like the rapid sweep of things (Tilbrook’s a singer in a hurry) but the song’s electronic feel leaves me cold because, well, it’s as frigid as a bible—a synthpop vibe isn’t what I look to Squeeze for.
“Another Nail in My Heart” has dance appeal and a swell melody and charm to boot, so why don’t I love it? Perhaps because it’s not as charming as it thinks it is, and besides, it lacks the duo’s usual lyrical smarts. That repeated “And in the bar the piano man’s found/Another nail for my heart” is nice, but the song lacks the sort of fine detail that pulls me in. Keeping it simple simply isn’t a winning strategy for these smarties. A good song, but not a great one.
Now, “Pulling Mussels from the Shell,” there’s a great one. It boasts perhaps the best melody the duo ever wrote, has a simply divine chorus and some really nice piano, and listening to it I realize I never really listened to the words because I didn’t have to—the melody does all the heavy lifting and then some, and the title is the only thing I ever sang along with.
“If I Didn’t Love You” is domestic perfection, with a bit of ambiguity—”If I didn’t love you I’d hate you” is a wonderful way to open a song. Lines like “Singles remind me of kisses/Albums remind me of plans” pull you in, but not as much as that semi-stuttered “If I, If I, If I, If I, If I, If I, If I, If I.” The song’s slick New Wave sweep carries you along, and the vocals are warm and smooth as a perfectly made bed.
“Is That Love” is Beatleseque and very, very uptempo, very, very ambiguous too, but it doesn’t sink its teeth in me and refuse to let me go the way the homey but not homely “Tempted” does. Domesticity is Squeeze’s forte, and in this case, they throw in some betrayal. The mix of voices—keyboardist Paul Carrack sings most of it, with Tilbrook and Difford lending a hand on the second verse. It’s a midtempo, blue-eyed soul number with great organ, and the chorus is sublime. Great backing vocals too—they lend it a nice Temptations feel.
“Black Coffee in Bed” introduces itself with a slinky organ line, then Tilbrook comes in singing, “There’s a stain on my notebook where your coffee cup was/And there’s ash in the pages, now I’ve got myself lost” and after that it’s all pain and loss, and somehow the melody manages to sound upbeat and downbeat at the same time. How do you do that? And how perfect are those soulful backing vocals? In the whole wide world of music coming out of the United Kingdom at the time, why did this one capture my heart? I think the answer, and it’s a simple one, is its humanity and scale. In its own way, it’s as miniaturist as a Kinks song, and that’s no small praise.
Closer “Annie Get Your Gun,” which was released as a single ahead of the album, only wins me over on the chorus—it’s a fast mover, but the melody of the verses doesn’t seize me by the lapels even if the lyrics intrigue me. Is it about going to number one with a bullet? Or is Annie in real danger? Lines about her going electric make me wonder, but not as much as totally ambiguous lines like:
“Don’t pull that trigger
(Annie get your gun)
Don’t shoot that singer
(You’re shooting number one)
Number one, number one.”
I can’t say Squeeze changed my life or even rocked my world—in fact I don’t remember ever putting a Squeeze record on the stereo. But what I do remember is enjoying their music when it was on the stereo. I found their modest ambitions altogether likeable, their quotidian concerns so human-sized, and their melodies so low-key beguiling that I didn’t even think of them as rock stars, and that made them as lovable to me as a band that couldn’t have been any more different, the Minutemen.
Eating mussels, drinking black coffee in bed, dirty nappies—human concerns all by one of the most human bands of their time. I think of them, and what comes to mind is a coffee stain on a notebook. You can’t get any more humble than that.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
