squeeze singles 45's and under

If I Didn't Love You, obviously - absolute miracle of songwriting. Followed by Goodbye Girl and then Up The Junction. Seminal collection from start to finish though; a massive part of my childhood. Greenwich 4eva!

Another Nail in My Heart over and over and over

I have to say "Goodbye Girl" just for that wonked out synth bit that goes on in the background. And the line "say hello, goodbye girl" which is always stuck in my head.

Labelled With Love ammmmiiiiiright

i love the fakeout where they make it seem like they're gonna launch into the chorus after the first verse "if iiiii.... didn't loveyou i'd hate you"

melody in goodbye girl reminds me of vampire weekend

whaaaa

you're comparing bubblegum britpop psychedelia to vampire weekend

or is that what vampire weekend is lol

only songs i don't really love are cool for cats, black coffee in bed, annie get your gun. tempted is ok but it's too long i'm always like wtf youre still doing this

just something about the melody, it's very similar. there's a song on here where the vocals sound like pheonix, too

vw are just an indie pop band, which is what squeeze would be called if they were a band now

For me this is Another Nail vs. Is That Love, with Up the Junction not far behind. I think Another Nails it for the guitar solo

probably true but I feel Squeeze are worthy of a different genre appellation

xp

is that love is the pheonix-ey one

pub pop?

there's a definite fall-off towards the end but there is still something *memorable*, at least, about all those songs, even if they sacrifice a bit of terseness & tricksiness for what I'd hesitantly describe as 'epic cheese'

some of these sound like demos for songs they intended to be written for other artists, like the little synth beat that starts off "take me i'm yours." very modest and cute

only songs i don't really love are cool for cats, black coffee in bed, annie get your gun

this is crazy talk, you are a crazy person

Up The Junction, Black Coffee, Goodbye Girl, Pulling Mussels, Another Nail . . . I can't choose!

i was surprised when i found out cool for cats was their biggest hit... i wish i liked it but i really don't

even if they sacrifice a bit of terseness & tricksiness for what I'd hesitantly describe as 'epic cheese'

I think 'epic cheese' era Squeeze might be my favourite, there's nothing here I dislike but Annie Get Your Gun is easily the one I adore most.

I think Cool For Cats is what they're best remembered for in the UK? I might just think this because it was used on a milk advert when I was about 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tLbF2uecQY

love the guitar in "Is That Love"

cool for cats has a brilliant middle-eight, I'll say that

what's the lyric that's like "and in the Bar, the Pianoman's found ... (???)"

I started listening to my parents copy of Squeeze's greatest hits because of that advert and all the 'give the dog a bone' stuff went completely over my head for years.

what's the lyric that's like "and in the Bar, the Pianoman's found ... (???)"
Another nail for my heart

ha

Was Labelled with Love not on this? It was they're third big hit in the UK along with Cats and Up The Junction.

Did the US version substitute If I Didn't Love You?

their, not they're

yeah I've seen a version without If I Didn't Love You, clearly because the song was too clever by half for the dumb American audience (record label logic yo)

I thought Labelled with Love was boring and used to skip it when I was a kid, but I love it now, especially the way Tilbrook delivers 'proud of her features, she kept herself pretty'. I think it was maybe to subtle for me as a child? Also, I now have more experience of living by myself and drinking alone during the daytime.

it's not on my version

It's good on this kind of quiet, low key but desperate struggle to maintain some sort of bearable way to live? The repeated 'winds up the clock and knocks dust off the shelf' is great as well, this feeling that you spend all your time cleaning or trying to organise things but somehow everything is still a mess and your attempts are ineffectual- that 'where does all the time go' aspect of all day drinking.

Pulling Muscles. But, damn,what great set of tunes.

^Auto correct Mussels.

Yes, the UK-only single "Labelled with Love" was replaced in the States by the US-only single "If I Didn't Love You." "If I" was a big song for them over here.

I love the synth sound on Slap And Tickle so much, might vote for it on that alone. Mussels, Nail, Junction, If I Didn't Love You are also rock solid

Think I'll go with Pulling Mussels (From the Shell) as that guitar solo gets me every time. Is That Love and Tempted would be up there too.

I was listening to a bunch of Squeeze albums for the first time last month. I feel like they never made a really great album. Cool For Cats, Argebargy and East Side Story are all good but do have plenty of filler. The first album was really appalling and had some songs I'm sure they want to forget they ever wrote http://www.metrolyrics.com/out-of-control-lyrics-squeeze.html I gave up after Sweets From a Stranger.

I saw some posts recommending some of the '90s Squeeze albums while googling around but then saw they were all from Geir lol

the first album is kinda shitty but "Take Me I'm Yours" obv classic and the story that John Cale kept trying to get them to title it Gay Guys is also classic in its own way

Goodbye girl. Album is so good.

'Is That Love?'

I used to see the video for "Another Nail in My Heart" all the time when I was a kid on a show called Video Concert Hall. Pre-MTV syndicated show that was on every afternoon and used to show a lot of the same videos all the time. This is like 1980 or so. It was one of those records where the sound really got to me. Didn't sound like anything else.

But I'll vote for "Up the Junction" because the lyrics end up putting it in its own class, I think.

OK, it wasn't a syndicated show; it was on the USA Network:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Concert_Hall

tempted to be the square that votes for "Tempted" but I love "Pulling Mussels" too much.

I love how different the first album sounds to anything else they ever did! It reminds me of the Stranglers, it's this kind of grotty/shabby creepiness. I like to imagine a parallel world where they carried on in this vein for a bit longer.

Regarding the 90s albums, I think Play is great, I think it may be my favourite after East Side Story

I'll never get bored of hearing the story about Jools Holland writing "I am a cunt" on John Cale's forehead after he passed out during the first album sessions.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/UK_Squeeze_album_cover.jpg

First album is a good example of a record cover that looks exactly the way the music sounds, I think? All that masturbatory tense frustrated pounding away at one note over and over, kind of macho and seedy?

Take Me I'm Yours.

East Side Story, Some Fantastic Place, Cool For Cats, Argybargy, Frank, Play - all classic albums

Even their lesser albums have at least one sterling track on 'em... 'King George Street'?

Even 'Domino' has the title track

tempted by the fruit of your mother

I'd love a Spotify playlist of their their post-Cosi Fan Tutti stuff.

http://open.spotify.com/user/themartialarts/playlist/6cYOeS3SuFrlFZ7Xeui0IZ

"Up the Junction" is just shocking. Just these simple chords and the words start in on you right away and never stop. And the fact that it's phrased in these classicist poetic tropes feels like something aimed at the stratosphere:

Out on a windy common
That night I ain't forgotten
Where she dealt out the rations
With some or other passions
I said, "You are a lady"
"Perhaps," she said, "I may be"

said before; it plays the most exquisite games with narrative progression & time-structure. incredible lyric

I tried to write something once about the narrative progression/time-structure and shifting perspective of King George Street- how the first verse describes them leaving their home from a child's pov, or someone recalling childhood memories from adulthood and then it's not clear if the second verse is a flashback to a scene that took place before the one described in the first verse or if it is the person who was the child in the first verse imagining a scene they were not present for (or only half heard) that took place before the first verse, or if the child from the first verse has grown up to be the husband in the second verse, the same misery repeating itself in another generation (the way the song ends, with the nursery rhyme/music box refrain fading into the music from a pub machine is a kind of black joke indicating this maybe?)
I can't work it out but there is a definite sense that no-one is progressing or escaping?

The lyrics seem to indicate that King George Street is both where they're leaving in the first verse 'heading for her mother's on another estate', but also where they arrive and where the father comes the next evening?

jesus christ, there are some painful covers of Up The Junction on youtube, this one makes the Lily Allen, Travis and Goldfinger versions seem tolerable by comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CtudLBWECk

*crosses chest*

it's worth listening to see how they interpret the 'alone here in the kitchen' final verse.

no idea what to vote for. been listening to this 3 - 4 times a day

wikipedia says the Decemberists have also covered Up The Junction 'during numerous live performances', but it doesn't seem to have made it onto youtube.

If I Didn't Love You, obviously - absolute miracle of songwriting.

Regarding the 90s albums, I think Play is great, I think it may be my favourite after East Side Story

YES! Play is a fantastic album. It took some time to sink in--there aren't as many "Pulling Mussels/Is That Love?"-style fast pop songs as on other albums, and the opening cut (and first single) "Satisfied" is my least favorite. But most of the songs are great and Tilbrook sings the hell out of them.

I saw some posts recommending some of the '90s Squeeze albums while googling around but then saw they were all from Geir lol

Not all of them!

From the ILM Fan-made BEST OF/ANTHOLOGY Compilation project thread, here's my contribution:

Squeeze Sings Trini Lopez and Nana Mouskouri: More Songs for People Who Already Own "Singles: 45s and Under"

Disc One
1. Back Track (Packet of 3 EP, 1977)
2. Remember What (Squeeze, 1978)
3. Bang Bang (Squeeze, 1978)
4. Revue (Cool for Cats, 1979)
5. It's Not Cricket (Cool for Cats, 1979)
6. Vicky Verky (Argybargy, 1980)
7. Separate Beds (Argybargy, 1980)
8. Someone Else's Heart (East Side Story, 1981)
9. Piccadilly (East Side Story, 1981)
10. In Quintessence (East Side Story, 1981)
11. Messed Around (East Side Story, 1981)
12. Yap Yap Yap ("Messed Around" B-Side, 1981)
13. When the Hangover Strikes (Sweets from a Stranger, 1982)
14. Points of View (Sweets from a Stranger, 1982)
15. I Can't Hold On (Sweets from a Stranger, 1982)
16. Picking Up the Pieces (Difford and Tilbrook, 1984)
17. Hope Fell Down (Difford and Tilbrook, 1984)
18. Hits of the Year (Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, 1985)
19. I Learnt How to Pray (Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, 1985)
20. What Have They Done ("When the Wind Blows" Soundtrack, 1986)
21. Striking Matches (Babylon and On, 1987)
22. Footprints (Babylon and On, 1987)
23. Hourglass (Babylon and On, 1987)
24. Trust Me to Open My Mouth (Babylon and On, 1987)

Disc Two
1. She Doesn't Have to Shave (Frank, 1989)
2. Rose I Said (Frank, 1989)
3. Slaughtered Gutted and Heartbroken (Frank, 1989)
4. Melody Motel (Frank, 1989)
5. Sunday Street (Play, 1991)
6. Walk a Straight Line (Play, 1991)
7. Letting Go (Play, 1991)
8. Crying in My Sleep (Play, 1991)
9. Maidstone ("Sunday Street" B-Side, 1991)
10. The Truth (Play, 1991)
11. Third Rail (Some Fantastic Place, 1993)
12. Everything in the World (Some Fantastic Place, 1993)
13. Images of Loving (Some Fantastic Place, 1993)
14. Some Fantastic Place (Some Fantastic Place, 1993)
15. Walk Away (Ridiculous, 1995)
16. Electric Trains (Ridiculous, 1995)
17. Daphne (Ridiculous, 1995)
18. Sleeping with a Friend (Domino, 1998)
19. This Road ("The Truth About Cats and Dogs" Soundtrack, 1996)

One of the best best-of albums ever. Why the hell haven't I ripped this to my iTunes yet?

thanks HL

Huh I always though Up The Junction was a straightforward linear narrative, never occurred to me that it could be otherwise. Admittedly I glossed over a bunch details.

O oh wait evidently some xposts upthread

She gave birth to a daughter
Within a year, a walker

A year goes by in an instant.

is that really so formibable / innovative? would be more impressed with a song whose narratives spans 3 minutes, in real time

it's more...take the offhanded way his relationship ends & the ending itself is spoken as if a long-bygone event within the context of the linear narrative. the narrative is delivered from a present-tense perspective even as it tears across time and space

I've always had a soft spot for "Last Time Forever" - what a wackadoo comeback track.

Voted "Take Me I'm Yours"

"up the junction" gets my vote for reasons noted above - just devastating. (also used to incredible effect during the midseason finale of breaking bad - when has anything good ever happened to anyone while "up the junction" was playing?)

i know it's blasphemy but i actually prefer the goldfinger 'up the junction' power pop v. add melodic bass, 2nd octave climax etc...

the middle 8 in up the junction is just so ingenious, taking the key down from E to D for the verse where she gives birth

Love Up The Junction for line "I'd beg for some forgiveness / but begging's not my business". Still voted for 'Is That Love' though.

Know this album because I bought it on a whim at a Goodwill

I don't really buy records from thrift shops

But wow what a good thing to have bought

For me it's Another Nail vs. Annie Get Your Gun

Voted for Another Nail

The Truck Driver Gear Change at the end of Annie Get Your Gun is so good though

Because it sounds like the backing vocals have run out of room

They can't go any higher

But they do, like when Lando tells Han to shoot a little higher in Return of the Jedi

Man that was a good scene

Great movie

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the lyrics in take me i'm yours are amazing, "i see your preparations, invite me first to feast", "recorded here on paper, my chills and thrills-and spills"

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Some votes for each of the tracks...

"If I" was a big song for them over here.

― Hideous Lump, Friday, December 6, 2013 3:56 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, it was only five inches.

(special edition format funnies)

No zeros, I <3 u ILX