Chic – Good Times
Because we don’t have a trio of backing girls, we don’t do this one live generally. But this is a really great song to jam to.
I wondered why for a long time. I think, it containing perhaps the greatest bass line ever written helps. But it turns out it’s probably because the whole song is essentially a vamp.
And it’s a Dorian mode vamp at that (i-IV or in this case i7-IV7), making it quite unusual. Stevie wonder wrote a few things that use the Dorian vamp, and so have a few other people. But ‘Good Times’ is just where the idea peaks I think.
What makes Chick ‘funk’ and not ‘acid-jazz’ is really these ideas. Chic could do straight ii-V-I vamps with ‘style’ but they don’t.
Anyway I just thought I’d mention this song, because it’s just one of the greatest things ever written. You can really picture Nile and Bernard sat in a dark room, just jamming this thing for days on end.
Town Called Malice – The Jam
Some time in the mid 80’s there was a Wednesday night ‘roller disco’. For teenagers in the region it was absolutely the place to be.
There I was, with my long hair trailing behind me (usually in front of me because skating forwards is lame), circling the badminton courts with half of Howden Clough. And what did they play, every week without fail? You guessed it.
Town Called Malice is a bitter little song about run down industrial towns and poverty. But hey, what a tune!
Of all the songs we cover, this one is pretty much guaranteed to get people up on their feet.
Lyrics
It’s a lamentation, but not like ‘A Design For Life’, it’s more urban.
It’s not about how capitalism so idiotically wastes resources, or about the death of childhood optimism in the face of a future reality. It’s about the waste of the present, the descent from a possibly better past in which working people at least had dignity if little else.
Anyway, my favourite bit is : Playground kids and creaking swings
Lost laughter in the breeze.
I just like the image, and that bit is great to sing.
Music
You do, need a keyboard to cover this, let nobody tell you otherwise.
Paul Weller has a deceptively high voice, parts of this a very hard to reach. The quitar part is relatively easy for a Jam song, but I don’t play it right at all. The key to this is to maintain the sort of ‘iggy pop : lust for life’ groove.
The song is in D
Verses go: iii ii, iii ii, IV iii, V, I
Chorus repeats : I, Isus4
Middle 8 (whole streets belief) goes : vii (should be diminished but is minor), vi, vii, vi, V, I
Gold – Spandau Ballet
There will be arguments, violent disagreement and possibly even fisticuffs. But this is THE ‘New Romantic’ song of the 80’s. Don’t argue, I was there, it happened. I speak only the truth.
I’ve written so much about this song on other websites that when I come to write about it now I’m bereft of motivation. I’ve said everything that needs saying about this song in the past. Let’s just say that it’s a great song. Unlike everything Oasis ever did (yeah, I said it.), this song will actually be rediscovered by successive generations well into posterity.
Lyrics
The door opens and in steps the writer of the song, followed by an attractive young lady (we presume). She stands tentatively in the doorway as the writer feigns a quick search of his house.
Oh I’m sorry you came all this way and I can’t find them, I left them here I could have sworn it!.
But since you’re here have a seat. Sorry the chairs are all worn (warm?) (you know because so many other young ladies have sat in them).
Do you fancy a drink?
I think the song really describes how the writer feels about himself.
The young lady is ‘just another play for today’, but he, he is Don Juan. He is gold. This latest of adventures is another feather in his cap. She’s a lucky girl!
Puzzlingly the song goes on to suggest that the lady is not just a notch in the bed post, but rather the focus of a 2 year long pursuit culminating in the author falling in love with the girl in question (now he’s in love with you, he’s in love with you).
Anyway.. the words are interesting enough to withstand some cursory thought, which is more than can be said for the majority of pop songs.
Standout lyric : These are my salad days slowly being eaten away.
Salad days is a Shakespearean term for ‘innocence’. Salad is edible and she’s clearly eating it somehow, I wonder how?
Music
This song is a work of borderline genius.
It contains a sax solo so what key is it in? That’s right, Bb minor!
So Gbm is : i:Bbm, iidim:Cdim, III:Db, iv:Ebm, v:Fm, VI:Gb, VII:Ab
Whoever wrote this has a jazz background, there are almost no ‘straight’ chords in the song, most of them are 7ths or have some added note or other.
The verses hover mainly around the root chord Bbm7 sort of going :
i7, v7, iv7
This gives the first part of the verses a sort of grounded feeling.
Then the song lifts mid verse hover around Gbmaj7 alternating with Db, leaving you sort of floating and waiting to bump back to Bb which is done with a little clever descending turnaround (think Kiss Me by Sixpence non-the-richer) – Db, Dbmaj7, Db7, Gb (Ab>>Bbm)
That turnaround is known in jazz rather disparagingly a ‘line cliche’.
To create a descending feeling we move one single note (on the G string) chromatically downwards from Db to B, the final chord (a 7 chord) then has a strong pull to Gb.
The chorus’s echo this line cliche but in reverse, stopping half way through so it doesn’t become ‘cheesy’ and instead inserting a little piano melody to finish the ascending run. But again they seem to hover mainly around Bbm. The sax solo is done over the single Bbm chord.
There’s a LOT of production in the studio version of this song. Piano runs, exotic percussion lines, chimes, reverb effects. It’s very ‘full’. You would imagine this would make it a very difficult song to do live with 4 people, but the song is so well written that once the audience has tuned into what you’re doing, it absolutely doesn’t matter if you don’t have a bongo player.
West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys
Yes I know! Not seemingly a natural fit for The Sturgeons right?
I remember listening to this on the radio one day and thinking : we could knock that out in one rehearsal.
I took it to band and they all looked at me like I was having some sort of episode, but within 15 minutes we were all over it, and within an hour we’d got all the way through. That doesn’t happen often.
Lyrics
I hear this song as a bittersweet homage to inner city living, particularly London.
I’m really a towny myself. I like the smell of fresh rain on concrete, it smells like… home.
They say that Neil Tennant was inspired by Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message”. If you haven’t heard that song, stop what you’re doing, and listen to it.
But while ‘The Message’ paints a pretty clear picture, it’s not one I recognise. It smells like a run down community centre full of kids with no hope. I’m more a ‘baggy trousers’ kind of kid. There is hope, and there is joy, we’re British you know.
It might be the video for West End Girls, but the song leaves me with the image of the inside of a quiet motorway cafe at 3AM. Brightly lit, but empty.
We imagine the West End Girl’s in their Jimmy Choo’s. Shoulder straps deliberately slipping as they try to catch the eye of one of the East End boys. In her mind she hears the delicious admonishment of her city banking parents and plays it over, along with the vivid visions of his rough hands on her thighs. Tonights the night Sophia, I’m on a mission, hold my clutch bag.
He on the other hand is too dumb to know that he could play this well, and his whole life might be different. Instead he just wonders whether she’s had a Brazilian or not because you know what they say about posh girls? They go like a Subaru Impreza!
The stand out lyric for me is ‘from Lake Geneva to The Finland Station’.
The Finland Station is a bit like Checkpoint Charlie. A place that stood on the border in the cold war. Spies and double agents were smuggled through there at the dead of night in the boots of rusty Tranbant’s. It adds a nice Le Carre glamour to the whole thing.
Neil Tennant sort of does a camp William Shatner on this. But it’s actually deceptively difficult to do. He is actually singing it. Sort of how Morrisey is hard to copy. It’s a certain style that you don’t fully appreciate until you try and do it yourself.
Not a bit of vibrato in his voice in the whole song, just ‘character’.
Music
Not much to see here.. that’s why we knocked it out in one rehearsal.
That’s not a disparaging remark really.. I mean I prefer chip butties to Coq-Au-Vin.
The song itself is in Em, which is strange for a keyboard song.
But this being the case, it gives me a great opportunity to throw in a completely improvised guitar solo. Because I mean you know, it’s E minor.
It’s disguised nicely with minor 7ths and what not, but it’s basically a i, iv, v. There’s a little turnaround bit (west.. end.. girls) which is kind of chromatic, but that’s it.
One nice bit to mention is the backing vocals that have been put in the distance with reverb. I think she’s singing ‘how much do you need’, but there’s a bit that I always thought was question and answer.
Neil Tennant sings “Which do you choose
A hard or soft option” and I always thought the backing singer was saying ‘Hard Option Please!’.. Shows where my mind goes.
Parklife – Blur
Like Girls And Boys, this song formed the backdrop to my uni days.
Many a happy drunken evening spent ‘cockneying it up’ in the student union.
Everyone plays this wrong on the guitar, just playing a barre chord at the 12th fret. It’s even easier than that.. you just move an open E chord up 12 frets.
From a guitar perspective though, it’s what goes on low in the mix that makes this song pretty tricky to get right.
When it comes to the Oasis vs Blur war.. I’m sorry but Oasis can just get in the sea.
Lyrics
Like Girls And Boys, Damon appears to be making a fairly disparaging comment about the lives of ‘average’ people, who go hand in hand through their mundane lives.
I read somewhere that Damon was commenting on the Americanisation of British culture, but I just can’t square that with the lyrics.
But you know I might be reading too much into it because ultimately the lyrics, especially when chearfully cockneyed up by Phil Daniels, are pretty amusing. They tend to make you smile even if you don’t quite know why.
For me the standout lyric, the one which I really try and “ditney” up is : RUDELY awaken by the dustman.
Music
The descending chord progression (all go hand in hand) is just lovely, it reminds me of Merry Xmax Everybody by Slade. It just has a gorgeous pull to it. Topped off with the little 7th arpeggio that leads back into the E major chord of the verses.
The Descending progression goes : G, D(F# bass), Em, D, C, CM7(B bass), A sus 4, A
Running out of time again.
The song itself is in E.. Proper key for a guitar based song that is.
The song it too free form for me to be bothered trying to work out what the progression is, so there.
Girls And Boys – Blur
We tried this one several years back, but we just weren’t up to it at the time. I was trying to do the ‘flanger’ bit by using the left hand harmonics technique. That is, trilling on fret near the nut whilst sliding your right hand down the string. It never sounded right, and it was too complicated to do whilst singing. This time around, I just used a flanger, and also put a bit of effort into finding easy ways to play the song.
I have some great memories associated with this song, including actually being in Greece, on holiday, in the 90’s.
As you can imagine, the song was a big favourite with club owners in Greece at the time. Many a drunken evening in Faliraki were had with this as the musical backdrop. I still have visions of the Swedish twins… Sadly they were bouncers in one of the clubs… Both of them clearly descendants of Odin himself.
Also, at the time this was released I was deep into my degree at uni.
At the time this seemed just like a quirky pop song and I never really paid it much attention beyond being happy to drink along with it.
But it turns out, having covered it, that this is a classy, upbeat melodic rock song.
I’ve said it many times.. Any song that has little to no obvious production additions on the original, is a great candidate for a covers band.
Lyrics
I’m not sure if this is supposed to come off as a little condescending, or a celebration of all things Aiya Napa.
I think on balance it’s probably a slightly salty assessment of British booze and sex tourism. Perhaps Damon had a bad experience on Cos on year?
I’m a bit old for it now, but frankly I think a holiday to somewhere like Faliraki with your mates, is a right of passage for any young British adult. Anyway…
The notable lyric for me is the German bit : Du bit sehr schon
I think Damon was searching around for something that scanned neatly and just couldn’t find anything in English? But there’s another possibility.
Often in these places where Brits go to booze, there’s a contingent of Germans who just booked in the wrong week, and ended up mixing it with a bunch of 20 somethings from Nuneaton.
When I’m singing this line (which I pronounce dubby session) I like to imagine a young sun burnt Brit testing his skills on a bemused German girl.
And this is why the meaning of the whole song is confusing, because if Damon is hinting that kids on these holidays are low brow (1,2,3,4, 5 fingers etc.) then the chances of one of them knowing a chat up line in German is slim.
Perhaps it’s the other way around. Maybe Torsten is telling Debbie she’s pretty? But.. why do it in German?
You get the idea.
Of course the big problem with covering this song is the chorus.
Girls who do boys like they’re (brainfade! is it boys or girls here)..
You have to get it right though, because the chorus has a harmony part, so you have to both be singing the same thing.
Music
That bassline though bro!?
Another song driven along by a staggeringly good bassline.
And the guitar part is innovative, punchy and yes strangely simple.
Graham Coxon (Blur’s guitarist) really did something here.
Everyone remembers the time they had a flanger on their pedal board.
Perhaps you were trying to get an EVH tone, or the pedal was just too cheap not to buy.
No matter how long you spend dialing it in the effect is just too overwhelming to use. After a few months you subconsciously write off the effect as a gimmick and remove it from your board. You know, like the Digitech Whammy.
But here Coxon thought… na man, have it… Dialed up the effect to 11 and cranked out the second rockiest thing Blur ever did.
Apparently it’s just a bog standard Boss BF2.
I’ve run out of time, but to finish off here.
I think this song is based around a thing called the ‘circle progression’ in Bb Major :
Meaning it goes : vi,ii,V
Followed by a strange turnaround featuring D#’s and F#’s, which are either some clever borrowed chords I don’t understand, or some sort of weird diminished magic, which again, I don’t understand.
Come Back And Stay – Paul Young
We alighted on this by complete chance. We were just dicking about in the rehearsal room when the song just seemed to jump out at us. So we went away and learned it.
At the time, I remember this being firmly a ‘pop’ song hardly worth bothering with, but it turns out this song is a masterpiece.
In the course of learning this song I must have seen about 10 arrangements by Paul Young and his band themselves, not to mention 20 or 30 cover version arrangements. This song just keeps on giving. You can jam it for a million years, like Chic songs. It’s really just a framework.
One thing that always gets me is the hand clap. It’s so absolutely 1980’s it makes me want to wear a Frankie Says Relax T-Shirt. The classic 80’s Phil Collins style gated reverb is applied to the Roland sample with as if it was poured on from outer space. CLAP!!! Did you hear me.. I said CLAAAAPP!
One thing to note is that the Paul Young version we know and love is actually a cover version. The original is by a guy named Jack Lee. Which is a sort of ZZ-Top style country-blues-rock version. Listen to it, it’s… strange.
Lyrics
In the original Jack Lee version of the song, the lyrics seem integral to the song. A man laments the ending of a relationship, to thumping upbeat teen angsty guitars and a straight pumping 4/4 drum beat.
In the Paul Young version, we get lost in the virtuosity of the musicians, and the lyrics fall away to leave you concentrating on Paul Young’s voice. The way it breaks.. his vibrato. The way he sort of upscale “William Shatner’s” the breakdown section.
The lyrics aren’t important, they’re perfunctory.
Music
What can you say about this song that will do it justice?
Let’s just go straight there.. Pino…. Palladino. What the living ****?
Pino’s fretless bass parts on Paul Young’s songs in the 80’s were iconic.
I think the one on ‘Everytime You Go Away’ is probably more famous, but this one is the best by a country mile.
The rhythm of the song is 4/4 but with a sort of ‘horse jump’ offbeat snare every bar.
We worried that we needed the girl backing line singers, but it turns out the song sounds staggering with just one person singing harmony.
The song is usually listed as being in F#m but there’s a certain jazz edge to this song that makes me really want to go with some other key. The ‘i’ chord is always played as F#m7 rather than just F#m. And the D (the IV chord) which should be a full D major is always played as D(sus)2.
That having been said the i,III,IV chord progression was big in the 80’s. Think Sunday Bloody Sunday for example.
And if you look at the note distribution we get heavy emphasis on the notes that make F#m sound minor. That is the root (F#), flat 3rd (A), flat 6 (D) and the flat 7 (E). There’s also a lot of emphasis on the iv (B).
All that points really firmly at straight F#m. But still.
But there’s something about the chord progression which allows you to play just about anything over it and it’ll sound fine. I think in fact the song is probably in F# Dorian.
For example if you play an E Major scale (F# dorian) over the F# chord it sounds wonderful.
But You can also play A Maj (F#m) and it’ll obviously be great.
If only I was an actual musician.. I’d know exactly what the trick is to this song. Because it doesn’t sound vanilla minor to me.
Before commencing this waffle I’ll just say that I’ve really ended up playing either vanilla F#m minor over the F#m7 (i) chord, or occasionally E major (F# dorian). Now and then I throw in a lick which is F# dorian/melodic minor that is spicy. I like the sound if continuing on into the D chord with the F#m because what you have then is D Lydian. That allows me to bust out some Satriani licks I learned as a kid 🙂
The passing A major in the chorus is a work in progress for me. For some reason my brain doesn’t like it even though it’s entirely spot on correct. So I just pick a couple of notes in the A.
F#m7 is essentially A major with an F# bass note.
Also you can of course play it as barre chord :
These chords show us something interesting which is the C# note.
It seems important?
Here is the chord progression structured for some analysis :
F#m7 A Dsus2 ----------------- F# - A - A - A C# - C# - D E - E - E
Here we can see that E seems somehow important too (Dorian?). It’s the minor 7th in F#, but it seems to carry through.
Any solo might really use the C# to D change somewhere just before the move to Dsus2. You can play A or E anywhere pretty safely.
Here are the notes of A/F#m and D organised for analysis:
A – B – C# – D – E – F# – G# – A (A/F#m) A - B - C# - D - E - F# - G - A (D)
What we can see here is that the G in the D major scale is the only note which doesn’t appear in A major. This might be useful as a note to land on over the Dsus2 just before the move back to F#m?
In the scale of A major the G# chord is diminished, so perhaps use some sort of arpeggio featuring G#-B-D.
Because of this G, a bit of cursory messing around gives us a nice scale which fits neatly over everything, A Mixolydian. This is because it encompasses the G from the D Major scale in place of the G# from A Major.
This is going to sound best over the D. One thing you could use is a mixolydian pentatonic shape something like this :
E --5---9 B --5--8- G ---67-- D --5-7-- A --5-7-- E --5---9Or for run ups or downs a neat alternative might be :
E -------9(10)(12) B ------8-(10) G ----67-9-- D ---5-7---- A --45-7---- E ---5------You could always also try D lydian over the D.
Another mode that fits more neatly over F#m is C# phrygian.
Again you might consider a simplified phrygian like phrygian pentatonic (shown here is A phrygian pentatonic, so move it all up to C#!)
E --56--- B --5--8- G ----7-- D --5-78- A --5-7-- E --56---And obvs.. there’s always G# locrian… if you’re Alan Holdsworth.
I’m in the process of working a melodic solo for this song, so I’ll try and post it here when I’ve finished.
Messing about with midi I came up with these phrases..
9-5-7-2----------------------------------------------5- --------------10-12-10--7--5--5--5--2--2--2----------5- ------------11----------6--4--4--4--4--4--4--4-----6--- --------1214---------------------------------6---4----- ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------
Girls On Film – Duran Duran
We tried to do Rio a while back. Most of the song (Rio that is) is pretty straight forward, but there’s a section in the middle where the song totally breaks down (Woo, hey there wait a mininute, did it nearly run you down… etc.) and we just couldn’t get it right. We tried, and tried… Also the vocals are in a pretty high register on Rio.
We can’t really consider ourselves a pop/rock party band of middle aged people without covering a Duran Duran song.. so we finally decided to do what EVERYONE does, and cover Girls On Film.
The first thing to say about this song is that it’s just superbly well written. There’s hardly any production gimmicks on the original. In fact the only real additions to a live performance are the overdubbed guitar parts that pop up occasionally.
It’s not until you try and cover a song like this that you realise just what a well crafted song it is. It’s pretty hard to do a bad version of it, which I suppose is why so many bands cover it.
Lyrics
I suppose Simon LeBon must have spent a lot of time at fashion shows with Yasmin Bleeth.
There was a character on ‘The Fast Show’ who had the catch phrase ‘hardest job in the world’. This song is Simon Le Bon telling us just how tough it is being a mega-famous super-model.
I mean, I could take him to see some plater/welders doing a 16 hour shift if he likes but…
Seriously however, this kind of ‘oh this old thing’ humble brag lyrics about glamourous jobs and passtimes we’ll never see, is really what made Duran Duran famous. The scenes on super yachts, wearing Armani clothes surrounded by people who have never eaten a meal that cost less than a hundred quid. We just lapped it up in the 80’s.
I mean, Duran Duran were cooler than Crocket and Tubbs.
Standout lyric is probably : Lipstick cherry all over the lens as she’s falling.
Music
The song is pretty firmly in Am I think.
The song is really driven along by the unbelievable bass line. It’s just spectacular.
The complexity and relentlessness of the bass line contrasts sharply with the simplicity and scantness of everyone elses part. Particularly the guitar part. Andy Taylor plays just enough notes to leave you with an impression of the key.
The synth part is restricted to pretty much a couple of pad sounds.
It’s a superbly written song.
The Specials – Too Much Too Young
I love ‘Gangsters’ by the specials, it’s a great song. But I think by far their most powerful song is Too Much Too Young.
The original studio album version is instantly forgettable, but the version we all know and love (which sounds like a live recording played at double speed) is just breathtaking.
I’ve always been a rocker, and whenever I think about ‘energy’ in songs I instantly start comparing things to ‘System Of A Down – Toxicity’ or ‘ACDC – Let There Be Rock’ or ‘Slayer – Angel Of Death’. But periodically you’ll get songs in other genres that have the same adreneline releasing properties.
Cases in point might be ‘The Prodigy – Firestarter’ for example.
Too Much Too Young is the Ska equivalent of Toxicity or Firestarter. From the opening drum fill to the ending ‘CAP!! CAP CAp Cap cap…’ it’s just an onslaught.
It’s a Ska masterclass.. a tour de force… It’s just ‘right’.
The lyrics (see below) are a punch to the nose. The tempo is ridiculous, and the added percussion elements and shouted backing vocals make if feel like a punk crossover song.
Anyone who was a teenager in the 80’s has a gut reaction to hearing this song played live. It’s like an electric shock. A heady mixture of nostalgia and amphetamines.
Lyrics
Very much ‘of its time’, this is a song about the virtues of birth control.
The lyrics are pretty brutal and seem in modern times to be borderline misogynistic. But without doubt this song had a massive impact on girls in the 80’s, and I’m going to suggest it was a positive one.
The Specials in fact were incredibly influential, think what impact “Free Nelson Mandela” had. Bands today are just politically vapid by comparison.
It’s pretty on the nose, the message is delivered over and over again :
“You’re much to much, much to young, you’re married with a kid when you could be having fun with me” (one assumes this is the royal ‘me’, as in ‘like any young non-parent’).
This message is hammered further home by the continuous interjection of various affirmations delivered in deepest patois by the backing singers :
“Gi way de birth can-tro-wal, wi doan wan no pikni” etc.
At some point during the song one of the backing singers utters the phrase ‘you silly moo’. As in ‘you breed like a cow’. Which is not just borderline misogyny, it’s full on. I imagine they wish that wasn’t in there these days.
I do sometimes feel uncomfortable singing this song. I worry that young parents in the audience will take offence etc. But once the song gets hold of you, you loose any misgivings you had and just roll with it.
In fact there’s another song we used to do with a similar message ‘The Raconteurs – Steady As She Goes’ which I feel more uncomfortable with singing.
Anyway the lyrics to this song couldn’t be more direct. There’s no obfuscation. It’s not couched in prose, it’s just a simple stark message : Don’t get knocked up as a teenager.
Music
A masterclass. The bass line is just crazy.
Because The Specials have two guitarists, covering this song is not straightforward, especially if you’re singing it at the same time.
The hard part is the section (“it’s in your living room..” etc.) where the second guitar is wailing, and you’re trying to sing.
No idea of key, possibly G Major.
This would make the verses : V-I-IV-V
But the song uses the A (ii) as a kind of punctuation, making it more likely the song is in some other key where the A is a V etc.? Who knows, not me that’s for sure.
I think what makes this song is the seemingly random use of the piccolo snare drum, it’s just pure Ska.
Madness – Baggy Trousers
No Ska section would be complete without this song, and it’s essentially the soundtrack of my school years.
Apparently written in repost to Pink Floyd’s ‘Another brick in the wall’, Suggs points out just how much fun school was for him, and just how terrible it must have been for the teachers that Floyd were so down on.
Madness have approximately 5 billion members, most of them play some sort of brass instrument. The song is sax heavy but Marcus does a great job on the saxamesizer. Nothing gets an audience of 35 to 55 year olds moving like Baggy Trousers. It’s like Dancing Queen, you just can’t stay seated when someone plays it.
Lyrics
This is a photo-realistic depiction of life in an 80’s British “comprehensive” school, and in fact a pretty good description of life as a child in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Happier times.
The stand out lyric is ‘teacher comes to break it up, back of the head with a plastic cup’.
We picture the scene.. Two boys fighting on the school field surrounded by a circle of onlookers braying encouragement. The teacher sees the ruckus carrying his now empty plastic coffee cup and dispatches it as he approaches, before finally grabbing the boys by their jacket lapels and carting them off to the headmaster.
Corporal punishment (teachers hitting kids) was fine in the UK in the 80’s. Of course this is the subject of the Floyd song that is the antithesis of this song. In this line Suggs describes the kind of teacher on pupil violence which typified the age. Yes, there were unforgettable scenes of kids that we’d now consider ‘spectrum’ being dragged crying and screaming to the front of class and beaten with a shoe. But mostly it was a kind of ‘clip around the ear’. An accurately aimed piece of chalk, or plastic cup.
Singing this song makes me happy, and fills me with nostalgia.
Music
Because of all the passing chords, it’s hard to know exactly what key this song is in. But we really have a choice between Fm and Bbm (with an outside bet of Cm). It’s tempting to choose Bbm knowing there’s a large Saxophone part in this song, but I’m going with Fm which makes the verses a kind of run up : i-iii-iv
Then there’s a funny turnaround featuring a really strong ‘B’ chord which seems out of key. The chorus would be based around i-iv but it alternates between major and minor chords. It’s all quite confusing, as (to me) are most Ska songs.
We like the tings at the beginning (on the cymbals). The best part for me is the ‘make a difference through the day’ bit. I’m not sure why, but I get a feeling of release when the saxophone comes in after that part. I can relax and just listen to it all going off.