The Jam

[Jah Womble]

That would be quite the outfit.

Yep, I was a bit baffled by that combo. Like ordering poached eggs with a chocolate-fudge topping.

[Benjm]

Yep, I was a bit baffled by that combo. Like ordering poached eggs with a chocolate-fudge topping.

Hey, you celebrate Easter your way and I'll do it mine.

[MsD]

After 40+ years I still don’t know what I think of Weller, and I love The Jam but don’t have much to say about them. First saw them for 50p in 1977.

DITTSAM
GU
In the City
Start
TE

I fuckin hate Butterfly Collector.

Love You Do Something To Me.

[Benjm]

I fuckin hate Butterfly Collector.

Yes, that's where his usual air of distaste for everything around him tips over into something much nastier. As a piece of music it is pretty effective, which is always annoying when the lyrics are unpleasant/unacceptable.

[treibeis]

I fuckin hate Butterfly Collector.

I remember that, the last time The Jam were done, there were a few people who registered their distaste for The Butterfly Collector. And, after re-reading the lyrics, I could see what they meant.

So:
Funeral Pyre
Dreams Of Children
Burning Sky
That's Entertainment
Tales From The Riverbank

[Jah Womble]

Yep, I think I was pulled apart for liking The Butterfly Collector. It remains a good tune, but the lyrics are indeed pretty obnoxious...

Revised Top Five (for now):
1 All Around the World
2 Down in the Tube Station
3 Funeral Pyre
4 Start
5 Going Underground

[duncanmckenziedoughnuts]

Is it about Soo Catwoman? Butterfly Collector, that is.

[Beatle Simon]

That would be quite the outfit.

I was a Mod/Moddy/Modish from about 1980 (when I was 11) to 86/87ish, so it was sta-prest, bowling shoes and Fred Perry shirts and jumpers. From about '86 (around the time of the 'Standing On A Beach' album), I started getting into the Cure, and this peaked around '89 to '93, so I was wearing baggy jumpers, hi-top trainers, black jeans and Cure tshirts.
After that, I was just mainly a band tshirt and jeans person, till about 2004/2005 when my youngest son was born, and chav culture was pretty big, and there were other dads pushing buggys in there sports gear, so I decided to get back into the Mod look again (well, as far as my salary would allow.)

I've just finished listening to the latest podcast of 'Chart Music', and totally agree with Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni on the Jam and Style Council. SP is of the opinion that Weller was at his best from late '81 to '84, and NK always wanted to dress like Weller, and that TSC were more of a Mod band than The Jam.
If I had the money I'd dress like Weller from late '80 ('Start and 'Thats Entertainment' videos) to '84 (Cafe Bleu-era TSC).

[VTTBoscombe]

Ahh! The Jam........

Nothing to add as my top 5's keep changing.

[MsD]

Is it about Soo Catwoman? Butterfly Collector, that is.

If it is, only in the sense that Kenny's ridiculously stupid post on here made it relate to me, i.e. if he was projecting an awful lot of misogyny onto her (God knows where the whole cooking and sewing nonsense comes from).

Soo wasn't really like that, and as far as anyone knows she had nothing to do with Weller. I can't ask her, as she is very private and a bit prickly towards me due to my associations.

[Stumpy Pepys]

SP is of the opinion that Weller was at his best from late '81 to '84

Yes, I'm sympathetic to that. I've little interest in early-period Jam and Cafe Bleu, at its peak, is as good as anything The Jam did.

[Benjm]

The French Mod look was definitely PW's best, although he was wearing a nice jumper with a vintage Italian cycling logo on it in a picture taken a few months ago.

Not an actual cycling shirt; those are a bit too much unless you're going trick or treating dressed as The Age Of Chance.

[MsD]

He's been looking for crowdfunding for his clothing line, apparently.

[WOM]

Paul's looking like Charlie Watts' kid brother these days. Dapper and aging not-too-badly. That hair, though.

[Lang Spoon]

Apparently he’s finally come round to the Velvet Underground now, the dozy sod.

[Felicity, I guess so]

There was a great post by Taylor on a Jam thread a few years ago which gave a compelling account of the whys and wherefores of Weller and politics.

I don’t do top 5s but Id have to spend ages choosing between Setting Sons tracks. Like tee Rex said, it hovered over the 16-to-17 year of my life in a huge way.

Thick as Thieves isn’t spectacular musically but is a great piece of writing and another killer is When You’re Young, both written as if by a much older person which I think fitted an odd feeling I had in my early/mid teens that I was having a great time but it was ephemeral, like a bittersweet instant nostalgia.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Oh and saw them in 79 at Leicester de Montfort Hall, which required sleeping in Grantham station getting back to Peterbro; then twice in the W Midlands/Potteries on the Gift and Farewell tours. Can’t remember the 1st venue but the last was a cattle market outside Stafford.

Edit: remarkably both were ‘ Bingley Hall’ - one a 19thC exhibition centre in Brum, the other a county show ground in Stafford. The website I googled for Jam concert history thinks they’re both the same place...

[Sits]

Seeing you mention When You're Young I remember preferring it around the time when Tubestation and Eton Rifles were much higher profile. It's still my most regular Jam earworm.

And a great video:

When You're Young

[duncanmckenziedoughnuts]

If it is, only in the sense that Kenny's ridiculously stupid post on here made it relate to me, i.e. if he was projecting an awful lot of misogyny onto her (God knows where the whole cooking and sewing nonsense comes from).

Soo wasn't really like that, and as far as anyone knows she had nothing to do with Weller. I can't ask her, as she is very private and a bit prickly towards me due to my associations.

https://musicandotherthingz.com/2013...fly-collector/

[Benjm]

That link has TBC as its 'Sunday Suggestion', which would make me wary of going round for croissants and orange juice with the papers on their patio of a lazy summer's morn.

[MsD]

Yes, but I know Soo (not well, but I know her) and I was close to Marco for several years, so I know a bit about her history (I was around at the same time and remember from pre-punk days, The Oldfield Tavern etc.). Weller wasn't part of the Pistols set, he was a contemporary. So he barely knew Soo at all, he was projecting all that stuff onto her and judging in rather a sexist way. She was rightly feted as a style icon/face on the scene in her own right. She was very upset about being portrayed in The Filth and the Fury by an underage, naked girl and felt betrayed and used by McLaren and others.

No law stopping anyone writing songs about anyone, though.

[Benjm]

Whatever Weller's intention, the song feels like he's venting rather strong, pent up feelings rather than dispassionately observing the vagaries of the scene around him, so trying to name (and/or blame) an individual seems a bit of a red herring. Weller himself admits that he was quite an uptight individual during the Jam years and that people merely enjoying themselves in his vicinity was enough to incur his displeasure.

[WOM]

It's also possible that one person's accomplished scenester is another person's talentless hanger-on. And nothing but personal feelings and interpretations to go on.

[MsD]

Soo was no less talented than many around at the time, the Bromley Contingent etc. Sid Vicious was either a hanger-on or a crucial member of the scene, depending on your viewpoint, as were people such as John Grey, but Weller didn't write songs complaining that they couldn't cook or sew.

[WOM]

What was her talent?

[i.e., was she an artist / musician / photographer, etc? I mean, I know her from all the photos and The Swindle, but ...I mean...she sort of just seemed like a groupie. ]