When debate rages about the greatest music songwriting teams of all time, a slew of familiar names are inevitably offered. McCartney & Lennon; Jagger & Richards; Rodgers & Hammerstein; Bacharach & David; Leiber & Stoller; John & Taupin; Ashford & Simpson; Ulvaeus & Andersson; the Gibb brothers; Holland, Dozier, Holland. Unless the conversation includes really insightful fans of British music, one pairing often criminally omitted is Difford and Tilbrook. It’s time to try and change that – I’m a huge fan and this is the first of many Squeeze songs I’ll be writing about here.
The artist
Thank God a 15-year-old Glenn Tilbrook saw an advert in a shop window in 1973, looking for a guitarist to join a “recording and touring band”, with influences including the Kinks, Lou Reed and Glenn Miller. Chris Difford had placed that ad and used a considerable amount of creative licence – there was no touring band! However, the two still hooked up, began playing together, and started writing some of the most perfect songs in the history of British music. The roles within their partnership have been well defined since those early days. Difford is an amazingly gifted lyricist, with an innate knack of observing occurrences in everyday life and crafting beautifully descriptive stories, whilst never reverting to tired and cliched songwriting tropes. He is clearly content with this role, along with playing rhythm guitar and acting as the second vocalist in the band, with his bass voice often a full octave below the front-and-centre vocals of Tilbrook, creating a balance which works beautifully. Tilbrook is a musical genius (in my humble opinion), weaving his magic and crafting the melodies and chords behind Difford’s lyrics. As with those lyrics, Tilbrook rarely uses tried and tested basic chord progressions – most Squeeze songs feature multiple chords / progressions which are far from the norm, with some of them being incredibly complex, certainly within a fairly mainstream pop environment. The combination of the witty, insightful, pithy lyrics alongside interesting and never-dull music creates pure musical magic as far as I’m concerned.
The first Squeeze album, simply titled ‘Squeeze’, was released in 1978 and was followed by a run of albums which maintained an astonishing level of brilliance. 1979’s ‘Cool For Cats’, 1980’s ‘Argybargy’, 1981’s ‘East Side Story’ and 1982’s ‘Sweets From A Stanger’ featured classic singles such as Cool For Cats, Up The Junction, Goodbye Girl, Pulling Mussels (From The Shell), Another Nail In My Heart, Is That Love, Labelled With Love, and Black Coffee In Bed. Despite a couple of temporary break-ups along the way, Squeeze have continued to release albums and tour, and remain one of the finest live acts on the UK music scene. If you get the chance to see them, please take it – after 50 years together, they remain at the top of their game. The same can be said for solo tours which Difford and Tilbrook undertake – both are well worth catching. The love for music, song and storytelling is apparent in every song they play. An added bonus is the fact that they clearly enjoy playing more intimate venues when touring solo.
Why I’ve chosen to write about this song
I really struggled choosing which of the many amazing Squeeze songs from the 80s to write about first. I opted for Tempted as I can remember it being the first song of theirs which I truly loved in the 80s (it’s either this or Hourglass). The primary vocalist is the hugely respected Sheffield legend Paul Carrack, who joined the band in 1981 as a replacement for keyboardist Jools Holland. Carrack had (and still has) that killer combination of being a truly talented musician as well as having a stunning voice. Despite only staying with the band for a year, Carrack contributed to the hugely successful East Side Story album, and his smooth as silk vocals helped Tempted become Squeeze’s first U.S. chart hit. Additionally, the impressive production values of this track (and the album as a whole) are no doubt a result of Elvis Costello taking on production duties.
Difford has stated the track was written ‘on the back of a fag packet in a minicab on the way to Heathrow. We were going on tour.’ The inspiration for the track relates to musicians being tempted to cheat on their partners whilst on tour, with Difford admitting ‘You’re going to all the ports in the world and there are women of easy virtue there and you have to behave yourself or go home with a guilty conscience, or worse still the pox.’ Charming!
The video
A fairly standard performance video, with the focus quite rightly on Paul Carrack for most of it. I’ve always been unsure why there is so much focus on the ladies dancing throughout, especially as they don’t seem to be adding anything, though I guess that’s the ambiguity / randomness of many pop videos from this era for you!
The stats
Despite being such a revered and much-loved band, Squeeze rarely troubled the higher ends of the UK singles chart. Tempted charted at number 50 in July 1981, reach a peak position of 41 and spending a total of 5 weeks in the charts. The number one single when Tempted reached its peak was Green Door, by Shakin’ Stevens, whilst the number one album that week was Love Songs, by Cliff Richard.
The cover version
In a first for this blog, I’m sharing a cover version from a member of the band. Glenn Tilbrook’s solo gigs are amazing and it’s only right to try to demonstrate that here by sharing a version of Tempted which he performed in Texas earlier this year. At the age of 67 (as he was at the time), he is still as phenomenal a live act as he was 30 or 40 years ago – perhaps even more so these days. This stripped back version loses none of the brilliance of the original studio version. For me, it perfectly demonstrates what an amazing song this is – perfectly constructed in terms of the music/chords/melody and lyrics. It also shows that Glenn has talent seeping out of every pore – perhaps the perfect example of how wonderful seeing one man and a guitar in the flesh can be. If you do get an opportunity, please, please, please do catch him live. You won’t regret it.
The wrap-up
One of life’s greatest pleasures is losing yourself in music which you love. There aren’t many bands I love losing myself in more than Squeeze. Their songs have everything – great musical structure; fantastic melodies; intelligent, insightful and poignant lyrics; and fantastic production. Theirs is the very epitome of timeless music – songs and albums I’ll be listening to for the rest of my days. You’ll hear a lot from them via this blog and hopefully you’ll like much of what you hear (if you don’t already consider yourself to be a fan). Why not bring a little more joy to your life and play one of their albums today, perhaps their Greatest Hits compilation? I can almost guarantee you’ll know more of the songs than you realise…
Best wishes.
Mick
