LISTENING PARTY: Frank

As I’ve mentioned before, the summer and fall of 1992 was the beginning of my love affair with popular music, and as such, I spent much of that time meticulously going through and listening to all of my father’s records and CDs in an attempt to discover what kind of music I was going to like. In December, I made it to the sole Squeeze CD he had in his collection: Frank. I don’t know what exactly prompted me to pick up this CD, but if I had to guess, its turtle-based artwork might have been the big draw.

I listened to it before we went to his officemate’s Christmas party. I didn’t really know many people there, and spent most of the time either sitting in an easy chair, or studying the breakfast cereal in their pantry, thinking about menstruation.

Because the cornerstone song, for me, on this album is about menstruation.

So if there were to be some kind of word association game, it would go like this.

Christmas--Roly Blanchette’s house--Captain Crunch Peanut Butter Crunch cereal--turtles--menstruation.

God Bless Difford and Tilbrook!

"Frank"- This album starts off with a 15 second intro in which the keyboardist refers to the drummer as Fatty, and as a result, the drummer refuses to count off the song until he apologizes. This might be my favorite opening track of all time.


"If It’s Love"- Squeeze is probably best known for their song ‘Tempted’ and that’s a good song, but I think that ‘If It’s Love’ is the quintessential Squeeze song. It’s catchy as all hell, is full of weird British vernacular, and utilizes some of the most bizarre metaphors. Something about how love makes your teeth green. Or that it makes you like an egg in the teeth of a shark. I don’t know if that’s a thing that’s happened. I haven’t watched much Shark Week, but I feel like sharks ate lots of eggs, I’d have heard about it by now. Regardless, I’ll have this song stuck in my head for the rest of the Obama presidency.

"Peyton Place"- This song is another catchy one. Here’s a spoiler alert: all of these songs are catchy ones. It’s what Squeeze does. Glenn Tilbrook writes catchy tunes, and Chris Difford writes lyrics to go along with them that are reference 1950s novels about deceit and hidden decay in suburban America. I know that doesn’t sound like a winning formula, but I don’t know what else to tell you: it is. You are wrong. Think about the catchiest song you can imagine. Now imagine if the lyrics were based on ‘Revolutionary Road’. It’s like a 1000 times better now. Also, I’ve never said this before in my life but: this piano solo is so amazing I never want it to end. It’s over, but I’m still thinking about it.

"Rose I Said"- Usually a band might put two catchy songs at the beginning of the album, then stick in a ballad, or maybe a less melodic bluesy number or something. Not Squeeze. First of all, they’re so confident, they don’t even open their album with a catchy song. They open by making fun of how fat their drummer is (or how much of a jerk their pianist is) and then throw three catchy songs right in a row. Probably that’s because they don’t know how to not write catchy song. Squeeze has had like 4000 different bassists, but the one that seemed to last the longest (from their middle period) Keith Wilkinson, is probably the most interesting. His bass parts are always melodic, realizing that having a more straight bass part might make the songs easier to listen to, but Squeeze is almost performing an experiment to see how much melody one song can contain before it explodes.




"Slaughtered, Gutted and Heartbroken"- Some of my favorite moments on Squeeze records is when they let Chris Difford take lead vocal. He’s got a deep, relatively unattractive voice, but maybe because he writes all these lyrics, or maybe because he sounds a little bit like Droopy Dog, he really sells the comical despair of this song. I kind of love the line “like a bad coat I need shaking” like enough that I would marry it if I wasn’t already married, and song lyrics were marriable. Unlike the piano solo in Peyton Place, the guitar solo could disappear and I’d never mention it again. Back to the lyrics: there’s something brilliant about spending the whole song talking about how much you’ve screwed up your life and your marriage, but then having the chorus be “Things could be worse” In the outro he just keeps repeating that he’s a stitch short of a tapestry, which is similarly brilliant. Everything about Chris Difford is brilliant, and screw you if you disagree.

"This Could Be The Last Time"- This song has the distinction of being the song before the song about menstruation. It’s catchy, and kind of forgettable. Man, Keith Wilkinson must have gotten paid by the note for this bass line. It’s really busy, and there’s something that sounds like synthesized background vocals which is probably the only touch to remind you that this album was made in the 80s. It otherwise has a pretty timeless quality. Here comes the song about menstruation.



"She’s Doesn’t Have to Shave"- So, you’ve guessed it. This song is about how women get their periods, and how it makes them really emotional volatile. I know that Difford is trying to be supportive, offering to do the dishes for her, and ruminating that women are lucky they don’t have to shave, and men are lucky they are not doubled up in pain. Both of those things are true, but I hope he’s not trying to say their comparable. As a man who has had a full beard for most of his adult life, I can admit here: mainly it’s because I hate shaving. But shaving isn’t something I dread or despise. It’s just kind of annoying. And the razor blades cartridges are expensive. I certainly wouldn’t compare it to all the shit women go through when they get their periods. It’s kind of shame, because this is literally the catchiest song on the album which therefore makes it the catchiest song in the history of recorded music. And it’s kind of embarrassing to think about for too long, and especially to sing along to.
Embarrassingly, later that year, I was in my 8th grade biology class when our teacher graphically described menstruation and I passed out in front of everybody. I would’ve thought that this song had prepared me, but it let me down.

"Love Circles"- Difford’s back on lead vocals. He’s not quite as well suited to this one, but it’s still a terrific song. It’s catchy as all---yeah, all right, you’ve got it. These songs are all catchy. “Love circles up above and waits until you break down and weep, and then it’s out of your reach.” That’s really heartbreaking, and probably true. This song is all about being alone--there’s a great line about cutting yourself some cake “but just one slice” before going to bed. I like that because it highlights that the narrator is all alone, but also because I’m impressed that anybody can eat just one slice of cake. If there was a whole cake in my house and I lived alone, there wouldn’t be any cutting of any slices. I would just try and eat the whole thing, eating it like a watermelon. Thank god there isn’t any cake here right now, and that I have a wife that would ask me where a whole cake went. The guitar solo is naff in this song. For the longest time, what I thought was the guitar solo was really the bass line going on while the atonal guitar solo was going on. I don’t know what Glenn Tilbrook was thinking. Maybe he had a whole cake in the recording booth and that’s the sound his guitar was making while he stuffing his face.


"Melody Motel"- I don’t really have much to say about this song. It’s catchy, clearly. It’s kind of honky-tonkish. But that’s it. I just really want some cake right now. Damn you Squeeze!

"Can of Worms"-This song is catchy, but that’s almost offset by a really bad woodblock part. That’s right. The woodblock part is so bad that I actually notice that there even is a woodblock. I’d hate to think that somebody recorded the woodblock part separately, headphones on in the recording booth, just bopping his head, every third beat, hitting the woodblock. Whoever it was should be ashamed of himself. Was it the producer? Did they let Chris Difford do it since Glenn Tilbrook tends to play most of the guitar parts himself? Was it somebody’s girlfriend? We’ll never know. But I will never rest until I found them. And make them pay.

"Dr. Jazz"- The keyboardist of Squeeze is named Jools Holland, and for the past twenty years or so, he’s been a talk show host on the BBC. He left Squeeze shortly after this album (he wasn’t included in the band photos that went along with this record with the note, ’Jools was on holiday’) and this is his lead vocal track. He also wrote the song, and it’s decent. It’s also pretty catchy, although probably the least catchy song on the album--which means it would be the catchiest song on any other album you can think of. This is probably the best line-up Squeeze ever had, and this is probably their best album because of it. It’s also impossible to find (it might be on itunes, but it’s been deleted from A&M for twenty years) and I’m really glad it was one of the 16 free Cds my dad picked when he joined the BMG music club in 1988, because I can’t imagine how different my life would have been if I hadn’t heard it. Like for example, if I hadn’t heard their menstruation song, who knows what would’ve happened when I was in 8th grade? Maybe I would’ve gone into a coma.

"Is It Too Late?"- Never, Squeeze. Never.

LISTENING PARTY: Play

Every band has that album, the one that usually comes in the middle of their career. The one that unless you were a huge fan of that band you’ve never heard, the one that gets none of its songs onto the two disc Ultimate Best Of Collection. I love those albums. And I love Squeeze. I love Squeeze as a band probably more than I love any other band, because while there are bands that I like more, that have done better work, there’s just something about Squeeze that makes me love them so much more. Maybe it’s the insanely gifted lyrics of Chris Difford, and the way singer/guitarist Glen Tilbrook marries them to some of the most perfectly constructed pop rock of all time. Maybe it’s because of their best song, “Up the Junction” and the way it tells a complete and compact story about a boy and girl falling in love, having a baby, then splitting up in about 2 and a half minutes, and how it doesn’t have a chorus. And when the record company told the band that the song was insanely catchy and would be a number one smash if they would only add a chorus, SQUEEZE STILL RELEASED THE SONG WITHOUT A CHORUS. There’s something about that that just gets to me.

And I love Squeeze albums, especially Play. They had already broken up and gotten back together at this point, and were coming off of their biggest American albums Babylon and On (with its huge hit “Hourglass”) and Frank, and moved from the smaller label A&M to Warner Brothers. They recorded Play, and were dropped by Warner Brothers like thirty-five minutes after it was released. So it just kind of exists in the cut-out bin vaccuum. It gets no love on compilations (which Squeeze has an inordinate amount of) and if generally forgotten about. Three years later they would resign with A&M and release Some Fantastic Place, another great record that was considered their “come-back.” Oh, world. Squeeze hadn’t gone away. You fools just weren’t listening.

“Satisfied”- Chris Difford writes lyrics about the strangest things. This song is about laying around after having sex. The best part of the song is that for a song called “Satisfied” the song is so unsatisfying. The verses chug along, building towards a chorus that, tonally, goes down when you think it would go up. I’m sure someone with more music theory understanding than myself could explain it better, but the song builds you up for an exciting chorus, and then lets you down. And I’m 100% Squeeze does this on purpose. Because the lyrics are ironic. “They looked at each other, they looked at the night. Under the covers they were satisfied.” Doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement for sexual fulfillment, does it? This song also goes on much longer than most Squeeze songs usually do. I think that’s intentional, too.

“Crying in My Sleep”- This album was produced by Tony Berg, and it certainly makes it sound unlike any other Squeeze album, but dear God Jesus does he put the bass way up into the mix. It feels like it’s punching you in the throat. Squeeze has had like 400 different bass players, and Keith Wilkinson, who plays on this album (and all the great later Squeeze records) is definitely the best. But I’m now halfway through “Crying in my Sleep” and all I can talk about is the bass playing. Difford writes about weak men better than almost anybody, and not in the desperate loser way that a lot of great songwriters do (Randy Newman, Freedy Johnston, Joe Henry) but in a really kind of pathetic way, like a song about crying in your sleep. I imagine the guy singing the song to be sitting in those pajamas that older men wear, where it looks like they just came from some kind of flannel prom.

“Letting Go”- The album starts to drift away from what a regular Squeeze album sounds like here. There’s some great organ and chamberlain work on this track, which is I think by Steve Nieve, Elvis Costello’s regular keyboard player. Squeeze was without a keyboard player because Jules Holland got a job hosting a late night talk show on the BBC. That would never happen in America. That would be like hiring the rhythm guitarist of Creed to take over the Tonight Show.

“The Day I Get Home”- Squeeze is basically two guys: Chris Difford and Glen Tilbrook. Difford writes all the lyrics, drops them in Tilbrook’s mailslot, and then Tilbrook writes the song. Glen is also the lead singer and the lead guitar player. Difford actually didn’t really do much musically, occasionally adding low harmonies, and strumming an acoustic rhythm guitar that when I saw them play was so low in the mix that I wondered if it was even plugged in. So it should come as no surprise that Difford hates touring, since his real role in the band is as a songwriter instead of a touring musician, and it should comes as no surprise that he would write a song about it. My favorite thing about this track? The backing vocals are by Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer, otherwise known as Spinal Tap. See? This is why I love Squeeze. They get their first big recording contract with a big budget and they hire g-d Spinal Tap to sing background vocals. If I ever get a big recording contract I’m going to hire Sarah Michelle Gellar to play spoons on one track, just because I can.


“The Truth”- This is the first truly brilliant song on this record. The chorus of this song is “The truth has to be told, my blood runs hot and cold. The truth is not my middle name.” It’s hard not to just quote the lyrics to all these songs because so many of them are so odd and unexpected. Difford should be the poet laureate of rock music. You know how a lot of songs you like do the thing where the lyrics don’t make sense, or the singer has to rush through a bunch of syllables so that he can get to the end of the rhyme, or there’s just one line that completely inverts conventional English grammar so they can make the lines rhyme, even if the singer sounds like Yoda when he’s doing it? Tilbrook never has to do any of those things because Difford’s lyrics scan perfectly.

“House of Love”-The lyrics to this song are even better than the last one. “her eyes were stale and spun, like marbles left in the sun.” This song does suffer a little bit as some Squeeze songs do, with Tilbrook deciding that he needs to play a guitar solo. I’ve never met Squeeze, but I imagine always that there’s a really cute girl around all the time, and whenever Difford writes a really brilliant lyric, the girl kind of winks at him, and then Tilbrook hits his pedal and starts playing an incredible solo. Just to show him up. Other than that, this song is pretty amazing.

“Cupid’s Toy”- This was the first song I loved off this album. It’s about a slick guy in a club trying to score. The chorus is “This boy doesn’t get love, this boy doesn’t get love” and the reason it’s repeated twice is because it has a double meaning. He doesn’t get (doesn’t understand) love, so he doesn’t get (striking out with the ladies) love. Brilliant. If I were single, I would memorize all the disses in this song and go to a club and use them on all the lame guys there and the ladies would think I was so clever and suave, I’d have to send Chris Difford a check to pay him back for all the ass I’d get. Maybe. I think I’d probably still have to be more attractive to pull it off. But damn if they don’t tear this guy apart in this song.

“Gone to the Dogs”- a song about a guy at the dog track. It’s a great little story, but I wish I knew whose idea it was to put effects on the guitars to make them sound like dog barks, because I need to know where to send my letter of complaint. Especially since they sound more like elephants in heat. Tilbrook just sang about trying to ply someone with German wine. I’m no wine connoisseur, but does Germany even make good wine? It doesn’t strike me as their specialty, so it’s one of those little details that tells so much. What kind of guy drinks German wine? Nobody I’d like to know, that’s for sure. And sure enough, right after Difford brilliant line about the German wine, Tilbrook comes in with a guitar solo. I might be reading too much into this rivalry, but oh dear god, he’s making his guitar solo sound like a dog on the fade! Why can’t you two guys just get along??!!

“Walk A Straight Line”- That last song was a bit rough, and it feels like the boys know it and grace us with this beautiful little number. Some nice acoustic guitars and accordions. I’d like to take a second to highlight the great drumming on this record. This song consists of the drummer hitting the bass drum on quarter notes and every so often hitting a tambourine. I love restraint like that. Especially since restraint has rarely been Squeeze’s calling card. This song is just lovely all around. I think it’s about getting pulled over while drunk driving. Seriously. That’s the way these guys roll.

“Sunday Street”- There is no reason on Earth this song wasn’t a monster hit back in 1990. It’s definitely their catchiest number since “Pulling Mussels From A Shell” which most of you would recognize if you heard it even if the title doesn’t sound familiar. It’s such a great rocking number you might think they’d skimp on the lyrics but it contains the lines ‘a sarsaparilla drink turns white teeth shades of pink.’ That’s one of those details that you’d think was well-spotted if you read it in a novel, and it’s in a pop song that’s about four minutes long. The chorus mines the same territory that the Cure would later use in “Friday I’m in Love”, going through the days of the week, but the great bit is how it talks about how each of the days of the week kind of suck, but when it gets to the weekend, it’s “and then Friday and Saturday night, we get happy till Sunday’s through!” Do you see how he runs Friday and Saturday together that way? Have I mentioned that Difford was battling alcoholism all throughout the nineties? Do you get it know? I wouldn’t be surprised if the original lyrics were “we get shitted till Sunday’s through.” It’s a great pop song about going on benders. It also talks about playing on a trivia team. “How long is the river Thames? It’s where the evening ends.” I love that detail because it indicates to me that a) they play on the trivia team but aren’t any good and b) there’s a lot of liquid in the River Thames. It’s a crime that this song never became very popular. I imagine that this is what a lot of people’s weekends are like. Mine? I sit around and listen to Squeeze albums. It’s called living vicariously.

“Wicked and Cruel”- The bass part of this sound is way up in the mix, like the sound engineer accidentally feel asleep and his forehead pushed the mixer on the bass part all the way up. This song is another great acoustic number and has the best lyrics on the album. It’s about wanting to die and come back as a variety of different insects so you can watch what your girlfriend does after you die. “When I die I’ll return as a housefly, and parade upon her wall. So I can see who she’ll end up with, if that’s anyone at all. Did I say that? How could anyone be so wicked and cruel?” I love that the chorus “how could anyone be so wicked and cruel?” he’s talking about himself. If you’re so concerned about it, you could stop, right? No. “When I come back I’ll return as a spider, because she hates them so much.” What a dick. Although now he’s worried that she’ll wash him down the sink plug hole. You should be. You’re being a jerk. Better make it up to her. “She likes to kick like a mule.” No good, Difford. “If I came back as her, would I love me?” Probably not. “She likes to think I’m a fool, two fools in love.” Better, but you should’ve quit when you admitted you were a fool. No need to rope her in with you. This song is nearly perfect. Except for the drum part at the end.

“There is a Voice”- Another really nice acoustic number. “There is a voice inside us all that says destruct.”
Reading the book these two guys wrote, it’s pretty clear now that Difford was having a pretty terrible time in his life, and the lyric to this song reflects that. The chorus is “each day is a night” repeated over and over again. Talk about a nihilistic attitude. But I love how brilliant minimalist that phrase is, and how powerful it is, especially when you hear Difford’s voice finally repeating it over and over again, while Tilbrook does that wailing thing. It’s a pretty downer ending for the album, but looking back over the whole thing, that seems to fit. That’s what makes the album so great, is how the upbeat music is paired up with really dark lyrics. They’re hardly the first people to do that, but they’re among the best at it.

This album is pretty stellar, but ridiculously rare. In fact, while talking to you about it, I felt like those guys who claim they see a yeti, and they can’t prove it because nobody else has seen it. You’ve all heard “Tempted” and some of you might have heard “Black Coffee in Bed” or “Cool for Cats” but those songs are like squirrels, and this album is like the Loch Ness Monster. Most of you will never hear it or see it, and that’s a shame. But it seems like the guys from Squeeze almost expected it. Do you know how I can tell? Because they’re all sitting in a giant flowerpot.