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.
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