Possibly my favourite Jam song but definitely in my top three. Brilliant, timeless song. The Jam at their very best.
Look at the TOTP crowd. Utterly bewildered. Gone to watch Summer Nights and Ra Ra Rasputin and suddenly confronted with three angry blokes singing about getting their head kicked in.
Just watched it again. Lean, raw, energy, awesome. Used to argue at school whether they were mod or punk. I reckon they were both.
Another brilliant song that is in my top three songs by The Jam. You are right about Weller's inspiration, you can hear the punk influence in their early songs.
I know this may upset the purists loving each album, but the Jam greatest hits album is amazing! Very few albums compare to it!
What ever happened to music genres in terms of followings? I was telling my son about the late 70s and early 80s, when most youths fell into one group or another. Going to the youth clubs and kids discos of the day opened my eyes to different musical tastes. Our youth club was called "the wheel", which I suppose has its roots in the northern soul from a few years earlier. Northern soul was still played, and the lasses danced to it along with motown, the new romantic and chart stuff. For the lads it was mod, two tone ska, heavy rock and even a few Teds. Not so many punks though, as they had mainly disappeared by then. You weren't allowed to like each others music, or at least you couldn't admit it, and you didn't mix with the other rockers. When "whole lotta Rosie" was played, we changed the intro from " Angus" to "*******" Some years later bumped into one of those rockers at a scooter do of all places and we had a good laugh about it. We secretly liked bits of their stuff and them ours. I'm not sure those divides still exist these days, or maybe the youth clubs and other meeting places have disappeared?
There was a bit of that back then to be fair. Some of my mates went to watch madness at Sheffield and it was kicking off all over with skin heads. Forgot about skin heads. They could be an unsavoury lot. Filled the void left by punks, but got mixed up with the skin heads that were into ska. A bit like bees and wasps
I remember that era well. I was a young punk into the Pistols, Ramones, Clash, Buzzcocks, Kennedys etc. The mod lads were into Secret Affair, Lambrettas, The Who, Quadrophenia obsessed. We both claimed the Jam when Going Underground went straight in at number 1. They looked mod but had a punk edginess in their early days, pure visceral anger and energy. I secretly liked some of the mod stuff, not least the parkas/scooters and there were some very tasty modettes! When punk lost its spark I totally embraced New Wave and New Romantic. Cure, JAMC, Visage, early Spandau. Great music, great times.
The Jam started out as a mod-influenced punk band. Their first single In The City in 77 took its title from an old Who song. Weller was obsessed with Pete Townshend. The Jam also covered Batman Theme in 77 as The Who had done in the 60s. Weller had the same fondness for 50s and 60s R&B in the 70s - and probably still does - that Mods had had ten years earlier. The Jam were just a lot more open about their 60s influences than other punk bands who publicly slagged off all the old guard but in secret were into 60s rock. The Jam had 2 albums out before the term new wave took off. New wave was more about bands who followed the first wave of punk bands.