TAKE ME I’M YOURS
(FROM SQUEEZE, 1978)
Squeeze’s fi rst
hit, Take Me I’m
Yours reached
No.19 fi ve
years after Glenn
and Chris met. The
accompanying self-titled
album was produced by
The Velvet Underground’s
John Cale.
Glenn: “When I met Chris,
his amazing lyrics put into
sharp relief the fact that my
lyrics weren’t so good. It was
easy for me to give up writing
lyrics, because my tunes were
good and I understood what
Chris was writing about and
the way his lyrics worked.”
Chris: “I’m so lucky to have
met Glenn and enjoyed those
fertile years of songwriting.
You only get one punch at that
in your life.”
Glenn: “The way we write
was instantly natural: Chris
would leave some lyrics for
me, I’d write a tune for them.
I soon found out not many
people write that way round,
but I can’t imagine why.”
Chris: “I learned very early
on not to second-guess what
Glenn would do with my
lyrics. He’s very clever at
writing amazing songs, and
I trust him. I don’t question
what he does.”
Glenn:“Take Me I’m Yours
has a funny history. We fi rst
recorded it 18 months before
we got a record deal, when
RCA funded us to record
four songs in 1976. Take Me
I’m Yours was one of them,
but they dropped us before
releasing anything. When we
did our fi rst album, John Cale
left before we had enough
songs recorded for a full
album, so we thought, ‘OK,
let’s go back to Take Me
I’m Yours.’ It still works, I still
love playing it. It’s Chris’
fantastic imagery.”
Chris: “Even today, Take Me
I’m Yours stands up. John Cale
didn’t do anything on that
one, but he was defi nitely an
infl uence on us. He made us
test ourselves as young men.”
COOL FOR CATS
(FROM COOL FOR CATS, 1979)
Squeeze’s fi rst Top 10 hit, Cool
For Cats reached No.2, kept
from the top by Art Garfunkel’s
Bright Eyes.
Glenn:“We’d already written
a song called Cool For Cats that
I sang, with the same backing track.
It was OK, but then Chris said: ‘Look, I’ve got an
idea, let me take the backing track home.’”
Chris:“I was watching Benny Hill on telly, trying
to fi nd some inspiration. [Satirical songwriter] Jake
Thackray was on and it struck me that Jake had
a lyrical meter you could plan your day on, because it was so obvious. I tried writing
something like that on Cool For Cats.”
Glenn:“When Chris came in the next day and sang the Cool For Cats we know, it was
a really special moment. It felt like we’d nailed something. It was more like the zeitgeist,
though we wouldn’t have used that word then.”
Chris: “A review in Sounds said Cool For Cats was sexist, and they were probably
quite right. I was observing the behaviour in my local pubs, and that’s what it was like
then. I was refl ecting what I saw, but I didn’t necessarily agree with it. On our next but one
album East Side Story, Woman’s World tried to explain how I felt about women compared
to how people imagined from Cool For Cats.”THE
BREAKTHROUGHUP THE JUNCTION
(FROM COOL FOR CATS, 1979)
It’s justly lauded, but Up The Junction is a strange song
in many ways: it doesn’t have a chorus, and Glenn
doesn’t sing its title until the fi nal line. Squeeze’s other
No.2 hit, it was denied the top spot by Tubeway Army’s
Are ‘Friends’ Electric?.
Chris: “I didn’t think about its structure at the time, it
was one of those songs that just happened. The big
songs simply fall out of the sky and you don’t question
it. Then you spend the rest of your life waiting for the
next one to fall out.”
Glenn: “With a lyric that vivid, my job was to come up
with a tune that was nice but not obtrusive, so the lyric
could take centre stage. I came up with the tune in a lunch hour while we were
recording. Our record label, A&M, turned Up The Junction down at fi rst. To his
credit, A&M’s MD Derek Green said it needed a hook at the beginning.
Jools’ keyboards weren’t there at fi rst, and now you can’t imagine the song without
them. So hats off to Derek.”
Chris: “I revisited the song’s characters in A Moving Story on Domino 20 years later. That was
a feeble attempt to update their story, an idea that fell fl at. The lyric isn’t that bad, but I didn’t
think it through. I’d do a better job of it now.”THE UNLIKELY
MASTERPIECE”WHEN CHRIS CAME IN THE NEXT DAY AND
SANG THE COOL FOR CATS WE KNOW, IT WAS
A REALLY SPECIAL MOMENT. IT FELT LIKE WE’D
NAILED SOMETHING. IT WAS MORE LIKE THE
ZEITGEIST, THOUGH WE WOULDN’T HAVE USED
THAT WORD THEN.”GLENN TILBROOKCOOL FOR CATSTHE
NEW-WAVE
CLASSIC