Squeeze Concert including one odd tidbit


I saw Squeeze (or, more precisely, Chris Difford and Glenn Tillbrook of Squeeze) in concert at a local club last night. They performed mostly acoustic versions (tho Tillbrook played some electric guitar) of Squeeze's greatest hits and they did so with great style. The simpler arrangements still managed to capture a lot of the kinetic energy that is central to so many Squeeze songs. Overall, a very fun show and one worth catching for any Squeeze fan.

Squeeze is a band that I admire greatly: IMO, they combine outstanding songs (irresistible hooks) with excellent musicianship (Tillbrook is a fine, under-appreciated guitarist) and they often provide witty lyrics rife with clever wordplay. When the band performs, they rock with much more power than you might expect from such shiny songs. When they perform as a duo, however, the concert is less manic and involves more interaction with the audience. I've seen them do request-heavy shows in the past, but last night they had a guy with a mic walking thru the audience to take questions.

While most of Squeeze's best lyrics are probably best characterized as "clever good fun", one of their songs, "Some Fantastic Place", is a kind of pop elegy. The song is sung as a paean to a lover who died young. I've always wondered whether it was a true story or an imagined one. I've also always found it to be a tremendously moving and inspirational statement at a time of great sadness. I like a lot of Squeeze's lyrics, but I've always felt that "Fantastic Place" is a cut above anything else that Squeeze has done lyrically. (Actually, I find it a cut above all but a very few lyrics from anyone - there's just a very intense personal connection with that song on my part.)

When the mic came my way, I asked if a two part question was okay. They approved and I first asked:

"What lyric are you most proud of?"

Tillbrook hemmed and hawed for a minute ("That answer might change every day"), before he eventually settled on...... "Some Fantastic Place". Tillbrook said he was very proud of that one and then he thanked Difford for penning the lyric that told the story so movingly. He then asked me for part two of my question.

I told him that my second question was about..... "Some Fantastic Place". I asked whether the song was about an actual person in his life and, if it was, whether he might share that story.

He explained that his first great love died young of Leukemia. When Difford first provided his lyric shortly after her death, Tillbrook said the chords just spilled out of him in a spontaneous torrent. It was evident that it was a moving moment for him. It was satisfying to see that I had shared that sentiment with him regarding the power of the song.

It was a nice cap to a really fun evening with two terrific pop musicians. It also made it clear that a chance to interact with the people who write our favorite songs is an opportunity that happens way too rarely. If you like Squeeze, and Difford/Tillbrook comes to your neighborhood, I'd urge you to check this one out. Come armed with a question, too - it might make the night special.

martykl
As to the track list you requested, here are a few that I'd start with (off the top of my head, so if anyone else wants to chime in, they may well identify a key song that I omitted):

Some Fantastic Place
Up The Junction
It's Over
Goodby Girl
Another Nail In My Heart
Pulling mussels (from the shell)
Annie Get Your Gun
I've known only one genius in my life. I met him when we were both starting 4th grade at a new Elementary School that was just opening in Cupertino California. He had already been put ahead ("skipped") two grades, and the school wanted to do a third, but his parents (his mother a Professor at San Jose State, his father a Jazz Drummer) refused, not wanting him to be any more younger than his classmates than he already was (two years, obviously). I didn't really know him, just of him, until the Summer before our Senior year at Cupertino High, when the Garage Band he was in (on guitar, a Gretsch Tennessee, plugged into a Fender Bandmaster amp) asked me to join. He was a The Beatles fanatic, knowing their music like no one else I've known. I had heard about and was completely obsessed with Brian Wilson's aborted Smile album, which had come out as the lesser Smiley Smile (the whole Smile saga is well worth your time investigating). After I played it for him, he became at least as obsessed with it as I, and Brian became his primary musical interest (along with Bob Dylan and The Band).

We went on to College, where he majored in Music, learning all about theory, composition, etc. His abilities at advanced math and other abstract concepts served him well in understanding music on the technical and theoretical level, and though he remained interested in Brian Wilson (as well as Bob Dylan and The Band), he became far more interested in first Beethoven, then Mozart, and finally, after transferring to UC Riverside (known for it's excellent music department), J.S. Bach, who became his primary musical interest for the rest of his short life (he died at 56, of a heart attack, the result of his extremely poor diet).

After earning a couple of Masters degrees (Music of course, but also Education), he ended up at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, first designing programs, then teaching other programmers. He also became a member of Mensa, and spent his free time playing computer chess and recording Bach Cantatas (played on his piano and guitar).

We went our separate ways, and hadn't seen each other in about twenty years until a mutual friend put us back in touch. I visited him in N. California, and he I in SoCal. I learned that he had completely lost interest in Dylan (who could blame him, after those three 90's albums of Bob singing the songs of others?!) and all other Pop music. So I played him a recent album I thought might change that, Dylan's "Love and Theft". Yessir, that did the trick---he loved it!

I offer all of the above to make the point that, yes, Classical music has more to offer he or she than Pop in some ways, but the best Pop music is not without it's own rewards. They can't be compared to each other, as they are completely different disciplines, one the Music of The Royalty/Elite/Privileged/Educated (at the time of it's conception, that is), the other the music of the working class. The two music's also serve different functions, Bach's in the service of glorifying God, Rock n' Roll to dance to (originally)!

Still, I have to share something Brian Wilson said to his brother Carl during the recording of the Smile album. Brian had been listening to a lot of Classical the past year ('66), and as he and Carl were floating in the pool as the last notes of one of the Beethoven Symphonies faded away, he said to Carl "It's nice to know you're a musical midget"!
Bdp24, sometimes I feel like having Italian food with a complex sauce and an elaborate salad. Other times it's a few slices of pizza and a beer. It's great either way.

Brian Wilson was my first hero. I "still dig those sounds." Thanks for the "musical midget" quote.
Marty, thanks for that list. I will check them out (I've probably already heard some of them, but it was long, long ago).
Good analogy Tostadosunidos. I also like that of a book versus a short story to a Classical composition versus a song. IMO the Brian Wilson songs in the Smile album are at least as "good" as anything Copland wrote, capturing "Americana" very successfully, with the extra added element of "weirdness" (Brian's song's chord structures are very "spooky", like a David Lynch film---"Fall Breaks and Back to Winter" is actually quite scary).