This Is Your Song For...November 20th, 2013: Labeled With Love by Squeeze

"Yep...put one over on all of them...except that
Deja fella..."

I know what you’re thinking--Tom’s about to go raving about another of his songwriting heroes.

You would be wrong.

This is, of course, the single every one forgets from Squeeze’s East Side Story, and one of a number of songs done by British artists about WWII war brides (Sure, it’s great, but I still prefer Elvis Costello’s ‘American Without Tears’).  The thing that makes this song remarkable is that it, like the rest of that album, reflects Difford and Tilbrook’s experimentation with American pop music styles; this is at its core a country song with a slow twangy shuffle.

I would go on, but this is not the version from East Side Story, but the version from Spot The Difference, from the latest version of Squeeze that is basically Difford, Tilbrook and whoever happens to be on tour with them at the time....and that’s why I’m pissed off by it.

Maybe it’s me, but the nostalgia-grabs that seem to pass for new albums from vintage artists--you know, where they re-record their old material either by themselves or with flavor of the month artists to give them a patina of hipness--bug the crap out of me.  They’re the inverse of creativity.  They represent the artist being too lazy, or too disinterested in his craft, to create new material.  Every time an artist ‘revisits’ his old material, he or she is counting on our nostalgia to line their pockets because, let’s face it, we’re going to eat it up so we can relive our own glory days--and it’s a surer sales juggernaut than putting a collection of new pieces out into the aether.

And while there are a number of people who bother me with their taking this route, Squeeze is amongst the worst offenders.  Since Difford and Tilbrook brought this version of the band back into existence in 2007, the only new material they’ve produced has been available only at their concerts or as bonus discs to concert DVDs available only at concerts.  And what they’ve released commercially is...Spot The Difference.  This is a whole record of re-recordings that are such slavish recreations of the orginal tracks it’s impossible to tell the difference.  This isn’t like Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut, where she transformed the originals into new configurations; this is a K-Tel-like soundalike act that made me wonder why I needed these versions when I still have the originals.

I love Difford and Tilbrook, who are amongst the greatest songwriting duos in the history of pop music.  I love their solo efforts--I frequently wonder if they’ve revived Squeeze solely as a nostalgia act to generate funds so they can pursue their solo work without interference.  But this version of Squeeze, and all the tracks from Spot The Difference, can go dangle from a rope for all I care.  If you want a great version of this song, find the original.

Here's a video of them performing the song.

36 Songs, 36 Days (2012 Edition), Day Nineteen: The Ballad of John and Yoko by The Rabeats

"We are bettah than Ze Beatles...for we are FRENCH!!!"

Well I guess that eventually I'd be writing about a tribute band.

The Rabeats is a French Beatles tribute band--and to be fair, you can detect the Gaelic accent buried amidst the faux Liverpudlian voice the vocalist puts on. It's a decent recreation for what it is.

I've sometimes wondered about tribute bands like this. New York City being one of the seats of the music industry, you can pretty much find tribute bands playing every single night here. They're especially common in the outer boroughs, where you can find failed session musicians paying tribute not only to the usual suspects (Elvis! The Beatles! Springsteen! The Stones! The Doors!), but such peculiar choices as The Stone Temple Pilots, Neal Diamond and Billy Joel. Hell, Queens--the borough of the city I live in--sports two Billy Joel tribute bands, Big Shot and Captain Jack.

It's a weird phenomenon, if an understandable one. As the hipsters of today age and become the parents and old folks of tomorrow, there's always that pang to recreate the world you used to live in...and I think Tribute Bands allow us to convince ourselves on some level that yes, this is what it was like to catch Bruce at one of his small concerts at the Bottom Live in the 70's, or see the Beatles at Shea Stadium (apparently the Rabeats are France's equivalent of Beatlemania!, the notorious Beatles Tribute Band that sold out Broadway theaters in the 80's). Yeah, eventually reality will sink in and we'll realize we were just watching session musicians playing 'Let's Pretend', but for that moment...that moment....

I have to assume that the people who populate these bands start out with aspirations of making music of their own. I sometimes look at these cheap flyers in the windows of bars and pubs in my environs and wonder what makes these folks give up being their own artist to become echoes of the greatness that might have inspired them. I'm sure some of it is money--it's gotta be easier to get gigs and demand a larger payday when you're Faux John Lennon and not John Wilson, let's say--but I also wonder if there are deeper motivations in play. Do some of these people feel that the ritualistic recreations of these songs will give them insight into songwriting, enabling them to write songs as brilliant on their own? Do they feel that becoming their heroes will bring them closer to those heroes? Do they convince themselves that the applause and whooping and hollering they get after they perform 'Born To Run' or 'Light My Fire' is for them and not for the iconic performer they're doing a weird karaoke version of?

But then, I probably shouldn't be too hard on these people. After all, we've got evidence of established musicians retreating into assumed personas to become cover bands--there's the infamous case of The Click Five gigging as The Lowe Beats, a Nick Lowe tribute band, for example. And here in NYC, there was a nightclub who ran an annual fundraiser that invited established musicians to pose as their heroes for a night. So maybe that desire to become your idols doesn't go away when you yourself become big...maybe it stays with you, only coming out to play when you decide to do a cover song or play dress up for charity.

This is becoming a disjointed, rambling post, so let me leave you with this one thought...if the people playing in these tribute bands got the chance to talk to their inspirations, would those iconic figures consider it a more fitting tribute if these people did their own music, or if they continued their career of imitation?

No video for the song specifically...but here's one of The Rabeats performing a Beatles medley...