This is one of the rare songs where pretty much every line is absolutely perfect ... Its almost ridiculous how well this is written - not just the lyrics but also the chord progression and melody ... And on top of that the vocal delivery is amazing - the timbre of the voice almost reminds me of John Lennon ... One of the great British songs
I worked with this slag, fucked her way to Madison Avenue management from a Cotswold town in England, proper bangtail. I said about Squeeze and she started laughing and said I knew nothing about music if I liked a band called "Squeeze" so then I said "What about someone like Jools Holland" and she said he was a legend and knew his stuff. So as you can see, "Oxygen thief" was too kind a mantle
He wrote the song when touring America. He was doing his laundry in a hotel just outside of New Orleans and was missing home and started to write down the lyrics. Quite incredible!
Saw them last night. Lot of love in the crowd for this great band. 50 years on and still putting on a great show. Cheers Glenn, Chris and the rest of the band.
I still want to know how he went from working hard to support the family to being such a drunken jackass that she left him for a soldier. Yeah, I know it is my problem.
What makes this song so amazing is there is NO chorus, but it still works! It resolves at the very end....keeps you engaged until the very end....so well done. Masterclass songwriting!
I will point you to "Slip Inside This House" by The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. The album version is 8m long, and, has a LOT of singing/lyrics, and there is no actual chorus. It uses "Slip Inside This House" as more of what we'd call a "chaotic attractor" these days!
My god I'm absolutely addicted to british music like this. I'm not even british but somehow I absolutely love stuff like Squeeze, Steve Harley, The Kinks, The Jam, and of course the other usual suspects. Hats off to you Brits, you make the best music in the world. Much love from your german brothers! Edit: recently visited England and I loved it. The people, the music, the architecture, the football and THE FOOD!!! I'll have to return soon, I long for a sunday roast again...
@@shaunwhite1337 I can see you're a man of great taste in cars ;-) Unfortunately, music-wise, we haven't done much since... Brahms and Beethoven I guess :D
I think that this might be the perfect pop song. The tune is catchy as hell, the lyrics are razor sharp, nuanced, and poetic and delivered by a class bunch of musicians.
Agreed. Tempted gets all the love and Paul Carrick knocked it out of the park but this one hits so good. It’s become my favorite Squeeze song. Right up there with a bunch of other ‘perfect’ songs.
@@steves2074 In the UK this song and,directly before it,Cool For Cats achieved Squeeze's highest position in the singles chart,both getting to number 2,in 1979.
@@rjjcms1 wow that's cool to know. in the US, all we ever got from squeeze on most radio was tempted and mussels... college radio played more and i got introduced to more of their songs that way.
@@steves2074College radio must have been quite a saviour on your side of the Atlantic in the 70s,80s and 90s! Anyway,here's a fullewr rundown of their UK hits: Their breakthrough came around Easter 1978 with Take Me I'm Yours,which reached number 19 (only!) in the hit parade and I remember seeing at or near the start of an edition of Top of the Pops (with Jools Holland on piano) one Thursday evening near the start of the school Easter holidays (I was 13 then). Cool For Cats was actually the first single I bought,as I started having just enough pocket money to do so. It was the height of the coloured and themed vinyl craze and for some reason friends at school were trying to buy it pink vinyl (one of them already had Dr Feelgood's Milk and Alcohol in,yes,milk and alcohol (looked like brown beer of some kind) coloured vinyl. When I rocked up to the record shop the only copies left were in plain old black. I still have it among my old singles collection today. It peaked at number 2 in April 1979 when Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes (from the animated movie version of Watership Down) was number 1. Up the Junction also got to number 2,in June/July 1979,kept off the top by Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric? Slap & Tickle made number 25 in the early-to-mid autumn. In 1980 they scored another Top 20 hit with Another Nail in My Heart (number 17 in April) and followed it with Pulling Mussels From the Shell early that summer. The following summer they had Is That Love? and then Tempted,which though receiving great reviews over here appears to have been a far bigger hit in the United States. That autumn they hit number 4 with the country-influenced Labelled With Love. After that their chart fortunes declined somewhat,but they continued having minor hits with Black Coffee in Bed and Annie Get Your Gun (both 1982) and the rather dark but intriguing Last Time Forever,with its bloody "slasher" video (mid-1985). After what appeared to be some time out they returned to notch a number 16 hit in 1987 with Hourglass and had sporadic further minor hits after that.
@@rjjcms1 thanks so much for this timeline and breakdown!! Blue eyed soul was always popular in the US which i think is why tempted hit so high. All these others are fantastics. I personally like black coffee in bed a lot
I think this is possibly the greatest example of how a three minute pop song can tell a complex story. So many pop songs are trite clichés of emotional vacuity but this goes from boy meets girl, both fall in love, get married, have a child and relationship collapses, in just over 180 seconds, all with a kernel of emotional truth.
@@natemcfarlane4972 Well, it's Kitchen-Sink Drama, isn't it? English realism for the working class. That's why we love it. The small things that happen to us as we meander shambolically through life.
Alone here in the kitchen, I feel there’s something missing, I’d beg her for forgiveness, but begging’s not by business - that line still gives me chills, decades later. Perhaps because it describes my own life 😆 I’ve always chose to be alone, rather than backing down, or losing an argument in a relationship. Pride is a terrible affliction. People lose out on so much, because they can’t back down
I have adored Squeeze since I first heard Take Me I'm Yours when I was a child. A lot of people question why they weren't more famous 🤔. My theory us that they were actually so talented and versatile that they didn't fit into a particular genre. They could literally write and play anything. Pub rock like Cool For Cats. Soul as in Tempted. Country notably on Labelled With Love. Sheer sublime Pop like Is That Love. My own personal favourite is Another Nail In My Heart. The charts in the late seventies/early eighties were amazing with huge names coming through. However, they usually had a main style such as Pop, Rock, Ska, Mod Revival, etc. Squeeze were all of these with a cheeky side of sassiness. Love love love them forever ❤
This song speaks to so many people in so many different ways, it's not full of bourgeois clichés or empty rhetorics, the lyrics aren't made to be pretty, they're made to be real and true, which is what I appreciate most about this song... A story of love and loss encapsulated beautifully in the most powerful artform there is, music!
I'd never heard this song before, when it came on in the supermarket. I held my head back in the hope of catching some of the lyrics so I could put them in google when I got home! Glad I found it, it's definately one of the best songs ever written.
I had a similar experience, I heard it for the first time ever in a hair salon and the line "alone here in the kitchen, I feel there's something missing" was the one that got me!
I still have all my old Squeeze vinyl 45s from the 70s and early 80s, and even now, listening to this song it stirs memories and brings me to tears, a rare thing indeed. A requiem to those of us whose lives screwed up and didn't turn out the way we had hoped or planned.
AMEN.I am 53 so I remember this quite well.I am also a casualty of failed dreams IE: MUSIC.Then if that wasn'nt enough ,just keeping a day job and playing was hard but now I don't even play anymore and on unemployment.I have a great opportunity in July to get hired with Pittsburgh local govt. service.My point:U R not done living and learning yet because U R still here and ALIVE....MY advice,if U R spiritual is to PRAY and ask for guidance.HOOK UP WITH THE MAN WHO MADE IT ALLL>>>GOD.Don't give up and don't feel bad.JESUS IS LORD...PEACE TO YOUR ACHING SOUL!!!
Yes great song and how it pans out for almost everyone, I was lucky enough to sustain a musical career right through bringing up my two sons which kept the wolf from the door, if you can play you'll never starve my mum used to say and so true, trouble is most folks want security of a day job then think "shit where did my life go" I hate my job but need the money bla bla
i'm giving you a thumbs up even though you are rivalling me for the most votes on my comment lol. to be honest, i think we are both saying the same thing about this song. those lyrics are just so 'real'. sorry for repeating myself, but they really are. good music taste btw
It's a masterclass in how to tell a story spanning years in 3 minutes or less with a vocal range almost anyone could sing. Squeeze got it completely spot on here. I love the angst of the last verse too... "AND NOW SHE'S 2 YEARS OLDER". Every mistake you'll ever make as a working class boy or girl, right here. Still knocks me back.
Difford was a hell of a lyracist. And Tillbrook was so good at taking a simple melody, hook it into your brain, where it lives forever! Such an underrated band.
As a kid that grew up in part in Clapham this song will forever be engrained on my mind given my dad used to have this on his old CD, later MP3 player.
1:48 she looked just like her mother if there could be another. still gets me that line. i have an ex mrs and a daughter that just does lol. real lyrics, real music. love squeeze
One of the Greatest songs ever written, it is everything a Great Song should be, and a true one of a kind song.. I was a kid when this song used to come on the Radio and I understood the subject immediately, Goes to show How far songwriting has dropped now compared to then 😵💫
I just saw them in London 2 weeks ago when we were on vacation there! They still sound great and it was amazing when they played this song and everyone in the audience sang along! Loved the entire show so much. 🥰
This is the one song that plonks me right back to the days of my youth...every time i hear it, i'm back there... stop cutting onions in front of me! 🌹❤️
Very few bands were truly able to capture the essence of the early Beatles' songs in a modern way. This is the type of pop tune I wish I could write as a songwriter.
As perfect a pop song as has ever been written. The key change in the middle, the poignant lyrics, the title unspoken until the very end -- just a masterpiece.
Saw them in a small club in Dublin in 92. Super guys, they had drinks and chats with the audience before and after the show and during intermission. Great concert.
As good a pop song as anyone as ever written. ‘Alone here in the kitchen, I feel there’s something missing’. Sometimes I just sing along with the string line there. It’s all beautiful.
I bought this as a single when I was 12 years old and it was the first song I ever learned all the words to and I'm still word perfect to this day. Classic song from a classic and ridiculously underrated band.
This song is so true to my life, the devil came and took me from bar to street to bookie (or in my case football). My daughters nearly 13 now and I'm proud to say I've finally got my act together.
This song still almost brings a tear after 43 years!! I've got the cover of "Cool for Cats" on my office wall along with another hundred of my favorite records. "Up the Junction's" still the standout tune for me from that great album.
@@fredfurball Hula Fred: I think one of my dear kitties is using your moniker as an alias. Sorry that I can't respond to your query since I lived through the entire "New Music" video revolution of the late 70's and 80's without owning a TV (still don't have one at the age of 70) and have never watched the performance you mention. I've tried introducing my college history students to Squeeze but they seem to prefer Echo & the Bunnymen, the Church, and especially the (English) Beat. I think Chris and Glen might be a bit too obviously ironic for them.
I was so in love with this band when I was a kid. Now I'm an adult, I keep coming back and realizing how much I love them still. And how freaking amazing is Jools in the aviators and suspenders? He added a touch of whimsy to a soulful band. Oh, to be 14 again.
Hits home.....wife left me with kids....up the junction....such a surreal...unreal...arduous time...about to lose everything...but managed to pick up the pieces...kept it together....and now with a sweet loving honest Filipina ❤️....who values family and their man.....Amen! Happy ending to the song 🎵
Yep. It's line straight from the bloke in the pub. In fact this song is pub poetry. Shakespeare would of understood the pattern, flow and use of common words placed within a working class narrative..
So reminds me of another time. I spent my twenties and half my thirties hanging out in Clapham junction, Clapham Common, Clapham South (where I tried to learn Russian), all those memories. Is the windmill the name of the big pub on Clapham Common. Never outta there then. Such a beautiful musical story full of meaning and poignancy and reality.
Are these the greatest Lyrics of all time, I've heard and listened to most of the greatest songsmiths in my 64 years, Jackson Browne ,Lindsey Buckingham, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Brady, Stevie Nicks, Janis Ian, Jimmy Nail, Paul Simon, Mark Knoffler, Donald Fagen, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie, not even John Lennon could better this. I love this, i'ts totally beautiful, unforgettable, and takes me back to the wonderful freedom of 78 and 79 .The way they have arranged the words and deliver them is magic, the manner in which he captures the life and times and fecklessness of the characters in Clapham and 'windy common' inspired by Nell Dunn's prizewinning and much acclaimed book of stories in that part of London in the late Fifties In my view there should be a monument erected in Battersea for those guys.'Labelled with Love 'is equally brilliant, it's another absolute masterpiece of storytelling and beautiful music intertwined.
When this song finished playing, the first time I heard it, I realized my wife was going to leave me. I was shattered, and like the storyteller, knew I was up the junction. She had sent me on my own to pick up my son from camp on the Isle of Wight, then spend some time there with him on a holiday - just the two of us - the first of, what would be, many - over the coming years. We had been renting the same cottage for several years, but that year she stayed in London. Great song, but hearing it always puts me in that car - alone - waiting for my son, and wondering if she had already found her soldier.
that song must touch atleast 1million fellows memorys,, then years later advicing the next generation how to be more cautious !!,, as the saying goes,, History really DOES repeat its self cos 'kids just dont listen' you cannot teach 'experience', because that they have to learn it themselves. BUT WHAT A BRILLIANT SONG 👍
Heard this song for the first time today, and it’s killing me. Although the circumstances are quite different than my own divorce, still really driving me into some seriously deep introspection.
The finest Shakespearian song ever written or performed in the last 400 years or so since the master of the English language died. I have never been to university, but at 76 years old I can well imagine a lecturer discussing every line in this masterpiece for hours . Even I could do it ( because I have lived most of it ) . Magnificent.
I worked my way through college in Seattle at a cool Italian restaurant in Pioneer Square (80s). The head waiter managed to get a Squeeze compilation tape for the MUZAK tape system the restaurant used. Of course it was never used when we were open - we rocked to that tape for hours during setup / after hours. Another Nail for My Heart, Pulling Mussels From a Shell... good times!
Something is definitely CORRUPT. This masterpiece NEVER gets steered in my direction, and I've been playing the You Tube '80s hits for years now. Meanwhile, I can't get RID of that half-brained "My Sharona" which never fails to appear on the right as a "suggested" song. Well, it ain't a song, it's audio bubble-gum.l
If you could write a pop song and craft it into 3 minutes of pure lyrical content that perfect embraces all the ingredients and elements of a pure pop song then squeeze are the masters of this formula absolutely brilliant.
“ I’d beg for some forgiveness, but beggings not my business” what a lyric by a legendary band!!
The golden era of British lyricists. Tilbrook and Difford, Weller, Dury, Costello...
Fuckin spot on my friend
Think it's "I'd beg" as in I *would* but...
Always had the idea this was kind of the point of the line - that he did not beg as it wasn't his thing.
One of the best lines in music
Bloody love this, British music at it,s best
Love this track
This is one of the rare songs where pretty much every line is absolutely perfect ... Its almost ridiculous how well this is written - not just the lyrics but also the chord progression and melody ... And on top of that the vocal delivery is amazing - the timbre of the voice almost reminds me of John Lennon ... One of the great British songs
It's an all time classic but most people can't see it
Squeeze wrote quietly devastating, everyday stories within bright, catchy tunes. The definition of bittersweet. It's an art form.
Difford n Tilbrook were every bit as good as L&M
Did not
@@RosannaMahon No they weren't but they were the closest to
I worked with this slag, fucked her way to Madison Avenue management from a Cotswold town in England, proper bangtail. I said about Squeeze and she started laughing and said I knew nothing about music if I liked a band called "Squeeze" so then I said "What about someone like Jools Holland" and she said he was a legend and knew his stuff. So as you can see, "Oxygen thief" was too kind a mantle
I hear a lot of Ian Dury-like wordplay in some of those lines. That's not a bad thing.
How do you write a song like that at 21. Beyond brilliant.
He wrote the song when touring America. He was doing his laundry in a hotel just outside of New Orleans and was missing home and started to write down the lyrics. Quite incredible!
@@twobobruss: Lyrics written by their guitarist, not by singer.
@@janloudin1033 I didn’t specify who wrote it
@@twobobruss You didn't indeed , but to answer you , purely a god given talent...fabulous song 😊
Love it, still remember all the words.
Saw them last night. Lot of love in the crowd for this great band. 50 years on and still putting on a great show. Cheers Glenn, Chris and the rest of the band.
'she looked just like her mother - if there could be another.' Beautiful line.
😭
I know, makes me so emotional, he lost her 💔
It always makes me cry
Really sad song......deep sad story told in under 3 minutes
... great line ... one of many ...
Takes a special skill to tell a full story in 3 minutes!! ❤❤
I still want to know how he went from working hard to support the family to being such a drunken jackass that she left him for a soldier.
Yeah, I know it is my problem.
How to tell a story perfectly in 3 minutes, Absolutely brilliant
Lp
I just used the word brilliant to describe "Another nail for my heart" when sharing to Facebook, Brilliant indeed !
It is perfect, the sort of thing that The Beatles could do so well, too. This is an achingly sad song and uniquely British.
I totally agree.. not a single word is wasted in his telling of the story and you can hear the pain and regret in his voice.. so powerful.
Excellent Band clever BASTARDS on all lyrics MATE!
What makes this song so amazing is there is NO chorus, but it still works! It resolves at the very end....keeps you engaged until the very end....so well done. Masterclass songwriting!
I will point you to "Slip Inside This House" by The Thirteenth Floor Elevators. The album version is 8m long, and, has a LOT of singing/lyrics, and there is no actual chorus. It uses "Slip Inside This House" as more of what we'd call a "chaotic attractor" these days!
it doesnt have a vocal chorus - but it does have a melody x
A masterclass of songwriting, manages to tell a sad, short story in a little over 3 minutes. Stunning
ITS CALLED GENIUS.
They are clever lads. Consummate songwriters and arrangers.
I'm 76 and this still brings a small tear. A wonderful story told so beautifully.
Good on you Tony
I am 52 and it still makes me cry all these years on.
Am so glad I was around in the late 70s.
I am having a little tear now. I married a girl from Clapham. Thankfully we are still together.
You know it mate
A memorable song - 'with thoughts of our engagement we moved into a basement' is a classic line ...
This song is quietly a flawless masterpiece
Underrated comment
Some of the lyrics are a bit janky, e.g. "no more nights nappies smelly."
not flawless...nappies smelling is weak
It was the 70's and yes they did 😅😅
People, don't argue, the song is perfect.🤫
My god I'm absolutely addicted to british music like this. I'm not even british but somehow I absolutely love stuff like Squeeze, Steve Harley, The Kinks, The Jam, and of course the other usual suspects. Hats off to you Brits, you make the best music in the world. Much love from your german brothers!
Edit: recently visited England and I loved it. The people, the music, the architecture, the football and THE FOOD!!! I'll have to return soon, I long for a sunday roast again...
Danker broder x
But you germans make the best cars..i drive a german car..and listen to our great music . ..regards your English brother ..
@@shaunwhite1337 I can see you're a man of great taste in cars ;-)
Unfortunately, music-wise, we haven't done much since... Brahms and Beethoven I guess :D
Brits are music. Germans are Engineering. Yanks like me love our Uncles (Europe).
Vorsprung durch Technik
Squeeze are just brilliant. Yes they are really under rated.
I couldn't agree more, Emma, we were all punk rockers back then and we loved them too. Every song a story, every song a joy to listen to.
How are they underrated? They are still really popular and very well respected, especially by me!
@@2760ade Another idiot who doesn't know what underrated means...
@@markrae1317 Ha ha, yes! The word 'underrated' is overused on RUclips for some reason!
@@2760ade It really is! Almost as much as 'surreal'.
I think that this might be the perfect pop song. The tune is catchy as hell, the lyrics are razor sharp, nuanced, and poetic and delivered by a class bunch of musicians.
Agreed. Tempted gets all the love and Paul Carrick knocked it out of the park but this one hits so good. It’s become my favorite Squeeze song. Right up there with a bunch of other ‘perfect’ songs.
@@steves2074 In the UK this song and,directly before it,Cool For Cats achieved Squeeze's highest position in the singles chart,both getting to number 2,in 1979.
@@rjjcms1 wow that's cool to know. in the US, all we ever got from squeeze on most radio was tempted and mussels... college radio played more and i got introduced to more of their songs that way.
@@steves2074College radio must have been quite a saviour on your side of the Atlantic in the 70s,80s and 90s! Anyway,here's a fullewr rundown of their UK hits:
Their breakthrough came around Easter 1978 with Take Me I'm Yours,which reached number 19 (only!) in the hit parade and I remember seeing at or near the start of an edition of Top of the Pops (with Jools Holland on piano) one Thursday evening near the start of the school Easter holidays (I was 13 then).
Cool For Cats was actually the first single I bought,as I started having just enough pocket money to do so. It was the height of the coloured and themed vinyl craze and for some reason friends at school were trying to buy it pink vinyl (one of them already had Dr Feelgood's Milk and Alcohol in,yes,milk and alcohol (looked like brown beer of some kind) coloured vinyl. When I rocked up to the record shop the only copies left were in plain old black. I still have it among my old singles collection today. It peaked at number 2 in April 1979 when Art Garfunkel's Bright Eyes (from the animated movie version of Watership Down) was number 1.
Up the Junction also got to number 2,in June/July 1979,kept off the top by Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric? Slap & Tickle made number 25 in the early-to-mid autumn.
In 1980 they scored another Top 20 hit with Another Nail in My Heart (number 17 in April) and followed it with Pulling Mussels From the Shell early that summer. The following summer they had Is That Love? and then Tempted,which though receiving great reviews over here appears to have been a far bigger hit in the United States. That autumn they hit number 4 with the country-influenced Labelled With Love. After that their chart fortunes declined somewhat,but they continued having minor hits with Black Coffee in Bed and Annie Get Your Gun (both 1982) and the rather dark but intriguing Last Time Forever,with its bloody "slasher" video (mid-1985). After what appeared to be some time out they returned to notch a number 16 hit in 1987 with Hourglass and had sporadic further minor hits after that.
@@rjjcms1 thanks so much for this timeline and breakdown!! Blue eyed soul was always popular in the US which i think is why tempted hit so high. All these others are fantastics. I personally like black coffee in bed a lot
I adore this song - it tells such a story, it's like reading a book. And it captures late 70s / early 80s English life so brilliantly.
They should do an arabic/Pakistani version for modern england
@@ivand9610 Oh no, most of the population wouldn't understand it!
@@CathyKitson but what about in 20 years?
@@ivand9610 Well, idk. We'll still be speaking English.
@@ivand9610 There's always a racist moron somewhere, isn't there?
Good gosh, man. THIS is songwriting 🏆
One of the best, most honest, songs ever written.
By a genuine band, with no pretensions.
not one of the best, THE best
Thee best song ever from this fantastic band
One of the most beautiful pop songs ever written. Ray Davies meets Richard Rodgers. And Jools Holland smoking a stogie.
"The devil came and took me / From bar to street to bookie"
What a line that is, damn.
I always thought he said “barter street”. Cheers for solving a decades old mystery
Almost as good as Atlantic City
Thanks for that- I’m in Ladbrokes at the moment and couldn’t quite hear it…
I use that line every time I’m in the shit, with my girlfriend. 👹🥃🍺🐎🐎💸💸
Me all over ! Bets and pints have fucked me up.
I think this is possibly the greatest example of how a three minute pop song can tell a complex story. So many pop songs are trite clichés of emotional vacuity but this goes from boy meets girl, both fall in love, get married, have a child and relationship collapses, in just over 180 seconds, all with a kernel of emotional truth.
I agree with you, but the thong thong thong song is much better viewing. Chaz n Dave are pretty good if you’re looking for reality
No mention ov marrage
He thought it just a squeeze
Four words: The Kinks: Two Sisters - the most devastating 2 minutes in music history.
NAILED IT! Great post!
Superb song ❤
2024 right here! Love Squeeze.
Top 5 pop songs of all time. Full stop.
Well said totally agree
Christopher Difford is a lyrical genius
This song raises my spirits and breaks my heart every time I hear it. I hope everyone for whom it rings true has managed to find peace.
The joy and then the sorrow.
Amen. Not far from my own story. God bless us all x
This song is ageless, typically English and brilliant.
I thought that myself, there's something so achingly English about it and I can't say quite what.
@@natemcfarlane4972The spirit of it is very British in an inexplicable way, but it’s also laden with many Britishisms.
@@natemcfarlane4972 Well, it's Kitchen-Sink Drama, isn't it? English realism for the working class. That's why we love it. The small things that happen to us as we meander shambolically through life.
As Australian born,by English parents--I have to agree with you
The brilliant Squeeze
Our abandoned dad's all need this song. It is helpful.
The perfect pop song. Wish I'd written it !!
Saw these guys last week in NYC! Simply awesome! Was supposed to see them 40 years ago but had to work. They did not disappoint!
Alone here in the kitchen, I feel there’s something missing, I’d beg her for forgiveness, but begging’s not by business - that line still gives me chills, decades later. Perhaps because it describes my own life 😆 I’ve always chose to be alone, rather than backing down, or losing an argument in a relationship. Pride is a terrible affliction. People lose out on so much, because they can’t back down
i'd beg for some
People voted for Hitler and enjoy Coldplay. Can't trust people, mate. But stay true to your moral compass.
@@jonnozomboid2649 Super Hans!
I have adored Squeeze since I first heard Take Me I'm Yours when I was a child. A lot of people question why they weren't more famous 🤔. My
theory us that they were actually so talented and versatile that they didn't fit into a particular genre. They could literally write and play anything. Pub rock like Cool For Cats. Soul as in Tempted. Country notably on Labelled With Love. Sheer sublime Pop like Is That Love. My own personal favourite is Another Nail In My Heart. The charts in the late seventies/early eighties were amazing with huge names coming through. However, they usually had a main style such as Pop, Rock, Ska, Mod Revival, etc. Squeeze were all of these with a cheeky side of sassiness. Love love love them forever ❤
One of the best tunes of all time
My favourite tune ever. Gonna be playing at my 'funeral '. . Simply beautiful English, and world wide poetry.. ❤✌️
This song speaks to so many people in so many different ways, it's not full of bourgeois clichés or empty rhetorics, the lyrics aren't made to be pretty, they're made to be real and true, which is what I appreciate most about this song... A story of love and loss encapsulated beautifully in the most powerful artform there is, music!
Ringo utters the phrase 'bourgeois clichés' in the film 'A Hard Day's Night!
Yes
I'd never heard this song before, when it came on in the supermarket. I held my head back in the hope of catching some of the lyrics so I could put them in google when I got home! Glad I found it, it's definately one of the best songs ever written.
I had a similar experience, I heard it for the first time ever in a hair salon and the line "alone here in the kitchen, I feel there's something missing" was the one that got me!
Glad to hear you discovered a masterpiece of music genius..
I bought it on purple vinyl in “79” I believe , still one of my favourite tunes .
What a wonderful song, hadn't heard it in years. Brought me to tears. I'm sixty years old now, glad young love passed me by.
I still have all my old Squeeze vinyl 45s from the 70s and early 80s, and even now, listening to this song it stirs memories and brings me to tears, a rare thing indeed. A requiem to those of us whose lives screwed up and didn't turn out the way we had hoped or planned.
No-one's life does, if that's any comfort to you. It is a very poignant song.
AMEN.I am 53 so I remember this quite well.I am also a casualty of failed dreams IE: MUSIC.Then if that wasn'nt enough ,just keeping a day job and playing was hard but now I don't even play anymore and on unemployment.I have a great opportunity in July to get hired with Pittsburgh local govt. service.My point:U R not done living and learning yet because U R still here and ALIVE....MY advice,if U R spiritual is to PRAY and ask for guidance.HOOK UP WITH THE MAN WHO MADE IT ALLL>>>GOD.Don't give up and don't feel bad.JESUS IS LORD...PEACE TO YOUR ACHING SOUL!!!
Yes great song and how it pans out for almost everyone, I was lucky enough to sustain a musical career right through bringing up my two sons which kept the wolf from the door, if you can play you'll never starve my mum used to say and so true, trouble is most folks want security of a day job then think "shit where did my life go" I hate my job but need the money bla bla
i'm giving you a thumbs up even though you are rivalling me for the most votes on my comment lol. to be honest, i think we are both saying the same thing about this song. those lyrics are just so 'real'. sorry for repeating myself, but they really are. good music taste btw
Gwen Ever I had one of their tunes on multicoloured vinyl many moons ago, another nail in my heart, sold it on a few years ago for nice price
It's a masterclass in how to tell a story spanning years in 3 minutes or less with a vocal range almost anyone could sing. Squeeze got it completely spot on here. I love the angst of the last verse too... "AND NOW SHE'S 2 YEARS OLDER". Every mistake you'll ever make as a working class boy or girl, right here. Still knocks me back.
Summed up perfectly
Nailed it.
There is a strange raw beauty to this song.
It's the story of so many lives.
Right about the vocal range, but this fantastic song is hard to sing and play.
Difford was a hell of a lyracist. And Tillbrook was so good at taking a simple melody, hook it into your brain, where it lives forever! Such an underrated band.
Still sends shivers down my backbone after all these years, how anyone can give this masterpiece the thumbs down is beyond me, this is a classic!
accidentally found this song.. and its everything i didnt know i needed in my life. its been on replay for hours now.
" she gave birth to a daughter, within a year a walker. Love every line in this song
Some of the greatest lyrics ever written.
The best bit of being 59 in 2024 is that tracks like this are the tracks I grew up with
As a kid that grew up in part in Clapham this song will forever be engrained on my mind given my dad used to have this on his old CD, later MP3 player.
1:48 she looked just like her mother if there could be another. still gets me that line. i have an ex mrs and a daughter that just does lol. real lyrics, real music. love squeeze
Love how the last lyrics of the song are the only time they say 'up the junctionnnnn'-🎸 great name for this song---
One of the Greatest songs ever written, it is everything a Great Song should be, and a true one of a kind song.. I was a kid when this song used to come on the Radio and I understood the subject immediately, Goes to show How far songwriting has dropped now compared to then 😵💫
I just saw them in London 2 weeks ago when we were on vacation there! They still sound great and it was amazing when they played this song and everyone in the audience sang along! Loved the entire show so much. 🥰
@@beachmom62 great!!!
thank you!
Born in 1964. Still listening to these classic lyrics
I was 1967......my neighbours all like it too...well at least the cops haven't been called for a noise complaint so I assume they like it 😂
1965 ❤
Better than the music today at least them days you could understand the words
I was born in 1966 .
1964 here too... had your 60th yet? Yes, they are great lyrics.
Some songs have memorable lines , most song don't have any , this song has about 2 dozen .... masterpiece
A bath on Sunday 😅
I’d beg for some forgiveness… but begging’s not my business! 👌
The one about stinky diapers, right?
Some very effective lines, but also some real clunkers.
Who needs a chorus with a story like that. Pure genius !!
"I'd beg for some forgiveness, but begging's not my business." - Best line in any song according to my old mam.
Personally its my second. My first is The Verve This is Music; "I stand accused, just like you, of being born without a silver spoon"
You're old man was a wise cookie.
Fantastic line
Step 2 song
Love that line.
Absolutely amazing chord progression in the bridge. Great track, always has been!
This is the one song that plonks me right back to the days of my youth...every time i hear it, i'm back there... stop cutting onions in front of me! 🌹❤️
Very few bands were truly able to capture the essence of the early Beatles' songs in a modern way. This is the type of pop tune I wish I could write as a songwriter.
Oddly enough it was apparently filmed at John Lennon’s old kitchen (the Imagine house)
This song always goes off in my head when I am in England and riding the train line that goes through Clapham Junction.
Ditto
This is an anthem. Superb, true grit lyrics, superb chords and absolute class musicians.
As perfect a pop song as has ever been written. The key change in the middle, the poignant lyrics, the title unspoken until the very end -- just a masterpiece.
Well said
Saw them in a small club in Dublin in 92. Super guys, they had drinks and chats with the audience before and after the show and during intermission. Great concert.
That's what you call class, unlike most bands who are stuck up there own backside.
You are so lucky, you saw them!
This band is way too underated
KurtAndEdRuleAll Yeah but it would be nice if more of their songs got played rather than just Cool for Cats
SeekThySocialist Awesome...Bring old Skool back !!!
Tempted, as well.
The most overrated comment on RUclips is about bands being underrated ffs.
Lets just enjoy it for what it is.... thank f it's not a rap....
Glenn Tilbrook's voice is so unique, absolutely perfect for Squeeze's distinctive sound. Phenomenal songwriter as well.
As good a pop song as anyone as ever written. ‘Alone here in the kitchen, I feel there’s something missing’. Sometimes I just sing along with the string line there. It’s all beautiful.
This is one of my favorite pieces of British music ever.
I bought this as a single when I was 12 years old and it was the first song I ever learned all the words to and I'm still word perfect to this day. Classic song from a classic and ridiculously underrated band.
The song has no chorus... yet it's brilliant and totally memorable. Not many songwriters could accomplish that...
Love this song
My Dad showed me this song. He said he used to love it and now I in turn love it. Great song
My dad showed me this song too
Same. He always had it playing in the car. I just picked it up🤷
11 years old in 79. A brilliant song and a great year. Takes me back. Wish I'd been 18 in 79.🤣🤣🤣🇬🇧😇
I was 21😊
The opening to this song is gorrrrgeous
It’s a perfect song. Fantastically catchy tune and with a complete story from start to finish.
All time classic
This song is so true to my life, the devil came and took me from bar to street to bookie (or in my case football). My daughters nearly 13 now and I'm proud to say I've finally got my act together.
This song still almost brings a tear after 43 years!! I've got the cover of "Cool for Cats" on my office wall along with another hundred of my favorite records. "Up the Junction's" still the standout tune for me from that great album.
So do you think the two women in the background of this video are the same two dancers on Cool for Cats?
@@fredfurball Hula Fred: I think one of my dear kitties is using your moniker as an alias. Sorry that I can't respond to your query since I lived through the entire "New Music" video revolution of the late 70's and 80's without owning a TV (still don't have one at the age of 70) and have never watched the performance you mention. I've tried introducing my college history students to Squeeze but they seem to prefer Echo & the Bunnymen, the Church, and especially the (English) Beat. I think Chris and Glen might be a bit too obviously ironic for them.
I was so in love with this band when I was a kid. Now I'm an adult, I keep coming back and realizing how much I love them still. And how freaking amazing is Jools in the aviators and suspenders? He added a touch of whimsy to a soulful band. Oh, to be 14 again.
Wish we could all go back times a bitch 😭
@@andrewmatthews6861 we need to go back man. We need to get out of the 2020s. We need to find a way.
Hits home.....wife left me with kids....up the junction....such a surreal...unreal...arduous time...about to lose everything...but managed to pick up the pieces...kept it together....and now with a sweet loving honest Filipina ❤️....who values family and their man.....Amen! Happy ending to the song 🎵
Difford and Tilbrook are truly genius. Absolutely amazing writers. Three Cheers!
chris kavanaugh uu
but begging's not my business......what a line....what a song.!!
haha, was just thinking about that line while watching. I agree, these guys were masters!
"Alone here in the kitchen, I feel there's something missing. I'd beg for some forgiveness but beggin's not my business."
I saw them live last summer in Brentwood.
Two groups: Us who know the lyrics, and them that don't.
I pity them.
Yep. It's line straight from the bloke in the pub. In fact this song is pub poetry. Shakespeare would of understood the pattern, flow and use of common words placed within a working class narrative..
Love that line!
This song gets better everytime I listen to it.
the words all way through this song are second to none apart from hotel California brilliant
"I begged for some forgiveness... but beggin's not my business." Genius. This is a perfect song in every way.
I thought it was "I'd beg for some forgiveness, but begging's not my business."
Such a moving lyric, it always makes me feel melancholy. The story of so many lives! The genius of Squeeze.
A devastatingly effective, deeply moving 'story' song. ❤
This song breaks my heart 💔every friggin time. And brings me back to the windy Common up the road from where I lived in 80s n 90s.
Pure songwriting genius 👏 👌
This masterpiece was released back in 79
Absolute incredible song and lyrics
So reminds me of another time. I spent my twenties and half my thirties hanging out in Clapham junction, Clapham Common, Clapham South (where I tried to learn Russian), all those memories. Is the windmill the name of the big pub on Clapham Common. Never outta there then. Such a beautiful musical story full of meaning and poignancy and reality.
Are these the greatest Lyrics of all time, I've heard and listened to most of the greatest songsmiths in my 64 years, Jackson Browne ,Lindsey Buckingham, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Brady, Stevie Nicks, Janis Ian, Jimmy Nail, Paul Simon, Mark Knoffler, Donald Fagen, Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie, not even John Lennon could better this. I love this, i'ts totally beautiful, unforgettable, and takes me back to the wonderful freedom of 78 and 79 .The way they have arranged the words and deliver them is magic, the manner in which he captures the life and times and fecklessness of the characters in Clapham and 'windy common' inspired by Nell Dunn's prizewinning and much acclaimed book of stories in that part of London in the late Fifties In my view there should be a monument erected in Battersea for those guys.'Labelled with Love 'is equally brilliant, it's another absolute masterpiece of storytelling and beautiful music intertwined.
The best lyrics to any song ever.
When this song finished playing, the first time I heard it, I realized my wife was going to leave me. I was shattered, and like the storyteller, knew I was up the junction. She had sent me on my own to pick up my son from camp on the Isle of Wight, then spend some time there with him on a holiday - just the two of us - the first of, what would be, many - over the coming years. We had been renting the same cottage for several years, but that year she stayed in London. Great song, but hearing it always puts me in that car - alone - waiting for my son, and wondering if she had already found her soldier.
So did she? Women man
that song must touch atleast 1million fellows memorys,, then years later advicing the next generation how to be more cautious !!,, as the saying goes,, History really DOES
repeat its self cos
'kids just dont listen'
you cannot teach 'experience', because that they have to learn it themselves.
BUT WHAT A BRILLIANT SONG 👍
I could write a song to this story
Had she?
Things that never happened for 10….. 🤣
Heard this song for the first time today, and it’s killing me. Although the circumstances are quite different than my own divorce, still really driving me into some seriously deep introspection.
An absolute anthem when I worked in a south London pub in the early ‘90s. Probably still is
The finest Shakespearian song ever written or performed in the last 400 years or so since the master of the English language died. I have never been to university, but at 76 years old I can well imagine a lecturer discussing every line in this masterpiece for hours . Even I could do it ( because I have lived most of it ) . Magnificent.
I worked my way through college in Seattle at a cool Italian restaurant in Pioneer Square (80s). The head waiter managed to get a Squeeze compilation tape for the MUZAK tape system the restaurant used. Of course it was never used when we were open - we rocked to that tape for hours during setup / after hours. Another Nail for My Heart, Pulling Mussels From a Shell... good times!
How the beejeesus has this got less than a million views. This is part of the rich tapestry of British Music
+Joey BSide 1,146,127. Excellent. Guess my leg up worked. Kind of. Maybe. OK it didn't
Joseph Fieldstaff-Hughes n
Something is definitely CORRUPT. This masterpiece NEVER gets steered in my direction, and I've been playing the You Tube '80s hits for years now. Meanwhile, I can't get RID of that half-brained "My Sharona" which never fails to appear on the right as a "suggested" song. Well, it ain't a song, it's audio bubble-gum.l
2.396,620. happy now?.
Explanation: DISNEY DISNEY DISNEY.
"Alone here in the kitchen / I feel there's something missing"
Video shows a kitchen with the 5-member band and two girls doing dishes. Love it!
It's a sad song and totally brilliant!!
If you could write a pop song and craft it into 3 minutes of pure lyrical content that perfect embraces all the ingredients and elements of a pure pop song then squeeze are the masters of this formula absolutely brilliant.
Poor and trying to get by in the 70s - and now. It says more in 3 minutes than most novels. Truly wonderful.
Still fabulous after 45 years
One of the best songs ever by one of the best bands ever, Chris diffords lyrics are genius love it