Transcription
Hey, welcome to Pop Culture Graveyard. I am Hollis, and today I'm going to feature one of my favorite indie pop bands of the 80s, The Housemartins.
Now, first, a word up front. I'm an American talking in America about a band that I love from Britain. Whenever I do that, the YouTube algorithm, in its infinite wisdom, pushes the video out to the UK and not so much in America. If you're in the UK right now, you probably don't need me to tell you about The Housemartins. So, to all my British friends, I hope you will enjoy this trip down memory lane. To anyone unfamiliar with The Housemartins, you're in for a treat. So, people of the world, please join me for a deep dive on The Housemartins.
[Music]
I first heard about The Housemartins from Morrissey. We met at an abstinence anonymous meeting, which I catered. Not true. I was a massive Smiths fan back in high school in the mid-80s, and whenever Morrissey or Johnny Marr would name-check a band, I would run out and get that album. That's also how I learned about The Primitives and Everything But The Girl, another great band from Hull, the same area where The Housemartins were formed. And that's how I learned about The Housemartins.
The Housemartins' sound, musically, was not unlike a mixture of early R.E.M. and The Smiths, except fronted by a fully grown choir boy, which was exactly what I wanted to hear back in 1986. The Housemartins consisted of Paul Heaton, aka P.D. Heaton, on vocals, guitar, and harmonica; Stan Cullimore on guitar and vocals; Norman Cook on bass and vocals; and Hugh Whitaker on drums and vocals. That's right, everybody in this band could sing, and their backing vocals are stellar. The Housemartins may have looked like a junior college math club, but they packed a real musical punch.
In June of 1986, the band released *London 0 Hull 4*. The band co-opted sports headlines of the time for this title. It is also a sly inside joke, as the band would routinely call themselves the fourth best band from Hull. On the cover is a picture of the lead singer, Paul, looking very much like Morrissey in both facial expression and pose, which I think was a deliberate choice by the record company, being that The Smiths were a very popular band at the time. Unlike The Smiths, this band liked to Trojan horse their Marxist Christianity, for lack of a better term, into their finely crafted jangle pop tunes. This is a brilliant album that holds up remarkably well today.
The debut album opens with "Happy Hour," which is perhaps The Housemartins' best-known song, and it announces Paul Heaton as a brilliant new voice. It really is a seamless pop song, and it stayed on the British charts for 13 weeks. The track was originally known as "French England," and its lyrics are a clever attack on British yuppies. My favorite line in the song is, "It's another night out with the boss, following in footsteps overgrown with moss, and he tells me that women grow on trees, and if you catch them right, they will land upon their knees." Such intricate detailing of a lousy night out with your blowhard boss. It's a gorgeous-sounding single, and the Christmas chimes that come in during the middle eight is such a lovely touch.
It is followed by "Get Up Off Our Knees," which is a brilliant takedown of the British class system and homelessness in particular. The lyrics to this song are next-level great: "Famines will be famines, banquets will be banquets, some spend winter in a palace, some spend it in blankets. Don't wag your fingers at them and turn to walk away, don't shoot someone tomorrow that you can shoot today." What crazy, crazy great lyrics. Between The Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Housemartins, there were so many brilliant lyrics coming out of England at that time. It's staggering, and this song has such a brilliant, heartfelt message. The piano brings some Motown flavor to the song, much like the organ does in The Jam's "A Town Called Malice." When the band gets in the pocket and things get really quiet, is when the band really starts to cook. Such a great song.
"Flag Day" is named after the day in which money is collected for a charity, and it puts Paul's powerhouse voice front and center. This heartfelt song criticizes the inadequacy of actions taken to help the poor, such as jumble sales, when the Queen could solve the problem all by herself, merely by opening her purse. The lyrics again are some next-level wordplay: "Too many Florence Nightingales, not enough Robin Hoods. Too many halos, not enough heroes coming up with the goods." I will put that up against any couplet you throw at me. An earlier version of "Flag Day" was released as a single almost a year prior to the album release, and it peaked at number 124 on the UK singles chart, but the longer version on the album is far superior.
The next song, "Anxious," is an irresistible track with some of the tastiest guitar on the album. Stan uses a little Bo Diddley reverb on this one. It just sounds great. The lyrics deal with a worried man's feelings about social inequality, and the chorus on this is perhaps the most fun to shout along with on this entire album. It's also simplicity itself: "Don't they know it is wrong? It makes me anxious. Ah, it does."
"Reverend's Revenge" is an instrumental with some of the best music on the whole LP, and Paul really steals the show, blowing harp on this one. "Sitting on a Fence" calls out people who refuse to take part in helping to make things better, and the lyrics are typically pointed. But the real problem with this man is he says he can't when he can. He'd rather not get his hands dirty. He'll still be there when he's 30.
"Sheep" kicks off side two and is the bounciest track on the album. It's got a very lively bass line from Norman, who turns out to be the band's secret weapon. When you listen closely to the songs, "Sheep" and the lyrics are your basic humans who travel like drones to their office jobs, and this track features even more endearing backing vocals. Over there, it sounds like a fun song, but it's basically about how people have built walls to separate themselves from each other. The song's closing yelps by Paul are very early Morrissey.
"Think for a Minute" is a plea for human interaction. I like to imagine it happening on the eve of nuclear destruction, but maybe that's just me. I always enjoy raising the stakes, and it features yet another gorgeous Paul vocal. "We're Not Deep" is a very fun track and encapsulates everything that The Housemartins do well. My favorite part of the song is when everybody drops out except for Norman's bass and Hugh's cowbell. Never enough cowbell.
The next track, "Lean on Me," takes us to church, as the stripped-down soul song gives Paul a real showcase for his gorgeous voice. "Freedom" ends the album with an upbeat song about the socio-political realities of what the powers that be call freedom. The chorus goes, "So this is freedom? They must be joking. They must be joking if they think it's true." Right in the middle of the song, we get to hear the usually reserved Stan unleash his guitar for a bit. It borders on dissonance at one point, and it's intoxicating. The backing vocals carry us through the outro, and as always, when these boys blend their voices, they sound absolutely beautiful.
Speaking of which, in November of 1986, the band released an a cappella cover of the Isley Jasper-Isley song "Caravan of Love," which was a massive hit for the band, reaching number one on the UK singles chart. I'm going to put a link in the description below to the song being performed live in concert because it really is their greatest vocal performance as a band. The band would occasionally even open up for themselves as an a cappella band called The Fish City Five, Fish City being a nod to Hull, and five, I suppose, as a joke because, yes, there were only four of them at this point.
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In September of 1987, the band released *The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death*. This album saw Hugh Whitaker replaced on drums by Dave Hemingway, who would turn out to be a great singer in his own right. More on that later. In general, this album is a step up musically by the band, who returned with an even stronger set of songs. Everything the band did well on the first album, they do better here.
The title track, "The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death," kicks off its namesake LP in style with one of the best tracks on the album. Aside from a definite Smiths influence musically, the song is marked by brilliant lyrics that lambast monarchists who ignore the struggles of the working class, as summed up in the chorus: "The people who grinned themselves to death, smiled so much they failed to take a breath. And even when their kids were starving, they all thought the Queen was charming."
"I Can't Put My Finger on It" has a wonderfully bouncy melody and very pretty vocals over what's essentially a dastardly song. The next track, "The Light Is Always Green," subtitled on the LP as "For Young Male Pop Star," is a real highlight on this album. This lush ballad encapsulates the light-speed pace of pop star life with pinpoint accuracy and always leaves me wanting more. For me, this gorgeous ballad accomplishes the same mood that "Flag Day" did on the debut album, and it provides some very nice variety here.
"The World's on Fire" is a delicious rave-up about the church's biggest threat, which is people not wanting to go to church. It would be an understatement to say that lead singer Paul has a high voice. At one point in "The World's on Fire," he hits a high note that sounds like a train whistle. The next track, "Pirate Agro," is a fun instrumental with some righteous church organ and some more great harmonica from Paul.
The next song, "We're Not Going Back," is my deep cut on this album. It rocks harder than any other song here without sacrificing the band's signature sound. It makes sense, in a way, that the lyrics about the bad old days are set to the most badass guitar on the album.
Side two, track one, "The Power of Love," goes to "Me and the Farmer." It was actually composed on the same day that Stan and Paul put the finishing touches on the composition "Happy Hour," so it dates back to their first album days. It was the second single release from the album and it reached number 15 on the UK singles chart. The song's happy chorus of "Me and the farmer, like brother, like sister, getting on like hand and blister" belies verses that call out the farmer as a very hated individual who treats everyone badly, from his wife to his workers to his animals. Even Jesus doesn't like this guy. "Jesus don't like you, and he lacks everyone." And if you extrapolate out as a songwriter that the farmer may not be an actual farmer, but the powers that be at the time in England, you've got an even more interesting song.
"Five Get Over Excited" is another irresistible winner on this uniformly great album. This is a fun yet tragic song with live fast, die young energy to match the lyrics, which seem ripped right out of a newspaper's personal ads. My favorite verse goes, "I am Guy from Camden Town, my hair is curly but I gel it down. My clothes are black but my bread is brown. I'm really into early Motown." If one of the things you love about music is getting lost in clever lyrics, prepare to love The Housemartins.
"Johannesburg" slows the album down to a crawl for a not-so-tender ballad that rails against the titular town that made apartheid famous. The song personifies Johannesburg as something that the person wants to disappear. He doesn't want it to change, he doesn't want it to soften its stance, he simply wants it to go away forever. And the fact that it's couched in such a beautiful ballad just brings an ironic beauty to the whole thing.
"Bow Down" is another of my favorite deep cuts on this album. It deals with teenage alienation, existential angst, and childhood abuse, and as usual, it wraps them all in a very appealing musical package. Whenever the band add piano to the composition, it always just raises the song to another level. This track features very effective backing vocals from Saint Winifred's School Choir that produce an almost chilling effect, given the nature of the lyrics.
"You Better Be Doubtful" is one of the best songs on this LP and it rails against wealth inequality and the raw deal given to everyone at the back of the line. Musically, it's very reminiscent of early Smiths, but vocally, it's got Paul's signature pop song sensibility. The album ends on "Build," a very moving track about just how easy it is for builders to sweep away the remnants of someone's life. Third single from this album, I believe. This song is about forced relocation for the common good, which puts progress above the individual. The song is unique for The Housemartins in that it features drummer Dave Hemingway on lead vocals during the choruses, while Paul is left to sing the verses and the bridge. It is a bittersweet way to end this album, and I love it.
All in all, this record is a step up from their debut album, and it still holds up as an indie pop classic. Inexplicably, after only a three-recording career, The Housemartins broke up, citing musical differences. Norman had a few hits with different collaborations on the burgeoning club music scene, but he eventually found global success after he went solo and changed his name to Fatboy Slim. Stan quit music altogether for a while and simply wrote kids' books. Paul wanted to go in a more soulful, jazzier direction, and the drummer, Dave, put down his drumsticks to become co-vocalist with Paul, joining guitarist Dave Rotheray in their new group, The Beautiful South. If The Housemartins were The Jam, then The Beautiful South were The Style Council.
So please check out The Housemartins, check out The Beautiful South, check out Paul's solo albums, and also check out Paul's more recent work with Jackie Abbott, a former vocalist with The Beautiful South. Paul Heaton might just be the most underrated singer-songwriter in Britain today. Yeah, I said it.
What I hope you enjoyed this deep dive on The Housemartins. If you did, please do me a favor and click the like button. Don't forget to subscribe, and I will see you next week with a lot more cool stuff.
Morrissey is my father. He shared a cold water flat in Leeds. He and I shared a bedsit in Dagenham. We were each in the same tattoo parlor. We met in a hostel. We met in line at a vegan bakery. I was Morrissey's pool boy. We met at Partners Without Pity. We met at a Bar Mitzvah in Dingle. We had signed up for his and his massages. Okay, enough about that. I'm getting off topic.