If you say you didn’t like them I don’t believe you. Arty, pretentious and comical, yes, even to these young teenage eyes and ears, but with a mean streak in writing unforgettable hit singles. Without the same attachment to The Jam that those boring older ‘mods’ (by it’s very definition, ‘mod’ should be forward thinking, no?) may have had, I found The Style Council nothing less than fantastic. In an age of synthetics – instruments… clothes… hair products… – The Style Council’s stance had to be admired, even if it was much maligned (or so they say) at the time. Released in 1983 between the woozy haze of Long Hot Summer and the evergreen You’re The Best Thing, Solid Bond (and its accompanying video) would go some way to cementing The Style Council’s reputation as soul revivalists. Paul Weller did the right thing by holding it back.īy the time A Solid Bond In Your Heart appeared for real, it would be as The Style Council‘s 4th single. Solid Bond is, though, far too upbeat and happy for such a milestone record. The Jam – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (demo 2) Their palms would’ve been raw by the last note. A bit of a rewrite and it would slot right into the epochal final release.Įxtra points too go to whoever the assembled hand-clappers were on this version. Weller certainly thought this little vignette was worthy of working on, even if it wasn’t right for Solid Bond. Listening to it, you might spot the seeds of the dropdown in Beat Surrender. There’s a second version from The Jam’s vaults that adds a middle eight which would ultimately disappear again by the time the track was ripe for release. Lee’s tumbling vocal pushing Weller to the very limits of his white man does soul vocals as Bruce Foxton sprints the length of his fretboard like Duck Dunn on uppers. Employing the brass that served them well on The Gift and associated singles, Solid Bond flips and flaps its way to its giddy ending, Dee C. In demo form, it froths and rattles like a speed-driven floorfiller from the Wigan Casino, all floating vibraphone, four-to-the-floor incessant drums and tinny breathlessness, a talc-dusted homage to that most exclusive of subcultures. The Jam – A Solid Bond In Your Heart (demo 1) Ī Solid Bond In Your Heart is the unstoppable yin to Beat Surrender‘s resigned yang. It might have been different had their intended final released made it beyond demo form. Paul Weller chose to bring the curtain down on The Jam – 6 studio albums and 18 singles in 5 era-defining years – with the anthemic yet wistful Beat Surrender, a piano-driven soul stomper that put a full stop on The Jam’s perfect discography and hinted at an unexpected new direction.
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