Graham Parker – Local Girls

I posted a Graham Parker album (Howlin’ Wind) a while back and it was the first time I’d heard it. This song…as soon as I heard it I remembered it. I remember MTV and Fridays playing this video in the 1980s.

Graham Parker - Squeezing Out Sparks

This was on the album Squeezing Out Sparks released in 1979. The album peaked at #18 in the UK, #79 in Canada, and #40 on the Billboard 100. Parker had just left Mercury Records and this was his debut on Arista Records.

I’ve listened to Squeezing Out Sparks and there is not a weak song on the album. Parker had felt like Rumour had overplayed on his albums to this point. He told them they need to play like they were in a studio and not live. After that… once they were clicking, it only took 11 days to complete the album.

This album didn’t include horns that were on his albums up to this point. It was a no-frills approach that made it arguably his finest album. This song has everything you want. Smart writing, catchy hook, and Parker’s voice is on point.

Normally, Parker named his albums after song titles, although this time he toyed with calling it “The Basingstoke Canal” after a waterway connecting to the Thames River, about 30 miles from where he was born in the London area of Hackney…but he woke up one morning with a song on the album called You Can’t Be Too Strong going through his head with the lyric “I know it gets dark down by Luna Park/But everybody else is squeezing out a spark/That happened in the heat, somewhere in the dark.”

Graham Parker: “‘Local Girls,’ of course, refers to the girls in my/your hometown, not the girls in someone else’s town. … The idea for ‘Local’ is from remembering what it was like to be a boy at home, looking out the window, seeing a rather toothsome piece stroll by, nose in the air perhaps, down the quiet semi-detached suburban street, and knowing that she probably already (at 13/14 years of age) fancies herself as an army wife (I grew up next door to an army camp and the squaddies were always stealing the girlfolk) and is going to look upon your feeble advances with some disdain. It’s a fairly typical the-object-of-ones-desire-is-always-out-of-reach-type song, just about 30 times better and more pregnant with meaning/detail than pretty much anyone else on the planet could even begin to aspire to, is all”

Graham Parker:  “It wasn’t until I’d done all my Hippie traveling and being a freak and all that, and got back and lived with my parents and started to absorb all influence of my earlier years. I just pushed myself out in the world, got to London and met the right people, including Dave Robinson, who became my manager. He put the band the Rumour around me. So that was basically the beginnings of my career. I was just basically what I consider to be a successful singer/songwriter/musician by the time I came to write Squeezing Out Sparks. It was very inspired times for me, and that’s what resulted in that album.”

Local Girls

Sit by my window and look outside, wonder why the sun don’t shine on me
What’s wrong with you, you stupid child, don’t you think that I’m the one
You’re waiting to see?
Don’t talk too much ’cause she falls for the suckers, makes her feel
Everything is secure
Don’t ever leave a footprint on the floor

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

She’s probably half-wit, she must be straight,
Or bound to have a mother who knows nothing but hate
Don’t want to love her, I’d rather knock her down
Standing at the bus stop where she waits each morning
So isolated that she thinks that the army is the place where a man ought to be
Don’t bother with them, they don’t bother me

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

They got the walk, they got the talk, right down without a flaw
At 6:00 I got to stop my dreaming at the counter of the store

Don’t bother with the local girls, don’t bother with the local girls
They don’t bother me

Without a doubt I got to intercept, must be time someone ran and shouted in
Their head
You look all right in the cheap print dress,
But every time you swish it ’round you make me disappear
I’m aware of exactly what I’m doing, making everything a mystery
Don’t bother with it, it don’t bother me

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

54 thoughts on “Graham Parker – Local Girls”

  2. “I watched Parker from a distance as he put out one strong album after another on Mercury…but despite our intensive efforts, something didn’t click…the public’s indifference to him remains mystifying” – Clive Davis (who ran Arista) in his book. He really liked Parker’s songs and stage show but just couldn’t get any big interest in him.

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  9. Great tune! I remember we discussed the “Howlin’ Wind” album at the time you posted about it. This prompted to further check out Graham Parker which is how I found “Local Girl.” I immediately dug it and ended up picking that tune for my Song Musings feature in mid-June. Now that your post reminded me of Parker again, I should probably do some more listening! 🙂

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    1. Thanks for listening to the first one…he does have some quality songs Christian. CB and I are doing another artist on Saturday…if we get it done.

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    2. Graham…your site will not take any comments from me…and I’m guess everyone because none have commented on the quiz….wanted to let you know.

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      6. Dang…same thing. I could try to completely log out and back in but I dont’ think it would help…I’ll try anyway.

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      11. Yea I’m trying the “Brave” browser now…again showing the number of comments but no comments. It must be with just me.

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      13. Yes…I did…I think it just posted…I’m an idiot…why didn’t I try straight to your site? The reader still isnt’ working and my guess is it’s not working for other people. You should have more people than this. The comments don’t show on the reader but your blog is working fine.

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  13. Parker also did a killer punky version of the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back. It works too.

    Springsteen was also into Parker around 1977-79 and you can can hear his influence on many of the tracks recorded on The River sessions (mainly the ones that didn’t make it).

    Parker is so much the forgotten sound of 1976-80.

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    1. Oh I posted his version of I Want You Back…his version is really cool…I call it the “Adult Version”

      You know after thinking about it…I can hear some of that influence on Bruce. I’m shocked that he didn’t get more attention.

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  14. Loved early Graham Parker and the Rumour stuff, you mentioned his cover of “I Want You Back”, which is superb but he also did another great soul cover of The Trammps “Hold Back the Night”, which is equally as good….

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