In the 1980s, I was watching MTV, and I came across this band playing a song called Our House and I loved it. Not only did I like the song, but the bands irrevelant humor wore off on me. They didn’t take themselves seriously at all, and I respect that.
When this song came out in 1979, it sounded like a party breaking out in the middle of the British charts. Madness was part of the late-1970s ska revival that grew out of London clubs. Their version of this was actually a remake of a 1964 instrumental by Jamaican artist Prince Buster. Madness kept the structure but turned it into something louder and more chaotic. The song begins with Chas Smash shouting “Don’t watch that, watch this!” before the band launches into the riff. From that moment, it feels like a call to the dance.
It’s a fast ska rhythm, brass sounds, and a repeating organ line. Unlike many pop songs of the time, there is very little singing. Instead, the horns carry the melody while the band pushes the tempo forward. It captures the mix of Jamaican ska and British pub-rock attitude that defined the early Madness sound. The record was produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, who helped give the band a tight but lively sound.
The video, with the group dancing and marching through London streets, helped define their image. Madness were not trying to be serious rock stars. They looked like a gang of friends who started a band and brought the party with them. This was the title cut off of their debut album, released in 1979. The album peaked at #2 on the UK Album Charts and #27 in New Zealand that year. The song peaked at #7 in the UK.
Here is a later live version. The crowd was ready!
One Step Beyond
(Hey you, don’t watch that, Watch this! This is the heavy heavy monster sound The nutsiest sound around So if you’ve come in off the street And you’re beginning to feel the heat Well listen buster You’d better to start to move your feet To the rockin’est, rock-steady beat Of Madness One step beyond!)
Kinks – Come Dancing – I saw the Kinks on this tour. It remains one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to…if not the best. They were in their early forties at this point and all over the stage. This song got heavy play on MTV at a time when I watched it. The Kinks are one of the four walls that make up modern rock including The Beatles, Who, and Stones.
Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen – It was very different than what was on the radio at the time. It was a refreshing song to hear in the early eighties.
I really thought this band would score another hit but they ended up a one-hit wonder in America…one thing that didn’t help was when they were opening up for David Bowie in France, Kevin Rowland called Bowie a bad copy of Bryan Ferry and later he told the British press: “We only agreed to the show because France is an important market for us – not because I have any respect for Bowie”… Not a smart thing to do.
Billy Joel – Allentown – A great single by Billy Joel with a song off of the Nylon Curtain album.
Allentown is a town in Northeast Pennsylvania about 45 minutes away from the Pocono mountains. An industrial town, many of the once-thriving factories and mills had fallen on hard times when Joel wrote the song, and unemployment in the area was at an all-time high of 12%.
Also mentioned in the song is nearby Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, whose main employer, Bethlehem Steel, had been closing operations. Joel sings about the unemployed workers in the line, “Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time, filling out forms, standing in line.”
Judas Priest – Living After Midnight -I liked this one the first time I heard it. I never really cared what a band was…as long as they sounded good…and this does.
John Lennon has a distant connection to this song. Judas Priest was renting Tittenhurst Park (John Lennon’s former home) in 1980 to record their album British Steel. As they were watching television…guitarist Glenn Tipton said they saw John Lennon’s Imagine video and were in the very same room where it was filmed… he said they could imagine the piano and the white walls…and how surreal it was…
Rob Halford actually got the inspiration for the lyrics for Living After Midnight as his bandmates kept him awake by blasting out riffs and drum beats in the studio below.
He came downstairs to complain and said, Hey, guys, come on. It’s gone midnight…and they wrote the song.
Madness – Our House – At the start of MTV the small town I lived in had yet to get cable…but it wouldn’t take too long. At that time I had to travel to relatives in Nashville before I got a chance to see it. I would spend the weekend and we would watch MTV for hours at a time. Binge-watching before binge-watching was a saying. We would wake up bleary-eyed the next day and turn on more MTV.
I did find some music I never heard before. This band and song caught my attention. The song was on the The Rise & Fall album. They were different…they have been described as a British ska and pop band.
This was Madness only top-10 hit in the US. Much of the song’s success in America was helped out by the clever music video that was in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV.
At the start of MTV my small town I lived in had yet to get cable…but it wouldn’t take too long. At that time I had to travel to relatives in Nashville before I got a chance to see it. I would spend the weekend and we would watch MTV for hours at a time. Binge watching before binge watching was a saying. We would wake up the next day bleary eyed and turn on more MTV.
I did find some music I never heard before. This band and song caught my attention. The song was released in 1982. It peaked at #7 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #5 in the UK.
The song was on the The Rise & Fall album. They were different…they have been described as a British ska and pop band.
This was Madness only top 10 hit in the US. Much of the song’s success in America was helped out by the clever music video that was in heavy rotation early days of MTV.
The producers were Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley
Alan Winstanley: “At the time of doing Madness we were kind of flying along together,” adds Langer. “Alan’s very precise and very particular, and I’m more slapdash and in a hurry and probably tend to like rougher-sounding records. That’s a generalization, because in the end we do like the same records, but sometimes the whole process with Alan can be laborious for me. He normally does the vocal comps whereas I’ll do a lot more work in the rehearsal room on the arrangements, deciding what instruments should play what where, how long the chorus should be and things like that. Still, we’ve got on fine considering how long we’ve worked together.”
Graham “Suggs” McPherson lead singer :“This was the first time we worked with the string arranger David Bedford. It was clear to him what our records needed and he did great things for us. It’s strange now to think we were so philosophical about such everyday things.”
From Songfacts
This won the Best Song award at the 1983 Ivor Novello Awards.
This was played in a 2007 TV commercial shown in the UK for Bird’s Eye Fish Fingers, which featured Suggs. In the advert the Madness frontman is sitting with a family at tea time. The daughter is studying for her school exams and asks Suggs where Omega 3 can be found. He offers the answer of Birds Eye Fish Fingers.
The song’s video featured the band as a cloth-cap wearing family squashed into a terraced house. Drummer Dan “Woody” Woodgate recalled to Q Magazine August 2008: “The knocking-on-the-door bit where somebody comes out, goes, ‘Where are they?’ and the others sneak in and close the door… That’s The Flintstones. We stole lots of ideas from the Keystone Kops and Benny Hill.”
Our House
Father wears his Sunday best Mother’s tired, she needs a rest The kids are playing up downstairs Sister’s sighing in her sleep (ah) Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around
Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our
Our house, it has a crowd There’s always something happening And it’s usually quite loud Our mum she’s so house-proud Nothing ever slows her down and a mess is not allowed
Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our (something tells you that you’ve got to move away from it)
Father gets up late for work Mother has to iron his shirt Then she sends the kids to school Sees them off with a small kiss (ah) She’s the one they’re going to miss in lots of ways
Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our
I remember way back then when everything was true and when We would have such a very good time, such a fine time Such a happy time And I remember how we’d play, simply waste the day away Then we’d say nothing would come between us Two dreamers
Father wears his Sunday best Mother’s tired, she needs a rest The kids are playing up downstairs Sister’s sighing in her sleep Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around
Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our
Our house, was our castle and our keep Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, that was where we used to sleep Our house, in the middle of our street Our house, in the middle of our street, our house
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