Tag: Squeeze

Squeeze – Black Coffee In Bed

A cousin of mine sent me a link to this song and I haven’t heard it in a long time. Black Coffee in Bed was released in 1982 and it surprises me that this did not chart in the Billboard 100 but it did peak at #26 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts. It also peaked at #51 on the UK Charts.

Black Coffee In Bed was released in 1982 as the first single from Squeeze’s fifth album, Sweets from a Stranger. Glenn Tilbrook sang lead and wrote the music to accompany Chris Difford’s lyrics. Elvis Costello and Paul Young sang backup.

The first article I read about Squeeze in Rolling Stone gave them a “New Beatles” label. That is not a good label to have and usually is the kiss of death. The band did have a hit the year before with Tempted. This song was played a lot on MTV. When MTV launched in 1981 they were on the hunt for videos and many of the British bands of that time had been making videos so this was in the rotation.

Sweets from a Stranger peaked at #20 on the UK Charts, #26 in Canada, and #32 on the Billboard Album Charts. This album was their follow-up to East Side Story. Like Crowded House a little later, they made some great pop albums that still sound good today.

John, a fellow blogger from 2 Loud 2 Old Music reviewed this song.

Chris Difford:  “The lyric was inspired by my picking up my notebook one day and seeing a coffee stain on it, which inspired the first line. It was a very vivid image for me and inspired this song of loss and regret. Lyrically it was attractive to a country kind of meter. The fact that Glenn put a soul melody to it shows the unique quality of our writing.”

Black Coffee In Bead

There’s a stain on my notebook
Where your coffee cup was
And there’s ash in the pages
Now I’ve got myself lost
I was writing to tell you
That my feelings tonight
Are a stain on my notebook
That rings your goodbye
With the way that you left me
I can hardly contain
The hurt and the anger
And the joy of the pain
Now knowing I am single
They’ll be fire in my eyes
And a stain on my notebook
For a new love tonight
From the lips without passion
To the lips with a kiss
There’s nothing of your love
That I’ll ever miss
The stain on my notebook
Remain all that’s left
Of the memory of late nights
And coffee in bed
Now she’s gone
And I’m back on the beat
A stain on my notebook
Says nothing to me
Now she’s gone
And I’m out with a friend
With lips full of passion
And coffee in bed

Squeeze – Is That Love —-Powerpop Friday

I read about Squeeze in Rolling Stone magazine when this album came out. They were being compared to the Beatles and I thought they were going to hit big. They did have a top ten hit off of this album…Tempted.

Is This Love is a very good power pop song that was on the band’s fourth album, East Side Story. It was written by Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford. It was written about Difford’s then-recent marriage.

Glen Tilbrook was influenced by The Beatles on this song. He also said the ending was Elvis Costello’s idea. Roger Bechirian and Elvis Costello produced this song and also the album.

Is That Love peaked at #35 in the UK…it was also #1 in Israel in 1981. The album peaked at #44 in the Billboard Album Chart,

Chris Difford:  “This was written around the time I got married. I remember being in the bathroom and seeing Cindy’s wedding ring next to the soap, which inspired me to write the lyric. I don’t think it was particularly about our marriage, but it started off a sequence of ideas in my head.”

Is That Love?

You’ve left my ring by the soap
Now is that love?
You cleaned me out, you could say broke
Now is that love?
The better, better, better it gets
The more these girls forget
That that is love

You won’t get dressed, you walk about
Now is that, is that
A teasing glance has pushed me out
Now is that, is that
The tougher, tougher, tougher it gets
The more my lips frequent
Now that is love

Beat me up with your letters, your walk out notes
Funny how you still find me right here at home
Legs up with a book and a drink
Now is that love that’s making you think

You’ve called my bluff, I’m not so hot
Now is that love?
My assets froze while yours have dropped
Now is that, is that
It’s the cupid, cupid, cupid disguise
That more-or-less survived
Now that is love

Beat me up with your letters, your walk out notes
Funny how you still find me right here at home
Legs up with a book and a drink
Now is that love that’s making you think

You’ve made my bed, the finger points
Now is that, is that love
The more you, more you, more you cool down
The easier love is found
Now that is love

Squeeze – Piccadilly —Powerpop Friday

I owned East Side Story the fourth album by Squeeze and this song caught my attention right off. This album drew comparisons to the Beatles especially in Rolling Stone Magazine at the time.

The album peaked at #44 on the Billboard 100 in 1981. Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian produced this album.

 

Piccadilly

She’s not a picture above somebody’s fire
She sits in a towel with a purple hair dryer,
She waits to get even with me.
She hooks up her cupcakes and puts on her jumper
Explains that she’ll be late to a worrying mother,
She meets me in Piccadilly.
A begging folk singer stands tall by the entrance
His song relays worlds of most good intentions,
A fiver a ten p in his hat for collection.

She talks about office she talks about dresses
She’s seen one she fancies her smile is impressing,
So maybe I’ll treat her someday.
We queue among strangers and strange conversation
Love’s on the lips of all forms of engagements,
All queuing to see tonight’s play.

A man behind me talks to his young lady
He’s happy that she is expecting his baby,
His wife won’t be pleased but she’s not been round lately.

The play was so dreadful we left in a hurry
We escaped in the rain for an Indian curry,
At the candle lit Taj Mahal.
My lips to a napkin I called for a taxi
The invite of eyes made it tense but relaxed me,
My mind took a devious role.

The cab took us home through a night I’d not noticed
The neon club lights of adult films and Trini Lopez,
My arm around love but my acting was hopeless.

We crept like two thieves from the kettle to the fire
We kissed to the sound of the silence that we’d hired,
Now captured, your love in my arms.
A door opened slightly a voice spoke in worry
Mum went to bed without wind of the curry,
Our secret love made its advance.

Like Adam and Eve we took bite on the apple
Loose change in my pocket it started to rattle,
Heart like a gun was just half of the battle.

Squeeze – Tempted

Paul Carrack sang lead on this. He also sang with the bands Ace (“How Long”) and Mike And The Mechanics (“The Living Years”). In 1987, he had a solo hit with “Don’t Shed a Tear.”

This was the first Squeeze song to crack the charts in America. Squeeze was already a big deal in their native England, where they had 7 Top-40 hits to this point. They managed just 2 more US hits: “Hourglass” and “853-5937,” but “Tempted” remains their only top ten hit. It peaked at #8 in the Billboard 100.

From Songfacts

Squeeze singer and guitarist Chris Difford wrote the lyrics to this song. He explains: “Tempted was written in a cab on the way to Heathrow, I just wrote down what I saw and how I felt as we wormed our way through the traffic. I also must have anticipated a good time on tour as the chorus suggests.”
Carrack was with Squeeze for their East Side Story album, replacing Jools Holland on keyboards and also contributing vocals. He rejoined Squeeze in 1993 for their album Some Fantastic Place, and sang on a new version of “Tempted” that the band recorded for the soundtrack of the 1994 movie Reality Bites.

Elvis Costello produced this track. You can hear him singing on the second verse.

Glenn Tilbrook, who writes the music for Squeeze, considers this one of his favorites. Says Tilbrook: “It was a sort of breakthrough song for us, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t a hit, it was our first song. It was when we grew up, really, as a band. When we finished it I couldn’t quite believe it was us.” (Read more in our interview with Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford of Squeeze.)

In the US, this was used in a commercial for Burger King, and another for Heineken. It’s a good fit for advertisements where someone is “tempted” by their product.

At many Squeeze shows, fans would throw toothbrushes (Rocky Horror-style) on stage at the opening line: “I bought a toothbrush…”

Tempted

I bought a toothbrush, some toothpaste
A flannel for my face
Pajamas, a hairbrush
New shoes and a case
I said to my reflection
Let’s get out of this place

Passed the church and the steeple
The laundry on the hill
Billboards and the buildings
Memories of it still
Keep calling and calling
But forget it all, I know I will

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What’s been going on
Now that you have gone

There’s no other
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered

I’m at the car park, the airport
The baggage carousel
The people keep on [Incomprehensible]
Ain’t wishing I was well
I said it’s no occasion
It’s no story I could tell

At my bedside empty pocket
A foot without a sock
Your body gets much closer
I fumble for the clock
Alarmed by the seduction
I wish that it would stop

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What’s been going on
Now that you have gone

There’s no other
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered

I bought a novel, some perfume
A fortune all for you
But it’s not my conscience
That hates to be untrue
I asked of my reflection
Tell me what is there to do?

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
What’s been going on
Now that you have gone

There’s no other
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered

Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered
Tempted by the fruit of another
Tempted but the truth is discovered