1977. I remember reading about the Jam in NME long before I heard what they sounded like and thought "this is the band for me!". The review described them as a fast copy of Dr. feelgood meets The Who. It talked of rickenbacker guitars and devestating drum fills. I was already in love with sixties music and had just found punk music so this band seemed like a dream come true. I finally got to hear the single around at Bruce Milne's place when he was playing me some of the latest releases from the UK. The sound was everything I had imagined. And everything I wanted my music to sound like. I even wrote a song called (Nothing To Do) In The City. Paul Weller was a huge influence on my early songwriting. I can trace a few back to their source.
Just as important I guess is that it lead to becoming a Mod. The Jam set the template for Mod bands. And gave us the lyrics to identify with.
anyway I finally got the album and played it to death. For a while there the Jam and The Clash battled it out for a place on my record player. And some days they still do.
In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you
But whenever I approach you, you make me look a fool
I wanna say, I wanna tell you
About the young ideas
But you turn them into fears
In the city there's a thousand faces all shining bright
And those golden faces are under 25
They wanna say, they gonna tell ya
About the young idea
You better listen now you've said your bit-a
And I know what you're thinking
You still think I am crap
But you'd better listen man
Because the kids know where it's at
In the city there's a thousand men in uniforms
And I've heard they now have the right to kill a man
We wanna say, we gonna tell ya
About the young idea
And if it don't work, at least we still tried
In the city, in the city
In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you
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