B-side "It's So Dirty" Genre New wave
power pop Label A&M | Format 7-inch single Length 3:10 | |
Released 18 May 1979 (1979-05-18) | ||
Up the Junction was the third single released from Squeeze's second album, Cool for Cats, sung by Glenn Tilbrook. It is one of the band's most popular and well-remembered songs (especially in the UK), and reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart, the same position as its predecessor, "Cool for Cats" .
Contents
History
Up the Junction is also the name of a collection of short stories by Nell Dunn, first published in 1963. Lyricist Chris Difford said that the title phrase was lifted from the 1965 TV play version of the work, directed by Ken Loach, and the subsequent 1968 movie version. The film had a soundtrack by Manfred Mann, and a song by them, also called Up the Junction
Although Squeeze's song is not derived, it includes several parallels to the drama:
Chris Difford wrote the lyrics in New Orleans while Squeeze were on tour. Difford passed the lyrics to Glenn Tilbrook who then wrote the music. The song is known for its use of half-rhymes, such as "ready" and "telly" or "kitchen" and "missing". The title is not sung until the final line. Difford has been quoted as saying that he took the lead from Roxy Music's Virginia Plain, in which the title also appeared only at the end. Glenn Tilbrook has said that the music was partly inspired by the Bob Dylan song Positively 4th Street, and the lack of a chorus was due to Tilbrook feeling that a repeated section would upset the flow of Difford's narrative lyrics.
The phrase 'Up The Junction' is London slang for being in deep trouble, as in the American 'Up the creek without a paddle'. It is also, like other lines in the song, a reference to the working-class area of Clapham in London. Clapham Common – the "windy common" of the first verse – is a popular courting spot.
The language of the song uses a terse, acerbic 'working-class' humour such as in lines like
At first, it is an idyllic story of proletarian happiness: the couple's courtship swiftly moves into living together; they have a child; the man gets a job, saves money. But by the end of the song, he has fallen into alcoholism, she is with another man, his machismo is such that he cannot beg forgiveness, and "so it's my assumption, I'm really up the junction" – that is, both "up the junction" in the sense of living in the area of Clapham Junction, and in that of having comprehensively wrecked his own life.
The video showed the band playing inside a flat – actually the kitchen of John Lennon's old house, where Lennon had made the promotional film for Imagine; one of the two girls in the background was Michelle Collins. The band made a tongue-in-cheek performance of Up the Junction on British chart show Top of the Pops in which band members play the 'wrong instrument', with singer Glenn Tilbrook drumming and Jools Holland (normally a pianist) making minimal attempts to look at all proficient at the guitar.
The song is briefly heard playing on a hairdressers radio in the 1982 film Brimstone and Treacle and its soundtrack album. It also appears in the TV series Breaking Bad, in the season five episode Gliding Over All.
Difford's performance of the song live on Platform 10 at Clapham Junction railway station was featured on the BBC Radio 4 programme Lyrical Journey in September 2011.
The song's "girl from Clapham" made an appearance on the later song "A Moving Story", from the band's 1998 album Domino.
Notable cover versions
"Up the Junction" has been covered by a number of artists:
The song was also reworked by co-writer Difford on his 2006 acoustic album South East Side Story.
Track listing
- "Up the Junction" (3:10)
- "It's So Dirty" (3:10)