Music Reviews 4U - Cool for Cats by Squeeze
The Iconic single Cool for Cats by Squeeze
Recorded in 1978 and launched onto the UK pop charts in March 1979, this second chart single from Squeeze hit the No.2 chart position and was certainly good enough to have been the chart topper at the No1 slot.
Chris Difford has a rare outing on lead vocals and the 'cool for cats' spelt out in musical notes sounds provides a nice little leitmotif, as Jools Holland might say.
The Cool for Cats era lineup features Harri Kakouli on Bass
The song is a bit of Pub Rocker in the sound that comes off the record and it reflects the area it was written in or about - that was Deptford, South East London. The song featured on the '45's and Under' compilation album which I've reviewed earlier and it is one of their songs which are personal favourites of mine.
The song has great musicality and even played on the radio all these years later it sounds great and takes you back to the Top of the Pops video with the 'dancing girls' as everyone remembers in the song.
The song verses seem to follow small themes or vignettes, variously centred around old cowboy films, the Flying Squad, pubs and casual sex. In a nutshell.
The song title Cool for Cats references a music show for the young which was aired in the mid 1950's until 1961 and hosted by Kent Walton, a middle aged sports commentator who found his greatest fame perhaps in hosting the ITV World of Sport Wrestling slot on a Saturday afternoon.
singing the hit Bachelor Boy, somewhat ironically as he never married
Una Stubbs appeared in this film which provides a thread to Glenn Tilbrook
There's a connection of sorts here to the Cool for Cats show in that Glenn Tilbrook was taken to see the film Summer Holiday featuring Cliff Richard and the Shadows in 1963, when they were at the height of their fame - Tilbrook from seeing the instrumental band the Shadows play on the film, was thus inspired to learn the guitar.
Una Stubbs an actress in the Summer Holiday film, was one of the dancers on the Cool for Cats program, who suggested Cliff Richard for the part in the Summer Holiday film, which gives a great set of connections and coincidences linking the program to the song!
'The dancing girls' who appeared on Squeeze's
Top of the Pops performance of the hit song
Verse one references Davy Crockett, with 1950's Westerns, popular in cinemas at the time Difford and Tilbrook were young kids in the late 1950's and cinemas often put on cheap ticket Saturday morning screenings for children. Usually on the bill were cartoons and American 1950's Westerns, Davy Crockett was a popular Western made in the 1950's.
Dennis Waterman and John Thaw as Carter and Regan
in the iconic ITV 'The Sweeney' series running from 1974-78
Verse two references the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad known as 'the Sweeney' rhyming slang for Sweeney Todd, Flying Squad. The Sweeney specialise in going after armed robbers or 'Blaggers' as they are known in the trade. South London was somewhat awash with Blaggers.
The lyrics of verse 2 with the line 'in and out of Wandsworth with the numbers on their names' are a reference to the frequency of the Blaggers being in and out of the South London Wandsworth prison on remand for their 'jobs', the 'numbers' being the offences they were nicked for, usually armed robbery and the like. So now you know.
(Dennis Waterman who was in the Sweeney was also in a film called 'Up the Junction' in 1966 which was also one of the song titles on the '45's and Under' Squeeze album.)
The reference to 'a couple of likely lads that swear like how's your father' is real London lingo, 'how's your Father' being a slang term for fornication, more succinctly an oblique reference to a short four letter word describing sex beginning with 'F'. So 'swearing like f---k' has perhaps been sanitised for the lyrics and the line quoted in the song actually works nicely.
Singles bars and pubs were often used to pickup
people for casual sex - before AIDS came on the scene
Verse 3 documents the efforts of a single young man 'posing down the pub' - looking smartly dressed and available, hoping to pickup a woman for casual sex. The world then was different and the one night stand on a Saturday night was often the norm for many young people. People openly lived together then, the stigma of this was now mostly long gone.
The line 'all I get is bitter and a nasty little rash' alludes to the young man's results of his endeavours finding a few days after his Saturday night efforts that he has contracted a minor sexually transmitted disease, whether the Bitter beer was lousy or the fact he is bitter in reflection of disappointing sex is open to interpretation.
In late 1985 the AIDS virus transmitted by sex, became well known and was fatal, and a national concern which many now seem to have forgotten but claimed the lives of celebrities like Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett.
The Disco was a staple of the 1970's and 80's singles scene
after the hit film 'Saturday Night fever' brought the Disco
back into fashion again
Verse 4 finds our hero going a bit more upmarket in his 'conquest for congress' and picking up a young lady in a Disco. The lyrics 'I'm invited in for coffee and I give the dog a bone' has nothing to do with pet dogs and is a euphemism for sex ' giving her a boning , 'inviting in for coffee' was often an invitation for a bit of 'how's your Father' as we found out earlier.
'Giving the dog a bone' was a rather in poor taste by suggesting the 'dog' was a young lady who might not be very good looking but was up for a bit of uncomplicated sex, the bone was a male member and you can guess the rest.
'Seeing her later and giving her some old chat' was a throwaway 'thank you and goodnight' which the young shagger would say as a parting message and likely never see the woman again.
If you've ever seen pub rock bands in the 70's and 80's then this song is just like watching one of those bands at the time, it certainly brings back memories for me when I hear the song, having been around in the 80's as a teenager and in a band ironically with some old school friends that had since managed to escape the education system at 16 and played in a London pub in Richmond.
The song is cleverly potted and packaged nostalgia for London Boozers (Pubs), uncomplicated sex and when the Ford Capri was commonplace on the streets, often driven by a young chancer looking for a bit of easy 'how's your father.' Happy days.
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