Paul Weller of the Jam was the angry, impassioned voice of a generation
opposed to Thatcherism. Little wonder, then, at the cackles of disbelief
when David Cameron declared that his favourite song was Weller’s The Eton
Rifles, a satire railing against social division and inequality in Britain.
Weller, one of the most respected and inventive figures in pop music, was a
21-year-old living in a rented caravan when he wrote the song after seeing a
television report about right-to-work marchers being jeered by Eton
schoolboys as they passed the college. By contrast, the Tory leader was a
12-year-old newcomer to Eton, where he joined the cadet corps - the object
of Weller’s ridicule: “All that rugby puts hairs on your chest/ What chance
have you got against a tie and a crest.”
Hence the incredulity at Cameron’s insistence that he had embraced this
enraged riposte to his own school chums. “It meant a lot, some of those
early Jam albums we used to listen to,” he told the Radio 4 programme The
Jam Generation. “I don’t see why the left should be the only ones allowed to
listen to protest songs.”
Weller, the stylish “Modfather”, may have mellowed a bit since The Eton Rifles
helped to confirm the Jam as one of the biggest and most influential bands
in the UK, but his rejection of the Tory leader’s claim showed he had lost
none of his spiky invective: “Which part of it didn’t he get? It wasn’t
intended as a f****** jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.”
Among clunking mismatches, this ranks alongside Born in the USA - Bruce
Springsteen’s condemnation of America by an unemployed Vietnam veteran -
being praised by President Ronald Reagan during his reelection campaign.
The fuss casts the spotlight on a resurgent Weller just before 22 Dreams, the
most interesting album he has made in a while, is released on June 2. “It’s
a sprawling mess that could be awful, but it turns out to be excellent,”
said Mark Edwards, our rock critic. It is also a reminder that this reticent
icon, dubbed “a rock star’s rock star”, is revered by the pop aristos he
grew up worshipping, notably Sir Paul McCartney. Noel Gallagher is one of
his best friends.
With his trademark vocals in a gruff sarf London accent, vivid melodies and
lyrics that catch the nuances of working-class life, Weller triumphed with
the Jam and then with the Style Council, before starting a successful solo
career. His songs about England have become the equivalent of Penny Lane and
Waterloo Sunset for those born too late for the Beatles or the Kinks. One
interviewer wrote: “He’s one of those people who makes you feel good about
being English.”
Like Prince and Madonna, Weller is enjoying an Indian summer as he approaches
his 50th birthday next weekend, although his face is ravaged by late nights
and cigarettes, and his voice has a whiskery, oak-aged timbre. He lives in
Maida Vale, west London, with his girlfriend Sami, who was working at the
recording studio where they met, and their two children. He also has two
children from his previous marriage and one from another relationship.
The list of politicians eager to sign up to the “Jam generation” of protest
has provided much sport for commentators, but to Weller it’s a sign that the
lines are blurring: “The stark contrasts of Thatcherism and socialism have
gone: you can’t really tell who’s Brown or Cameron.” To his shock, he found
himself agreeing with “a Tory t***”, Boris Johnson, about bringing back
Routemaster buses in London.
For most of the 1980s, Weller was a staunch supporter of Red Wedge, a loose
coalition of Labour-minded rock musicians who toured the country by bus. Now
he bitterly regrets it. The Labour politicians he met “really put me off.
They were all in it for themselves. It was all firm handshakes and distant
eyes”.
He liked Glenys Kinnock, but had no time for her husband Neil, Labour’s
leader. Even Ken Livingstone, photographed embracing Weller in 1985, was
corrupted by power as mayor of London, he claimed in last week’s New
Statesman.
By the time Labour came to power in 1997, Weller was so disillusioned he
refused to let the party use his song The Changingman as a theme alongside
its electoral anthem Things Can Only Get Better: “I put the blockers on.”
He tried to dissuade his friend Gallagher from accepting Tony Blair’s
invitation to No 10 and claims to be disgusted with the former prime
minister’s latest appointment: “Peace ambassador to the Middle East. F******
joke, mate. How he sleeps at night, I don’t know.” Weller turned down a CBE
in the 2006 birthday honours.
These days he draws inspiration from his children and from God, admitting that
he “sort of” prays: “I have a quiet word now and then.” Yet his Christian
charity has its limits. Baroness Thatcher “should be shot as a traitor to
the people”, he told The Guardian last week. And he is frosty on the subject
of his former bandmates, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler, who
have started touring together for the first time in 25 years under the name
From the Jam. Old bands, he said, should “just move on”.
Weller was born into a working-class family on May 25, 1958, in Woking,
Surrey. His father John was a scaffolder and bricklayer who occasionally
joined the taxi rank at the station. He became Paul’s manager for 30 years
until ill health forced him to retire in 2006. Weller’s mother Anne was a
cleaner at the local mosque.
He was brought up with his sister Nicky on Stanley Road, which he evoked in
his No 1 album of the same name in 1995. On the title track, he sang: “The
ghosts of night, the dreams of day/Make me swirl and fall and hold me in
their sway.”
While he was detached and uninterested at school, his parents nursed his
obsession with pop music. “It’s all I ever wanted to do,” he recalled. “I
wouldn’t concentrate in English classes, but I’d study the lyrics on the
back of an album cover.”
His father bought him his first electric guitar at 12 and two years later he
got together with some schoolmates to form a band that became the Jam.
Inspired by the Kinks, the Small Faces and the Who, they played their first
gig round the corner at Walton Road working men’s club and for the next five
years played clubs and pubs.
Weller, who had left school at 16, saw the Sex Pistols in 1976, on the night
he first took speed, and realised where the Jam’s future lay. Punk was in
full swing, but Weller was keen to distance the Jam from punk, telling the
NME that he was a Tory voter and monarchist. “I was just being
controversial,” he later claimed, but the music press largely treated the
band like pariahs until The Eton Rifles hit No 3 in the charts in November
1979.
Smart mod attire set him apart from the punks. “It’s a way of looking at the
world,” he explained. “It’s saying, ‘We’ve got f*** all, but we can make
ourselves look proper’.”
The Jam became the first band since the Beatles to perform two songs (Town
Called Malice and Precious) in one edition of Top of the Pops. Weller,
however, wanted to explore other musical avenues and in 1982 announced that
the band would split.
His new band, the Style Council, played white soul music that alienated many
Jam fans and were never as successful as its forerunner, but it helped to
spark a jazz/pop revival and increased Weller’s stature. His song Have You
Ever Had It Blue? is now a jazz classic. He appeared on the Band Aid record
Do They Know It’s Christmas? in 1984. Five years later, the band’s death
knell sounded when their record company refused to release their fifth album.
Weller went to ground for a couple of years as his life fell apart. His
marriage to the Style Council’s backing vocalist, Dee C Lee, collapsed and
he went through a bout of heavy cocaine use. Then he was suddenly the
darling of the music world again when his album Wild Wood was released to
acclaim in 1993.
Writer’s block struck him five years ago. “I just waited for the muse to find
me.” He carried on working, recording cover versions by artists ranging from
Gordon Lightfoot to Sister Sledge. In 2005 the songs came flooding back. Now
he has written 22 Dreams, representing nearly every musical influence he has
absorbed.
Although coy of media interest, fame doesn’t bother him at all. Chase it and
you end up nowhere, he maintains: “It’s like, do you wanna put something of
value into the world, or do you wanna be a pop star?”
Having followed Paul's musical journey and been to about 150 of his gigs over the past 30 years, it is interesting to see him evolve. As a young girl growing up in the South Wales valleys, his Jam songs spoke to me. Looking forward to hearing the new album having had a taster at the recent gigs.
Helen Jones, CARDIFF, UK
Forthright & a legend without the media courtship that others tend to opt for.
Just seen him at Bournemouth (I've seen him about 10 times now) and it was the best gig ive seen. As passionate as ever but with an added spring in his step
Pure genius but he plays that down so well.
Karlos, Paignton, England
who at the age of 50 has released one of his greatest works to date.
No one, bar Weller
His greatest Album 'Wildwood' was released 18 years into his career,a feat in itself
have just seen him perform at leicester
blistering
mat francis
matthew francis, leicester, uk
I remember the Right to Work march past Eton. My own father, a factory worker, had just been made redundant at the time.
However, although I remember the lads from Eton gawking from the windows, I don't recall them "jeering".
It would be interesting to see the film again to see whose memory is the most reliable.
Brett, Manchester, UK
Paul Weller has actually been, and probably is, one of the most brilliant and influential pop authors (but, I say, just pop songs?) in Europe, not only in Britain. The Jam's songs were astonishingly superb and Weller is a genuine maverick, a mark of intelligence.
giandomenico, milan, italy
Weller is not the changing man. His genius is constant.
paul kelly, limehouse, england
Weller is not the changing man.His genius is constant.
paul kelly, limehouse, england