Squeeze

Recently I unearthed Squeeze’s ArgyBargy from the pile of forgotten tapes, popped it into the car stereo, and was impressed initially by the deceptively erotic wordsmithery of it all,

Behind the chalet my holiday’s complete,
and I feel like William Tell,
Maid Marion on her tiptoed feet,
pulling mussels from a shell.

It’s almost Nabokovian in its indirection.

So I keep driving, and a few tunes later the song wraps with a dulcet-toned repetition of this line "to be perhaps the one who, will forever love you." And I’m struck with deep nostalgia for its unthinkable purity of sentiment. Who sings pop songs like that?

My initial thought is the old fuddy duddy line: “We were so pure in our day, not like today’s kids.” Like fuck we were. We were all about progressing around the proverbial bases, and then (OK, some of us) bragging about it. But beneath the surface (I thought), many of the scarcely bepubed pink-and-green wearing badasses would very much have preferred this kind of platonic idyll, had the idea of pursuing it not scared the living shit out of us. This is where John Hughes found Molly Ringwald.

So later I went out an snapped up the lyrics to the Squeeze song in question, Vicky Verky. On closer inspection, the song describes perfectly the arc from carnality to ideality that so eluded us. Thems is some lyrics. Fish and chips smell indeed.

With her hair up in his fingers The fish and chips smell lingers Under amber streetlamps She holds the law in her hands The moistness of the damp night Falls silent through the lamplight Although she's only fourteen She really knows her courting And up the railway sidings There's him and her They're lying Hand in hand they whisper You're my missus and I'm your mister The moon as white and virgin And she was on the turning Remember your first nibble When best friends were so little They really trooped the colours When walking with each other And all her mates would giggle As ladylike she'd wiggle All along the high street They'd splash out on an ice cream He'd sometimes really treat her But he'd done his mother's meter

Well he went off to Borstal He said that he was forced to Rob the flats of Hi Fi's Cuz she was ill And she would cry Each morning she got sicker Her mother sometimes hit her If she'd have known the story She would have been so sorry He received a letter and admitted it There was nothing else to do but get rid of it Lonely in his dormitory He'd sit and stare If this is for real And is it really fair Summer came so they went Down to the coast in his tent She cooked upon his primus And sampled local cider She told him in his rucksack I think I want that chance back To be perhaps the one who Will forever love you