THE PRETENDERS – "Brass In Pocket"

Re 1 – Goodbye Waldo! I greatly enjoyed reading your contributions, and I’m sorry you are not sticking around for the best bit – the next two and a half years!!

Come on, you’ll only be 21 at that point!

Re 5, Tom – I can try and email you mp3s tonight.

This was an odd #1. For it’s first five weeks on the chart it looked like it would be about as successful as their two earlier (excellent) singles, “Stop Your Sobbing”, and “Kid”, then it suddenly jumped from #30 to #10 the week before Christmas before finally hitting the top on its 10th week on the chart.

The post-Christmas lull obviously helped it, as the competition wasn’t great – Billy Preston & Syreeta, a good KC and the Sunshine Band Song, Madness’s “My Girl” (a sure fire #1 if it had come out a year or so later) – indeed the record which would knock it off the charts wasn’t even out when this hit the top for the first of its two weeks.

So what about the song? Probably the third best Pretenders hit to date, and there were definitely better things to come – “Talk Of The Town”, “Day After Day” and my own favourite “Message of Love”.

I think there are hooks; and there are unintelligible lyrics – is that “sidestep” she says? It’s pleasant enough, but a real surprise #1, and it probably didn’t really deserve to be there. I’m sure Chrissie Hynde was thankful for that lack of competition.

I’m de-lurking as the blog hits the Eighties and as the teenage me hit sufficient purchasing power to follow the charts and buy the music. Which is a tad ironic given that this is a record which I recall little contemporaneous affection for, but which earns respect in retrospect.

Like others, I don’t think its the best Pretenders record. But from a 2008 perspective I do think it sounds oddly, compellingly, modern and far less dated than many of the more overtly ‘modern’ songs which will follow in the next couple of years. It’s a memorable record, more than a song, and I still can’t hear it without seeing Hynde’s performance.

Have to agree that, much as I like it, it isn’t a patch on the gorgeous Kid which stalled at 33 the year before, or several of the singles that followed. The lift onto the chorus, though (“Oh-ho, cos I…”), is quite heart in mouth and absolutely sells the song. As for the Smiths influence, the first time I heard Sandie Shaw’s I Don’t Owe You Anything (flip of Hand In Glove) on the radio I assumed it was The Pretenders.

Re 11: I remember the lyrics in Smash Hits including the line “Detroit leaning” but it still sounds to me like Dieter Liening, a former Rot-Weiss Essen left back.

The latest ‘replacement’ for James Honeyman-Scott btw is Muswell Hill’s James Walbourn, habituee of the Boogaloo and late of Saint Etienne.

Preface: so long, Waldo! Like many others, I’ve greatly enjoyed reading your observations, reminiscences, anecdotes and quips. And I’ll also greatly miss sharing these comments threads with Marcello, whose knowledge, insight, erudition and passion have contributed so much to the success of this project.

Onto the matter in hand… and wow, I thought everyone adored “Brass In Pocket”, but evidently not! Just me, then? Crikey.

Far more than “Another Brick In The Wall”, this single soundtracked my transition from the 1970s to the 1980s – and indeed my transition from an old life to a new one.

In the previous twelve months, I had come a long way. Back in December 1978, I had been the very archetype of a mixed-up sixteen-year old: immature, unworldly, self-absorbed to an unhealthy degree, paralysed by self-consciousness, almost entirely friendless and deeply, deeply unhappy. By the end of 1979, my re-invention as a socially functional member of the wider human race was almost complete.

Having failed to get into Cambridge, I now had an offer from Nottingham University to study law, commencing in the autumn of 1980. This begged the question of what to do with the rest of the year. Staying in the destructive war zone of the family home was so terrifying an option that it gave me the courage I needed to break free.

During December 1979, I attended a number of interviews with major London department stores in London, leading me to accept an offer from Hamleys toy shop on Regent Street. A couple of days after the new year, and a few weeks short of my 18th birthday, I left home for good – never to return for more than three or four days at a stretch, and less if I could help it. I moved in with my wonderful aunt and uncle on the Essex end of the Central Line, and entered the real world of paid employment – freed from the hot-house, ivory-tower confines of boarding school life.

During those first few weeks, the sassy, cocky, street-strutting, self-embiggening, the-world-is-my-shiny-new-oyster assertiveness of “Brass In Pocket” matched the mood of my new life to perfection. But above all else, it reminds me of Carnaby Street, tucked around the back of the Hamleys building.

In the late 1960s, my six/seven-year old self had mythologised Carnaby Street as the centre of all that was shiny and new, colourful and exciting, creative and free. And now, a good twelve years late to the party, here I was: surveying with some dismay the tacky arcade that it had become, but still basically thrilled to be there. Besides, with the mod revival kicking off in earnest, the area was experiencing a slight reversal in its decline: if you wanted parkas, pork-pie hats, “Jam shoes” or other assorted retro-modern black-and-white op-art clobber, then this was where you might have come. And so of course, the equally retro-modern stylings of “Brass In Pocket” chimed in well with all of this.

All of a sudden, I was no longer experiencing pop culture from a cloistered distance. Instead, I was thrust into the middle of it. The Marquee, Dingwalls, Nashville, Hope and Anchor, Rainbow, Rock Garden, the Electric Ballroom in Camden, the Lyceum off the Strand: all of these mythical names from the back of the NME had now become tangible destinations. I started attending as many gigs as I could – even if once again my timing was slightly off, the post-punk grassroots boom already starting to dissipate.

“Brass In Pocket” therefore stands as my threshold record, and I adore it without reservation. It’s another 10 from me.

Yes, I think it’s the guitar hooks that make this. They were often ringing in my ear when I rode the 7:36 Hull to Leeds every morning, one of those 1950s diesel units that were chronically overheated. A curious sort of title, really, too. “Brass in t’pocket” was what going to Leeds every day was all about.

There’s something very 60s about it. Not the best of the 60s maybe, but definitely something that connected with the pop of my own teenage years. The eighties kicked off almost as if thye seventies had never happened. I’ll have more to say anon.

Rosie #19 – Songfacts also says the title came from a remark made by one of the support band at the Pretenders’ first UK gig. They must have been from Yorkshire!

Mike #17 – that’s a fantastic evocative post.

As K-Tel entered their twilight years, they sandwiched Brass In Pocket between Kool And The Gang’s Ladies Night and Lowrell’s Mellow Mellow Right On, on the Video Stars comp. So I mentally segue this with Lowrell’s saucy post-Philly lope that Massive Attack sampled a decade later.

Yes, BIP seems to have caused some concern for the BPI

Sorry…

For a song that so carefully places the vocal between the guitar chords, it certainly does have quite a few mystifying lyrics. “So reet” is another one… also whatever she says in the second line from the top. But to me it’s always been the most beautiful of all Pretenders songs (okay, along with “Talk of the Town”).
Perfect simplicity & pure expression.

This didn’t do much for me in 1980 and time hasn’t improved it. A fairly dreary guitar riff that doesn’t really go anywhere or build to anything. Then there’s Ms Hynde’s idiosyncratic vocals which I’m not a great fan of either (so Tom you are not alone). I couldn’t and I still can’t understand the vast majority of lyrics which only leaves me with the nasal whine and harsh tone of her voice to contemplate. It did work on other songs (as prev. mentioned Kid) – and my personal fav. Don’t Get Me Wrong which was great pop, but BIP is only average and I would totally buy into a theory that this was manipulated to number 1 – although the post-Christmas lull has given us some suprising results before.

PS – Sorry to see Waldo leave the blog – surely the point of this excercise is not just to comment on the stuff you know and grew up with but to then juxtapose it with the stuff you are less familiar with – but maybe I’m missing the point.

Tom – is the PF thread dead or will it be opened up again once the dust has settled ?

is the source of honeyman-scott’s (and marr’s) guitarjangle richard thompson? — “kid” has a GORGEOUS thompson-esque break

i just realised one of the main sources of my disappoinment with BIP (don’y think i’ve EVER listened to it analytically): is the soundspace-separation of her harmonisation with herself… in “kid” and “SyS” the loveliest bits are where she doubletracks her singing on different harmony lines: there’s a main and a secondary melody, but they’re equal in presence

here, she does a cheer-chorus against herself, the main voice mixed up way out front, the chorus high and mixed distant, so it’s a bit like the “coloured girls go doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo” (which is a nice device actually, but i just wanted more of what she does in “kid” and “SyS”, there’s something incredibly velvety and blissed-out about those moments)

Tom, not sure if you’re aware that the Pretenders covered ‘Creep’. There’s a fine version on Unplugged, if I remember rightly. Just got their new album which doesn’t seem to have had a UK release yet and on first play, it sounds like one of their better ones. I’m with Mike, this is a fantastic record, only superceded in the Pretenders pantheon by the follow-up, Talk Of The Town which, shamefully, only got to number 8. It’s still a mainstay of my party dance cds, and always fills the floor. Oh, and I’m really fond of this site though (as my occasional comments probably indicate) I only have time to read it every week or so and often have to skip to my favourite posters, of whom Marcello was number one. I understand your frustration with some of his posts, but couldn’t you give him a temporary touchline ban, or stop him from posting on Friday afternoons? The place will be poorer without him.

Sensual, langourous, optimistic… This single makes me feel affectionate as a grown-up.

I realise that I may be out on a limb here, and its a bit indelicate – but I’ve always thought – well, since the idea struck me, anyway, not as a child – that the protagonist of this was was masturbating as she looked ahead to capturing the boyfriend. The whole pacing and breathiness of the thing, the fingers, using her imagination…

Am I alone in this interpretation?

hello, everyone. long time lurker, but since we have arrived at the year of my birth i’ve decided to join in the fun. tom, this is a fantastic project and your thoughts are insightful.

i share a hometown with chrissie hynde and she’s always been a local hero (along with devo, ubu, etc) so i have strong childhood associations with this tune. I’ve always viewed it as a classic example of early 80’s production, especially the jangly guitar with a slight chorus effect added to it, and the soft washy drum sound. everything about this one is fairly conventional with the exception of the vocal melody, which is all over the place in a way that is very atypical of other pretenders tunes (don’t get me wrong, kid, talk of the town).

not much else to say about this one. i’d give it a 6.

I saw them on that tour with UB40 at the Hammersmith Palais (both of them were bloody great) but I’m sure their first album was out by then which meant it was after this topped the charts.

I’m pretty sure the tour helped UB40 though, I bought my copy of “Food For Thought/King” at the gig as did lots of other people there.

I kind of like this; my hesitation comes from the vague sense of MOR in the arrangement. Those guitars chime a little too sweetly, the rhythm is sedate rather than strutting. I find her vocal style a bit mannered – comparisons are harsh but think of the way that someone like Patti Smith, who has a similar repertoire of vocal tics, makes her phrasing genuinely personal and expressive. This feels like an exercise in style on some level.

That said, it’s always been there and the hooks are all over it like velcro. The lyrics are memorable (if utterly cryptic to the 12-year-old me) and the title itself is such a confident statement of intent, it seems foolish to carp. It doesn’t have a chorus but in a sense the excitement of the song is that it goes from verse to bridge to verse and so on, each time adding passion and excitement and intensity. It doesn’t feel the need to aim for the anthemic climax, but releases its pleasures more multiply. (Hm, maybe there’s something in the ‘ditalini’ thesis…)

My mum liked this very much. In retrospect, there’s a female swagger in it that probably inched her forward to her divorce. I can’t quite separate my (generally positive) feelings about that from my own feelings for this song.

I was coming up for 5 when this was out but remember it because my dad liked it and the pretenders and we had the record in the house and I must have loved it too. Hearing it now it sounds bland and dated to me. Very dull and much better to come from the eighties.

Blatantly hyped to the top of the pile, as was proven by a TV investigation. This is one of their worst singles.

Ugly old bag singing an ugly song with ugly tactics.

Quite the contrary LondonLee:

Someone once told me “If you don’t have anything nasty to say, say nothing” and I think it was good advice which has stayed with me

Point taken Brian, although bear in mind that much of the “cool” reaction is on the basis that BiP is not one of their better records – there’s still a lot of love for the band and their work. You’d no doubt see that coming out if they’d had as many number ones as Blondie, but unfortunately they didn’t.