80’s at 8: January 30, 2023- The The & The Waterboys
On tonight’s 80’s at 8 we hang in the year 1983 with a Piano vibe and the first track is from the British Post Punk band The The titled “Uncertain Smile.” It’s from their debut album Soul Mining. “Uncertain Smile” was first recorded in a different arrangement in 1981 and was titled “Cold Spell” Ahead.
That version featured flutes and a saxophone solo from studio session musician Crispin Cioe. The re-recorded 1982 version for the Soiul Mining album replaced the saxophone with a lengthy Jazz piano solo by Squeeze’s Jools Holland (better known now as the host of BBC TV’s music show Laterwith Jools Holland).
I love that show by the way. The idea to include a piano solo resulted from the Garden studio having a Yamaha C3 baby grand piano, and it was suggested to Frontman Matt Johnson that Holland would be a good choice to play it. Johnson recalled that Holland had turned up on a hot summer’s day in full motorbike leathers, listened to a couple of minutes of the song as a run-through, and then played his solo in one take, with a second drop-in afterward.
That Piano solo is amazing! The album is a post-punk album with influences of the early 1980s New York club scene, while Matt Johnson’s lyrics focus on relationship insecurities and social alienation, with imagery derived from dreams.
After a bidding war between major record labels which resulted in the group signing with CBS Records, Johnson began recording the album in New York City, but the initial recording sessions were aborted after the album’s first two singles and Johnson returned to London where he wrote and recorded the rest of the record.
The album reached #27 on the UK album chart and was certified Gold in the UK.
You can watch The The performing with Jolls Holland on his show from 1993 here:
The second track is heavy with the piano and saxophone and is from the Scottish band The Waterboys. It’s from their 1983 self-titled debut album titled A Girl Called Johnny. It was written by lead singer, guitarist, and founding member Mark Scott and producer Rupert Hine.“A Girl Called Johnny” was inspired by American singer-songwriter Patti Smith.
Speaking of the influence of Smith on the song, Scott told Colin Irwin of Melody Maker in 1983, “There’s a line about a girl called Johnny in one of her songs, called ‘Redondo Beach’. And I heard a tape she’d done and noticed that Johnny is a hero or heroine on lots of her early songs. So I thought I’d make her Johnny!”
It reached No. 80 in the UK Singles Chart and remained in the Top 100 for three weeks. In a review of The Waterboys, Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer described “A Girl Called Johnny” as “a beautiful song, full of a romantic excessiveness that is endearing.
You can watch the music video for A Girl Called Johnny here:
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