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Beat Surrender

I've always loved The Jam's swansong single, and was delighted to find a 7" copy of it in a picture sleeve about four years ago. Back in the '80s my sister had a copy of the 'Start!' single, and, later, the Snap! double-album compilation. The latter, despite my affection for many of the songs thereon, never quite gelled for me as an LP: I seem to enjoy their music better in smaller portions; a single is ideal. Besides this one, I also have 'That's Entertainment' and 'The Bitterest Pill' as 45s.

The core trio were augmented on this number by piano, trumpet & saxophone, and by Tracie Young's backing vocals. Bruce Foxton also joined in the singing. Paul Weller was obviously half-way to The Style Council by this point, not only on the soulful A-side, but on the B-side too. 'Shopping' is a moodily shuffling number that includes a splash of brass and some lovely guitar work, and isn't far short of coming together very nicely.

The sleevenotes, credited to "The Boy Wonder" (Paolo Hewitt?) are decidedly pretentious, but I like the sleeve design - the woman on the cover (or, as the credits put it, the 'girl model') is Gill Price, who was Paul Weller's then-girlfriend, so wikipedia informs me.

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