For me the confusion was so intense I read several dozen pages of Difford's new book under the impression that it was guitar-playing singer and composer's work and not his froggy-voiced, dark-haired lyricist's. That's one issue I probably wouldn't have had without the darn Kindle which is nice for volume and convenience but pretty weak when it comes to absorbing the details that a physical-book reader wouldn't help but notice, like the cover, for instance.
It did seem strange to be learning our frontman was a daydreaming teenage skinhead writer wannabe with a pack of imaginary friends but I didn't put it all together till he told the story of posting a note in a London shop window seeking actual bandmates to join his imagined group. The only respondent was Tillbrook, and this combination of introverted lyricist and a differently introverted songwriter gave rise to one of New Wave's most tuneful combos and a kind of spiritual, durable and underrated successor to the Kinks and 10cc.
Partly, it's that same lack of a true, distinguished personality, along with multiple lineup changes and frequent break-ups over the years, that prevented Squeeze for all their quirky charm, pocketsful of terrific tunes, and critical praise, from getting wider recognition for how good they really were and are. As Difford relates in the book, it wasn't as though the quintet was populated with album-cover-worthy faces. Neither Tillbrook nor Difford were especially comfortable as showmen so it was left to original keyboardist Jools Holland to interact with audiences and that skill led his departure following 1980's breakthrough ARGYBARGY album and eventual career as a popular British TV host.
Holland's replacement, the gadfly singer-for-hire Paul Carrack, stuck around long enough only to lend his smooth lead vocals to perhaps the band's most-lasting U.S. hit, "Tempted" from the following EAST SIDE STORY album of 1981. (Carrack's vagabond career deserves its own examination I hope to get to someday but I keep learning about more and more bands he sung with everyday). Bass players and drummers also came and went (and several even came back again for a while and left again) but for my money the COOL FOR CATS and ARGYBARGY lineup of 1979-80 (Difford, Tillbrook, Holland, bassist John Bentley and the burly drummer Gilson Lavis) were the classic five, performing Tillbrook's distinctively catchy English-rockabilly-soul-pop-carnival tunes with Difford's lovelorn hungover sad-sack lyrics, often sung by both leading men not in harmony but an octave apart, a Squeeze signature. Lavis, Bentley and Tillbrook, on lead guitar, could also really play.
So many Squeeze songs came off as effortless big hits purposefully obscured by Difford's dense and descriptive lyrics. "Vicky Verky" for example musically conveys all the thrills of a summer teen romance, only one that races into an abortion, not typically Top of the Pops subject matter. The brokenhearted stoner in "In Quintessence" can't get out of bed despite the pop accompaniment that would have listeners dancing. Their skill had critics calling Difford & Tillbrook the Lennon & McCartney of the 80s and Squeeze drew lot of admirers among peers, but only "Tempted" the very English "Pulling Mussels," the Elvis Costello-influenced "Black Coffee in Bed" and later, "Hourglass" ever really penetrated everyone's radios.
As you wouldn't be surprised to learn, heavy drinking played a role in Squeeze's tumultuous rises and falls, particularly among Difford and Lavis ("He liked to drink, it's safe to say" is Difford's droll first impression) who burned out following SWEETS FROM A STRANGER (1982)--their fifth album in as many years--and they broke up for the first time, only not for the last.
Reading, I worried that the terrific highlights of the band's career until this moment were already covered well before the halfway point in the book, and sure enough much of the second half relates Difford's admirable and continuing efforts to live a 12-step life (he describes finally kicking his coke and drinking habits, and a few wagon-falls since), his delicate emotions (this man cries a lot), and so many failed relationships, so many managers and producers, so many homes, so many Squeeze reunions and dis-unions, its easy to lose track and/or interest, which is what happened to me. I get it, your life story can't be contained to your 20s and one takeaway is that life indeed goes on.
I also learned a little about Squeeze and how it all worked. The triumphant EAST SIDE STORY began with a vision as a 4-sided, 4-producer record (Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Paul McCartney--all Squeeze admirers). I learned how they found their stride as a group only after awkward early sessions with the Velvet Underground's John Cale who wanted them to perform not as Squeeze but as Cum and seemed to want to package and sell the first album to a gay audience. I also took some interest in the many projects of Squeeze's second, third and fourth lives. Difford himself is indifferent to some of it, speaks highly of other projects (like the above from CRADLE TO THE GRAVE (2015), much depends on his own creativity or sobriety. Like a lot of their contemporaries that made a New Wave splash they were involved with Police mastermind Miles Copeland and Elvis Costello's Jake Riviera, and their influence is coming into perspective the more I read up on this era.
Virus-willing, Squeeze still record and tour with the two frontmen who share deep professional respect for one another if not the chummy relationship my teenage self imagined they would. Difford confesses he has no idea where Tillbrook lives anymore. I've seen them play several times (beginning with what we thought would have been their last-ever appearance 38 years ago!) and as Tillbrook ages his skill with guitar becomes ever more pronounced, his vocals more soulful and rootsy. Easy, Squeezy.
