Song of the day

"Life From A Window", by The Jam. It is twenty or more years since I last listened to "This Is The Modern World". I am struck by how big the sound is: possibly this is a result of a good remastering job, possibly because what I was listening to 20 years ago was a copy of a worn vinyl LP taped onto a low-end cassette tape, probably a TDK AD90. In the intervening two decades I had also entirely forgotten this song. It doesn't appear on any Jam compilation of my acquaintance, and yet it is a lovely song. Not within a bull's roar of "punk", more Kinks (think "Days") than Sex Pistols or, to use a Mod against Mod comparison, more Kinks than, say, The Action. Paul Weller, for all his Angry Young Man stance, always had a way with a good tune. I think that is why I, unlike some, had no problem with the final Jam album and Weller's subsequent reemergence with The Style Council. They may have been lightweight musically (actually they weren't: when I saw them live Mick Talbot's organ was frequently only a couple of degrees away from being toppled over by the furiousness of his playing) but they were creating a style of music that nobody else was brave enough to go near (or, if they did, to do justice to). A bit like this song, really.