Continuing my look at the albums of 1977…
1977 was a great year for debuts. Here’s just a small sample of artists who dropped their first album that year: The Clash, 38 Special, Iggy Pop, George Thorogood, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols, Steve Winwood, Teddy Pendergrass, Peter Gabriel, Eddie Money, Reba McEntire, and Cheap Trick.
Add to that list the English rock band The Jam, whose In the City kicked off a successful six-year run that produced 18 consecutive Top 40 singles in the UK.
At first glance, The Jam seems to be another group in the vein of The Clash and Sex Pistols, turning out a fast and furious set of punk rock songs. But a couple of songs into this album, it’s clear they draw considerable influence from The Beatles, The Who, and other 60s rock bands. Lead singer/songwriter Paul Weller, who went on to have a successful, three-decades-and-counting solo career, has a gift for melody that sets this album apart.
The other thing I could hear immediately was The Jam’s influence on Elvis Costello, particularly on the albums he would put out over the next few years (This Year’s Model, Armed Forces, and Get Happy!!). Costello lifted a couple of riffs from this and other Jam albums, and regularly performs today’s SOTD in concert.
That put In the City right in my wheelhouse, and this was definitely my favorite discovery from the punk rock corner of 1977.
But whenever I approach you, you make me look a fool
I wanna say
I wanna tell you
About the young ideas
But you turn them into fears
In the city there’s a thousand faces all shining bright
And those golden faces are under 25
They wanna say
They gonna tell ya
About the young idea
You better listen now, you’ve said your bit
And I know what you’re thinkin’
You still think I’m crap
But you’d better listen, man
Because the kids know where it’s at
In the city there’s a thousand men in uniforms
And I’ve heard they now have the right to, to kill a man
We wanna say
We gonna tell ya
About the young idea
And if it don’t work, at least we still tried
In the city, in the city
In the city
In the city
In the city there’s a thousand things I wanna say to you
Meet Me In Montauk 