I Love 1980 - 6

The Jam - Going Underground

Ver Jam had always been one of those bands you might read about in the NME and sort of moving around the fringes of late 70s pop / rock music, but which I never really got to hear or listen to properly. Too 'laddish', too 'London' perhaps for this boy's tastes. But Going Underground really did seem to come out of nowhere .. and went straight to number 1. We took notice.
Not only to the music, the sound but also to Paul Weller's scathing social-comment lyrics. To an increasingly politically aware mind, lines like "I want nuffin this society wants" and "you'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns" as Thatcher's war and money-centred politics began to take hold really did hit home somehow.
Plus you could jump around to it. It was our punky moment. A short sharp shock to your system, as well as to the establishment and, why not, to our parents. Play loud. Did it get banned by Radio 1? Thankfully not and there was even a cool video on TOTP with Bruce Foxton sitting down tapping his foot (always associated more with hime than with Wellah). I love Going Underground.