442 Hello The Style Council - Speak Like A Child

Chart  entered  : 19  March  1983

Chart  peak : 4

Number  of  hits : 17  ( plus  1  as  participants  in  The  Council  Collective )

We  now  say  hello  to  Paul  Weller's  next  venture  but  it's  a  goodbye  for  me  personally  as  this  is  the  most  recent  Weller  record  in  my  collection. I've  often  wondered if   The  Style  Council  made  any  significant  new  converts  or  were  reliant  on  the  old  Jam  fanbase . If  the  latter  was  the  case  I  was  one  of  the  first  to  get  off  the  bus.

Paul  had  secretly  started  rehearsals  for  his  new  project  before  telling  Bruce  and  Rick  that  The  Jam  were  no  more. His  new  musical  partner  was  keyboard  player  Mick  Talbot  who  had  appeared  on  The  Jam's  version  of  "Heatwave"  from  the  "Setting  Sons"  album. Mick  was  a  Londoner  born  in  1958  who  first  came  to  prominence  in  the  band  The  Merton  Parkas  in  which  he  was  keyboardist  and  co-vocalist  ( with  his  brother  Danny ) .  They  had  their  biggest  hit  with  their  first  single   "You  Need  Wheels "  in  1979  which  reached  number  40. Mick  did  the  lead  vocal  in  a  decent  impersonation  of   Georgie  Fame  bragging  about  his  car  but  musically  it's  just  warmed up  pub  rock . If  we  discount  The  Jam's  repertoire,  it  was  the  first  hit  single  of  the  Mod  Revival  but  despite  the  movement  gathering  pace,  the  MPs  were  instantly  left  behind, derided  as  a  joke  band  of  bandwagon  jumpers. Their  one  LP  "Face  In  The  Crowd "  didn't  chart  and  is  pretty  poor, the  band  skirting  between  power  pop, New Wave and  vaguely  post-punk  moodiness  without  any  ability  to  write  a  memorable  tune  or  bring  anything  interesting  to  covers  of  "Tears  Of  A  Clown"  and  "Stepping  Stone ". The  follow up  singles  were  the  instantly  forgettable  power  pop  of  "Plastic  Smile"  and  the  Dennis  Bovell -produced  "Give  It  To  Me  Now"  which  sounds  like  a  Bad  Manners  B-side. There  was  one  more  standalone  single  in  July  1980 ,  the  jangly  pop  of   "Put  Me  In  The  Picture"  which  is  their  best  effort  but  it  was  too  little  too  late .

The  band  split  up  and  Mick  replaced  Andy  Leak  in  Dexy's  Midnight  Runners.  From  what  I  can  make  out  he  only  played  on  the  flop  single  "Keep  It  Part  Two "  before  joining  the  exodus  from  Chairman  Kev  that  ended  up  as  The  Bureau. That's  a  tale  we'll  expand  on  later , sufficeth  it  to  say  that  Mick  was  free  to  take  Paul's  call  in  the  summer  of  1982.  The  presence  in  band  photos  of  the  lugubrious , solidly  built  keyboard  player  in  a  Prisoner  blazer  seemed  to  mock  all  Paul's  ambition  for  The  Style  Council  to  be  at  the  cutting  edge  of  youth  style  and  culture   but  he  was  there  for  the  duration.

"Speak  Like  A  Child"  isn't  a  massive  step  forward  from  the  latter  day  Jam. It's  melodically  close  to  Just  Who  Is  The  Five  O  Clock  Hero ?  and  employs  the  same  horn  sound.  Paul  sticks  with  the  warmer  mellow  vocal  tone  road-tested  on  the  latter  two  Jam  hits.  with  the  However  it's  led  by  Mick's  rich  organ  sound   with  the  bass  ( presumably  played  by  Paul  himself  )  firmly  in  the  background. Some  of  Mick's  phrases  are  rather  similar  to   those  of  Bob  Andrews  on  Brinsley  Scwarz's  Surrender  To  The  Rhythm.  Tracie  Young  pops  up  again  on  backing  vocals.

It's  not  the  tidiest  lyric  Paul's  ever  written  and  comes  across  as  almost  paedophilic,  as  he  himself  acknowledges  with  the  excruciating  " and  if  I  sound  like  a  lecher, it's  probably  true  but  at  least  there's  no  lecture"   line. In  its  proper  context  we  know  that  Paul  at  23   was  still  obsessed  with   capturing  the  teenage  experience  and  he's  almost  apologising  for  his  Jam  persona  with  that  line. Ironically  the  single  behaved  exactly  as  a  lesser  Jam  disc  would  have  done- in  at  6, up  to  4  and  then  rapidly  dropping  away,  a  slightly  disappointing  result  for  probably  the  most  hotly  anticipated  single  of  the  year.