"Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" by The Jam - What Does It Mean?

xpost wait I like Stewart's version.

I read to many thrillers

I put in the money and pull out a plum, Behind me
Whispers in the shadows - gruff blazing voices, Hating, waiting
"Hey boy" they shout - "have you got any money?"
And I said - "I've a little money and a take away curry,

He's not saying "I've a little money and a take-away curry and a plum". Though, with drunken thugs in front of him, he's not going to hide this Fruit&Nut from them and anger them further, is he?
So the "plum" must refer to the curry, that he just took out of the machine. Probably a vegetable curry or it refers to a chutney, whatever. Or it really is just a clever Jack Horner reference.

In any case, it sheds light on why he's down in the tube station: to get the curry. He might live next door, for all we know.

there are wheels within wheels in this song

Oh and Beano = Bhoona, obv..

"Little Plum" recently.

This sent me scurrying back to the third line of the song:

"The glazed, dirty steps - repeat my own and reflect my thoughts."

Meaning that his thoughts are a) glazed and b) dirty.

Yup. He's pissed. Explains a lot.

Maybe the machine was so high up, he dislocated a testicle.

If it's behind him, that's a badly dislocated testicle!

(My God: the possibilities are endless. Only a lyricist of Weller's calibre could have introduced so much tantalising ambiguity in the space of one short line.)

He avoids the plum issue completely, though

chinese curry is sort of star anise-y and gloopy - which brings us closer to the plum sauce theory again.

however i do like the testicle idea: wellers agonised bellowing after trapping a nad in a chocolate vending machine attracts the unwelcome attentions of a group of thugs, closing in like hyenas.

He was on his way home with the curry at a normal time, eight maybe, was attacked, and four hours later is still there.

This is completely ridiculous. Even in the brutal times Weller depicts, a crumpled body would not lie in a tube station for four hours without someone coming to their aid.

I particularly like the notion of the front page headline of the Daily Mirror reading MR. JONES RUN DOWN BY FIRE ENGINE. The Toytown Gazette - maybe. The Daily Mirror - unlikely.

if it was set in the future, surely he would sing it in a comedy robot voice?

Yeah, well if plum=testicle, wouldn't he sound like Jimmy Sommerville?

I do.

Besides, there weren't anything like as many Tandoori's about in 1978.

There weren't that many Chinese takeaways either of course - but there were a lot more of them than there were Tandoori's.

I as particularly taken with this bit:

"Like most wives he knew, she often became unhappy when he was detained at work and had once or twice jumped to irrational conclusions."

I hope he failed his A'Level.

That may sound unkind but I think he really needs to get used to the concept as it seems destined to be his constant companion.

It could perfectly easily have been a Volvo estate rather than a 4x4.

She'll be lining up the cutlery,
you know she's expecting me.
'Bollocks in a glass' he said, pulling out the cork.

This shows the narrator (or "Charles", as we should perhaps start calling him) vainly attempting to "bond" with his potential attackers... even trying to buy them off with a slug or two of sparkling Shiraz.

So even when his did worked extra hours for a better wage and got lost in his task quite needlessly, he'd still have been safely home with the curry long before midnight!

Right, see, Woking Station has a stinky, pissy underpass and if you come through it from the south and walk a few yards up Broadway, there's an Indian restaurant which used to (still does?) have as its unique selling point CURRIES AT 1978 PRICES, 1978 being the year it opened, so that's about £4.50 then. Unfortunately, the curries are also of 1978 quality, but there you go. And if you'll consider this map here you will notice that it is just around the corner from one Stanley Road. So, the theory is that Weller is writing about an environment with which he is familiar, but changing 'train station' to 'tube station' to make it seem all glamourous like.

With regard to the issue of whether or not Asian people are more or less likely to get takeaway curries, there used to be a curry house on Walton Road (off Stanley Road, see?) which did truly excellent proper pakistani food to which several of my asian pals were sent to purchase dinner for several when their mums couldn't be bothered to cook. Unfortunately, the truly excellent curry house was closed down because of druggist dealings in the room upstairs and the rub 1978 restaurant is still there. However, he is not a Good Muslim if his wife is pouring out the vino.

Another interesting fact about Woking is that a charred corpse was discovered in the park the other day.

I can give no insight into plums, sorry.

Woking's not actually on the underground, is it?

btw. the shout is "Hey Bwoy" as in "Slave" which is what black people are to any dumb racist, yeah?