Why if he'd just made a bit more effort to eat a few less takeaway curries - and maybe to pull out a plum just a little bit more often instead - this nutritional disaster might have been avoided!
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 10:24 (nineteen years ago) link
― thee music mole, Tuesday, 22 February 2005 10:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― j travolta (listerine), Tuesday, 22 February 2005 15:26 (nineteen years ago) link
I suppose that he could have his home address on his key-fob. But if he and his wife are that bloody paranoid about things then she's probably going to have a spyhole that she checks every time before opening the door to anyone. And probably electrified door handles to fry any unsuspecting scumbags.
― Ken Shinn, Monday, 21 March 2005 14:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― nabiscothingy, Monday, 21 March 2005 16:37 (nineteen years ago) link
― moley, Tuesday, 17 May 2005 22:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 07:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― moley, Wednesday, 18 May 2005 10:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― NickB (NickB), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 10:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 10:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― moley, Wednesday, 18 May 2005 10:48 (nineteen years ago) link
Mr. Grout OTfuckin'M: "best thread ever"!
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 10:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 11:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― bassman (Dave225), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 11:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 18 May 2005 12:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Thursday, 19 May 2005 10:45 (nineteen years ago) link
― moley, Thursday, 27 October 2005 01:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 11 December 2005 00:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Velvet Overlord (The Velvet Overlord), Sunday, 11 December 2005 08:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― moley, Sunday, 11 December 2005 10:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Sunday, 11 December 2005 13:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 12 December 2005 09:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― whatever (boglogger), Tuesday, 13 December 2005 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link
'She'll be lining up the cutlery,You know she's expecting me'
Here lies a symbolic expression of the author's primal fears of impotence, of not performing in the way his wife expects. 'The wine's gone flat' is another. It would be more honest to say 'my joystick's gone limp'.
― moley, Wednesday, 14 December 2005 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Harthill Services (Neil Willett), Wednesday, 14 December 2005 23:14 (eighteen years ago) link
He doesn't want to go "down in the tube station" - the birth canal?
His horror of being unmanned before, or enclosed within, the female body is matched only by his terror of the gynaecologists and obstetricians - probably women, too - who heckle and harass him within the womb ("hey boy"); particularly those in private practice ("have you got any money"), and whom he metaphorically depicts as a gang of male muggers (their *surgical* scrubs being translated into "*Wormwood* Scrubs").
― Harthill Services (Neil Willett), Thursday, 15 December 2005 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― moley (moley), Thursday, 15 December 2005 01:08 (eighteen years ago) link
I think what's been missed here is that the term "right-wing" in the line "too many right-wing meetings" is undefined.
We have to remember that this song was recorded in the General Election year of 1979. Therefore, a lot of active Conservative parliamentary groups would have been meeting frequently to plan Mrs. Thatcher's election campaign.
I therefore suspect that the assailants, rather than being National Front, are tired, irrascible members of the Conservative Backbench 1922 Committee, who are letting out the frustrations of endless meetings on polling strategies, tax-and-spend policies, anti-union laws etc. by beating up a harmless passer by.
The tragedy is that if Weller had been less coy about identifying these assailants, the resulting scandal might have fatally damaged the Tory election campaign, with the possibility of us being spared the predations of monetary economics.
To conclude: It's because of that cunt Weller we no longer have a steel industry.
― PhilK, Saturday, 15 September 2007 14:05 (seventeen years ago) link
Appendix 4 is now written!
― Mark G, Sunday, 16 September 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link
This thread cheers me up like nothing else. it's got to the stage where i giggle when i see Weller records in used bins
― sonofstan, Thursday, 8 May 2008 23:11 (sixteen years ago) link
The all-enclosing womb metaphorised as 'the tube' - the sense of entrapment by and within the smothering female - I think we have hardly touched upon this matter.
― moley, Friday, 6 June 2008 00:14 (sixteen years ago) link
New People!
This is the ""Down In The Tube Station At Midnight" by The Jam - What Does It Mean?" thread.
Read All, and smile.
― Mark G, Friday, 6 June 2008 09:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Revive! I've just done a phone interview with Bruce Foxton, during the course of which I took him to task about some of the more troubling lines.
He has no idea what Weller meant by "I pulled out a plum", and has been puzzling over it for years.
The maximum quota of right wing meetings that one might reasonably attend before picking up their distinctive odour: "Not even one."
And he thinks that the wine might have been a Lambrusco. (He tried palming me off with the "flat" = "stale" argument, but I persisted.)
I hope this helps.
― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 11:50 (fifteen years ago) link
this thread! holy shitbags what a joy.
― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 12:15 (fifteen years ago) link
but he pulls out a plum "behind me" when he's put the coin in the machine, which is presumably in front of him?
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 15:01 (fifteen years ago) link
No, it's his assailants who are behind him, not the plum
― Ich Ber ein Binliner (Tom D.), Tuesday, 21 October 2008 15:03 (fifteen years ago) link
I always thought the line was "too many right wing beatings", not meetings.
― Joe the C.R.E.E.P. Operative (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 21 October 2008 15:27 (fifteen years ago) link
― Ich Ber ein Binliner (Tom D.), Tuesday, 21 October 2008 16:03 (44 minutes ago)
That's not how it sounds on the record. It's all very well be clever with the commas on the lyric sheet Mr Weller. I've always puzzled about where that plum got pulled from myselfit was a troubling part of my youth
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 15:51 (fifteen years ago) link
Best thread ever.
― Chewshabadoo, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 22:41 (fifteen years ago) link
Once we're done with this thread, I think Oasis's 'Wonderwall' could use some of our expert analysis too.
― moley, Tuesday, 21 October 2008 23:10 (fifteen years ago) link
OK, so let's give Bruce Foxton the right of reply here:
http://troubled-diva.com/brucetube.mp3
I did my best!
― mike t-diva, Friday, 5 December 2008 17:16 (fifteen years ago) link
^^^Bumping this for the office workers.
― mike t-diva, Monday, 8 December 2008 13:11 (fifteen years ago) link
Good effort!
― Chewshabadoo, Monday, 8 December 2008 15:57 (fifteen years ago) link
Hurrah! No one can even MENTION it now without reference to this thread! =
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/table/2009/mar/16/people-and-places-1000-songs-everyone-must-hear
Though it seems straightforward enough, the lyric of Down in the Tube Station at Midnight has provoked a memorably tortuous thread on music-geek discussion site I Love Music. Ostensibly the tale of a man beaten up on the way home to his wife, it does pose some curious questions. His assailants apparently smell of “too many right-wing meetings” (begging the question, how many is acceptable?). For that matter: why is our hero transporting a curry on the tube in the first place? And would his wife really be laying the table and uncorking the wine in expectation? Whatever, it’s textbook punk-era Weller: a deftly observed, quietly shocking suburban vignette. MH
― piscesx, Monday, 16 March 2009 18:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Hurrah! No one can even MENTION it now withiut reference to this thread! =
Enshrined forever. As it should be.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 16 March 2009 18:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Now I want to hear that vocalese "So What" by Eddie Jefferson that's listed right below on that link.
― moe greene dolphin street (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 March 2009 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link
oh i said that twice. hm soz.
― piscesx, Monday, 16 March 2009 18:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Perhaps clues can be found in another of Weller's songs, Mr Clean. Look at the evidence in the lyrics.
Daylights dawns, you wake up and yawn - Mr. CleanA piece of toast from the one you love most - and you leaveYou get the bus in the 8 o'clock rush,And catch the train in the morning rainMr. Clean - Mr. CleanIf you see me in the street - look awayCause I don't ever want to catch you looking at me - Mr. CleanCause I hate you and your wifeAnd if I get the chance I'll fuck up your lifeMr. Clean - etc. -IS THAT SEEN!Surround yourself with dreams, of pretty young girls, and anyone you want, but -please don't forget me or any of my kindcause I'll make you think againWhen I stick your face in the grind -Getting pissed at the annual office do -Smart blue suit and you went to Cambridge too -You miss page 3, but the Times is right for you -And mum and dad are very proud of you -Mr. Clean - etc.
It could be Mr Clean himself lying battered in the Tube station. Did Paul Weller catch up with him and give him the promised kicking and stick Mr Clean's face in the Grind? Paul is able to see the result of this somewhat class-based hatred as well as the anticipation of it.
― Proger, Tuesday, 23 February 2010 12:22 (fourteen years ago) link
first time seeing this thread, crying with laughter, well done all
― Jamie_ATP, Tuesday, 23 February 2010 12:39 (fourteen years ago) link