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

I believe I have traversed that underpass - maybe my hair grew a little longer, maybe my shoes were a little sharper as I did so. Didn't get my head kicked in, so there is no conclusive proof that the "vibes" of that time are still hanging around

Mr. Weller thought Woking was on the tube; Jimmy Pursey thought you could hear the sound of Bow Bells in Hersham....

I don't think a curry could have anything like that much in 1978.

According to my calculations, if a curry cost £4.50 in 1978 (which I find very difficult to believe anyway, since a pint cost less than 50p in 1978!) and the cost of curries had risen in line with the UK RPI it would now be aproximately £17.34.

I'd be very surprised if a curry in 1978 cost much more than about £1.00 - £1.50.

Mr. Jones got run down.

I still find this curious. Even in 1978, newspapers were no longer quite this formal and deferential. Surely this isn't simply a case of a young and still impressionable Weller getting carried away and trying too hard to ape his hero Ray Davies?

Instead, I submit that this was a local newspaper, and that the photograph on the front cover depicted someone of the narrator's acquaintance: A neighbour maybe, or a shopkeeper, or a prominent member of the Woking Rotary Club. (("My God, that's poor old Jonesie...")

Or - and here it gets really interesting - could this news item actually refer to the untimely demise of Semi-Detached Suburban Mister Jones? If so, then this represents a breathtaking leap of daring on Weller's part.

Please stop (a) failing to properly read things I have written and (b) not believing me about the price when I have eaten there.

Cheers pal.

http://www.i-way.co.uk/~tristang/DADS/jones.JPG

"They don't like it up em sir, etc. etc."

(a) sorry, I'll certainly try harder in future;
(b) I don't disbelieve you abou the price they're charging for the curries at all; I disbelieve the curry vendors assertion that they were able to persuade anyone to part with four and a half bleedin' quid for a ruby in 1978 and I think enormous fun could be had in challenging them to prove this.

This line's always jumps out at me because "black" leather just wouldn't work here - for various reasons.

Or maybe - if we accept the theory that the song was indeed written from the future - the newspaper headline refers to the untimely demise of the "Mr. Jones" from the annoying Counting Crows song of the same name. (Who, by this time, would surely be the "big star" that the song condiently asserts that he will become.)

I need some fresh air.

Careful where you go now

Liv
x

You should call them Curryoke Machines

In what sense "beguiling"? Does he really think that a coiny likeness of HRH is giving him the glad eye?

Is it this that prompts the (involuntary?) reaction in his sadly singular "plum"?

Liv
x

" Smiling, beguiling
I put in the money and pull out a plum"....

it is actually the curry afficionado himself who is doing both the smiling and the beguiling.
in fact, if "plum" does indeed refer to testicles, it's a fairly heavy-handed attempt at beguiling.
read this way, perhaps the attackers are simply local rent boys who rise to the bait, request confirmation of sufficent funds beforehand, and are then driven to violence by his meandering, overly detailed answer, as postulated by yourself in your post of 3rd September, 2004.

In which case - is the rapidly cooling "take-away curry" literally a "take-away curry", or code, palare, for some special sexual feature or predilection, recognised only by a select few?

And if so, how much would it have cost in 1978?

This would make perfect sense because, of course, anyone who made a habit of wandering about down in a tube station at midnight accompanied by an asian rent boy; and with one of his bollocks hanging out of his trousers; back in the unenlightened days of 1978; was bound to get his head kicked in before too long.

Does anyone happen to know whether £4.50 might have been the going rate for asian rent boys in the Woking area in 1978?

i think finally we have an exegesis that addresses the true complexities of the song. we understand more deeply weller's rendering of those insomnia prone, feverish late 70s days, when as morley put it "we were all pale hysterical ghosts of who we are now"; that bygone era swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash(ed) by night.

Not a strange thought. But Weller referring to this person as a 'Curry' is clearly racist - then why berate his attackers for smelling of 'right-wing meetings'?
Unless he only called his rent-boy a 'curry' to their faces, to come over as "one of them" (hoping to avoid the kicking).

It does have quite some implications.
When the thugs shout "Hey boy", they may well have been addressing the prostitute, and not the narrator. If he hadn't opened his big mouth, they might have completely left him alone - it's the prostitute's money they were after.
Of course, it also means the song gets a lot darker, as "the curry's gone cold" probably means they killed his companion.

As has already been observed, he actually commented that they had attended too many right wing meetings - the implication clearly being that attendance at such meetings (like the using the occasional racist slur) was OK as far as Mr. Weller was concerned, provided that it was in moderation.

"Paul Weller - My Rimming Shame"

Does anyone actually know what the "D" and the "C" in "D.C. Lee" stand for?

It couldn't possibly be "David" and "Christopher" or "Derek" and "Colin", could it?

Really? Running around with male prostitutes at all hours, while his wife is, as we now know, not just "lining up the cutlery", but making their supper as well [he isn't bringing any].

A new question: do you think that 'the deed' had already been done at the time of the attack? "I've a 'little' money" he says, so he has probably already paid up.

what a great lyric.

"Down a back alley with an asian rent boy at midnight
Whoa Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh"

It would certainly explain why the queen in question was "smiling, beguiling".