Underground

The Band

On 22 March 1980, a song claimed its place in the sun atop the British singles charts that one would hardly have expected to do so ─ at least as far as its content and lyrics were concerned. Straight from 0 to 1 with a song about boundless appetite for growth, warmongering lust and a dull, lethargic populace ─ that is quite a feat to pull off, even when you are called The Jam and represent one of the most popular, and subsequently the most popular, band in the United Kingdom.

The trio from Woking, a town in the county of Surrey barely 40 kilometres from London, sprang from the great creative cornucopia known as Punk and New Wave, which descended upon rock music in the second half of the 1970s like a clearance man entering a hoarder’s flat and, with tradesmen and interior designers in tow, renovated and refurnished it. Amid all this musical, lyrical and visual diversity, The Jam ─ in their black Beatles suits and their soon further refined look ─ presented yet another special case among the Mods, a subculture existing mainly in Great Britain. Hard yet melodic songs, some of them balladic, dealing with a wide range of themes ─ particularly those of the working class ─ made up the catalogue of a band distinguished by constant and rapid development. Already the second and widely underrated album „This is the Modern World“, released less than six months after the debut „In the City“, underlined this. Not to forget its artwork, with the outstanding cover photograph by the well-known music photographer Gered Mankowitz, taken beneath London’s Westway trunk road.

The subsequent album „All Mod Cons“ shines with a broad musical spectrum and contains the masterpiece Down in the Tube Station at Midnight. Its successor „Setting Sons“, originally conceived as a concept album and without doubt the most political record by The Jam, is a bleak battle painting of British life, telling of families left behind, hopeless young people, the impositions of social reality on the middle and working classes, wartime fates, and young men to be burned as cannon fodder for the nation’s victory. Released as a single, The Eton Rifles, brilliantly addressing the class conflict, reached number 3 in the British charts.

But it was to get even better. The band was in the middle of a US tour when word reached them from home that their new song „Going Underground“ had landed there straight from 0 to number 1 in the singles charts. On the evening of 22 March 1980, the trio went on to play a show at the Armadillo World Headquaters in Austin, Texas, which it opened with „Going Underground“. After 15 further songs plus two encores, not only was their performance over, but shortly afterwards all further ones were also cancelled. They flew back to the United Kingdom on Concorde in order to appear the following week on the popular TV show „Top of the Pops“. Curiously, „Going Underground“ was actually only meant to be the B-side of the psychedelic „The Dreams of Children“, but owing to an error at the French pressing plant the two songs were released as a double A-side.

The Jam – now at the peak of their popularity and, according to reader polls in the New Musical Express, leading in every single popularity category – subsequently released two more albums with „Sound Effects“, including the magnificent That’s Entertainment, and „The Gift“; the latter even reached number 1 in the British charts, as did three singles. Then, at the end of 1982, the group’s mastermind, singer, guitarist and composer Paul Weller, decided to disband The Jam. While Weller went on to enjoy success, first with The Style Council and to this day as a solo artist, his two comrades-in-arms – bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler – could hardly succeed with their own material. From 2007 onwards, however, the two played sold-out shows with Jam songs as The Gift and later From the Jam – with Russell Hastings taking over vocals and guitar – in Great Britain, the USA, Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand. While Buckler dropped out in 2009 and, still living in his home town of Woking, worked for ten years as a restorer, Foxton continues to tour as From the Jam and, in collaboration with Hastings and guest musician Paul Weller – with whom he has reconciled after years of dispute over Jam royalties – still releases music albums without major commercial success, though they receive excellent reviews from the press and old fans. Thus the online magazine Get Ready to Rock wrote in a review:

Foxton and Hastings may not thank me for it, but this is probably the best album Paul Weller never made.

The Song – Nuclear Textbooks

„Going Underground“ opens with forceful drums and a robust bass, topped by a vehemently aggressive guitar. The lyrics:

Some people might say my life is stuck in a rut. I am quite happy with what I have. People might say I should strive for more, but I am so happy that I cannot see the point.

A remark on the constant demand for growth and expansion, in the private sphere as well, with which the protagonist cannot identify. He has built himself a life that may seem modest and monotonous to others, but which for him is the very expression of happiness.

Something is happening here today. A show of strength from your boys’ brigade.

The term „Boys’ Brigade“ usually denotes football hooligans. Here, however, it probably refers to the executive power that prevents a demonstration or protest – an image meant to depict the authority of the establishment.

You want more money – of course I do not mind – to buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes. And the public gets what the public wants. But I do not want anything this society has. I am going underground.

The first appearance of the image of going underground forms the metaphor for the turning away from the expectations and constraints of so-called society – that is, from what is commonly defined as „normal“. The narrator rejects it as an authority and seeks a self-determined, self-shaped life away from the prescribed paths – and condemns the nuclear arms build-up, whose financing the citizens are made to bear through the taxes demanded by the state.

In an interview with the magazine Total Guitar, Paul Weller spoke about the atmosphere of the time that prompted the writing of „Going Underground“:

It came out of the political situation we were in back then. Whether it was youthful paranoia or whatever, I thought we really were on the brink of destruction. We were arming ourselves with nuclear missiles, especially in this country.

But there is yet another, delicate layer concerning the „underground“: during the era of the arms race, the fear of a nuclear war naturally rose among the wealthy as well, some of whom then had private atomic bunkers built in the sprawling gardens of their splendid villas – so as to go underground, in the literal sense, should the worst come to the worst.

The Song – Brass Bands and Bleating Sheep

Well, when the brass bands play and the feet begin to stamp, I am going underground. Well, let the boys all sing and let the boys all shout for tomorrow. Some people may find pleasure in hatred. Me, I have already got enough on my plate. People may need some tension to relax. Me? I am too busy dodging the flak.

The narrator points to troops marching off to war. To the sounds of military march music, the steps hammer on the ground and the manipulated young men bellow their slogans for honour and fatherland and indulge in hatred of the enemy – which they all too gladly let themselves be schooled into, in the supposed belief that they might thereby escape their felt emptiness and pointlessness. In the German rendering of „People might need some tension to relax“ arises the fine play on words about needing tension in order to relax. And the protagonist? He has enough to do and need not charge his existence with artificial tension and mental bungee jumps – and now, on top of that, sees himself compelled to withdraw from the enthusiasm for war and its consequences.

„You have made your bed, better lie in it. You choose your leaders and place your trust in them, while their lies humiliate you and their promises rust. You will see dialysis machines replaced by rockets and guns. And the public wants what the public gets. But I do not understand what this society wants.“

The German Michel – a drowsy and simple-minded fellow with a „pointed cap, which comes across like a cross between a dwarf’s hat and a nightcap“ – exists as the British Mike as well, who likes to lie in bed and dislikes thinking. He would rather find leaders to do it for him and says: „They will have had a good reason for it!“ Such stupid people are all but begging to be deceived and mocked by politics, for instance by being told what they supposedly want or are to want. „And the public gets what the public wants. And the public wants what the public gets.“

The dialysis machines replaced by weapons as an image of how something life-saving is replaced by something life-destroying, and thus as the reversal of a famous winged phrase: when, that is, ploughshares are turned into swords. And how science can be used for good and for evil. Weapons, however, are not good or „evil“ in themselves. It always depends on who uses them and for what purpose. „Going Underground“, meanwhile, unquestionably and beyond doubt addresses an abusive use.

We talk and talk until my head explodes. I turn on the news and my body freezes. Those bleating sheep on my television screen make this boy bellow, make this boy scream!

Talking and debating with walled-up brains. Arguments that bounce off, reasons that shatter. The television as the command authority of the masses, whose instructions are followed automatically and dully, and the unbearableness of perceiving and enduring this. With this statement the song ends.

The Song – 45 Years Old and Still Relevant

To this day, the relevance of „Going Underground“ remains undiminished, and the song is not categorised as an „oldie“. As it is put, for example, on Modshoes.co.uk:

Going Underground is by any measure a stunning single. It is probably the most overtly political record EVER to top the charts. It speaks to its quality – and to the general failure of society – that even today it still stands as a cautionary warning against dialysis machines being replaced by rockets and guns; almost 40 years after its first release we are still welcoming the new boss (…) just the same as the old boss.

Eoghan Lyng, writing in February 2022 in the magazine Far Out:

From the brisk hook to the thundering basslines that cement the track, everything you hear on „Going Underground“ screams a classic. And although the song was written by guitarist Paul Weller, it contains several of Bruce Foxton’s most inventive basslines, and Rick Buckler provided some of the most exciting percussion effects in the band’s history. The single was distinguished by a Shakespearean feeling that called on the masses to recognise their collective power against the enlargement of the hierarchy. Weller takes the path of the Beatles to furnish the work with a melody, so that listeners can hum along before letting the force of the words take effect on them.

And Dan Cairns, music editor of the culture section of the Sunday Times, declares „Going Underground“ the „Song of the Year 1980“ almost thirty years later, saying:

One of the many great aspects of the track is that, despite the ferocity and rage of the lyrics, it is a pop-soul song built on first principles: the call-and-response harmony in the chorus is pure Motown – a foretaste of The Style Council; the staccato verses and the descending chords recall the singer’s beloved 1960s with the Kinks and the Small Faces; the roaring and the shouting suit the demotic tension in Weller’s songwriting; the track ends with a very McCartney-esque bassline; and dancing is not optional but obligatory.

In 2013 a folk version of the song appeared on the album „Mud, Blood and Beer“ by the Bad Shepherds, a folk outfit that reworked punk and new wave songs such as „God Save the Queen“, „Making Plans for Nigel“, „No More Heroes“ and „London Calling“ – but also „Das Model“ by Kraftwerk – in musical folk garb. After the band had already covered „Down in the Tube Station at Midnight“ by The Jam in 2009, four years later „Going Underground followed.

And so the song remains ever present and of the moment. The events of recent years and current happenings suggest that this will not change any time soon.