We are pleased to be releasingĀ Home by Terry Hall this Record Store Day, on vinyl for the first time. Below, read a write-up by Pete Paphides about this magnificent album:
Letās talk about denial. Letās talk about self-awareness. Letās talk about romantic idealism. And letās talk about pop music. Letās talk about Terry Hall and his strange relationship with all of these things: about his ability to create life-affirming pop music and about the fact that his exceptional gift was recognised by a long line of his peers before, finally, Terry Hall could no longer ignore it either. Letās talk about the album where the penny finally dropped. A record which believes in the dream of perfect love despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Letās talk about āHomeā, the first solo album by Terry Hall.
Twenty-six years have elapsed since the original release of āHomeā, but this Record Store Day sees its long overdue debut on vinyl. It might have been the first album which saw Hall step forward from a group identity, but āHomeā was Hallās ninth in various guises since the emergence of The Specialsā self-titled LP in 1979. It had taken Hall a while to find his feet as a songwriter. With Jerry Dammers so prolific in that regard, Hall found himself in a strange position at the end of that groupās collective lifetime. The Specials had made him a pop star, but he didnāt feel like one. By the release of Fun Boy Threeās second album āWaitingā (1983), the competition was Wham!, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and Culture Club. Nothing wrong with any of those, but Hall would see himself staring back from the pages of a magazine alongside all the aforementioned names and experience what he called āa total cognitive disconnectionā.
āHomeā, then, was the culmination of a long process which saw Terry Hall separate his lack of love for the job of pop star from his adoration for pop itself. In solving that conundrum, it sounds like a weight has been lifted from Hall. Like a code has finally been cracked. Somehow emblematic of that process is the albumās lead single āForever Jā, a song that Hall had started writing about his wife Jeannette almost a decade previously, but only finally came together when Hall presented it to the albumās producer Ian Broudie (The Lightning Seeds) as the sessions got under way. Alloyed to a disarmingly beautiful chorus, this ticker-tape flurry of unguarded intimacies might just be the most perfect pop song of an era that wasnāt exactly lacking in competition ā and although it didnāt crack the top 40 at the time, it cemented the affection in which an emerging generation of proficient popsmiths held him: Jarvis Cocker did his own remix of the song and Damon Albarn sang Hallās praises at every opportunity. In commencing the record, āForever Jā sets the tone for what follows on the remainder of āHomeā. Yes, itās a solo album, but the engine of these performances is a stellar āhouseā band comprised of Craig Gannon (The Smiths, Aztec Camera, The Bluebells), Les Pattinson (Echo & The Bunnymen) and Chris Sharrock (The Icicle Works, The Laās).
This illustrious roll call is one that extends to the songwriters with whom Hall collaborated on the record. Co-written by Nick Heyward, āWhatās Wrong With Meā is a synergy of seeming incompatible components: its life-affirming power pop livery freighting a cargo of self-doubt (āIāve got a bag full of promises I canāt keep/And a hundred reasons why I don’t sleepā) and good intentions (āAll I wanna do is make your dreams come trueā) to the affections of anyone who hears it. Andy Partridge steps forward to share the credit on āMoon On Your Dressā and āI Drew A Lemonā: the latter a rebuke to the man who will never love her the way our lyrical protagonist pledges to; the former a longtime favourite among fans of both Hall and XTC for the sanguine self-deprecations that manage to captures something of both artistsā relationship to the world around them.
And, of course, if you have Ian Broudie manning the console, it would be obtuse not to write a song or two together. With a friendship dating back to the early days of The Specials (the young Broudie saw Hallās pre-Specials outfit The Coventry Automatics open for The Clash in 1978) the measure of the pairās chemistry stretches beyond Broudieās production role to encompass two of the albumās indisputable highlights. Featuring the unforgettable couplet, āIf ifs and ands were pots and pans, youād be a kitchenā, āYouā sees its protagonist trying to persuade his subject to see in him what he sees in her. The other Broudie co-write on āHomeā will need no introduction to most pop fans. āSenseā is the song which gave its name to The Lightning Seedsā second album, giving the group
their third top 40 hit in 1992. The version sung here by Hall though benefits from the Sharrockās pugnacious Keith Moon-isms and, of course, the buccaneering fretboard work of Craig Gannon.
Itās Gannon, too, whose fingerprints can be found on a clutch of other songs which give a little more back with each repeated play. āHomeā may have emerged in the era that saw the term āBritpopā enter the cultural lexicon, but thereās a fragrant melodic classicism at the heart of Gannon and Hallās collaborations that can also be found in the work of Hallās āotherā 80s songwriting vehicle The Colour Field, with its nods to French chanson. Itās there on āForever Jā and itās also abundant on Hall/Gannon originals like āNo No Noā and āI Donāt Got Youā.
And yet, for all of that, thereās something about Hallās voice that is, to quote the latter song, āas English as the weatherā. You can hear it all over āHomeā, and it works both to the advantage of this album and the listener. Like the expression of the man staring at you on the sleeve, thereās an outward sense of reserve in these performances which belies the lyrical tensions hinted at in many of its songs. Hallās marriage was coming to an end when āHomeā was recorded, but these songs are manifestly the work of someone who still believes in happy ever after. Just about. Theyāre also the work of someone who has come to an accommodation with his relationship to pop. To coin a neologism, you might say that this was the record where our hero finally learned to āown itā. And if
your love of great pop mirrors that of Terry Hall, āHomeā is a record you might also consider owning.
‘Home’ will be available from independent record shops across the country on Record Store Day, Saturday the 18th of April. We’ve also announced special releases from Cherry Ghost, The Magic Numbers and Hatchie, which you can read more about here.
For more information on Record Store Day and the full list of releases, head to recordstoreday.co.uk
We also highly recommend that you read Pete Paphides’ new book Broken Greek, ‘A story of chip shops and pop songs.’
“An evocative memoir by the music writer, which tells how a sensitive, silent child of immigrants learned to cope, with the help of Abba and other pop bands” – The Guardian
āTender, clever and as funny as it gets ā¦ a heart-piercing joy” ā Lauren Laverne
Order a copy from the publisher here.
Paphides will be appearing at Rough Trade Bristol next Monday for a conversation and Q&A with Gareth James. Excitingly, Katy J Pearson will be joining them as a special guest, performing songs to accompany key scenes in the memoir.
The event is free entry, find out more here.
