I think you're dead right.  It's a brilliant song,  probably one of their best ever. The lyrics took a bit of getting,  but then that's half the fun. How can you argue with 'a wicker chair away from rehabilitation' or 'it's just when tuned into the never never,  everything must seem forever?' I don't think I've ever heard 'thalidomide' ever used in a song before,  let alone scan so well and say so much.

Seeing as it's the b side to Elephants Graveyard, February '81 saw 6 minutes or so of pure Rats' single magic as far as I'm concerned,  yet perversely many see it as the proverbial tipping point.

Mark L wrote:

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...  yet perversely many see it as the proverbial tipping point.

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I wouldn't say the single was the cause, but it did mark the end of the Rats in the top twenty. 

As for Real Different,  it's a good song but I wouldn't say it was any better than a number of the preceding B-sides.  Do The Rat, Born To Burn, All The Rage, Late Last Night and So Strange were all superior for me.

manatthetop wrote:

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 Agree with you here, but this the point. I think that most of the B side's could have been an a side or double A side. There was a lot of double A side going about around the late 70s to 81 ELO The Jam ext ext were putting them out

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 I don't think any of the b sides were strong enough. none were good enough to be album tracks. Maybe Do The Rat as a novelty, but none would have troubled the top forty on their own.  

By and large there are few proper double a sides. Town called malice was well ahead of Precious and Going Underground likewise with Dreams of Children.  If they were two full on a sides then they were two singles. Can't think of any single where I bought it for both tracks.

manatthetop wrote:

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I for one think that at least 5 of the B side would have made a much better A side than Charmed Lives to start with. 

Regarding the jam I never got this band But have to say the only song i did like and paid for was Eton rifles Just great wee track

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 I struggle to think of five songs that would have been worse than Charmed Lives.

I like a lot of The Jam from All Mod Cons onwards. That's Entertainment is my personal favourite.  If you haven't got it buy Snap! Possibly the best compilation album ever, and pretty essential as a lot of singles did not appear on the LPs

Mark L wrote:

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ArrGee wrote:

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I wouldn't say the single was the cause, but it did mark the end of the Rats in the top twenty. 

As for Real Different,  it's a good song but I wouldn't say it was any better than a number of the preceding B-sides.  Do The Rat, Born To Burn, All The Rage, Late Last Night and So Strange were all superior for me.

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They're all very good B sides, especially Rage,  but I do marginally prefer Real Different. The 'turn away' lyrics were somewhat recycled for Hard Times,  but that just helped Hard Times to be one of the better tracks from ITLG. 

'You see eternity fell out of luck when we invented self-destruct, it's just one of those things' - sublime lyrics. 

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 Wonder was inventing 'self distruct' Mondo Bongo/V Deep? Yes I know he's talking about the human race and nuclear weapons but .......

Real Different is brilliant, possibly my favourite Rats track. I agree with MATT that some of the b sides were better than some of the album tracks. I think I've said this many times before so I won't bore you with the details.

As regards double A sided singles agree with ArrGee it's a bit like hands- one is always going to be more dominant than the other.

noelindublin wrote:

 If the Rats had written Start then everyone would be on their backs for blatantly stealing The Beatles Taxman. For some reason The Jam could get away with that  and their mod credentials would be celebrated. Geldof was always weary of the mod revival movement, and always said so. The Rats were influenced by the first wave of mod in the mid/ late sixties ie Small Faces and The Pretty Things. Bob just saw the revival as wanna be poseurs. Plus the were 'the competition'.

The first two Jam albums were a bit weak, though containing some good songs like In The City and that  anthem for those of us who hated maths- Away From The Numbers. I was always more into The Jam than The Clash but was more an admirer than a huge fan.

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And  Town like Malice is You can't hurry love.  Not really sure who would be on their backs aside from the press and they needed no excuse.  I can't think of any head to head between the Rats and The Jam.  The Jam only started having the big hits in 1980 when The Rats were effectively done as a hit machine.  I find it amusing that fans seem to take on these rivalries.  I like pretty much all the major punk/new wave acts.  All had something to say and were a cut above every thing else at the time.  Well, except Generation X, they really were sh1t.

The Jam evolved a lot as a band and were smart in creating and developing an audience. Sure they ripped off everything from the sixties, but they did it with aplomb and put their mark on it.  

noelindublin wrote:

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... I remember Geldof on XFM back in the late nineties saying he'd 'sue the a***' off a band if he knew they tried to rip one of his songs off.

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 I guess he ain't listened to Razorlight.  Geldof is a bit of a magpie himself, openly admitted Eva Braun nicked oh yeahs off Bowie and the callback re The Shangri Las.   He'd better take care Wilko Johnson and Bruce Springsteen don't come looking for credits off the first album.  Not to mention all the lyrics nicked off John Lennon.

Mark L wrote:

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Bruce needn't go looking as far back as that. ITLG contains Drag me Down and the first time I ever heard it,  I thought Born to Run. It's brief but so were a lot of Bob's magpie swoops. Think Le Freak for Hard Times and Van Morrison for the Mondays hand claps. 

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 Lots of rock songs and music in general will always have bits that seem to be from another song. Often it's just a few notes of a melody. Springsteen's lines 'it's a death trap' might have sparked Rat Trap, and the general lyrics of both songs have a local feel. Springsteen's is small town America , and Rat Trap is Dublin standing in for any large city in Ireland or Britain. Sometimes borrowings are completely unconscious.

I suppose we are hard wired to spot songs or bits of songs that sound similar. It certainly keeps music journalists on their toes. NME  used to always describe a new band as sounding a bit like two or three other bands eg think x crossed with y etc. Often bands get lumped together if one of their songs sounds a little like that of another band. My Life Story were always considered a Pulp lite band, even though they had some great songs.  

Mark L wrote:

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  Or as my music teacher used to say, 'There's only eight notes.'

......and I was useless with all of them.

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You music teacher has a lot to learn.  I think he is getting confused with an octave.

There are 12 notes....

• A
• A#/Bb
• B
• C
• C#/Db
• D
• D#/Eb
• E
• F
• F#/Gb
• G
• G#/Ab

Lisa wrote:

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Middle C, E Flat and G walk into a bar. Sorry, the barman said, we don't serve minors ....

Don't blame me if that's not right (or funny) - I know nothing about music (or jokes!) But at least I tried

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to  finish the joke...

"So E-Flat leaves and C and G have as open 5th between them.

After a few drinks the 5th is diminished and the G is out flat. An F comes in and tries to augment the situation but is not sharp enough. A D comes into the bar and heads straight for the bathroom saying,*Excuse me, I'll just be a second"

An A comes into the bar but the bartender is not convinced this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices a B-Flat hiding at the end of the bar and exclaims, "Get out now! You're the seventh minor I've found in the bar tonight." The E-Flat is not easily deflated, comes back to the bar the next night in a 3-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender who used to have a nice corporate job until his company downsized, says, "You're looking sharp tonight, come on in! This could be a major development." This proves to be the case as the E-Flat takes off the suit and everything else and stands there au natural.

Eventually C sobers up and realizes in horror he is under a rest. The C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, the C is found innocent of any wrong doing, even accidental, and that all accusations to the contrary are bassless (sic)

The bartender decides that since he's only had tenor so patrons, with the soprano out in the bathroom, and everything becoming alto much treble, he needs a rest, and closes the bar."

Fraiser Crane would be proud of that.....

For those who had pi$$ poor music teachers like Mark, read this.

http://www.flupe.com/lessons/freeLessons/01_foundationLessons/L01_12Notes/12_notes.htm

Can we re-title this thread to Surreal Different?