The Stranglers: Song by Song, 1974-1990

348 Pages·2001·2.46 MB·English

by  Cornwell

Copyright © Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury 2001
This edition © 2010 Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury

(A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London W1T 3LJ)

ISBN: 978-0-85712-444-9

All Photographs courtesy of the author

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CONTENTS

Information Page

Foreword

Introduction

1 Rattus Norvegicus

2 No More Heroes

3 Black And White

4 The Raven

5 The Gospel According To The Meninblack

6 La Folie

7 Feline

8 Aural Sculpture

9 Dreamtime

10 10

Postscript

Appendix

References
In memory of Hans Wärmling
FOREWORD

When I first met Hugh Cornwell, whom I admired as lead singer of The
Stranglers, I saw an opportunity to talk about music, the punk scene, drugs, sex,
groupies and trashed hotel rooms. He wanted to talk about books – those that he
happened to be reading, others I might recommend. I was surprised by his
seriousness, and a bit relieved, too, because he seemed someone I might get to
know. Had he been a hellraiser with a riotous past and great mayhem stories, we
would have probably enjoyed a lively evening and never seen each other again.
As it was, we became friends. Hugh struck me as an intelligent, quietly
humorous fellow, with good manners and the sort of appreciative nature that you
associate with people who have had a hair-raising close call, if not a brush with
death. Such episodes don’t make people reckless, in my experience, but rather
fill them with a love for life and a kind of quiet gratitude.

This was in the 1980s. Later, Hugh told me that he had known a long period of
heroin use and a spell in the slammer. I realise from this book that Pentonville
came first, and afterwards the romance with ‘Golden Brown’, to use his
bewitching expression. I heard that song as I was riding through Dorset one
summer evening in 1982, when I was travelling around the British coast, a trip
that became the travel narrative The Kingdom By The Sea. In that book, and
throughout my 17 years of living in London, I was always on the lookout for
songs or films or books that summed up a period. There were so few books and
hardly any films, but so much English music was capable of evoking a period.
The Specials’ ‘Ghost Town’ absolutely captured the demoralised sense of life
and the disorder in London in the 1970s. Just as important for me was the music
of The Stranglers, and it interests me that in Song By Song Hugh describes how
small an impact the early US tours made, The Stranglers following a diminishing
interest and blank incomprehension that was parodied by Spinal Tap. Americans
couldn’t relate to The Stranglers at first, but perhaps that isn’t so strange. Look at
The Stranglers’ imagery and the range of reference: the Shah and Khomeini,
Victor Hugo, Gregor Mendel, Marie Antoinette and Nostradamus, aliens in New
Mexico, the La Brea tar pits and geographical allusions to Japan, Sweden,
Morocco and elsewhere, not to mention the sort of suggestions of drugs,
violence and mayhem that Hugh discusses here when he relates how The
Stranglers have always had an aura of darkness about them. It also seems to me
that the last title a US record producer would allow on an album would be Rattus
Norvegicus. Anything but that, guys!

When I came to write Dr Slaughter, a novel that I intended to be the
embodiment of London in the early 1980s, I devised a plot in which an
American girl worked in a think-tank during the day (where she was pawed by
her colleagues) and as an escort/hooker at night (where she discussed oil prices
with her clients). She was a scholar, a linguist, a cunnilinguist, a fellatrix, a
doctoral candidate and a jogger, and her jogging song was ‘Shah Shah A Go Go’
by The Stranglers. While other people were writing about nailing au pairs,
getting Wimbledon tickets, race relations and farting around on the Thames, Dr
Slaughter summed up the London I knew. A mention in this novel – which was
filmed as Half Moon Street – pleased Hugh, and the admiration was mutual; I
liked his music, and he liked my writing.

Our work even overlapped, and I felt I understood such rebelliousness and the
black-clad villains who came out of the woodwork (I never saw them anywhere
else) to attend Stranglers concerts. The opacity of British society seemed
designed to provoke the young – to enrage them, to make them dress perversely
and scream obscene lyrics. When Hugh said to the others, “I don’t want to be a
Strangler anymore” – a lovely way of leaving the group – he was also
commenting on the times, on his own development, and sort of charting a new
course.

George Melly described The Stranglers as “the Dada surrealists of the punk
movement”. Melly knows about art, but I don’t agree with that formula.
Dadaism was about anti-explanation, anti-meaning, humour and outrage, in
equal measure, but Hugh’s book is proof that every Stranglers lyric had a distinct
origin, a reason for being written, a personal meaning – in some cases, so deeply
personal it would have been unfathomable without his explanation. What a great
thing it would be if other musicians and lyricists of stature wrote similar sorts of
books, deconstructing (a word Hugh himself might use) their songs, talking
about their lyrics and imagery. I am saying this partly because I don’t know
diddly-squat about music, but I loved living in Britain to the music of The
Stranglers, which became a sort of soundtrack to my life in London.

Paul Theroux
September 2001

INTRODUCTION

In 1990, Hugh Cornwell left The Stranglers – one of the most extraordinary
bands in the history of rock music – after 16 eventful years. Throughout this
period, The Stranglers were outsiders, ostracised from the outset by their punk
brethren, despised by the politically correct and frequently dismissed by a fickle
music press. Yet they outlasted and outsold virtually every other band of the era,
recording ten hit studio albums and releasing 21 Top 40 singles, an achievement
bettered by only a handful of artists.

The four original band members – Hugh, Jean-Jacques Burnel, Dave Greenfield
and Jet Black – were an odd collection of individuals whose career was
characterised by spectacular success, dismal failure and suicidal decision-
making. They overcame serious drug abuse, near financial ruin, riots, stints in
jail and a catalogue of appalling errors and misfortunes to record more than 150
songs and make a lasting impression on a generation of rock listeners.

Over the years, The Stranglers embraced a wide range of musical styles. The
band’s constant desire to take risks led them to experiment with a diversity of
styles, from punk to electropop through to soul and Europop, making The
Stranglers impossible to pigeonhole as a musical act.

Numerous column inches have been written about the controversial and
unconventional behaviour of The Stranglers, yet little is known about the
inspiration for the band’s music and the weird and wacky philosophies that
influenced their songs. Some Stranglers lyrics contain an aggression that is
frightening in intensity and a wit that is savage and unforgiving, but the band
have also produced some of the most beautiful, heartfelt songs of the past quarter
of a century, ‘Strange Little Girl’ and ‘Always The Sun’ to name but two.

There have been two previous books on The Stranglers. Chris Twomey’s The
Men They Love to Hate and David Buckley’s No Mercy are both excellent
works, describing the band’s career and its members’ various idiosyncrasies.
What has not previously been examined in depth is the band’s music itself.
The Stranglers have always been loath to reveal the true meanings behind their
lyrics, revelling in the mystery and confusion created by their songs. In a recent
BBC Choice documentary, Jean-Jacques Burnel, tongue firmly in cheek, told
viewers the inspiration behind ‘Golden Brown’ was the band’s annoying habit of
burning toast! There are dozens more examples where Messrs Cornwell, Burnel,
Black and Greenfield delighted in spinning a web of confusion in the listeners’
minds.

Eleven years after leaving the band, Hugh has decided to explain the lyrics to
every Stranglers song and reveal how each was constructed and recorded. The
reasons for this are partly to satisfy the curiosity of fans whom to this day badger
him for explanations and also, I suspect, to correct the false impression that The
Stranglers were testosterone-crazed chauvinists whose only interest was in the
next lay and line of coke. As you make your way through the book, you will see
that their inspirations were a little deeper than drugs and women.

While compiling this book, I have been staggered by the extent to which The
Stranglers’ songs were based on the band’s real-life experiences rather than
fantasy scenarios, as I had assumed. As the man who wrote most of the lyrics,
Hugh Cornwell is the ideal person to take the reins for this unique journey.

Although the starting point for the book is the music itself, throughout these
pages Hugh reveals a host of previously untold tales concerning the band. He
gives a fascinating insight into how four utterly different personalities drove the
band and ultimately how its internal tensions forced him to leave.

Hugh is the only founder member of The Stranglers not to remain in the band.
The original four members have divided into two distinct camps – Jean-Jacques,
Dave and Jet on one side and Hugh on the other. The two camps have studiously
avoided each other, which is perhaps inevitable, given the acrimony surrounding
Hugh’s departure.

Until now, Hugh has said little about his time in the band and the events that led
to his dramatic departure in August 1990. Most of the words written over the
past ten years have come from his former colleagues. When Hugh left The
Stranglers and the remaining members recruited two replacements (a guitarist