can you help me understand the lyrics to The Squeeze’s 1979 hit “Up The Junction”?

34 comments

1. I seem to remember that up the junction was a euphemism for being pregnant, so fucked. In a bind with no way out.

2. it’s a super fucking sad song

3. It’s also a pun on Clapham junction

4. Yes, Up the Junction means he’s fucked, but it is also a reference to a film about a cross-class relationship. The song shares a vibe but not the plot.

   An incubator is a humidicrib – a box in a neonatal ward to help care for premature babies. Here it is used to refer to the maternity ward due to fitting with the “almost rhyming” format of the song’ lyric. That is, “happen” doesn’t *quite* rhyme with “Clapham”, nor “common” with “forgotten” – I think there’s a Greek poetry term for it but I can’t remember it.

5. Thanks for the reminder that they sang *Cool for Cats*, a song I haven’t heard in decades but which was used on an advert for something that must have been ubiquitous in my childhood.

   Edit: turns out it was an advert for milk. https://youtu.be/3YCvnUJxw0I?feature=shared

6. Oh man, I envy you just discovering this. Try “Tempted” next. Tilbrook & Difford combine melody and story-telling lyrics perfectly

7. I always through it was inspired by the 1968 movie ‘ up the junction’ where the junction was Clapham railway junction – a London neighbourhood – and the plot featured an unwanted pregnancy. It was of the genre known as ‘kitchen sink dramas’ – stories about working class people

8. Chick he knocked up hates him, his daughter hates him. He’s fucked.

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Junction_(song)

   Check out the ‘history’ section.

10. Have you also listened to Tempted, by Squeeze.

11. Get stuck in to Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Similar era, and you’ll have plenty of questions RE his lyrical genius.

12. One of those songs where the title only comes in the last line, Roxy Music’s Virginia Plain being another.

13. Squeeze still tour. They celebrated 50 years with a long US/UK tour last year. Check out their official website for dates.

14. Now listen to _Goodbye Girl_. Another good ‘story’ song.

15. Pulling Mussels from the Shell

16. Squeeze are such an underrated band. Some of their lyrics are genius. Up the Junction was one of my dad’s favourite songs

17. Frank the album was a staple play back in the day. Squeeze, XTC, Ian Dury, lots of cracking lyricists from that era.

18. The song takes a lot of inspiration from the themes in a film, also called “up the junction”.
    Lyrics wise, incubator is indeed the common name for a type of humidified cot that premature babies were put in in the U.K, but it does feel like it’s more there to force the rhyme with “later” as it doesn’t really make sense linguistically. I guess it’s hard to rhyme anything with “maternity hospital”.
    “Up the junction” is indeed London slang for “in deep trouble” as the song is describing essentially the rise and fall of someone’s life, but there’s also the double meaning as the lyrics in the song take place in and around Clapham, where there is indeed a major railway junction. Several lyrics refer to places in the area (“the windy common” for example, refers to Clapham Common which was a popular location for couples to meet)

19. You’ll probably like The Boomtown Rats as well. ‘Rat Trap’ and ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ are their most popular tracks and both are classics.

20. I saw Squeeze live on their 50th anniversary tour last year and they were fantastic. I think they’re still touring this year and highly recommend if you get the chance.

21. A good song but undermined by the incoherent lyrics. He took his girlfriend to the ‘incubator’ ‘this morning at 4:50’ and one key change later it’s somehow two years later. Difford was too lazy to correct the line to ‘that morning at 4:50’ the same way he was too lazy to think of a place that rhymed properly with ‘happen’.

22. Squeeze is still touring and they put on a great show.
    Highly recommended.

23. Try Another Nail in my Heart the first line 2 lines alone tell you everything! Glen Tilbrooks one note guitar solo into Joils Hollands blues piano is iamazing.
    Also Pulling Mussels (from a shell) for a perfect snapshot of a British seaside holiday in the 70’s.
    I wouldn’t normally recommend a compilations album but ‘45’s and under’ is magnificent. Glorious lyrics and beautiful music

24. Hey friend. This is actually one of my favourite songs. I’m a big fan of Squeeze (seen them live quite a few times) so I can help you out.

    Verse by verse it roughly translates to this

    >I never thought it would happen
    With me and the girl from Clapham
    Out on the windy common
    That night I ain’t forgotten
    When she dealt out the rations
    With some or other passions
    I said “you are a lady”
    “Perhaps” she said. “I may be”

    I met a girl from Clapham (an area of London) and didn’t think I’d have a chance with her. It was windy that night, I’ll never forget it. I gave her a compliment and we got talking.

    > We moved in to a basement
    With thoughts of our engagement
    We stayed in by the telly
    Although the room was smelly
    We spent our time just kissing
    The Railway Arms we’re missing
    But love had got us hooked up
    And all our time it took up

    Fast forward and we moved I together. Then we spoke about getting married. We spent evenings in watching the TV although our living space wasn’t very nice. We occupied ourselves with kissing and stayed out of the pub

    > I got a job with Stanley
    He said I’d come in handy
    And started me on Monday
    So I had a bath on Sunday
    I worked eleven hours
    And bought the girl some flowers
    She said she’d seen a doctor
    And nothing now could stop her

    Stanley hired me so I took my Sunday bath (it was common for a lot of people in the UK to only have one bath per week at the time). With the money from my first shift, I bought her some flowers. She told me she’d been to see the doctor and was pregnant.

    > I worked all through the winter
    The weather brass and bitter
    I put away a tenner
    Each week to make her better
    And when the time was ready
    We had to sell the telly
    Late evenings by the fire
    With little kicks inside her

    I worked through the harsh weather in the winter (I assume he had an outdoors job, probably labouring on a building site) and each week put 10 pounds to one side to prepare for when the baby came. It wasn’t enough so we sold the TV and occupied ourselves sitting by the fire and feeling the baby’s kicks.

    > This morning at four fifty
    I took her rather nifty
    Down to an incubator
    Where thirty minutes later
    She gave birth to a daughter
    Within a year a walker
    She looked just like her mother
    If there could be another

    She went into labour at 4:50am so I took her to the maternity ward as quick as I could. Half an hour later, she have birthday to a little girl who was walking within 12 months. She looked like her mother.

    > And now she’s two years older
    Her mother’s with a soldier
    She left me when my drinking
    Became a proper stinging
    The devil came and took me
    From bar to street to bookie
    No more nights by the telly
    No more nights nappies smelling

    2 years after that, we’re no longer together. She left me because I became an alcoholic. My addictions took me from the bar to the betting shops.

    > Alone here in the kitchen
    I feel there’s something missing
    I’d beg for some forgiveness
    But begging’s not my business
    And she won’t write a letter
    Although I always tell her
    And so it’s my assumption
    I’m really up the junction

    Now I live alone and miss them. I’d ask them for forgiveness but I’m too proud for that. She never writes to me even though I ask her to. Basically, I’m fucked.

25. I think it’s Mr Difford trying to rhyme with later, amazing song tho.

26. Check out Lloyd Cole and the commotions too.. should be right up your street 😃

27. If you enjoy Squeeze then here are a few other bands you might enjoy: 

    Elvis Costello (big in the US so I’m sure you know him but he was pretty close to Squeeze)

    Dexys Midnight Runners – Away from ‘that’ song they’re a great band with a similar bittersweet lyrics

    Pulp – picked up the baton of pop sounds/kitchen sink lyrics 

    Suede – Heavily Bowie influenced but there’s some Squeeze in there too I think

28. Fun fact: this song has no chorus. Blew my mind when I realised

29. Great song.

30. Squeeze took their name from the last velvet underground record.

31. Along with other great recommendations have a listen to Joe Jackson

32. Always loved Squeeze, brilliant band. What a great period that was for bands and music. Makes me nostalgic, wish I could go back!

33. Up the Junction was both a play and film before the song.

    The play, by Ken Loach, was adapted from a short-story of th same name, is probably the most relevant, it involve pre-mariual sex (controversial at the time) and illegal ‘back street’ abortions.

    The film is closer to the original story, though the characters are the same.

    Both tell the stories of three young women living in North Battersea and Clapham and, to a lesser degree, their boyfriends.

34. Cool for Cats by Squeeze will need even more translation by us Brits

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