Life From a Window

"Life From a Window" was the 4th cut (on side one) of This is the Modern World, which was my first The Jam album back in the day. Which was probably 1977, the year it came out. I remember reading a Rolling Stone review that compared The Jam's sound to The Beatles, and my Beatles obsession had just kicked into gear, so that was enough for me. And I liked the album immediately . . . but it didn't sound anything like The Beatles to me.

For one thing, these guys were angry. Really angry. And not in that John Lennon existentialist angst ("I'm so lonely . . . want to die") way. No. More in an "All my life has been the same, I've learned to live by hate and pain. It's my inspiration drive" way. More in a "I don't give two fucks about your review" way. And I liked that. I needed that. The world I was looking at was cruel and stupid and bitter and senseless, and happiness seemed like complacency, surrender, or complicity. I needed to know that somebody else was aghast at all of the shit sluicing past in the gutter. I needed to know that somebody else was angry and ready to fight.

And I needed to know that somebody else felt separated from it all. As if they were watching life through a window.

Of course I bought more of The Jam asap. Unfortunately, they had only released one other album at the time--the less than stellar In the City . . . but the punked up version of the Neal Hefti "Batman Theme" made up for the lack of stars. And I only had to wait a year for All Mod Cons, which blazed with even more anger--"I hate you and your wife, and if I get the chance Il'l fuck up your life." Yowza. I'd never encountered that kind of fury before.

And then the next year came Rising Sons, which is still one of my all-time favorite albums. I could have done without the cover of "Heat Wave" at the end of the first side of the album, but the other 9 songs were just things of pure beauty. 

And then the next year came Sound Affects, which gave me "Pretty Green" and "Start!', both of which ran through my head on loops.

And then the swan song, The Gift. Which included "A Town Called Malice," another of my all time favorite songs. 

That was more or less it for The Jam. Although the group is still going without Paul Weller. And Paul Weller is still going without the group. 

"Life from a window
I'm just taking in the view
Life from a window
Watching everything around you."