Pam’s Mood

Blah blah blah Havent posted in a long time bollox bollox bollox

One of life’s great luxuries, a damn good song.

I happened upon this song from a individual who in the few meetings ive had with him have got to admire him a great deal, so much so i interviewed him for a Uni assessment of mine ……3……2……1…..Shhhhhameless plug

Tom is great(as you’ve seen if you’ve watched, or if you’re not bothered to watch it, take my word for it, you lazy cow)

A mind obsessed with music is one i will be forever drawn to simply due to my quest for songs, just like tom. And last Sunday, while listening to his radio show ‘The Last Bus Home w/Tom Prendergast @ 99.9FM’ he played a track that is the at the centre of todays post.

‘Pam’s Mood’ by Kilburn & The High Roads

I doubt you’ve heard of it, i hadn’t.

At time of typing it’s got just over 20k plays on spotify and just over 11k on YouTube. You’re very much welcome to look on Apple music(or not, i don’t fucking care either or).

SO fair to say it’s a bit of a hidden gem, and ohhhhh boy what a gem it is.

But a bit a background and foreground first, madam and misters.

The group, Kilburn & The High Roads weren’t very succesful. Their Frontman however was later. One Mr Ian Dury fronted The Kilburns and later went on to release his debut solo album ‘New Boots and Panties!!’ which went platinum in ’77.

Dury successes with numerous singles and albums from the late 70s to late 80s cemented his cult status in British new wave.

HE’S BEEN COMPARED TO ELVIS COSTELLO

(Sorry i just thought i was sounding Batemen-esque)

He has a tone in his words that one could equate to Morrisey, Dury predated Morrisey but the point still stands. Morrisey was so well in conveying (in his smiths days anyway) this sweet tragedy about anything. That everything might be fucked or i feel like i want to die but at least I’ll go down laughing about it(at myself mostly)

That sort of morbid irony finding the gruesome upside in a bleak situation, or a ironic downside in a pleasant one.

I see this trait in Dury also. Not that Dury does this in most, or even some of his tracks. He’s not as boxed in as that. But on this one track in particular, ‘Pam’s Mood,’ i find it fascinating not just on the contents of the song but that it’s almost a Smiths song in disguise, that in some weird way predates them. Not to make the claim that The Smiths or Morrisey were pioneers in somewhat upbeat/depressing music, not at all. But it just shares eerily sentiment.

But thats enough background and foreground, or Slap and tickle.

Let’s get on to the meat and potatoes.

As already expressed it’s just this pre-historic Morrisey-esque tone wrapped around the song and all the way down its throat.

A song about a couple fighting, with Mr Dury’s portrayal of a narrator on the receiving end from his significant other “Pam”

Her words eat through his soul, turning it into wormwood, a toxic substance to humans. Broken china, ruptured  psyches, shivers up a spine and being a obedient significant other to Pam.

Now none of that sound great, Pam in this song, physically and mentally breaks the narrator, like they’re a servant to Pam.

But what gets me is that songs about bad relationships, dull marriages and toxic significant others are as old as the hills, and will be around to the new hills are made. But i say again, what gets me is the tone and almost joy in the narrators voice. Like he enjoys being on the end her bad mood, in not just the words or tone of the narrator. The music of the song is this like Singing in the rain backing music about lamenting about love. It’s a total intentional mismatch that gives the whole song a dream like quality, like you’ve gone to sleep thinking about being on the end of a femdom fetish and you then you dream about being in one.

It sounds like a the narrator is one half of a match made in hell. Like a Joker and Harley Quinn type of thing. Not the best comparison i admit, but its what came to mind. Like if you take how in ‘Joker’ they used a song from known Pedophile Gary Glitter, to put the right twisted edge on a song to match the character on screen. Well in a roundabout way i see ‘Pam’s Mood’ the same way, that in my interpretation of lyrics, the narrator is a kind twisted character. He knows Pam is awful, she beats him into submission, and he’ll put up with her breaking him down, so long as when they’re still together as a pair afterwards, it’ll make him whole again.

This ain’t the girl for you chief.

That’s my longwinded and unsubstantiated claim about a nearly 45 year old song. But it just grabbed a hold of me as it made me put all these pieces together and the fact that this song gives the allusion that these pieces exist is why i love this song. A sweet little ambiguous few lines about a seemingly cartoonishly toxic relationship with a abusive partner whose abuse the narrator maybe/maybe not enjoys receiving.

Give it listen, hopefully you’ll disagree with me.

I’ll try to get the next post out as soon as i can, i have like 3 months to cover and i just want to get everything in check so i don’t miss anything.

And the semester is about to start back up again, so i predict that my work ethic is about to skyrocket again, after being on life support for the past 2 months.

But Slan, give a good word to your mother from me, and don’t be too hard on yourself, cause no man does it all by themself…..SO I SAID YOUNG MAN PUT YOUR PRIDE ON A SHELF

And Trump is gone lol

WE RIDIN………

I’ll end it here.

Seán