Squeeze – "If I Didn't Love You" (1980)

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I didn't love you, I 'd hate you

Squeeze is yet another band I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" radio program, although they became popular enough that I also heard their music elsewhere as well.  

This song is from their third LP, Argybargy, which is a new wave masterpiece – it has a number of very strong and very memorable tracks, and it's essentially impossible not to sing along when you listen to them.  (I was singing along to this one today while on a bike ride, and got a number of admiring looks from the walkers and joggers that I passed while singing at the top of my lungs.)

I have to disagree with Squeeze when it comes to love and hate -- love and hate aren't always mutually exclusive, either-or emotions.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel wasn't talking about romantic love when he said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," but I think that principle applies to romantic love.  

The French writer, Marcel Jouhandeau expressed a similar sentiment: "To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn."  (Jouhandeau also said "The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock," which may be as good as any explanation why love and hate can go together.)

Love most often turns to hate when it is not reciprocated, or when the beloved is guilty of deception or betrayal.  Perhaps Squeeze should have said Because you don't love me, I hate you, or Even though I love you, I hate you.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to listen to "If I Didn't Love You."  Like most of the other members of the inaugural class of the 2 OR 3 LINES "SILVER DECADE" HALL OF FAME, it's notable for the intelligence of its lyrics.  

When I'm judging a record, I usually care less about the lyrics than I do about the music.  But when the music and the lyrics are both first-rate, then you've really got something.  Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford – Squeeze's primary songwriters – produced a number of songs that were strong both musically and lyrically.  So did other "Silver Decade" hall of famers like Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, and Chrissie Hynde, to mention just a few.  

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Squeeze – "Farfisa Beat" (1980)

Everybody's dancing

To the Farfisa beat

Farfisa was an Italian electronics manufacturer best known for its line of compact electronic organs.  

Farfisa – the name is an acronym for Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche, which can be translated as “United Factories of Accordions” – began to manufacture electronic organs in 1964.  Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs – whose first big hit, “Woolly Bully,” was released in 1965 – were one of the first bands to record with a Farfisa.  

A vintage Farfisa organ

The Swingin’ Medallions used a Farfisa on “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” in 1966.  

Strawberry Alarm Clock’s Mark Weitz played a Farfisa “Combo Compact” organ on “Incense and Peppermints,” but he later switched to a Vox Continental.

The Vox Continental was also used by the Animals, Dave Clark Five, Doors, Monkees, and many others.

*     *     *     *     *

By the seventies, synthesizers had largely replaced compact organs like the Farfisa on pop records.  But the Farfisa was used by a lot of eighties New Wave groups who were looking for a more retro sound – including the B-52s, Talking Heads, and Squeeze.

Today’s featured song – which I first heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” radio show in 1980 – uses a Farfisa organ.  It was released as a single in Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, but not in the UK or the U.S.

“Farfisa Beat” was only one of the great songs on Squeeze’s Argybargy album that  Lorber played.  I immediately went out and bought that album.  (Earlier this year, I sold it to Steven.)

Like almost all of the songs on Argybargy, “Farfisa Beat” was co-written by Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook.  In a 2004 book about Squeeze’s music, Difford had this to say about it: “The song’s crap.”

I beg to differ.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to listen to “Farfisa Beat.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Squeeze – "If I Didn't Love You" (1980)

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I

If I didn't love you, I 'd hate you

[NOTE: I originally wrote about this song – which may have the first Squeeze song I ever heard on the "Mystic Eyes" in 1980 – on May 15, 2010.  Here's a lightly edited version of my original post.]

*     *     *     *     *

Squeeze is yet another band I first heard on the "Mystic Eyes" program, although they were popular enough that I later heard their music elsewhere as well.  

This song is from their third LP, Argybargy, which is a new wave masterpiece – it has a number of very memorable tracks, and it's impossible not to sing along when you listen to them.  (I was singing along to this one today while on a bike ride, and got a number of admiring looks from the walkers and joggers that I passed while singing at the top of my lungs.)

I have to disagree with Squeeze when it comes to love and hate – love and hate aren't always mutually exclusive, either-or emotions.  Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel wasn't talking about romantic love when he said "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference," but I think that principle applies to romantic love.  

The French writer, Marcel Jouhandeau expressed a similar sentiment: "To really know someone is to have loved and hated him in turn."  (Jouhandeau also said "The heart has its prisons that intelligence cannot unlock," which may be as good as any explanation why love and hate can go together.)

Love most often turns to hate when it is not reciprocated, or when the beloved is guilty of deception or betrayal.  Perhaps Squeeze should have said Because you don't love me, I hate you, or Even though I love you, I hate you.

In any event, no one wrote songs more clever than Squeeze's Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook.  More importantly, no one wrote songs that were more convincing when it came to portraying real people in real situations.

Click here to listen to "If I Didn't Love You."

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: