How The Jam shaped a young Graham Coxon
The Jam and Blur are two staples of British music. While the former endeared themselves to audiences during the Mod revival of the 1970s, penning hits like ‘Town Called Malice’, Blur pioneered Britpop two decades later with modern classics ‘Parklife’ and ‘Song 2’. Though decades apart, the bands channelled a similar British edge through which they found mainstream success.
Growing up amidst the Mod revival and the beginnings of new wave, Blur were, expectedly, influenced by The Jam in their youth. Guitarist Graham Coxon, in particular, has emphasised the influence of The Jam on his teen years.
Speaking with The Line of Best Fit, Coxon named The Jam’s 1980 number one hit ‘Going Underground’ as one of his nine favourite tracks. He stated: “It was very intelligent, rhythmic, advanced, brilliant music that The Jam made”, before launching into a story of how The Jam soundtracked his youth.
Coxon suggests that they were “by far” his favourite band as a youngster: “I don’t know what excited me so much about The Jam when I was 13,” he said. “It was almost Ray Davies-like – it’s kind of the idea of this very young person’s worldview who’s like a forty-year-old, you know? It sounds incredibly advanced as a teenager – when was ‘Going Underground’, 1980? So he was probably 20, 21 years old?”
The Blur guitarist recalls getting the bus down to The Townhouse on Colchester High Street, where there was a disco in the basement each Tuesday night. He recounts: “There’d be mods from all over Essex who’d go there and dance. I remember sitting there at the side in my Jam shoes and a boating blazer, watching this boy in a Parka dance to ‘Going Underground’, and it was one of the best things I ever saw.”
Part of the reason Coxon loved The Jam so much was how cool they made him feel: “I think with a lot of mods, when you’re sixteen, you feel slightly better than everybody else. And I think The Jam made me feel kind of better than everyone, or a little more intelligent than people that were listening to Simple Minds.”
Being a young, Jam-loving Mod in Colchester was not without its risks, however. As Coxon recalls it, when he was leaving the Townhouse, the opposing subculture of skinheads would chase them up the high street: “This was a time when, if you wore a stripy jacket or a Parka, you were liable to get chased down an alleyway by skinheads.”
It’s easy to hear the influence of The Jam on Coxon’s later musical output – from their quintessential southern British-ness of ‘Parklife’ to their bouncy, bright and radio-friendly indie rock sound. In fact, the enduring influence of The Jam can be felt throughout Britpop as a whole.
