Paul Weller’s 10 best lyrics
In the annals of British rock music, few figures have left such an indelible mark as Paul Weller. As an innovative songwriter and meticulous instrumental architect, Weller’s unique ability to capture the essence of the human experience through his lyrics has solidified his status as a songwriting virtuoso over the past 45 years.
After beginning his career fronting the punk-era mod-revival group The Jam, Weller branched out into a softer musical style with The Style Council before embarking on a titanic solo career. Throughout this exemplary journey, Weller has stuck to his instincts, forced preconceived bounds and never let his loyal fanbase down.
Discussing his creative impetus in 2018, Weller told Another Man: “I wouldn’t know how to write a hit these days, but then I’ve never known that. I’ve only ever written what I felt at the time, and if it’s been successful, that’s great. But equally, other things I’ve really liked haven’t been successful”.
Weller added: “It’s my life’s work, so I have to satisfy myself first and foremost – there’d be no point doing it otherwise. Obviously, once I’ve done that, I want to play it to other people and get other people into it. But I think first and foremost, I try to satisfy something inside myself, really. If other people get it and they share in it? That’s fantastic.”
Needless to say, Weller’s words, for many a year, have captured the imagination of countless fans around the world, whether he’s artfully mocking Eton students or laying down a ballad for his English Rose.
Today, we celebrate Paul Weller’s work to date with a collection of his finest lyrics.
Paul Weller’s 10 best lyrics:
Paul Weller – ‘Broken Stones’
“Like pebbles on a beach/ Kicked around, displaced by feet/ Oh, like broken stones/ They’re all trying to get home/ Like a loser’s reach/ Too slow and short to hit the peaks/ Yeah, so lost and alone/ They’re trying to get home”.
In 1995, Paul Weller released perhaps the greatest album of his prolific solo career, Stanley Road. With stylish rockouts like ‘The Changingman’ and romantic ballads like ‘You Do Something to Me’, Weller was onto a winner, but its fourth and final single ‘Broken Stones’ brings another dimension of songwriting excellence to Weller’s arsenal.
The opening lines, as seen above, are dense with imagery. Weller immediately brings his audience to a British beach – perhaps the Mods and Rockers’ battlefield in Brighton – and proceeds to dissect the limitations of a man in defeat, pining for days gone past.
Paul Weller – ‘Above the Clouds’
“Through the windows of the train/ I caught reflections of a paper cup/ Hanging small in a pale blue sky/ Never knowing which way’s up/ Above the clouds, what’s to be found/ I have to wonder, will I be around”.
After disbanding The Style Council in 1989, Weller formed The Paul Weller Movement, the first backing band of his long and illustrious solo career. The first album of this odyssey, appropriately titled Paul Weller, arrived in 1992. As a whole, the album received mixed reviews, but it was undoubtedly home to a few crackers.
‘Above the Clouds’ was a bonafide highlight, not least due to its imaginative and enveloping lyrics. As seen in the above extract, Weller uses the long hours of a train journey for a bit of poetic soul-searching.
The Style Council – ‘My Ever Changing Moods’
“Teardrops turn to children, who’ve never had the time/ To commit the sins they pay for through, another’s evil mind”.
Following his exit from The Jam in 1982, Weller joined forces with keyboardist Mick Talbot, previously of Dexys Midnight Runners, to form The Style Council. This new project would depart from The Jam’s punk affections and instead embrace a jazz-pop facade.
‘My Ever Changing Moods’ was issued in several forms, but I hope most will agree that the version appearing on the 1984 album Café Bleu is the best. Crucially, this version is stripped back and hears Weller’s vocals in their full, frontal glory over an acoustic piano arrangement. Words like those above deserve undivided attention.
The Jam – ‘English Rose’
“I’ve been to ancient worlds/ I’ve scoured the whole universe/ And caught the first train home/ To be at her side/ No matter where I roam/ I will return to my English Rose/ For no bonds can keep me from she”.
Weller’s writing, like his musical style, has been commendably diverse over his many years of eminence. Satirical storytelling, reflective poetry and romantic symbolism have all seasoned his oeuvre in generous heaps.
‘English Rose’, from The Jam’s third studio album, 1978’s All Mod Cons, stands out from the crowd as one of Weller’s purest compositions. The lyrics flow candidly over a fingerstyle acoustic progression as Weller longs to return from touring to see his then-girlfriend, Gill Price.
The Jam – ‘The Eton Rifles’
“Sup up your beer and collect your fags/ There’s a row going on down near slough/ Get out your mat and pray to the west/ I’ll get out mine and pray for myself/ Thought you were smart when you took them on/ But you didn’t take a peep in their artillery room/ All that rugby puts hairs on your chest/ What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?”
The Jam formed during the peak of Britain’s punk wave. For a punk group, The Jam’s style and subject matter were notably diverse. ‘The Eton Rifles’, arriving on the band’s fourth album, Setting Sons, was certainly one of Weller’s more punk-conscious moments.
The track was the album’s only single and reached number three on the UK Singles Chart in 1979. Among its admirers, ironically, was former Prime Minister David Cameron, who was an Eton pupil at the time. “It was a great song with brilliant lyrics,” Cameron told The Guardian in 2011. “I’ve always thought that if you can only like music if you agree with the political views of the person who wrote it, well, it’d be rather limiting.”
The Jam – ‘Just Who Is the 5 O’Clock Hero?’
“My hard earned dough goes in bills and the larder / And that Prince Philip tells us we gotta work harder!”
Few songwriters in history have appraised the working class experience with as much humble verity as Weller. He doesn’t wallow in the dower existence of the factory worker at the heart of this song, he merely points out the ironies that litter many lives. This scathing couplet puts the patronising patriarchy to the sword with cutting concision.
Weller has never been sympathetic to the monarchy at the best of times. Speaking to Record Collector Magazine after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, Weller said: “It’s fucking bizarre [the national mourning] Minty-Six is old enough. Jesus Christ. People are like, ‘Isn’t it sad?’ What, do you want her to come into work at a hundred and fucking fifty or something? It’s mental.”
The Jam – ‘That’s Entertainment’
“Two lovers kissing amongst the scream of midnight / Two lovers missing the tranquility of solitude”.
‘That’s Entertainment’ is the sort of song that almost secretly sneaks in some high poetry among its poppy, pub-friendly delight. And that is fitting given the backstory behind it, as Weller told Mojo: “It was so easy to write. I came back from the pub, drunk, and just wrote it quick. I probably had more verses, which I cut.”
That sense of inebriated honesty shines through in this Byronic couplet. There are thousands of pop songs that place love uber-alles, but Weller uses it here to highlight a deeper sense of loneliness as two loves kiss and wish that they were actually alone and at peace. There is a poignancy to that image really perks up the rest of the song’s rattled off truths.
Paul Weller – ‘Woodcutter’s Son’
“There’s a silence when I enter, And a murmur when I leave, I can see their jealous faces, I can feel the ice they breathe”.
It is a sign of the strength in Weller’s songwriting that he can do it all; he can spit out jabs reminiscent of political rap, and he can also get literary with lines like this gem from ‘Woodcutter’s Son’ that remind you of Carson McCullers’ novella The Ballad of the Sad Café. Here, he paints a scene as well as anyone.
Speaking about this album, Kiaran Crooks of The Sherlocks told us: “For me, Stanley Road is Paul Weller’s best record. I know he’s prolific, and they’re all great, but Stanley Road is just like a record that I could pop on and sit in the backyard. It’s just one of the best records of all time for me. It’s an album I always go back to and always listen to. Just a summer’s day, Weller’s voice and then it just comes down to the songs. With things like ‘Woodcutter’s Son’ it’s like any time that ever comes on I love it each time.”
The Style Council – ‘It Just Came To Pieces In My Hands’
“I was a shit-stained statue / School children would stand in awe / I truly believed I was a ceiling of sky / Never thought about having flaws”.
At the height of The Style Council’s prominence in 1984, Weller pointed out the ignorance of those pining for the ‘glory days’ of the British empire with beautiful sarcastic wit. Being only good for pigeon’s shit-shooting practice is a pretty fantastic way to blow the notion of antique nostalgia to smithereens with comic poetry.
There is also so much double meaning crammed into this single verse that it gives Weller the upper-hand over those he’s pointing a finger at. For instance, the ceiling of sky relates to the lowest form of cloud that covers vast expanses of the Earth just as the British Empire aimed to do, this makes for a vaulted double entendre pointed at the pompous nature of imperialisms pagentry.
The Style Council – ‘A Stone’s Throw Away’
“Whatever pleasures those who get from stripping skin with rhino whip / Are the kind that must be stopped before their kind take all we’ve got”.
Once again, Weller gets political and points out the violence is only a stone’s throw away by journeying around the world to look at the brutality employed by those in power. This time, he elucidates the matter with some of his darkest imagery. It doesn’t get much more cutting than the idea of “stripping skin”.
Speaking about the fury behind this anthem, Weller told Mojo: “It was just what was going on really. These people who’d been working down the pits and keeping the country going… all of a sudden being f–king hit around the head by the Met Police. I just thought it was outrageous, F–king outrageous.”
