The Pretenders song Chrissie Hynde didn’t want to release: “Over my dead body”
Though she was born in Akron, Ohio, Chrissie Hynde formed Pretenders in Hereford, England, in 1978. The aspiring singer and songwriter moved to London in 1973 following a stint at Kent State University’s Art School. Her time at art school had satiated a post-high school curiosity in theory, but in practice, she would need to relocate if she was ever to be heard.
“I was never too interested in high school,” Hynde reflected in a 1980 conversation with Rolling Stone. “I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind.”
These “bigger things” became well within reach after Hynde established herself in London’s blooming punk scene. After rubbing shoulders with Sex Pistols and their fashion director Vivienne Westwood, Hynde set out with Pretenders to bring a unique refinement to the punk sound.
Pretenders made an instant statement with their eponymous debut album of 1980. The release was buoyed by its four singles: ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, ‘Kid’, ‘Brass in Pocket’ and ‘Precious’. Of these tracks, ‘Brass in Pocket’ was the most successful, reaching number one in the UK and 14 in the US, and remains the group’s most popular hit to this day.
With this single, especially, Hynde had achieved “bigger things,” but ostensibly not quite the way she had planned. “I did not like it at first,” Hynde told American Songwriter of ‘Brass in Pocket’ in 2019. “I said that would go out over my dead body. That was my famous quote.”
Continuing, Hynde said she “didn’t think [‘Brass in Pocket’] knew what it was,” adding: “I thought it sounded like it was trying to be a Motown song, but it didn’t quite make it for me.”
James Honeyman-Scott, the band’s original lead guitarist who tragically died from a drug overdose in June 1982, wrote the single’s catchy riff. “He was playing that in the studio, and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s awesome,'” Hynde recalled. “I just happened to have a little tape recorder, and I taped it. That’s the one time I did that. I wish I’d done it more.”
Beyond the bridge lyrics, “I’m special,” the song relies on Honeyman-Scott’s riff as a chorus of sorts. In the sleevenotes for Pretenders’ Pirate Radio box set, Hynde explained the song title’s inception.
“We supported a band on our label called Strangeways, on tour in the north of England,” Hynde wrote. “We had dinner afterwards, and one of their guys leaned across the table and said to another, ‘Did you take my trousers to the dry cleaners? Was there any brass in the pocket?’ It was a turn of phrase that describes someone who is doing alright financially. If I’d imagined it was going to be such a hit, I might have been a little less abstract.”
“In terms of my career, ‘Brass In Pocket’ was about as big as it got, but globally speaking, it was more like a B-movie. I don’t remember it having any huge impact in terms of us playing bigger venues,” Hynde reflected in a 2020 conversation with Louder.
“I enjoy singing it these days,” she admitted. “If someone wants to hear it, it’s always a pleasure. And my new band likes playing it, too. But the best thing about the song is that it always reminds me of Jimmy Scott. He was a fantastic guitar player. He was only 25 when we lost him.”
Listen to the classic Pretenders hit below.
