The live groups that inspired James: “Everybody was taking risks”
Without most people knowing it, James have become one of the most beloved Britpop bands.
Because ever since Mo Salah donned the red shirt of Liverpool FC and started scoring more goals than I’ve had hot dinners, the melodies of James have rung out through the terraces of Anfield and beyond. To those unaware, like all good football fans, the Liverpool supporters have morphed the melody of James’ seminal track ‘Sit Down’, as a means of worshipping their Egyptian king.
Sure, it might seem like somewhat of a flippant and ineffective example of how their song has weaved its way into culture, but the truth is, football fans should be considered as some of music’s most honest critics. A crucial part of their unspoken terrace agreement is deciding what melodies are good enough to build a chant around, and so it’s not surprising that some of the greatest have made their way into stadiums.
Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring Of Fire’ and The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’ are timeless tracks because of how infectious their melodies are, and so naturally, football fans have picked up on that and sung the names of their favourite athletes to their tune. But there have been few as entertaining as that of the Liverpudlians in recent years, and while Salah’s on-pitch success helps that, the main reason is that the song and melody are so damn catchy.
The very fact that the band got to a point where they knew how to write tracks like these was because of how relentlessly they toured the live circuit in their early years. They knew that it was the general public who would provide them with the most honest feedback about their work and help craft them into a band that would write catchy hits like ‘Sit Down’.
“When we were younger, all we wanted to do was play live,” the band’s vocalist, Tim Booth, said. “We didn’t even want to record. We felt live was the litmus test of a band. We came from 1981-82, with all those great post-punk bands from The Gun Club to Wire to The Stranglers to The Pop Group, Pere Ubu, the Cramps, Jonathan Richman – everybody was taking risks.”
He continued, “No one was making music to make money. That was seen as beneath us. We were artists [like] Patti Smith, Talking Heads. If you had success, it was almost by accident. We came from that crew of people who believed that the live event was the thing that was the real connection and the really exciting thing to do.”
Despite what we might be told about the modern music space and the importance of the internet, it’s an approach that still creates success. It is no coincidence that the best, most impactful bands of the contemporary scene have relentlessly toured before ever experiencing a whiff of success.
Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that music was created for the people and without playing it live, to the people, you will never know the true impact. Because maybe a small show in a DIY venue today might mean a song on the Kop terraces in 20 years.
