Counter Culture

The songs

1. The Adverts – Drowning Men

The Adverts never needed to pretend they were dangerous. They had the energy, the attitude and, importantly, the songs. Formed in 1976, they belonged to that first explosion of British punk, but there was always more going on beneath the noise. T. V. Smith could pack a remarkably sharp observation into a few lines, while Gaye Advert became one of punk’s most recognisable figures without surrendering an ounce of individuality.

Drowning Men, from 1978’s Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts, is a good example of their darker side. The pace and urgency are unmistakably punk, but there is desperation underneath the surface. It evokes people struggling to keep their heads above water in a world that seems indifferent to their difficulties. That mixture of immediacy and unease has aged remarkably well.

For anyone whose knowledge of the band begins and ends with Gary Gilmore’s Eyes, this is a reminder that The Adverts had rather more to offer. Turn it up.

2. David Bowie – Oh! You Pretty Things

It is tempting to hear the bright piano and apparently cheerful melody and imagine Bowie offering a straightforward pop song. He wasn’t. Oh! You Pretty Things, from 1971’s Hunky Dory, is a considerably stranger piece of work: a song about upheaval, generational change and the unsettling possibility that the people who come after us may not share our understanding of humanity at all.

The imagery has prompted discussion of Nietzsche, occult ideas and the fascination with transformation that runs through so much of Bowie’s early writing. Some of it is deliberately provocative. The references to a coming superior generation should be read as part of a disturbing imaginative landscape, not as a political programme to celebrate. Bowie was interested in shaking loose comfortable assumptions, sometimes by borrowing ideas that are far from comfortable themselves.

What makes the performance irresistible is the contrast between the relaxed, accessible music and the extraordinary thoughts underneath it. That was one of Bowie’s gifts: making the unfamiliar sound like something you might whistle on the way home.

3. Orange Juice – Rip It Up

Scottish post-punk has never sounded quite as cheerfully contrary as Orange Juice. Led by Edwyn Collins, the band combined indie guitar-pop with funk, soul and an appealing refusal to behave like earnest rock musicians. Their 1983 hit Rip It Up remains a wonderful example of that instinct.

The song bounces along with an effortless groove, but its title also suggests an ambition to tear up old habits and begin again. It’s impossible to separate the band’s sound from Collins’s distinctive vocal delivery: cool, slightly sardonic and unmistakably his own. The arrangement is economical, the rhythm infectious, and the whole thing sounds remarkably fresh.

The Whistle Test performance is especially enjoyable because the group look so unflustered. There is no great effort to manufacture excitement. They simply play, and the song does the rest. Sometimes confidence is knowing when not to overdo it.

4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – American Girl

There are songs that somehow become classics without setting the charts alight when first released. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ American Girl is one of them. First appearing on the band’s 1976 debut album and issued as a single in 1977, it developed a life far beyond its initial commercial reception.

Those ringing guitars and that driving rhythm evoke movement, anticipation and a young person’s determination to find something better. Petty could write about familiar American dreams without making them sound completely uncomplicated. Beneath the exuberance lies a hint of restlessness, the suspicion that the promise of a better life may always remain just out of reach.

It’s a thrilling performance, and one can easily understand why the band became such a formidable live act. Petty, who died in 2017, left behind an enormous body of work, but this still sounds like the perfect place to meet him.

5. Skids – Working for the Yankee Dollar

Dunfermline’s Skids arrived with the energy of punk but rapidly developed something more expansive. Richard Jobson’s commanding presence and Stuart Adamson’s distinctive guitar work helped create a sound that could be fierce, melodic and strangely uplifting all at once.

Released in 1979 and included on Days in Europa, Working for the Yankee Dollar bristles with political irritation. The title alone suggests an uncomfortable relationship between military power, money and national independence. Whether heard as a protest against foreign influence or a broader attack on the economic interests behind war, it remains a potent song.

Jobson certainly doesn’t ration his physical energy here. Watching him move around the stage is almost exhausting. Those of us of a certain age might need an ambulance after the first chorus. Listen, too, for the differences between the performance and the familiar record. The Whistle Test gave bands room to be more than replicas of their singles.

6. The Specials – Too Much Too Young

The Specials emerged from Coventry and changed the sound of British popular music. Their fusion of Jamaican ska and reggae with punk urgency was exhilarating in itself, but the band’s cultural significance went further. At a time of racial division and political tension, their multiracial line-up made a powerful statement without requiring a lecture between songs.

Too Much Too Young became a UK number one in 1980 in its live EP form. Drawing on Lloyd Charmers’ Birth Control, it offers a deliberately sharp, sometimes harsh portrait of early marriage, teenage parenthood and the sense of possibilities closing down before life has properly begun. Its judgemental edge is part of what makes it worth discussing rather than merely singing along to.

Musically, however, it is irresistible. The rhythm propels everything forward, the band sound locked together, and the performance captures a moment when political commentary and the dance floor could share exactly the same space.

7. The Undertones – Jimmy Jimmy

The Undertones understood the virtues of getting in, making a point and getting out before anyone had time to grow bored. Jimmy Jimmy, released in 1979, is a perfect piece of punchy, melodic pop-punk: Feargal Sharkey’s unmistakable voice, guitars that never stop moving and a chorus that lodges immediately in the memory.

But don’t let the apparent cheerfulness fool you. The lyrics hint at a lonely, vulnerable child whose disappearance casts a shadow over the whole song. That contrast between lively music and darker subject matter is one of the reasons it works so well. It says something unsettling without abandoning the band’s essential exuberance.

There is also something wonderful about the group’s unpretentious appearance on the Whistle Test. No elaborate staging, no carefully manufactured mystique: just a young band playing very good songs. It’s difficult not to smile while watching them, even when the words are rather sad.

8. Johnny Winter – Jumpin’ Jack Flash

The Rolling Stones gave the world Jumpin’ Jack Flash in 1968, but Johnny Winter was never likely to leave it exactly as he found it. The American guitarist tears into the song with a ferocious blues-rock attack, turning an already forceful number into something approaching an electrical storm.

Winter was a spectacular player, technically accomplished but never content to make guitar music sound tidy or academic. His solos surge forward with that mixture of skill and abandon which makes the best live rock so exhilarating. There is always the possibility that the whole performance might fly off the rails. Of course, it doesn’t.

This is precisely the sort of discovery that made the Old Grey Whistle Test so valuable. A familiar song becomes unfamiliar again because an artist finds something different inside it. If the rest of the set list has been relatively restrained, consider this your invitation to turn the volume up considerably.

9. Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine

After Johnny Winter’s guitar fireworks, Bill Withers brings the temperature down without sacrificing an ounce of intensity. Ain’t No Sunshine, from his 1971 debut album Just As I Am, is a masterpiece of emotional economy. A few simple musical ideas are enough to convey a complicated mixture of longing, dependence and resignation.

Withers was inspired in part by the troubled relationship depicted in the film Days of Wine and Roses. That helps explain why the song doesn’t present romantic attachment as an entirely healthy or straightforward experience. Sometimes we miss things, or people, that we know may not be good for us.

And then there’s that famous repeated ‘I know’ passage. It ought to sound excessive, but it doesn’t. It becomes the sound of someone talking themselves through an emotion they cannot escape. Withers never needed vocal gymnastics to communicate feeling. Few singers have said so much with so little.

10. ZZ Top – Cheap Sunglasses

We finish with three men from Texas who knew that a little humour could coexist perfectly well with serious musicianship. Before the glossy videos and gigantic MTV hits, ZZ Top were a wonderfully tight blues-rock band with a taste for offbeat subjects and grooves that were almost impossible to resist.

Cheap Sunglasses appeared on their 1979 album Degüello. The title is wonderfully ordinary, reportedly inspired by the inexpensive sunglasses that seemed to be on sale at every roadside garage the band visited while touring. You could hardly imagine a more modest starting point for a rock song, but ZZ Top make it work.

The Whistle Test performance captures a rougher, less polished side of their sound. The rhythm section is solid, the guitar playing sharp, and there’s a mischievous quality to it all. A splendid way to end our third excursion into the archives.

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