In the 1980s Paul Weller’s decision to keep moving and jump several steps ahead of where his audience were (and his band) led to The Style Council. Out went parkas, targets and guitar- drums- bass post- punk/mod rock, in came jazz and soul and funk, Dee C Lee and Mick Talbot. Looking back at Weller’s writing in The Style Council a lot of the lyrics that shows the same concerns- The Style Council’s love songs are more lovey (Headstart For Happiness and Long Hot Summer for instance) and debut single Speak Like A Child was brilliant soul pop in a way that The Jam could never have been. Weller never avoided politics in his Style Council songs, if anything he was more overtly political than he had been in The Jam. Second single Money Go Round is as powerful as The Eton Rifles but its sung over 70s wah wah funk instead of driving post punk. And as relevant today as it was in 1983.
‘Too much money in too few places
Only puts a smile on particular faces
Said too much power in not enough hands
Makes me think “get rich quick; take all I can”
They’re too busy spending on the means of destruction
To ever spend a penny on some real construction’
Or how about this one, The Internationalists, from 1985’s Our Favourite Shop?
In the whole wide world and all it bears
And that your share is no less or more than
Declare yourself, an internationalist
Then you must also see we are the same within
And the rights you expect are the rights of all
That liberty must come at the top of the list
Stand proud as an internationalist’
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