The Ten Best Songs by The Jam

The Jam formed in 1972 in Woking, a satellite town 20 miles from London. Leader Paul Weller formed a three-piece band with bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler. The trio were indebted to the 1960s. Weller played a Rickenbacker, wore mod fashions, and was indebted to 1960s bands like The Who, The Kinks, and The Beatles.

But The Jam emerged in 1977, the year of punk. So their 1960s-inspired music was injected with punk venom. Energetic, tuneful, and intelligent, by 1980 The Jam were one of the UK’s most popular bands. They broke up in 1982 at the peak of their popularity – they played Wembley Stadium on five consecutive nights during their farewell tour. Weller was only 24 when the band split – he’d already written a truckload of great songs.

The recent passing of Rick Buckler prompted me to revisit The Jam’s catalogue. Buckler emailed me years ago, on the original version of this site:

Revisiting The Jam’s catalogue while writing this list, I was impressed by Weller’s lyrics. It’s sometimes difficult to decipher them with his thick English accent and the band’s frenetic pace, but he’s literate and articulate.

Here’s my selection of ten favourite Jam songs. It’s a mix of hits and deep cuts/b-sides – the band are more relaxed when they’re not gunning for hits, so a list of their most popular songs would feel one-dimensional. But apologies to terrific songs I couldn’t fit, like ‘The Eton Rifles’ and ‘A Town Called Malice’.

10 Best Songs by The Jam

#10 Wasteland

from Setting Sons, 1980
Paul Weller planned Setting Sons as a concept album about the lives of three boyhood friends. They reunite as adults after a war and discover they have grown up and grown apart. The concept wasn’t completed, but ‘Wasteland’ was part of the story arc.

Setting Sons is The Jam’s toughest album, with rockers like ‘Private Hell’ and ‘The Eton Rifles’. But ‘Wasteland’ features a recorder riff.

Meet me on the wastelands
The ones behind the old houses, the ones left standing pre-war
The ones overshadowed by the monolith monstrosities
Councils call homes

#9 Set The House Ablaze

from Sound Affects, 1980
The Jam added psychedelia to their sound on 1980’s Sound Affects. The album’s often dreamy like ‘That’s Entertainment’, or upbeat like ‘Pretty Green’. But ‘Set the House Ablaze’ is a ferocious rocker with a psychedelic edge.

Weller made headlines at the start of his career by claiming that he’d vote Tory at the next election. But he later clarified that he was being provocative to attract attention and was reacting to the left-wing politics of The Clash. But on ‘Set the House Ablaze’ he’s denouncing a recent recruit to the far-right, fascist National Front.

It is called indoctrination
And it happens on all levels
But it has nothing to do with equality
It has nothing to do with democracy

#8 Mr Clean

from All Mod Cons, 1978
Weller is usually a sympathetic writer, so ‘Mr Clean’ is an aberration in his catalogue. It’s a nasty putdown of a middle-class office worker, who has shed his working-class roots.

It pairs with ‘Down at the Tube Station at Midnight’, the #4 song on this list – it could be the same story from a different perspective. Both songs were recorded on the same day. ‘Down at the Tube Station at Midnight’ could be Mr Clean’s perspective, while ‘Mr Clean’ could be from the perspective of one of the ruffians in the tube station.

The Jam played beautifully together – the three-piece arrangement is full of simmering tension and dynamic shifts.

Cause I hate you and your wife
And if I get the chance, I’ll f*** up your life
Mr Clean

#7 When You’re Young

non-album single, 1979
Like many 20th-century English bands, some of The Jam’s best work didn’t feature on a studio album. ‘When You’re Young’ emerged as a single between the All Mod Cons and Setting Sons eras, and it sounds like it – poppy but with a tougher rock edge.

Again, The Jam expertly extract dynamics from a three-piece band arrangement. The ska-like breakdown in the second half is a great change of pace.

Life is a drink and you get drunk when you’re young

#6 Precious

from The Gift, 1982
Bored with The Jam’s formula, Weller pushed against the limitations of a three-piece band on The Gift. It’s uneven compared to their previous three albums, but the best songs are as strong as ever. On ‘Precious’ Weller becomes a soul growler. He plays Curtis Mayfield-style wah-wah guitar, supported by a great funk bassline from Foxton.

‘Precious’ was paired with ‘A Town Called Malice’ on a double a-side. It was The Jam’s third UK chart-topper.

I feel trapped in sorrow
In this imagery
But that’s how I am and why I need you so

#5 That’s Entertainment!

from Sound Affects, 1980
Weller wrote ‘That’s Entertainment!’ as a simple, image-laden portrait of working-class life. He’d moved to London, and wrote ‘That’s Entertainment’ based on the sights and sounds around him. It’s like the dirty flipside of The Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’, a grimy picture of working-class life.

Presented simply, with an ironic chorus, it’s become one of the band’s most enduring songs. Morrissey covered it in 1991, and BBC Radio Two voted it as the 43rd best song ever.

Weller told Absolute Radio “I wrote it in 10 mins flat, whilst under the influence, I’d had a few but some songs just write themselves. It was easy to write, I drew on everything around me.”

A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drill and ripped-up concrete
A baby wailing, stray dog howling
The screech of brakes and lamp light blinking

#4 Down at the Tube Station at Midnight

from All Mod Cons, 1978
‘Down at the Tube Station at Midnight’ feels like the mirror of ‘Mr Clean’ (#8 on this list). It tells of a man attacked on the London Underground. It’s laden with interesting imagery, and it was Weller’s most sophisticated song yet.

Keith Moon, The Who’s drummer, died a month before the release of ‘Tube Station’. A cover of The Who’s ‘So Sad About Us’ was included as the b-side, as a tribute.

They smelt of pubs
And Wormwood Scrubs
And too many right-wing meetings

#3 Going Underground

non-album single, 1980
‘Going Underground’ was The Jam’s first number-one single in the UK. It was planned as the b-side to ‘Dreams of Children’. But due to a printing error, the songs were billed equally and the energetic ‘Going Underground’ became the main attraction.

Most bands from the initial punk band had burnt out when Margaret Thatcher’s conservatives took power, but Weller had plenty of vitriol left for her.

The band were on tour in the USA when ‘Going Underground’ hit number one. Buckler later explained “we made out we had all come down with a virus. We cancelled the rest of the tour of the States. We flew back to Britain on Concorde, to record ‘Going Underground’ on Top of The Pops for the following week.”

You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
And the public wants what the public gets
But I don’t get what this society wants

#2 Ghosts

from The Gift, 1982
The Jam’s arrangements became more elaborate on The Gift, adding organs and horns. But they sensibly kept ‘Ghosts’ low-key. There are horns, but they’re muted.

There’s no real chorus. The song alternates between two different verse melodies, one more intense than the other, with insightful lyrics about living in the present. It presages a 21st century with everyone glued to their phones.

One day you’ll walk right out of this life
And then you’ll wonder why you didn’t try

#1 The Butterfly Collector

b-side of ‘Strange Town’. 1979
‘The Butterfly Collector’ is an all-time great b-side. Perhaps it was relegated to B-side status because it’s similar to The Kinks’ ‘Shangri-La’ or maybe because it’s a little saucy.

One theory is that ‘The Butterfly Collector’ is a rebuke to Soo Catwoman who’d moved on from The Sex Pistols’ entourage by this time. The butterfly being collected is Weller himself, and it’s a scathing put-down of groupies. Another theory was that it was written about NME music journalist Julie Burchill, a riposte to a scathing review of The Jam, cleverly dressed in sexual metaphors. Either way, “There’s tarts and whores/But you’re much more” is a memorable opening line for the chorus.

And I don’t care about morals
‘Cause the world’s insane and we’re all to blame anyway
And I don’t feel any sorrow
Towards the kings and queens of the butterfly collectors

The Jam released a lot of great songs during a five-year recording career. They’d already broken up by the time Weller turned 25 – but the b-side ‘The Butterfly Collector’ is my favourite Jam track.

Read More

45 Comments

  1. My personal favourite is ‘The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had to Swallow)’. It really got buried in the Jam’s history as it was a non-album single at the end of their run as a band.

    • A lot of Jam purists hate that one – I always quite liked it, although not top ten for me. I kind of neglected the post-Sound Affects singles -there’s also Beat Surrender and Funeral Pyre.

  2. Based on sampling each track, I like your playlist. It looks like The Jam are a band I should further explore. To date, I’ve only featured them once with “Going Underground”, in one of my Sunday posts about a month ago.

  3. Sorry to hear Buckler passed. That’s nice that he emailed you. Setting Sons was the 2nd punk album I ever bought (only have a handful). It was advertised all over London when I visited on a student trip, December ‘79 (a highlight was meeting a guy in a pub who was in school with Mick Jones). “Thick as Thieves” is my fave SS track.

    • I actually made the list a few years ago, but Thick as Thieves was the song I wanted to add in when I revisited it, so consider it #11. It’s weird I only have one Setting Sons song when it’s my favourite Jam album.

  4. Nice list. My favourite Jam track is ‘The Eton Rifles’, their satire on British public schools (‘All that rugby puts hairs on your chest…’ is one of the best lines).

    • Felt like it was only right and proper to start listening from the very beginning of my Jam collection following the sad news of Rik’s passing. SO many quality tracks to choose from that it’s impossible to choose, but, if pushed, I’d go for “To be someone” from All Mod Cons… then probably change my mind to another track tomorrow!

      • Thanks for writing in! That’s a good one too – I feel like if I extended the list to a top 40, most of All Mod Cons, Setting Sons, and Sound Affects would make it.

  5. I’d always heard that “That’s entertainment” was written on a bar napkin. Don’t know the verity but it’s a great story.

    I’m a bit partial to “A town called Malice” but I’ve always been a sucker for songs with the Motown shuffle.

  6. I didn’t realize Rick Buckler passed… that sucks.
    I love these songs…while writing a post I listened to these… wasn’t The Gift the album that featured some soul or R&B on it? I’m not familiar with all of their albums. I love Ghosts and Precious off of that album though…and you do. I did hear some of their albums around 1980 off of imports my friend had…Great list but I do need to get more familiar with them.

    • Yeah, The Gift is their last album, Weller was still only 23. It’s a bit less consistent than their previous three but the good bits are really good.

      All Mod Cons sounds like pre-psychedelia Beatles.

      • One of the young apprentices at work told me that his Dad loved The Jam and he was going to listen to them, so, when he left our firm, and as I’m the same age as his Dad, instead of giving him a Jam Greatest Hits CD, I gave him a copy of “All Mod Cons” instead. Hope he enjoys the journey just like I did when I was his age!

        • My first Jam album was a Greatest Hits – I was born just before ‘When You’re Young’ was released, so I didn’t catch up on them until later.

          But I found the Greatest Hits tough to get into for a while – all the songs are full-on in intensity. All Mod Cons provides a more balanced view of them.

    • Thanks for writing in!

      I have a bit of a track record of preferring bands a little later in their career when they diversify and try different things. Albums 3,4, and 5 are often my favourites, certainly true for The Jam.

      My system obviously doesn’t work for 1960s bands like The Beatles and Beach Boys, who released a lot of cover-heavy albums as the start of their careers.

  11. Man in The Corner Shop was always my favourite Jam song. The Jam were, are and always will be my favourite band.
    As a kid born in 1970 and remembering Punk, New Wave, Ska all coming through in the 70’s & early 80’s it was the Mod revival with Quadrophenia, along with the Jam the made me fall in love with music.

    • Thanks for writing in. ‘Man in a Corner Shop’ is a good one for sure – pretty sure it would sneak into my top twenty. It’s kind of unique in the Jam catalogue with that big singalong chorus.

  13. Excellent selection. I like the correlation between “Mr Clean” and “Down In A Tube Station”, something that never really dawned on me despite being a fan of the band since discovering them in 1980 (on The very same American tour they abandoned when “Going Underground” shot to number one). In the Jam Paul Weller was a great songwriter in the grand tradition of social observation as previously covered by Ray Davies with the Kinks in the ’60s and unlike a lot of bands I listen to back then they have stood the test of time.

    • Thanks for writing in!

      Weller was pretty amazing in The Jam. He covered a lot of bases – tough, tuneful, soulful, literate. And he did all when he was so young. There’s definitely a line to Ray Davies.

  14. So many great songs that provided the backdrop to my youth. I loved The Jam. All Mod Cons was the first album I ever bought and I still have it today. Mr Clean, In the Crowd and English Rose were my favorites on the album, but there’s so many great Jam songs and lyrics. I wish I’d been able to see them live, but, alas, no, though I have seen Paul Weller a number of times over the years.
    A great list of songs, though there are some other great suggestions in the comments too – Man in the corner shop, Precious, Funeral Pyre – which sent me back to my youth. I must revisit them.

Leave a Reply

Review Pages

Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:

Blog Posts

I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:

  • david-bowie-ziggy-stardust
  • Red House Painters Ocean Beach
Trending now
10 Best Jimi Hendrix Songs
10 Best Bangles Songs
Music Quiz: Who didn’t start the fire?
Stevie Wonder Innervisions
Music Quiz: Who sang it first?