I had initially googled The Overlanders one lazy day, remembering that I had been at school as far back as 1966 with the son of one of the band members. How I wish I had found you all earlier, although this itself was a case of serendipity. I joined the blog early in 2006 when the group was already discussing spring 1972. We’ve reached 1980 and true to my word, ahm a-checkin’ out. « Popular ’79 THE SPECIALS – The Special AKA Live! (EP) » Commentsīefore the main body of comments, a message from a one-time regular, printed w/o alteration or comment as a last request: Of course, it’s a song about going after what you want with laser focus, so no surprise that the delivery’s kind of calculating – but this is one of those singles where I can understand exactly why it’s loved, but can’t join in myself. I don’t hear that in Hynde, and it means I can’t buy into her technique here. And the honest truth is, I don’t like it – she’s borrowing a lot from Patti Smith but there’s a spontaneity in Smith’s singing, a sense that her squeals and shouts are unbidden responses to musical and emotional momentum. Without it, actually, the song is nothing at all – there’s no particuarly good hooks in “Brass In Pocket”, no chorus, just build and force: if you don’t like Hynde’s voice there’s not a lot of room for you to enjoy it. The band keep things steady in the background, cresting and rolling back unobtrusively to give their singer the space and stage she needs – and her vocal is a box-of-tricks performance, snapping from purr to pounce in the space of a line. The danger in the song is that its determination could shade into desperation, but when you listen to it you never once doubt that Hynde’s got the moves to back up her words: if anything, the song’s a challenge to her lover-to-be to step up and match her. “Brass In Pocket” isn’t quite what we were getting at – there’s no sense that Chrissie Hynde’s target is any weaker than her, even if his capitulation is inevitable – but as an exercise in total confidence it takes some beating. It's a damn great song.I had a pub conversation once about Radiohead’s “Creep”, where we decided the ideal cover would be one grounded in full-on swagger, simply inverting every “I” and “You” in the song: “I’m so fucking special – you wish you were special…you’re a creep!”. New wave wasn't about a sound it was about a philosophy, and for the Pretenders - just as for XTC, Elvis Costello, Blondie, and countless others - that philosophy meant strong songwriting anchored by pure musicianship.īecause at the end of the day, that's what 'Brass In Pocket' is really about. More than anything else, this new wave was about a level of artistic integrity that vanished in the rock indulgences of the 1970s and was made possible by the deck-clearing ferocity of punk. 'Brass In Pocket' also stands as one of many great singles to emerge from a musical era awkwardly known as "new wave." It's awkward because the term inevitably conjures images of synth-drenched pop and Flock of Seagulls haircuts. While her contemporary Debbie Harry was putting her own spin on the idea of a female lead singer, Hynde instead proved that a central role in rock's power and impact - the bandleader, the frontperson, the boss - could just as easily be filled by a woman as a man. There were many great female singers, and many great female songwriters, but precious few women who could lead a band and write songs with the same presence as a Dylan or Jagger.Ĭhrissie Hynde almost single-handedly changed all of that. Think about the role of women as band leaders and songwriters in rock up to the arrival of the Pretenders.
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