Graham Parker & The Rumour
Devil's Sidewalk
Good Morning!
Today’s post is again being done in conjunction with Armando Bellmas and his fantastic Eclectico newsletter.
Like most of us, Armando is always on the hunt for new music. And like many of us, he was frustrated at what the algorithm was feeding him. From there, the concept of Eclectico was born- to bring you new worlds of music, one song at a time.
And that’s exactly what he delivers. It’s a consistent goldmine of music I might never hear otherwise, and genres I might not otherwise explore.
If you missed his take last week on The Style Council, check it out here. To see today’s article, click this link.
When you’re done, take a deep dive into all the other music he’s featured recently. It’s our kind of rabbit hole!
Look, following up Squeezing Out Sparks was never going to be easy.
Any record following up what many consider to be the Graham Parker album would be looked at through a much more critical lens. We find something we like, and we want more of it.
It would’ve been easy for him just to crank out “Squeezing Out Sparks II,” go on a nice tour supporting it, and coast for a bit. He had most of The Rumour still intact (they’d split after this record) and Jimmy Iovine on the boards. No less than one Bruce Springsteen made an appearance.
The Boss, it should be noted, once described Parker as the only person he’d pay to see perform. So yeah, hit autopilot, watch the accolades roll in, and the units roll off the shelf.
That’s not what happened. Instead of playing it safe, Parker chose to do the exact opposite, penning tracks that took on a much more introspective tone. The band is still raucous, but Iovine’s production throttles them somewhat, leaving The Up Escalator stained with terms like “brittle” and “anonymous.” But critics were just as quick to note that Parker did his level best to fight through that, with reviews saying things like “Parker fights the muddy sound every step of the way, and if his batting average as a songwriter is a shade lower than on Squeezing Out Sparks, he certainly offers up his share of A-list material.”1
And what of “Devil’s Sidewalk,” with its lyrics like:
Took a walk down Hell's pavement
Took a walk down pulled by the tide
I had to make some new arrangement
Oh I thought I'd reach the other side
Then someone opened up their mouth to talk
They said: "You ain't where you think you are
You just landed on the devil's sidewalk"
That’s quite a distance from a song like Local Girls.
So what’s the song about, then?
I’ll let parker himself answer that:
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Yet instead of playing it safe and composing rewrites of the full-tilt "Discovering Japan," Parker chose to delve into exactly those personal subjects ("Love Without Greed") he had eschewed in the past for the sake of unrelenting introspection like "Protection." As a result, the penultimate cut on this ironically-titled collection of ten originals is "Jolie Jolie," an ode to the very lady who would become Parker's wife. It's a little more insistent than "The Beating of Another Heart," but no less vulnerable or empathetic, and The Rumour tapers its intensity accordingly. "Paralyzed" doesn't deny the authentic emotional impact of that performance, but only heightens its own stark nature through contrast: Graham makes it sound like personal intimacy is a saving grace tantamount to deliverance from the random absurdity of the world.
Click here to read a look back at The Up Escalator as it turned 40.
Listen:
“Devil’s Sidewalk” by Graham Parker | The Up Escalator, 1980
Click the record to listen on your platform of choice.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this track!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
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Love Graham Parker, this is awesome!
Pretty cool to get a response from the man himself! I hadn't gotten that far down when we "Meet"-ed Friday! May your diligence and "guts" inspire the rest of us to reach out to our fave artists (and article subjects) in the future (and, I'm reminding myself of that more than anyone)!
We know most, if not all, artists are ON social media (for PR purposes alone, if nothing else), but it's great to see some will actually interact personally with those who but ask! Well done, Kevin!👍