Talk:The Housemartins

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How about some discussion here about the Housemartins' tendencies toward Motown type blue eyed soul?

there's another LP with all the b-sides, called "Raise the Flag". Great. (serx696@hotmail.com)

"Raise the Flag" is a bootleg. But it is great, well worth seeking out.

Norman Cook later claimed that Pd Heaton introduced him to soul music via the Blues Brothers soundtrack - the conduit for many a white boy. I would say that Atlantic/southern-style soul was more an influence than Motown. "Freedom" is musically "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" by Solomon Burke.

Contents

[edit] "Build"

This song deserves some emphasys, being by far their most recognizable work, doesn't it? Luis Dantas 05:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

"Build" is a great record, but was not much of a hit in the UK - probably because everybody already had it on the LP. It is notable for accasioning the 'Martins last public appearances at the very end of '87 - on Wogan, I think.

"Happy Hour" is the best known 'Martins song by far.

[edit] The Fourth Best Band in Hull

I dispute Everything But the Girl. I'm pretty sure it was 3-Action. This can probably only be confirmed by people who were in Hull at the time - ETBG have clearly been substituted because they're the only other group from Hull that people from elsewhere have heard of.

The Gargoyles were the "first best", according to the Housemartins.


[edit] Lyrics

"The Housemartins' lyrics were an odd mixture of Marxist politics and Christianity, reflecting Paul Heaton's beliefs at the time."

Reductive in the extreme - or, to put it another way, crap. Most of the Housemartins lyrics were social observations not a million miles removed from those of ray Davies or even Randy Newman... as a matter of fact I can't think of a single Housemartins song that is particularly Christian or Marxist, although these were the groups beliefs. The political commentary in the songs, apart from the republicanism, is broadly left wing in a way that wasn't particularly identifiably Marxist during the polarised Thatcher/Scargill era. A lot of it reads like the post-Punk socialist anarchism of Class War.

Well, the sleeve notes did say "Take Jesus, Take Marx, Take Hope" - so it seems fair enough to me.

I think Heaton, as he's proved since, was more Morrissey than Leon Rosselson.

Pfff! He wishes he was Morrissey. 85.134.214.41 17
28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fatboy Slim Discography

Why the Fatboy Slim discography at the end? This is a The Housemartins page.

It is a template located at the bottom of every Fatboy Slim related page. Foetusized (talk) 02:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)