So Tough - Saint Etienne

There is something quite comforting about songs that describe everyday lives. Although it's not solely the reserve of British pop music, we do seem to have cornered the market; cramming kitchen sink dramas, tales of urban life and vignettes of social situations into four minute pop songs. It really is wonderful stuff and in many ways a social history of life and times in Britain, albeit filtered and moulded into a pop song by the writer. In some cases chillingly accurate and others best taken with a pinch of salt.

Arguably the heritage stretches back to the 1960s where The Kinks and The Beatles started sharing stories of normal lives in our cities. This heritage continued into the 1980s when The Jam and Madness enriched their songs with hints of social strife and life in general. Some of it played roughly with the facts whilst others, such as The Jam's 'That's Entertainment', were startlingly accurate portraits of life at that time

Saint Etienne's 'So Tough' album opens with such a slice of urban life. 'Mario's Café' is a wonderful piece of pop music and tells the story of a wet Tuesday morning in London;

"Button up your sheepskin Carraway, rainy cafe, Kentish Town, Tuesday.
Barry's looking through the Racing Post, orders coffee, another round of toast.
Squeezy bottles under Pepsi signs, Joe and Johnny chew the bacon rind.
Jackie wants to meet the Glitter Band, Dilworth's a strange and lovely man."

It's a great opening to a fab British pop album; Sarah Cracknell's light and dreamy voice floating over melodic music. It works very well, perhaps to greater effect on the singles 'You're In A Bad Way' and 'Hobart's Paving'. In between tracks are snippets of dialogue from classic British films such as 'Peeping Tom', 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Billy Liar'. It's a nice touch.

So what about today? Does the tradition continue? It does - maybe its a very British thing to do; catalogue our life and times in pop music? The Beatles did it, The Jam did it, The Smiths did it, Billy Bragg, Saint Etienne, Dire Straits, Adele, Arctic Monkeys.......our history is in safe hands.