Two and a half years after they made their chart debut, and with no fewer than eight High 40 singles to their title, The Jam upped the ante on November 3, 1979, as Paul Weller delivered considered one of his most incisive lyrics to this point. “The Eton Rifles” entered the UK charts, and inside every week had turn into their first UK High 10 hit.
The music was written by Weller in regards to the cadet corps of Eton Faculty, the English public faculty, and was an instance of the working-class rage that his songs usually expressed towards the British social system. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron was on the faculty on the time the music was launched, and was requested about it by The Guardian newspaper in 2011.
Weller pokes a stick
“I went to Eton in 1979, which was the time when The Jam, The Clash, The Sex Pistols were producing some amazing music and everyone liked the song because of the title,” Cameron replied. “However after all I understood what it was about. It was taking the mick [making fun] out of individuals working across the cadet pressure. And he was poking a stick at us.
“But it was a great song with brilliant lyrics. I’ve always thought that if you can only like music if you agree with the political views of the person who wrote it, well, it’d be rather limiting.”
“The Eton Rifles” entered the chart at No.29, the second highest new entry of the week behind the Specials’ “A Message To You Rudy.” Seven days later, it raced to No.7, then to No.4, peaking at No.3 on the November 24 chart. The music was on The Jam’s fourth studio album Setting Sons, which arrived in mid-November and debuted, and peaked, at No.4, their finest rating to that time.
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