Tim Hughes enjoys a nostalgic trip to the 80s thanks to Squeeze songwriter Chris Difford, who is enjoying fame with some of his best work yet

With their breezy tunes about working class South London life, young love, teenage angst, Squeeze established themselves as national treasures – providing the soundtrack to a generation.

Songs like Up the Junction, Take Me I’m Yours, Cool For Cats, Black Coffee in Bed and Pulling Mussels (From the Shell), live on in the popular consciousness as nostalgic nuggets from a simpler, if grittier, era.

One might expect a band who made their name in the late 70s and early 80s to stick to what they do well, and just serve up dollops of reminiscence for those of us who were in short trousers when Thatcher first stepped over the threshold of No 10. But no.

With their new album Cradle to Grave, songwriters Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook have achieved what is being roundly hailed as some of the best work of their careers.

“It’s very comforting to know you’ve made a very good record, and that a lot of people are enjoying it,” says Chris, taking a bit of time out before going on stage in Nottingham, on a 21-date tour which, on Tuesday reaches the New Theatre Oxford.

“It’s great that the reviews have been so favourable, first for the new album and the live shows,” he says. “I can’t tell you how nice that feels.”

The origins of Squeeze go back to 1973 when Chris met Glenn after posting an advert in a newsagent’s window.

They went on to turn out hit after hit, repeatedly breaking up and reforming, while also pursuing solo careers.

When they finally split in 1999, it looked like the end of the road. To the delight of fans, though, they reformed in 2007, and, the next year, were awarded the Ivor Novello for Outstanding Contribution To British Music. Britain, it seems, was grateful to have them back.

They hit the road as a duo in 2014, strengthening their once fragile bond, but the dates this autumn mark their first tour, since their Pop-up Shop shows in 2012, as Squeeze with the rest of the group.

Chris says the pair knew they would have to start working on new material if they were going to remain viable. From the Cradle to the Grave is the result.

“We’ve grown up a lot in the past few years, musically,” says Chris. “We still love and own our past, but as musicians we needed to grow.”

At odds from his chirpy on-stage persona, Chris is softly-spoken, contemplative and self-effacing to a degree which may be somewhat surprising to those who have never met him in private life.

He insists he is enjoying life on the road, however. “We haven’t been around for a while, making records in the great outdoors, but here we are. People are turning up to see the shows and hear the record. We are like the village cat. It’s when we go away that people miss us. People do like us.”

The album, their 14th, is Chris and Glenn’s first since 1998 and is a soundtrack to the Danny Baker television sitcom of the same name.

The series, set on a council estate in the 70s, stars Northern comedian Peter Kay as Danny’s father – a London docker.

That they should be writing songs for a Danny Baker biography is appropriate indeed. The music writer turned TV presenter and DJ, was brought up in Deptford, the old stomping ground of the band. Indeed Squeeze’s first EP Packet Of Three came out in the summer of 1977 on Deptford Fun City, a label housed in the same offices as the punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue where Danny was making his first steps as a music writer.

The lads had read Danny’s book and were keen to get involved. When Kay told them he was working on a TV series everything fell into place.

The music and the story fit so perfectly, they used the name of the album’s title track for the show.

Chris, who also manages indie-rock band The Strypes, and now lives far from Deptford, among the rolling Sussex Downs, said: “The scripts were inspiring; hugely funny. It tapped into a period that lyrically I was very familiar with as I grew up in the same neighbourhood as Danny.

Oxford Mail:

  • Trip down memory lane: Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford are back together

“We went to the same school as Danny, wore the same uniform, and fell in love with same art teacher! We knew each other through thick and thin.

“I didn’t really have much to do with him when he was at NME, but he came to my 50th birthday party and we remembered where we had both come from. So when the opportunity came up it made perfect sense.

“It all fits extremely well.”

He goes on: “We went on location to see how it was going. It gave us a spring in our step to see the quality of filming and the direction and the attention to detail.

“It was very heartening and we are grateful to be involved in something that is so refreshing and also represents our past.”

And does he think Kay makes a convincing South Londoner? “I do. I love him,” he says.

The show, like Squeeze, trades in nostalgia. But that’s all part of the magic. “It’s obviously looking back at the 70s,” Chris says. “That gives it depth and warmth. It is going back to a golden time. That’s why you go to a gig though – to be tickled from the past.”

And what would the younger Chris, treading those same Deptford streets at the tail end of the 70s, have thought had he been told his career would have such longevity?

“He would have been very shocked,” he says. “He wouldn’t have believed it.

“It has all been good, though. Each period has had good things about it. We are very fortunate to have had the kind of career we have had.”

And to what does he attribute Squeeze’s longevity?

“We are a band of vintage years and play our songs well,” he says, concisely Forced to pick a favourite, he goes for 1979 number two hit, Up The Junction, “It always goes down extremely well,” he says.

“The shows have a mixture of old and new songs, though. It’s a real concert-goer’s show with plenty of meat on the bone. You get exactly what you’d expect from Squeeze.”

And how have they changed since those boisterous early days? “I think every band evolves over the year,” he says.

“You see things from a different angle; it’s a journey.

“But we still deliver really good music – and that’s what people like.”

Where and when
Squeeze play the New Theatre Oxford on Tuesday, with support from Dr John Cooper Clarke
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