The Jam - Town Called Malice
Somewhere on the line from the straightforward three-piece of earlier-days Jam taking on the Eton Rifles to the soul gloss of The Style Council, messing about on the river Cam (if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!) lies a Woking/Motown cross-over that became a third number one for The Jam.
Town Called Malice lays a social reality-check over a scarcely disguised You Can’t Hurry Love bass riff, and just about avoids collapsing in on itself under the weight of Weller’s attempts to fit as many syllables into each line as he possibly can. Not that this would have bothered me at the time - I was probably more comfortable, lyrically speaking, with the likes of Bucks Fizz, Tight Fit and Shaky.
The song appears on the soundtrack to the 1985 film National Lampoon’s European Vacation, starring, naturally, Chevy Chase. I don’t know if I want to call that one a win, though.