Don’t Wag Your Fingers at Them and Turn to Walk Away

So that Beautiful South song got me listening to the Housemartins again. (Ah, how Peter G and I loved London 0 Hull 4 when it came out! Where have you gone, Peter G?)

I’d forgotten how immediately ear-friendly they are – the high-energy bop-bop melodies, the chirping vocals, the always-welcome soul hues. To use a no-doubt-tired comparison, they’re like delicious sugarpacked candy: instantly exhilharating on first exposure, drawing a cry of more, more up out of your gut. After too much of them, though, your gut might get logy and your eyes might get glassy.

Still, I’ve been especially digging “Get Up Off Our Knees,” from, yes, London 0 Hull 4. For one thing it’s piano-based, with no guitar to speak of, which opens up a whole new refreshing set of textures, and gives the listener some room to breathe.

And singer Paul Heaton really makes his phrasing work for him in this one. Each verse starts off with two lines that are relatively languid in pace, but the last two lines of each verse crowd together all the syllables, allowing Heaton to deliver this one-two-three punch at the outset, which, well, packs a punch.

I also enjoy how he throws in some added low-budget dynamics by singing the third verse, um, softer. Maybe it’s a cheap trick, but it works.

• The Housemartins, “Get Up Off Our Knees” (buy here)

Weirdly, when the band put together their career-sum-up comp Now That’s What I Call Quite Good back in the late ’80s, “Get Up Off Our Knees” didn’t even make the cut.