In this feature which originally appeared way back in Uncutโ€™s issue 112, Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton, Rick Buckler and producer Vic Coppersmith-Heaven recall the making of The Jamโ€™s classic single, โ€œEton Riflesโ€..

By late 1979, The Jam had taken on a singular position within British music. With punk a distant memory and the preening vacuousness of synth-pop on the rise, explosive teenage operas like โ€œStrange Townโ€ and โ€œWhen Youโ€™re Youngโ€ spoke directly to the countryโ€™s young and disenfranchised. Out in the arterial sprawl of the South East and in the grey, semi-urban expanses across the country, a generation all too familiar with a system where โ€œThe world is your oyster but your futureโ€™s a clamโ€ were willing to follow Paul Weller wherever he took them.

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For โ€œThe Eton Riflesโ€œ, Weller set his sights on his most overtly political and contentious target yet. Following the Conservative victory at Mayโ€™s general election, a raft of new policies led to a swift rise in unemployment and a growing suspcion that was the nation was being divided along class lines. โ€œThe Eton Riflesโ€ was inspired by TV footage of Right To Work marchers being taunted by boys from Eton school โ€“ and it perfectly captured the queasy sensation that the country was slipping into what Weller would later describe as โ€œthe modern nightmareโ€.

Built on a roar of feedback and slashing guitars, it articulated the frustrations of those who believed privilege was being used to keep them down, while mocking those who suggest the solution can be found in a โ€œrevolutionary symphonyโ€ โ€“ a sly dig at The Clash, perhaps? That musical punch, more like heavy rock than power pop, perfectly reflected a nation in a state of both musical and political flux.

โ€œThe Eton Riflesโ€ shot to number three in the charts in October 1979, and The Jamโ€™s ascendancy โ€“ confirmed by follow-up โ€œGoing Undergroundโ€ reaching number one early the next year โ€“ was complete. In the war against apathy, Thatcherism and vacuous say-nothing pop, the battle lines had been drawn in three and half spine-tingling minutes.

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From this point on, whether he liked it or not, Paul Weller was a spokesman for a generationโ€ฆ