Your Future's A Clam

The Jam : When You're Young

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On August 19,1979, The Jam entered the U.K. charts at #25 with their second stand alone single , "When You're Young" b/w the rock version of "Smithers-Jones". The A-side is a straight up Jam rocker. For the video, Weller breaks the news to a some freshly-scrubbed children that the world has "got you in its grip before your born/ It's done with the use of a dice and a board /They let you think you're king, but you're really a pawn", but still manages to get them to sing along at one point.

Steve Bush of Smash Hits was a fan of the new single, writing:

Now, this is better. The Jam aren't trying to be clever or trying to confuse us. Their familiar sound and distinctive vocals, great guitar, and the lyrics a little less contrived than usual. A biggie.

Well, not that big. The single peaked at U.K.#17.

The gem of the 45 is the B side, Bruce Foxton's "Smither-Jones" might be his best contribution to The Jam. This is the version that should have appeared on Setting Sons instead of the orchestral version below. 

Fake News

The Jam : News of the World

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On February 24, 1978 The Jam released "News of the World", a UK #27 hit written and sung by bassist Bruce Foxton. At the time Paul Weller was reportedly in the thick of a writer's block. (The next single would be "David Watts", a Kinks cover).

In his memoir,  That's Entertainment, drummer Rick Buckler writes about the decision to release he Foxton song as the single :

The only problem with Bruce writing songs was that they were instantly-and I think unfairly-compared by the press to Paul's songs and I think this was something Bruce never really recovered from. Bruce wasn't Paul and Paul wasn't Bruce, but both were members of The Jam. We understood why the press and some people thought the way they did. What this did mean was that the songwriting from here on really fell onto Paul's shoulders alone and that's where it remained until the last days of the group. It was simply something that Paul had to live with. He hated being treated like a machine that was expected to keep churning out songs to order, and recording songs like 'David Watts' helped sometimes.

The video was shot on the roof of the Battlesea Power Station in London.

There were two songs on the B side. "Aunties and Uncles" is written by Weller but "Innocent Man" is another Foxton song.