have you ever had it blue?

I don’t know where I was (xmas shopping in some boutique?) recently, and I heard the style council. I never even liked this song that much when it was current, but I heard “headstart for happiness” and it made me so happy (and how cool is d.c. lee singing in her dowdy businessperson attire!?). I remember being a bored college gal studying french and smoking gauloises and staring out my french doors on to grace street listening to “the paris match”, another style council track starring tracey thorn, which led me to the glorious early 90s output of everything but the girl: “each and every one” and “native land” remind me of all the guff I had to take as a college radio girl for liking café jazz, and “when all’s well” reminds me of the summer I had the measles after going on the water rides at king’s dominion. it wasn’t even cool to like orange juice at my college. all the kids were listening to death piggy and mudd helmet I guess. I never really thought of paul weller as a homoerotic pinup until I saw this video (what a great song!), while “have you ever had it blue?” was like the best thing ever about the movie absolute beginners. the whole minigenre of café jazz made me believe that maybe there was something out there (in europe, probably), some bunch of people slightly smarter and more interesting than all the hardcore punk slugs I seemed to attract in those days. it was such excruciatingly uncool music that it just felt rebellious to like it — the style council, everything but the girl, and even carmel, kalima and some of those other silly groups. naturally all the jam fans thought the style council was the shite-est shite ever, but I can honestly admit to liking (at least 55% of) it — and it certainly beats every other thing paul weller ever did again. years later lemony snicket and I played every single one of the style council’s “greatest hits” on the jukebox at this dive bar in pig-stuy called the 19th hole as we drank our boilermakers — of course no one liked it but us but who cares, it felt great.