One more covered sigh

Timeslip moment again...

Thirty years ago this week, one of my favourite songs in the world entered the UK charts.

It is significant for a number of reasons:

• It forever evokes thoughts of sultry, beautiful summery weather - it was sweltering in 1983, as I recall.
• Emerging from the ashes of The Jam, The Style Council managed what many "post-post-punk projects" did not, and became almost as successful and respected as its predecessor.
• With its homoerotic video, evoking the zeitgeist of the wildly popular Brideshead Revisited, this was the first time that I ever found Paul Weller sexy. Definitely a factor in my coming-out the following year.

As Britain has actually had one this year for a change, here's the highly appropriate Long Hot Summer...



I play out my role
Why I've even been out walking
They tell me that it helps
But I know when I'm beaten
All those lonely films
And all those lonely parties
But now the feeling is off-screen
An' the tears for real not acted, anymore

I'm all mixed up inside
I want to run but I can't hide
And however much we try
We can't escape the truth and the fact is

Don't matter what I do
It don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
Don't matter what I do
'Cause I end up hurting you

One more covered sigh
And one more glance you know means goodbye
Can't you see that's why
We're dashing ourselves against the rocks of a lifetime

(In my mind different voices call)
What once was pleasure now's pain for us all
(In my heart only shadows fall)
I once stood proud now I feel so small
(I don't know whether to laugh or cry)
The long hot summer just passed me by.

Simply gorgeous.

The Style Council