A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Have you ever stumbled across any of the things that you wrote as a teenager, poetry or short stories that you scribbled in the back of a notebook? Yeesh, that could be cringe. Well, the two guys at the heart of the band Squeeze have a story about that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TEMPTED")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) Tempted by the fruit of another.
MARTÍNEZ: That is their biggest hit, "Tempted." The guys in Squeeze have been writing songs together since their teens. Now, recently, they found a recording from 1974, their first songwriting effort. And they didn't hate what they heard. Chris Difford was 19 at the time.
CHRIS DIFFORD: I'm in full respect for the imagination that was employed to write these songs.
MARTÍNEZ: Glenn Tilbrook was 16.
GLENN TILBROOK: I just felt immensely proud of us that we managed to achieve something so early.
MARTÍNEZ: So they decided that for their latest album, Squeeze would go back to those very first songs and rerecord them. It's called "Trixies."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PLACE WE CALL MARS")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) The story was so hard to tell. You can't mend a mind, but you can mend a face. I'm lost in the line to visit the place, the place we call mars, the place we call mars.
MARTÍNEZ: Glenn Tilbrook says that you can hear the bands they were listening to at the time all over this album, especially on this song, "The Place We Call Mars."
TILBROOK: The influence is very definitely David Bowie. Well, I recently played "Hunky Dory," the entire album. And I can't find anything that sounds remotely like "The Place We Call Mars." But it's, like, essence of Bowie in there, which is, you know, an amazing thing to hear back what our young souls were capable of.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE PLACE WE CALL MARS")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) At last, we rested in shelters of tin down by the shopping parade. How do we know where the end might begin, as the night turned into the day?
TILBROOK: Everything that's on "Trixies" had come out - you know, the influences were between 1971 and '74. I can hear Sparks in there. I can hear Roxy Music. I can hear Stevie Wonder. I can hear Paul McCartney and Wings, you know, all those things were musically the stuff that was feeding me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU GET THE FEELING")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) You get the feeling. You know you might be dreaming. Nobody is leaving. Whisper in my ear. I love the feeling here.
MARTÍNEZ: Chris, what about you as an artist at that age, when you look back, makes you think we weren't maybe ready to fully develop these songs and these lyrics?
DIFFORD: I think the journey of being a songwriter and being in a young band was all that was important. And you just get on to the journey, and you go wherever the journey takes you. And at that time, it didn't take us down the "Trixies" road, which, in a kind of way, was a good thing because it eventually led to us going in the studio and recording an album with John Cale, which, again, tipped us in a different space.
TILBROOK: We went back to writing simpler songs. And by the time we made a record, 1977, it was such a vastly different musical landscape than it had been three years previous. You know, punk had happened. And that was a very exciting thing for us to have a sniff around and sort of change the way we were for a while.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GET SMART")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) I said to you whatever I feel, the way I feel in my heart. So get up and get smart.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, Chris, you're a few years older than Glenn. I think you're three years older than Glenn, right?
DIFFORD: Correct, yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. At first, when you first are together as a songwriting duo there, did that pose any challenges for you, being the older, maybe more experienced musician?
DIFFORD: No, I've never considered age like that. When we first met, I just felt we wanted the same things. We were experiencing an early songwriting ambition. And all of those things are ageless, really.
TILBROOK: Chris is definitely the more mature one of us.
DIFFORD: That's changed, though.
(LAUGHTER)
TILBROOK: You know, he had his head on his shoulders. And I was lagging behind somewhat there. But Chris is right. We both had ambition. And we both really wanted this. And that's proved by the fact that it took us a good few years to get there.
DIFFORD: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: I've been asking you about what you were like as teen musicians, but I also wonder what you both were like as a teen.
DIFFORD: Well, that's like, that's a whole 55 minutes of therapy there, I think.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
DIFFORD: Well, when I look back, I was quite confused. I didn't want a job, particularly. I didn't want my parents to be driving me insane with work and their idea of it. And I was infatuated by listening to music and by writing. And that was really the passion. And when that didn't sort of go in the direction that I thought it might go at some stages, you know, it was a very depressing feeling.
TILBROOK: It's remarkable. When I look back on photographs of Squeeze at the time that we wrote "Trixies," what I see are completely innocent people who have their whole lives ahead of them. And I think that spirit of optimism is priceless. It's what nostalgia is built on. And I'm very proud of, you know, how we were at that point and the strength that we had.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TRIXIES PT. 2")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) Poker is played every night. The stakes are beyond belief. It's nice just to watch them play. It's lit by candlelight. The world of a full-time thief.
MARTÍNEZ: You know, one of the questions that a lot of interviewers pull out, you know, if you could speak to your younger self, what would you say? And normally, they don't make a lot of sense, these questions. But I think in this case, guys, I think it definitely does because you two actually went back in time to explore your younger selves. So if you two could speak to your younger versions, what would you say to those younger versions? Chris, let me start with you on that.
DIFFORD: I think I'd say to that younger person, stay away from the pies.
(LAUGHTER)
TILBROOK: And I'd say, stay away from the mind-altering drugs.
DIFFORD: (Laughter).
TILBROOK: Wait until you really need them.
DIFFORD: Yeah (laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: So no pies, no mind-altering drugs. Check and check.
TILBROOK: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: That's Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, the founders of Squeeze. Their new album was inspired by the music they wrote as teenagers. It is called "Trixies." Chris, Glenn, thank you very much.
DIFFORD: Thank you very much for your time.
TILBROOK: Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHY DON'T YOU")
SQUEEZE: (Singing) I know you're much younger than me when I pulled you off of the street. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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