Tracking Angle "Track Du Jour" Begins With Squeeze's "Tempted"

listen here....

Today's "track of the day" is "Tempted" by the great, sometimes overlooked British band Squeeze featuring Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook who specialized in "octave singing" plus Paul Carrack on keyboards, Gilson Lavis on drums and John Bentley on bass.

The Difford/Tilbrook team took lyric wordplay to sophisticated heights and the two wrote great hook-filled tunes. Paul Carrack sings "Tempted".

I should write "specializes" because I see they are on tour and will play Radio City August 29th. Have to get tix!

Album produced by Roger Bechirian and Elvis Costello opening track by Dave Edmunds.

A "Porky Prime Cut".

Even though the sides are long "Porky" Peckham managed to make it "pop" as the American original does not. System: Wilson-Benesch Prime Meridian turntable, Graviton arm, Tessellate Sapphire Ti cartridge, CH Precision P10 phono preamp, Lynx HiLo A/D converter @96/24 resolution VinylStudio recorder.

Comments

2026-05-20 04:39:53 PM

Anton wrote:

Something I've always wanted to ask:

Is the faint "I bought a toothbrush" before the lead vocal starts per-echo, or is it otherwise intentional?

Thanks for the cool new feature!

Are you going to take requests? ;-D
- 2026-05-20 05:22:31 PM
  
  Anton wrote:
  
  Grrrr, apologies - "pre-echo."
2026-05-20 05:10:13 PM

Come on wrote:

Also my favorite track of that album and yes, they should make an optimized reissue!
- 2026-05-20 05:26:21 PM
  
  Anton wrote:
  
  Trivia: Paul Carrack sang that lead. He also sang lead on Ace's "How Long."
  
  For a while, Carrack was in Ringo's All Star Band and those were the two songs he would sing in the Ringo show. It was like a little extra treat.
2026-05-20 06:31:23 PM

Silk Dome Mid wrote:

Elvis Costello suggested that Carrack sing Tempted, feeling that his voice suited it. I wonder if he would have done so if he had known that Paul would leave the band very shortly after! Of course they remained friends and Carrack even rejoined the band for a short period in 1993. I remember when their first album was released in 1978 (credited to "U.K. Squeeze" in the US and Canada) with the most misleading album cover of all time, suggesting that they were muscle-building punks. Ha!