Bob Geldof – The Happy Club

Before Bob Geldof was Saint Bob he was an Irish punk rocker with a penchant for theatricality and street-wise melodrama. After he was Saint Bob, but before he was Sir Bob, he released an album that seemed to be an all too serious reflection of his new place in the world order. That album 1986’s Deep In The Heart of Nowhere was admirable in its own right but was perhaps a victim of  Geldof’s need to appear earnest and adult. It would never have had a song on it called Attitude Chicken.

The Happy Club had a song called Attitude Chicken.

The Happy Club arrived to far less fanfare in 1992. It was the second of two albums – the first being The Vegetarians Of Love, when it appeared that Geldof had come to terms with both his position as a voice on the world stage and the absurdity of that role in view of his former persona as an Irish punk rocker with a penchant for theatricality and street-wise melodrama.

He’d some to terms with it and declared it to be pretty much irrelevant to the music that he wanted to make. So he put on a black suit decorated with bright yellow sunflowers and made The Happy Club.

It was to be probably the best musical statement of his career and an album that, with its predecessor, provided the backbone for some fantastic, liberated live shows.

Despite its title and the mood of some of  the songs the album wasn’t entirely upbeat and frivolous. Songs like The Soft Soil and The Song Of The Emergent Nationalist are downright sombre but not in a sour way. They are thoughtful, resilient and significant songs but they are not what makes this album as enjoyable as it is.

No, that role is reserved for songs like the title track where Geldof and Karl Wallinger co-write a buoyant little ditty that owes more than a nod to Ray Davies. Hole To Fill is the albums showstopper – again it’s a rollicking pub folk song – that actively dismantles the Saint Bob persona. Equally Room 19 (sub-titled Sha La La La Lee), a song inspired by a communist mind washing room, is an upbeat, almost bubble gum pop tune.

Then of course is the aforementioned Attitude Chicken. I’m still not sure exactly what its about, and perhaps that’s for the best, but it is a hilarious and raucous piece of pointed nonsense that you cant help but love.

Add to these Too Late God, a barn storming square dancing knees up about a mid-life crisis and the acknowledged Dylanesque The Roads of Germany and you have an album that covers a lot of ground openly, honestly and completely without self-consciousness.

And for a guy who had spent the best part of the prior decade living in the shadow of his own other self, well, you can almost hear the relief oozing out of every song.