Now hailed as one of the best Pretenders songs, its stratospheric success rapidly changed the game for the group, as it provided the springboard for their self-titled debut album to top the UK charts for four consecutive weeks and to penetrate the heart of the Billboard 200 in the US, where it landed in the Top 10 on its way to going platinum.Ī veritable string of classic Chrissie Hynde-penned hits have since ensured Pretenders’ place among the best rock bands of all time, but while the group now have an enviable catalogue to pull setlists from, their fans will always want to hear them perform Brass In Pocket. Not only did the song become the first new UK No.1 of the 80s, it went to No.2 in Australia and also cracked the US Top 20. Released as a single in November 1979, Brass In Pocket’s commercial performance soon bore this out. Ultimately, though, the song’s enigma factor worked in its favour, and when Hynde’s sensual vocal delivery aligned to perfection with Honeyman-Scott’s chiming guitars and the supplest of grooves, Pretenders had a classic pop song which – as its kiss-off line would have it – was simply “special, so special”. Superficially, much of Brass In Pocket’s lyric was equally arcane, with Hynde throwing in obscure references to everything from Cockney rhyming slang (“got bottle”) to a style of driving with the window down, in the line “Detroit leaning”. If I’d imagined it was going to be such a hit, I might have been a little less abstract.” “We had dinner afterwards and one of their guys leaned across the table and said to another, ‘Did you take my trousers to the dry cleaners? Was there any brass in the pocket?’ It was a turn of phrase that describes someone who is doing alright, financially. “We supported a band on our label called Strangeways, on tour in the north of England,” Hynde wrote in the sleevenotes for Pretenders’ Pirate Radio box set. However, even if they caught the phrase “brass in pocket”, many casual listeners wouldn’t necessarily have understood what Hynde was singing about. Rather than rely on a traditional chorus, Honeyman-Scott’s guitar figure provided the song’s hook, and, unlike with most hit records, its title only featured once in the lyric. I wish I’d done it more.” “If I’d imagined it was going to be a hit, I might have been less abstract”įrom a songwriter’s point of view, Brass In Pocket eschewed the accepted rules in terms of structure. “I just happened to have a little tape recorder, and I taped it. Honeyman-Scott had devised the opening guitar riff: “He was playing that in the studio and I thought, Wow, that’s awesome,” Hynde recalled. It sprang from a collaboration with the band’s original lead guitarist, James Honeyman-Scott, who passed away from a drug overdose in June 1982. The drummer returned in 1994 and is still part of the live band, but session drummers appeared on the last two records and Hynde hasn’t worked with Chambers in the studio since 2002’s Loose Screw.Unlike most of the songs gracing Pretenders’ marvellous self-titled debut album, Brass In Pocket wasn’t written solely by Hynde. That left Chrissie Hynde and drummer Martin Chambers as the sole original members for a short time, but Hynde fired Chambers in 1986 and essentially turned the Pretenders into her solo project. Tragically, this lineup of the band produced just two albums before guitarist James Honeymoon-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon died from drug overdoses. Check out this amazing footage of the group rehearsing the song in 1979. The latter song is perhaps the one that gets the most airplay these days, and it essentially broke the band when it came out in late 1979 as their third single following “Stop Your Sobbing” and “Kid.” It peaked at Number 14 in America, but rose all the way to Number One in the U.K. According to a press release, the show will feature “all new production and hits from start to finish.” It goes on to list exactly which Pretenders songs will likely feature in the show, including “I’ll Stand By You,” “Back on the Chain Gang,” “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” “2000 Miles,” “My City Was Gone,” “Middle of the Road,” and “Brass in Pocket.” Earlier this week, Journey and the Pretenders rolled out dates for an exhaustive 2020 co-headlining tour that will take them all over America between May and September.
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