The band showed a diversity of musical styles. Singles "Speak Like a Child" (with its loud soul-influenced style), the extended funk of "Money-Go-Round", and the haunting synth-ballad "Long Hot Summer" all featured Talbot on keyboards and organ. Near the end of 1983, these songs were compiled on Introducing The Style Council, a mini-album initially released in Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States only. The Dutch version was heavily imported to the United Kingdom.
In 1984, the single "My Ever-Changing Moods", backed with the Hammond organ instrumental "Mick's Company", reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States. The song remains Weller's greatest success on the American charts (including his efforts in The Jam and as a solo artist), while the group reached the peak of its success in the United Kingdom with the 1985 album Our Favourite Shop.
To Weller's fans, the decision to split up The Jam at the height of their commercial success was met with considerable controversy[citation needed]. Weller deliberately distanced himself from The Jam's sound and style, with his use of new musical arrangements and instruments in a much slicker, more heavily produced style. In the place of the Bruce Foxton-Rick Buckler rhythm section were drum and bass parts done entirely on synthesisers.
Structurally, many of the band's early singles were not far removed from The Jam's latter-day soul-pop efforts such as "Town Called Malice" and "Beat Surrender", but they were often criticised as overproduced, despite Weller's impressive songwriting[citation needed]. Also, many observers saw even the early albums as indulgent and overly experimental; Trouser Press called Café Bleu "too schizophrenic to be a good album".
The Style Council took a more overtly political approach than The Jam in their lyrics, with tracks such as "Walls Come Tumbling Down", "The Lodgers", and "Come To Milton Keynes" being deliberate attacks on 'middle England' and Thatcherite principles prevalent in the Eighties. Weller was also instrumental in the formation of Red Wedge with Billy Bragg. However, he later said that this began to detract from the music: "We were involved with a lot of political things going on at that time. I think after a while that overshadowed the music a bit"
In 1986, the band released a live album, Home and Abroad, and, in 1987, the album The Cost of Loving was launched, followed later in the year by the upbeat non-album single "Wanted", which reached #20 in the United Kingdom. However, Confessions of a Pop Group, released a year later, sold poorly. This led to their record label Polydor rejecting their final album (Modernism: A New Decade), which was heavily influenced by the contemporary house scene. A greatest hits album, appropriately called The Singular Adventures of The Style Council, was released internationally in 1989; it included the non-album single "Promised Land", which had reached #27 in the United Kingdom earlier that year.
In 1989 members of The Style Council went under the name of King Truman to release a single on Acid Jazz titled "Like A Gun". This was unbeknown to Polydor and the single was pulled from the shops only 3 days prior to release. Acid Jazz founder Eddie Piller said "The pair offered to make a single for my new label, which I'd just started with Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson as a side project. Mick and Paul took pseudonyms Truman King and Elliott Arnold." [1]
The Style Council broke up in 1989. The cover of "Promised Land" (originally by Joe Smooth) was the only release which surfaced from the Modernism sessions at the time; however, the entire album was released in 1998, both independently and in a 5-CD box set, The Complete Adventures Of The Style Council. After the split, Weller embarked on a successful solo career (still featuring Steve White on drums, who had left The Style Council by the time Confessions of a Pop Group was released, having only played on a few of its tracks). Talbot and White released two albums as Talbot/White — United States of Mind (1995) and Off The Beaten Track (1996). More recently, Mick Talbot and Steve White have formed The Players with Damon Minchella and Aziz Ibrahim.
All of The Style Council's UK releases (including singles, 12" maxis, albums, compact discs and re-issues thereof) featured the work of graphic designer Simon Halfon, who often collaborated with Weller to hone his ideas into a graphic form. Weller and Halfon began working together at the end of The Jam's career, and continue to work together to this day on Weller's solo material.
Since 2007, the song "Walls Come Tumbling Down" has been used as the theme song for the German TV series Dr. Psycho – Die Bösen, die Bullen, meine Frau und ich.
The Ghosts of Dachau
The Style Council Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I reach out my hand
And there you are
Beautiful in scabs
Caressing my scalp
Under the mounts of the gun towers
I kick out in dreams
And here we are
The searchlight beams
The siren squeals
And hopeless shuffle to certainty
The crab lice bite
The typhoid smells
And I'm still here
Handsome in rags
A trouserless man
Waiting helpless for dignity
Come to me angel
Don't go to the showers
Beg, steal or borrow
Now there's nothing left to take
Except eternity
And who will come
To flower our graves?
With us still here
Covered with dust
Remembered by few
But forgotten by the majority
Stay with me angel
Don't get lost in history
Don't let all we suffered
Lose it's meaning in the dark
That we call memory
The lyrics to The Style Council's song Ghosts of Dachau are haunting and evocative, drawing on imagery of the Holocaust to explore themes of love, loss, and remembrance. The song opens with the singer closing his eyes, reaching out his hand, and finding his lover - though she is described as "beautiful in scabs," highlighting the horror of their surroundings. As the song continues, the imagery becomes increasingly bleak, with references to gun towers, searchlights, sirens, and disease in the concentration camp.
Throughout these dark descriptions, the singer keeps returning to his love for his companion, begging her to stay with him and not "be lost in history." He asks who will come to "flower our graves," acknowledging that their memories may be forgotten by the majority, but pleading for their love and suffering to somehow maintain meaning. The song ends with a sense of resignation and grief, as the singer accepts the inevitability of death and eternity.
Line by Line Meaning
I close my eyes
I shut out the present and retreat into my mind
I reach out my hand
I grasp for something to hold onto
And there you are
My memory conjures up a vivid image of you
Beautiful in scabs
You were scarred, but still retained your beauty
Caressing my scalp
You tenderly touched me, comforting me
Under the mounts of the gun towers
Our love existed in the shadow of military oppression
I shout your name
I call out to you as if you're still alive
I kick out in dreams
In my sleep, I try to escape the horrors of the past
And here we are
In spite of everything, we're still together
The searchlight beams
The authorities keep watch for any signs of resistance
The siren squeals
The warning signal for another chain of brutalities
And hopeless shuffle to certainty
We submit to our fate, knowing what's to come
The crab lice bite
The pests drain us further of vitality
The typhoid smells
The stench of suffering permeates everything
And I'm still here
I've survived, but at what cost?
Handsome in rags
You still had dignity, despite your desperate circumstances
A trouserless man
Your clothes were stripped away, but your spirit wasn't
Waiting helpless for dignity
You waited for a scrap of respect, but it never came
Come to me angel
Let me cling onto any hope I can find
Don't go to the showers
Avoid the deathly fate that awaits so many
Beg, steal or borrow
Do whatever it takes to survive this hell
Now there's nothing left to take
All has been taken away from us, even our humanity
Except eternity
The only thing that can't be taken away is our memory
And who will come
Who will remember us when we're gone?
To flower our graves?
To commemorate our brief, brutal existence?
With us still here
To acknowledge that our spirits live on, even if our bodies don't
Covered with dust
Our legacies are obscured by the passage of time
Remembered by few
Our suffering largely goes unnoticed and unacknowledged
But forgotten by the majority
Most people choose to ignore or deny the atrocities of history
Stay with me angel
Don't let me face this alone
Don't get lost in history
Don't become a mere statistic or footnote
Don't let all we suffered
Our suffering must not have been in vain
Lose it's meaning in the dark
Our fate should serve as a warning and a reminder to future generations
That we call memory
The only way to honor the past is to remember it, no matter how painful
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Manuel Cabral
I close my eyes
I reach out my hand
And there you are
Beautiful in scabs
Caressing my scalp
Under the mounts of the gun towers
I shout your name
I kick out in dreams
And here we are
The searchlight beams
The siren squeals
And hopeless shuffle to certainty
The crab lice bite
The typhoid smells
And I'm still here
Handsome in rags
A trouserless man
Waiting helpless for dignity
Come to me angel
Don't go to the showers
Beg, steal or borrow
Now there's nothing left to take
Except eternity
And who will come
To flower our graves?
With us still here
Covered with dust
Remembered by few
But forgotten by the majority
Stay with me angel
Don't get lost in history
Don't let all we suffered
Lose it's meaning in the dark
That we call memory
1966man
I close my eyes
I reach out my hand
And there you are
Beautiful in scabs
Caressing my scalp
Under the mounts of the gun towers
I shout your name
I kick out in dreams
And here we are
The searchlight beams
The siren squeals
And hopeless shuffle to certainty
The crab lice bite
The typhoid smells
And I'm still here
Handsome in rags
A trouserless man
Waiting helpless for dignity
Come to me angel
Don't go to the showers
Beg, steal or borrow
Now there's nothing left to take
Except eternity
And who will come
To flower our graves?
With us still here
Covered with dust
Remembered by few
But forgotten by the majority
Stay with me angel
Don't get lost in history
Don't let all we suffered
Lose it's meaning in the dark
That we call memory
Manuel Cabral
I close my eyes
I reach out my hand
And there you are
Beautiful in scabs
Caressing my scalp
Under the mounts of the gun towers
I shout your name
I kick out in dreams
And here we are
The searchlight beams
The siren squeals
And hopeless shuffle to certainty
The crab lice bite
The typhoid smells
And I'm still here
Handsome in rags
A trouserless man
Waiting helpless for dignity
Come to me angel
Don't go to the showers
Beg, steal or borrow
Now there's nothing left to take
Except eternity
And who will come
To flower our graves?
With us still here
Covered with dust
Remembered by few
But forgotten by the majority
Stay with me angel
Don't get lost in history
Don't let all we suffered
Lose it's meaning in the dark
That we call memory
Nathan Baverstock
Paul Weller has the ability to make me feel every single emotion. A true, true genius.
Isaias Mello
Wonderful music and message. Mankind can never forget this atrocity!!!
rolf bay
But unfortunately it has since repeated the atrocity.
ladycplum
Well do you know how hard it is to put to words, let alone music and lyrics, that era of history? He did the best he could with what he had seen, felt, and known, and I personally think it's a very haunting piece of music.
William Donnelly
Lady plum, its beautifully haunting Xx🎼👌
red scouse
The most underrated song Paul ever wrote
Robert Andrew
I think a lot of people realise it's brevity. Depends if they know why he chose to write about it.
ladycplum
I've learned to never listen to this song while driving, else I'll start having to cover my face a bit to hidde the tears.
Freddie Shreddie
jesus this song is deep. i've always loved it