Alarmed By The Seduction

Squeeze “Tempted (Alternate Version)” – Before Elvis Costello and Roger Bechirian took over the production duties for the album East Side Story, Dave Edmunds recorded this version of what would become Squeeze’s most famous song with co-writer and regular frontman Glenn Tilbrook on lead vocals. For some reason the band was unhappy with this simple, upbeat recording and went on to record the version that everyone knows with a lite soul arrangement and their keyboard player at the time, Paul Carack, on lead vocals with Tilbrook relegated to singing back up and a shared verse with Costello. I suspect that a lot of Squeeze’s eventual commercial failure and general lack of legacy in the critical world stems from this bait-and-switch. It’s never a good thing when your biggest hit sounds nothing like the rest of your catalog, especially if said hit hasn’t aged very well because cheesy 80s blue eyed soul isn’t exactly the hippest genre going. Like a lot of Squeeze’s early music, this version of “Tempted” has actually aged rather well, and it clearly benefits from the faster pace and Tilbrook’s charming McCartney-esque phrasing. Still, it’s hard to argue with results – even though the song is equally catchy on either version it seems unlikely that this recording would have had the same kind of crossover success. Honestly, I never had any big problem with the hit version until I heard this take, but then I also didn’t realize that it was the same band that did “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)” until about 20 years after it was released. In this context, the hit just sounds like a bad cover version that happens to feature the original songwriters in a supporting role. It makes me wonder if more of my favorite pop bands could have massive hits with their songs if only they changed every single thing about the way they are recorded and performed. How many great acts would do much better commercially if their identity was wiped out completely? (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)