The Housemartins, four lads (some of whom were) from Hull, were a big thing around 1986 when this was released.

Happy Hour was the third of their nine singles before they went their separate ways.  Taken from their debut album, London 0 Hull 4, it was released in the w/e 7th June 1986 backed by The Mighty ‘Ship and I treated myself to it as kind of Independence Day present.  It quickly reached its peak position of number 3 and then stuck around the top ten for a month before finally exiting the chart after a 13-week run.

I immediately loved the vibe of Happy Hour.  The Housemartins and later The Beautiful South had a knack for producing great melodies which underpinned some very challenging lyrics.  This one is a full-frontal on sexism, describing  the antics of lads on a night out with the boss,  ‘… and they tell me that women grow on trees / and if you catch them right they will land upon their knees…’

In a piece of totally gratuitous name dropping, did you know that I was once within a couple of feet of Paul Heaton, at Anfield in Euro 96 during the Italy vs Czech Republic game? He was reaching across us to get Marcello Lippi’s autograph.