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 of 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.  Anyway, enough of that, how about the video?