Song of the Week: Another Nail in My Heart

Apparently, this song was only a middling hit in Canada—Wikipedia says its peak position was 56—but somehow I found it. And in 1980, that means I heard it on AM radio. This is a song that introduced me to a group that I ended up following. I saw Squeeze in concert at Kingswood (in the amusement park, Canada’s Wonderland) in 1985 and they did not disappoint.

“Another Nail In My Heart” probably remains my favourite Squeeze song, although “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” somedays takes that title. It fits into that common style I dig—post-punk frothy pop—and it is another reminder about the impact that the fledgling alternative scene made on music in the early 1980s. Another Nail In My Heart is just over three years from the Sex Pistol’s first single—”Anarchy in the UK”—so I think it’s fair to call it one of the first wave of post-punk groups, music that would not exist without the punk revolution.