Song Of The Day 11/28/2015: Terry Hall – “Sonny and His Sister”

A Sentimental Education – Terry Hall was one of the masterminds behind a record that's still one of my top ten albums of all time, the Specials' debut album in 1979. He was later in a couple of bands against whom I had no objections, Fun Boy Three and The Colour Field. I was unaware he had a solo album out until my associate, the late, great Joel Oberstein, told me about his album Laugh in 1997. Turns out it was his second solo album. He had another one called Home. Neither was available in the United States until a few years ago when Laugh was issued for the first time on these shores. I forget how Joel got me a copy of Laugh, although I know I re-bought it about five years ago when I was on an Amazon binge.

Hall, as befitting his image as an early adopter of every new genre punk rock spit out in the late '70s, found a lot of willing collaborators on both these albums: Damon Albarn, Andy Partridge, Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds, Nick Heyward and the High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan. Today's song was a match with Stephen Duffy, who also went by the name Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, on account of his starting a band called Tin Tin that, I suppose, merged into his own personality. At some point he shed the "Tin Tin" and just went the straight-ahead driver's license route.

"Sonny and His Sister" is a splendid pop song about a breakup and some post-breakup advice. Why it's on my big playlist, I don't know. Unlike the upcoming three songs I can't link it to anything biographical, except my admiration for Terry Hall and perhaps the guitar hook. This might have been one of the covers I wanted to do. It's easy to get lost in the blue eyes of that guitar hook.