Chart Week: April 30, 1983
Song: “Back On The Chain Gang” – The Pretenders
Chart Position: #37, 21st week on the chart. Peaked at #5 for three weeks in March and April.
The Pretenders were on the verge of big things in 1982. They already had a #1 hit in the UK – 1979’s “Brass In Pocket,” which maxed out at #14 in the US – and were generally beloved by critics. They somehow managed to dip a toe in almost every genre of rock without being relegated to a single camp. They had roots in the London punk scene of the late Seventies, but weren’t punk. They were contemporaries of the first generation of post-punkers, New Wavers, and New Romantics, but didn’t fit squarely into any of those schools. They stood next early College Rock bands like R.E.M. but weren’t really college rock. They had a healthy dose of 1960s jangle pop to their sound, and could have fit into the Paisley Underground scene had they come up in LA. But they weren’t from LA. Nor were they true mainstream rockers.
That difficulty in pigeonholing them resulted in broad appeal that was ripe for capitalizing upon when they started making their third LP.
In mid–1982 the band, specifically lead singer and lyricist Chrissie Hynde and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, began to hash out ideas for new songs. Hynde had one centered on finding a photo of her boyfriend, Kinks lead singer Ray Davies, and the feelings that came with it. The couple had a tumultuous romance, but Hynde was newly pregnant and hoped that would salvage their relationship. Yet she still thought back to how things were better when they had first met.
Hynde and Honeyman-Scott tinkered with the words and arrangement and knew they were onto something. They were excited about recording it with the rest of the band.
One problem. Pretenders bass player Pete Farndon had fallen deep into heroin addiction. He had turned irritable and quarrelsome towards his bandmates. Sensing that the upcoming recording sessions would be brutal and unproductive because of Farndon’s behavior, Honeyman-Scott laid down an ultimatum: either sack Farndon or he would leave.
On July 14, 1982 the band fired Farndon.
As upsetting as that was, something worse came hours later.
On July 16, Honeyman-Scott died of an accidental overdose.
In two days, half of the original Pretenders lineup was gone.
Most people would have retreated from the world to deal with the immense pain they were experiencing. Not Hynde. She leaned on her music.
On July 20, 1982, she and drummer Martin Chambers entered the AIR Studios in London and recorded “Back On The Chain Gang” with help from several friends, including Big Country’s Tony Butler on bass. What began as an ode to the early days of her romance with Davies turned into an elegy for Honeyman-Scott.
There is an immediate sense of melancholy in Hynde’s opening riff. I think it comes from the languid, contemplative tempo she plays at. You can feel the sadness that must have been overwhelming her at the time. Once I knew the full story behind the song, I always imagined her taking a long, deep breath before she hit the first chord, steeling herself against the emotions that were sure to swell up.
She adds to that mournful vibe with the “Oh oh oh ohs” that are sprinkled through the tune. Hynde is one of the great, badass, female rockers of all time. I wouldn’t say she was ever as vocally aggressive as her contemporary Joan Jett, but she was certainly as assertive. The restraint she used in “Back On The Chain Gang” was wonderful, conveying all the emotions she was going through without over doing it. The real genius of her performance is that it doesn’t sound as though it recorded less than a week after her band seemed to fall apart. It sounds like she is a year or two out, looking back on what happened, and trying to make sense of it all.
The song peaks with an emotional section where the bridge transitions into the final verse.
First, Hynde sings this:
But I’ll die as I stand here today knowing that deep in my heart
They’ll fall to ruin one day for making us part
Her restraint falls momentarily, with her voice breaking as she stretches out the final word.
Then there is that magical line in the next verse. After repeating “I found a picture of you,” she adds:
Those were the happiest days of my life
A truly heart-wrenching, soul-destroying choice of words. You don’t have to know about the state of her partnership with Davies, the health of her band, or the loss of one of her best friends to get all the feels from that line. The “Oh oh oh ohs” hit harder in the final verse, too.
When asked a few years later about how she could record music so soon after experiencing so much pain, Hynde responded, “What else were we going to do? Stay at home and be miserable, or go into the studio and do what we dig and be miserable?” That idea, jumping back into the grind when faced with calamity, was as much the theme of the song as celebrating Honeyman-Scott
Despite everything falling apart around her, Hynde got back on the chain gang. The result was the best song of her career. 9/10
As if all that weren’t enough, as the song was falling from its US chart peak, there was more terrible news. On April 13, Farndon was found dead after overdosing and drowning in a bathtub.
“Back On The Chain Gang” was released as a single in late 1982. Somewhat strangely, the album it was featured on, Learning to Crawl, was not released until early 1984. Included on that LP was another ode to Honeyman-Scott, “2000 Miles.” I wouldn’t say it is a holiday classic; it is far too depressing to get much radio airplay. Coldplay did a version in the early 2000s that revived it a bit. KT Tunstall’s slightly less sad version is in all my Spotify holiday playlists.
How about this amazing rendition of the song from the Covid days. Hynde was nearly 70 and still had it.