Tempted

Jools Holland left Squeeze before the recording of East Side Story. The band needed a keyboard player. Paul Carrack came in. He had already written and sung lead on “How Long” with Ace in 1975. A Top 10 hit in the United States. Ace dissolved after one album. Carrack recorded a solo record in 1980 that went largely unheard. Squeeze called. He said yes. He joined to play keyboards. Nobody had discussed what would happen to the lead vocal.

Chris Difford wrote the lyrics in a taxi on the way to Heathrow Airport. He wrote down what he saw through the window and what he felt. Glenn Tilbrook put music to them. The band recorded a version that Tilbrook later said sounded more like ELO than Squeeze. That version stayed in the vault. Elvis Costello came on as co-producer for East Side Story and the arrangement shifted toward something soul-inflected. Costello suggested Carrack should sing lead. He had the voice the song had become. Tilbrook stepped back and added his own brief vocal to the second verse. Costello sang there too in a very low register. The finished track had three voices on it. Nobody would have guessed that going in.

“Tempted” came out July 10, 1981 as the second single from East Side Story. It reached number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 41 in the UK. Not a crossover hit. Not at the time. The first Squeeze song to crack the American charts at all. Carrack left the band after the album was done. He later became one of the lead voices in Mike + the Mechanics. He returned to Squeeze in 1993 and sang a new version of “Tempted” for the 1994 film Reality Bites. Tilbrook called it a breakthrough in spite of the fact that it was not a hit. He said it was when the band grew up. When they finished it he said he could not quite believe it was them.