How do you interpret this Beautiful South song?

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I"m whiling away time on a car journey. 'You Keep it all In" by The Beautiful South came in the playlist and DH and I have been discussing the lyrics. It's obviously about emotional repression, particularly in men, but the lyrics also have a dark side. The conversation starts with the female voice accusing her male partner of not being open, it then progresses towards him possibly 'confessing' dark secrets from his past. But its not clear if he's being serious or sarcastic/jokey, or just talking about things he's witnessed or seen in the news. I haven't been able to find anything online that explains that part of the lyrics. Interested in opinions.

Summarising:

1. The female tells the male that his problem is that he keeps everything in.
2. He responds by recalling a conversation in which he wanted to kill the female, but didn't express it.
3. We get the husband preparing to fight and the frightened daughter who hears it but also keeps it in.
4. Then come the murder in '73 and robbery in '62.
5. He says that last week the female gagged and bound him to a seat.
6. These are immediately followed by the speaker's statement that these are things that have happened to him and that he has kept inside.

Isn’t it saying that men (or… people) who bottle things up eventually snap and commit horrific crimes; the cliche always used to be that the neighbours inevitably commented on how quiet and pleasant they were?

And that refusing to discuss problems, or acknowledge conflict, is effectively like ‘gagging and binding me to my seat’ - so a very passive form of violence in itself, which only serves to add more pressure to the internal simmering of rage.

Yeah I agree... there's a dissonance between the catchy tunes but some quite dark and/or judgy lyrics

I always took it as the murder and robbery had happened in his periphery - maybe a friend or cousin.

Woman in the Wall was my fave Beautiful South song back in the day. Now that really does have something to say. Pretty grim in fact, but quite profound.

Those Happy Hour lyrics are the singer being scathing about men who think like that!

Happy hour by the housemartins is another favourite of mine!

@MargotLovesTom I do appreciate that but the entire content of the song is like that and I do not enjoy it
And I stand by the comment that he sounds like he has not put his teeth in
Equally do not enjoy listening to

I'll never grow so old and flabby,
that could never be.
Don't marry her, fuck me

Isn’t Paul Heaton famously generous and Socialist - He keeps concert ticket prices low, buys his fans drinks and tried to donate his future royalties to the NHS (but the government turned it down)?

Two people who have grown to loathe each other.

That was a scathing attack on yuppies of the time. Not an instruction.

!Don’t marry her ‘ is a bit suspect . At least on the radio they sing ‘ have me ‘ !

I always thought it was about a couple that didn’t communicate when they were angry with each other 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you are misunderstanding the meaning of the song, you obviously don't have to like them/it/him, but i do think you are misunderstanding the intent of the lyrics.

I think most Beautiful South lyrics should be read with a side order of irony - a lot of them seem to be written from the point of view of flawed human beings.

@Lomonald I am not misunderstanding anything- I appreciate they are meant to be ironic I just think they are shite.
You have asked for it now Beautiful South Fans!
How can you justify -
THE ENDLESS CRAP RHYMING
And if his manhood needs the help of scaffold or even a winch
I will gladly supplement that extra little inch
And if it ever reaches tie-break at the property quiz
If they've got my fingerprints on, they're my tits and fanny not his
If they've got my fingerprints on, they're mine not his

By the way I can do this all day as have relatives in Hull and the Beautiful South and Paul Heaton's lyrics have been pissing me off for years.

Only joking I do have a life

But I do turn the radio off

Goodness me @Breadcat24 you are so angry clearly not a fan 😂

But in that song he is saying that the kind of office/job where that happens is not one he could ever want to be in. They speak a different language - they think a night out with the boss means they've made it.

@Lomonald when you go to a private event in Hull and it gets requested again and again it can get right up your nose,
Why cannot they ask for Fine Young Cannibals also local?
Although there is a band from Hull called Throbbing Gristle so I guess I should be grateful

I was an Indie kid, or at least hung out with indie kids, and my memory is that it was ok to like them so long as you preferred the Housemartins. 😁

Some of their original band members are still playing as "The South" doing their classic playlist with new singers. I went along recently and, at age 53, very much felt like one of the youngest there. But maybe I'm kidding myself and everyone else also felt like the youngest there. 😆

A little of a tangent - but talking of song with an upbeat, peppy tune, and dark dark lyric…

anyone remember City High - What would you do?

Boys and girls wanna hear a true story?
Saturday night was at this real wild party
They had the liquor overflowin' the cup
About five or six strippers tryin' to work for a buck
Then I took one girl outside with me
Her name was Loni, she went to Junior High with me
I said, "Why you up in there dancin' for cash?
I guess a whole lots changed since I seen you last"
She said
What would you do if your son was at home
Cryin' all alone on the bedroom floor, 'cause he's hungry?
And the only way to feed him is to sleep with a man
For a little bit of money, and his daddy's gone
Somewhere smokin' rock now, in and out of lock down
I ain't gotta job now, so for you this is just a good time

I think you’ve missed the irony…

I like the Beautiful South, I think their whole style was setting some disturbing lyrics to jolly melodies (as a pp said look at Woman in the wall).

The one I hate is Perfect 10, it makes no sense to me - 'anorexic chicks, who model 6, don't hold no weight with me, but 8 or 9, well that's just fine, I like to hold something I can see' wtf does that mean? 8 isn't much bigger than 6 and 9 doesn't exist (unless he's talking about shoe sizes?).

Cock

I love the beautiful south, my favourite is I’ll sail this ship alone.

But I have just googled woman in the wall, I have never heard that one before. WTF?