The one thing that has marked songs from The Beautiful South is how they have managed to put such stingingly bitter lyrics against such honey-coated music. But vocalist Jacqueline Abbott says TBS is hardly the bitter band that everyone thinks it is.
'Bitter band? Not at all,' said Abbott over the telephone from London. '[The boys] just have a very, very sarcastic sense of humour. It comes across in Paul's [Heaton] lyrics because he's very observant. He's very honest as well about the relationships between people and the stories he's telling come across as sarcastic in a humorous way. The melody that goes with his lyrics are sweet. It's an unusual combination.' Most of TBS' songwriting duties are taken over by Heaton (vocals) and David Rotheray (guitarist), who started the band with Dave Hemingway (vocals), Sean Welch (bass), and David Stead (drums), more than a decade ago after they broke away from the Housemartins. Abbott joined the band in 1994 after original female lead Brianna Corrigan left in protest over what she described as 'sexist songs'.
Abbott says she has not had the same problems. 'I'm not the kind of person to take things to heart. I think for Brianna, she saw the lyrics and thought about the people who were listening to her singing.
'I think she just took it too seriously. You've just got to have a wide opinion about Paul's songs and be a bit lenient with him in what he writes. I think he's getting more and more honest as he goes on.
'There'll be more and more songs that he will write that will probably offend people. He's trying to tell a story. I think that was why she went and I don't think there's any point in that.' Don't Marry Her, one of the singles from TBS' new album Blue Is The Colour might perhaps be one of these 'offending' songs. With lyrics such as: 'She'll grab your sweaty b******s and slowly raise her knee, don't marry her, f*** me,' it would not be surprising.
And, TBS obviously expected backlash too, because the band wisely decided to record two versions: the 'cleaner' version saying: 'Don't marry her, have me.' 'We knew that if we were going to release [the original version], it wouldn't get played,' Abbott says. 'So we did another version. We don't really mind but it would have been nice to keep the original version because that's the way Paul writes. He wants to be brutally honest, but I suppose it's worth it to let the record do well and let it be heard.' Abbott's husky vocals are radically different from Corrigan's clear high-pitched voice, and stepping into Corrigan's shoes was not easy for the former supermarket check-out girl.
'I was quite nervous at first thinking a lot of people would want Brianna and not me, and I suppose it was a bit nerve-wracking. But I think everybody knew that she had left and it was just time to move on.' Before joining the band, Abbott had never sung professionally. But she met Heaton at a party in St Helens, in the north of England, where she was persuaded to sing a song. About a year later, Heaton sent a friend to ask her if she was interested in auditioning for Brianna's job.