What are the best The Housemartins Songs? Well, that’s what we wanted to find out. While many instantly associate Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway with The Beautiful South, many others will have fond memories of what came before, when the two were a part of The Housemartins.
We only got two studio albums from the band with “London 0 Hull 4” in 1986 and “The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death” in 1987. While their time in the spotlight may have been brief, we wanted to look back at the 10 best The Housemartins songs.
We hope you enjoy looking back at this brilliant band, let’s get started!
Best Housemartins Songs – Top 10
10. Bow Down
I love this song with its jaunty rhythm and interjection of the brass section. The song surprisingly didn’t make it as an album track, with it being the tenth track from the second album. It’s brilliantly catchy and very well produced.
9. Flag Day
“Flag Day” was the first ever single released from the band, back in 1985. It tackles a subject that is still a problem today with the misuse of charities and how they are often used to cover up greater issues. It’s fair to say that championing the working class would become a recurrent theme in Paul Heaton’s lyrics.
8. Sitting On A Fence
“Sitting On A Fence” is another brilliant song from the London 0 Hull 4 album but this one remained an album track. As the title suggests, this is about the problems with someone sitting on the face and never getting their hands dirty.
7. Five Get Over Excited
Released as the lead single to their The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death album, it was a tantalizing taste of what would be a great record. The song often repeats the line “fun, fun, fun” which turns out to be an accurate description of this track.
6. Get Up Off Our Knees
Here is another song that takes a shot at inaction over life’s problems with great lyrics such as “You can wag your finger till your finger’s sore, Shake your head till it shakes no more”. It’s a passionate song and one of the best they released.
5. Me And The Farmer
As an interesting fact, this song was written on the same day that Heaton wrote “Happy Hour” so he must have had inspiration running through his veins that day! Another fun song, it was another one released as a single from their second album.
4. Caravan Of Love
I battled on where to put this and whether or not to include it at all, given that it was a cover. For me, it’s one of the best cover versions ever written and hits more powerfully than the original. It also deserves its place as being the band’s only number one.
3. Think For A Minute
On another day, this could have taken my number one spot. It’s a beautiful song and one that was way ahead of its time lyrics. It talks about the decline in communities and the effect it has on them. As the title suggests, it’s enough to make you think for a minute about how life used to be.
2. Build
Throughout The Housemartin’s songs, you get glimpses of the catchy vocal moments that would become a hallmark of The Beautiful South. With the “Ba-ba-ba-ba-build” line, this song becomes stuck in your head for all the right reasons and showed that Heaton was going to melodically delight us for years to come.
1. Happy Hour
It just had to be, didn’t it? When compiling such lists, there is always the temptation to be contrarian and choose an obscure song as the number one pick. Sometimes, however, a band’s most famous song is justified as their best piece of work.
Best The Housemartins Songs – FAQs
Did The Housemartins become beautiful South?
Not directly. A year after the split-up of The Housemartins, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway formed The Beautiful South. The Housemartins former roadie, Sean Welch, then joined the band as the bassist.
Who is the lead singer of The Housemartins?
Paul Heaton performed most of the vocals for The Housemartins. Dave Hemingway would go on to take a more prominent role in The Beautiful South.
When did The Housemartins split?
The Housemartins split in 1988 with many of the band going on to bigger and better things.