One More Time (Joe Jackson song)

"One More Time" is a song by the British new wave musician Joe Jackson. It was released as the third single from his debut album, Look Sharp!, in 1979. Inspired by a breakup Jackson had, the song features a guitar riff and lyrics detailing a collapsing relationship.

"One More Time"
Single by Joe Jackson
from the album Look Sharp!
B-side"Don't Ask Me"
Released18 May 1979 (1979-05-18)
Recorded1978
GenreRock, new wave
Length3:15
LabelA&M - AMS 7433
Songwriter(s)Joe Jackson
Producer(s)David Kershenbaum
Joe Jackson singles chronology
"Sunday Papers"
(1979)		 "One More Time"
(1979)		 "Fools in Love"
(1979)

"One More Time" was released as a single, but did not see any chart success. The song has since been highlighted as one of the best off Look Sharp! and Graham Maby's bassline has been singled out as praiseworthy.

Background

"One More Time" was written by Jackson after a breakup with his girlfriend Jill.[1] Jackson recalled that he embellished on the end of that relationship as the song developed. He explained in his autobiography, A Cure for Gravity:

I bought a cheap secondhand upright piano and worked on a song called 'One More Time', with a driving guitar riff and anguished lyrics about the end of a relationship. The guy can't believe the girl wants to leave: Tell me one more time, he says, one more time, one more time. I'd taken a little piece of my breakup with Jill, one moment, one feeling, and embellished it into something else. I guess that's how fiction works: not creating something false, but creating new truths out of bits of old ones. Just as we create new music by endlessly reshuffling the same old chords and scales.

— Joe Jackson[2]

The lyrics of "One More Time" feature the singer asking his ex-lover to truthfully tell him that she never loved him. Musically, the song is one of Jackson's more aggressive rock songs, featuring Joe Jackson on lead vocals and a prominent guitar riff to open the song.

Release

"One More Time" was released as the follow-up single to "Sunday Papers," also from Look Sharp!, in May 1979. Backed with the non-album track "Don't Ask Me" (which later appeared as a bonus track on some releases of Look Sharp!), the single, like "Sunday Papers," was unable to chart in Britain. The single was not released in America or any countries in continental Europe, although an alternate single, "Fools in Love," was released in the Netherlands in June 1979.

A live version of the song was released on a bonus CD with Jackson's 2003 album Volume 4.[3]

Reception

Rolling Stone critic Bud Scoppa described "One More Time" as a "welcome merger of edginess and ear candy, which connected immediately with fans who couldn't abide the brutal fun of 'God Save the Queen.'"[4] Josh Jackson of Paste Magazine said the song "reveal[s] the more caustic side of Jackson’s songwriting, of which he wouldn’t quite tap into again".[5] In 2003, an author for Billboard dubbed the song an "old favorite".[3]

Ultimate Classic Rock's Dave Lifton ranked the song number five on his list of the "Top 10 Joe Jackson Songs", noting that the placement was "a tribute to [bassist Graham] Maby, because no matter how many times we’ve listened to it, we can never predict where he's going".[6] Glide Magazine ranked it as Jackson's 9th best song.[7]

References

Citations

  1. Jackson 2000, p. 255.
  2. Jackson 2000, p. 255-256.
  3. "Joe Jackson Turns Up 'Volume' With Original Band". Billboard. Retrieved 4 March 2019.
  4. Scoppa, Bud (7 January 2004). "Joe Jackson Look Sharp! > Music Review". rollingstone.com. Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 3 June 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2006. Published in a revised form as Scoppa, Bud (5 February 2004). "The Rolling Stone Hall of Fame: The Greatest Albums Ever Made: Joe Jackson Look Sharp! > Review". Rolling Stone (941). p. 62.
  5. Jackson, Josh. "The 50 Best New Wave Albums". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  6. Lifton, Dave. "Top 10 Joe Jackson Songs". ultimateclassicrock.com.
  7. Handler, Shane. "Volume 26: Joe Jackson". Glide Magazine. Retrieved 6 May 2020.

Sources

  • Jackson, Joe (2000). A Cure for Gravity. Anchor Books. ISBN 978-1862300842.
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