100 Greatest Songs of the 70’s #34 Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?)

Released: 1978

By now the Free Trade Hall was way back in the rear view mirror for everyone and the Buzzcocks DIY approach to setting up their own label was equally old news. But in retrospect there’s a highly persuasive argument for 1978 being punk’s most interesting year, even if we should all be able agree that meaningfully, it was it’s last.

Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?) isn’t a punk song, instead one that proved Pete Shelley had far more to offer as a songwriter than the band’s earlier salvos had demonstrated. Where lower quality acts had wrung the three chord idea by the neck and were already as good as finished, two years after the quartet’s lightning fast ascent to fame here was a pop song so immaculate that simply by releasing it they’d committed the cardinal sins of being both good and successful almost by accident.

Shelley and co. would go their separate ways in 1981, but such was their enduring appeal that after reformation eight years later they were approached by another doyen of power pop in Kurt Cobain who asked them to join Nirvana on tour. It seemed that the half-life of a couple of gigs played to almost nobody was still giving out plenty of halo after all.