Don’t matter what I do

Less than a year after walking away from The Jam at the height of their fame, Paul Weller was drifting down the River Cam in a punt, exchanging suspiciously tender glances with keyboardist Mick Talbot. That video was the point. The Style Council existed partly to annoy everyone who wanted The Jam back, and “Long Hot Summer” — a languid soul ballad sung half in falsetto — was its most gorgeous provocation.

Weller wrote it and the band cut it at Grande Armée Studios in Paris, releasing it in August 1983 as the lead track of an EP titled, naturally, À Paris. It went to number three in the UK — the highest any Style Council single would ever climb — which must have been a satisfying answer to everyone who said he’d thrown away a sure thing.

It’s a heat-haze of a record: slow synths, that murmured vocal, nothing in a hurry to arrive. Save it for an evening when the pavement is still warm.