Father Wears His Sunday Best

“Our House” by Madness, from the album Presents the Rise & Fall
Fourth week of November, 1982

Elbows pumping, horns a-blarin’, this song is like a nostalgia march. It makes you homesick for a house you never had — the one in the middle of the street, the one in which there’s always something happening and it’s usually quite loud. In just its opening notes, it instantly activates the rose-colored memories of a bustling family and a well kept house and a childhood free of trauma, even if those memories all come from TV. I grew up in an apartment—and as a kid you can’t really pine for your faded youth anyway—so for me this song always recalled images of the Brady kids descending the stairs in their three-bedroom house.

“Our House” is the only thing for which Madness will ever be remembered, but perpetual TV commercials selling home and garden supplies will keep this song alive forever. And it’s a much better song than that other “Our House” (the very, very fine one, with two cats in the yard). Yuck.

—J.A.