MUSIC FOR JUNE 2022
‘END OF THE AFFAIR’
A year ago, in summer 2021, I dedicated four successive Songs of the Month! to the 40th anniversary of my band the Fashion Jungle, which spent some time in the spotlight in Greater Portland, Maine, during the 1980s.
A 41st anniversary doesn’t have quite the cachet of a 40th, but I’ll nevertheless devote another Song of the Month! for June — the month in 1981 that the FJ was founded — to the band.
And in fact “End of the Affair” was written that year, but in September, over Labor Day weekend in an inn in Georgetown, Maine. Another of the angst-ridden tales of love gone wrong that I can’t seem to help writing, the song draws on the emotions of a breakup the year prior. But the lyrics are more interesting than the real thing. If you’re going to dwell on it, why not snazz it up?
The original FJ, which parted ways about a month after I finished “End of the Affair” (now that’s some persuasive songwriting!) learned but never recorded the song. Instead, from the commercially released audiocassette Six Songs, this recording was made in January 1984 by the best-known FJ lineup: bassist Steve Chapman, drummer Ken Reynolds, keyboardist Kathren Torraca, and me on guitar and vocal. (Hear a live version at Geno’s rock club in Portland by the same personnel. Always a passionate number, “End of the Affair” was particularly poignant for me during that October 1984 show, which I wrongly figured was the FJ’s last hurrah.)
And yes, this composition shares a title with Graham Greene’s novel published 30 years earlier, which I’d read during a 1970s Greene binge that made a literary impression of singular depth on me.
Hear “End of the Affair” below! Buy it on Bandcamp! (“End of the Affair” copyright © 1984 by Douglas L. Hubley. All rights reserved. Banner photo by Jeffery Stanton: the Fashion Jungle at the Maine Festival, August 1984. From left: Steve Chapman, Doug Hubley, Kathren Torraca, Ken Reynolds)