Knockers

You are locked on THE ZOO, the station that still believes a record ought to have a sleeve, a joke, and a guitar solo you can hum in the parking lot. If the catsuit years of British glam ever needed a deep cut with lipstick on its collar, it is "Knockers," track two on The Darkness album One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back. The Lowestoft brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins, with Frankie Poullain still on the writing credit and Richie Edwards holding down the bass chair after Poullain walked during the sessions, dropped the album through Atlantic on November 28, 2005. Roy Thomas Baker, the man who stacked Queen's harmonies until the tape machines begged for mercy, produced it. The whole platter climbed to number 11 in Britain, cracked the American Billboard 200 at 58, and went on to platinum certification at home. The lead single, the title track, talked cocaine in plain English. "Knockers" talks about something older and funnier: a man who has been living alone too long, and a woman who is devilish, dirty, potty-mouthed, brassy, anything but classy, and, in the lyric's own wicked arithmetic, pushing thirty stone.

Justin Hawkins has always written like a man who grew up on Queen, AC/DC, and the kind of English music-hall wink that American hard rock usually sands off. Born in 1975 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, he came up playing in covers bands, developed that glass-cutting falsetto, and formed The Darkness with younger brother Dan on guitar, schoolmate Ed Graham on drums, and Poullain on bass. Permission to Land arrived in 2003 and sold in the millions. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" turned a unitard and a leap into a worldwide calling card. The follow-up was recorded with the hangover still in the room. Baker took them to Rockfield in Wales, the same rooms where Freddie Mercury cut "Bohemian Rhapsody," then on to Whitfield Street in London for vocals, lead guitar, sitar, piano, MiniMoog, and Hammond, with mixes finished at The Village Recorder in Los Angeles. Justin later said they spent a fortune and did not road-test the songs the way they had the debut. Baker drank champagne, called Justin one of the best keyboard players he had worked with, and stacked guitars and voices until some songs carried well over a hundred tracks, brass sections buried so deep you almost miss them.

"Knockers" is the short one. Two minutes and forty-four seconds, written by Justin Hawkins, Dan Hawkins, and Frankie Poullain, and clocking around 113 beats a minute. It opens on a bored confession. Oh lord, I'm so bored, living on my own. The woman in the frame is enticing and enormous, and the singer wants her back in his sack. The pre-chorus admits it has been a while since he has seen that smile, then the hook arrives wearing a grin: I just love what you've done with your hair. Second verse, he is all thumbs, a little rusty, forgotten what to do, beautiful and busty company notwithstanding. Then the band clears the floor. Piano and guitar trade the room. Justin has said Dan handles the slide figures through the chorus while he covers lead guitar and piano, an E-major feel cousin to the big hit, and that playing both parts on the road meant a keytar and, on that tour, a sitar, all of the 'tars. Dan, the Malcolm Young of the partnership, keeps the engine honest. Justin flies over the top. That division of labor is the whole band in miniature.

Baker's thumbprints are all over the record even when the song is this compact. He liked tinny experiments, odd microphone placements, and arrangements that evolved in the room rather than on a demo. Backing tracks went down at Rockfield after Frankie had already left; Dan played a share of the bass, Richie Edwards is credited on the finished album for bass and backing vocals, and Ed Graham kept the drums. Justin cut the vocal and the flashy overdubs in London across a summer. The piano parts on the album include the legendary Bösendorfer Freddie had used, plus a Steinway. "Knockers" does not need bagpipes or a pan flute. Those belong to "Hazel Eyes" and the title track. What it needs is the wink, the stacked backing vocals, and a solo you can sing. Justin builds solos so they work as countermelodies. If you cannot hum it, it does not stay.

The lyric is pure Lowestoft mischief, closer to "Dinner Lady Arms" than to the redemption speech of "One Way Ticket." Hawkins told interviewers around the album that "Dinner Lady Arms" was a sweet story about an older couple finding each other again, an English image of the lunch lady and the flaps under her arms, attraction that does not age out. "Knockers" plays the same game at a louder volume. The title is a British slang bullseye. The chorus compliment about the hair is the politest thing in the song, and it is delivered like a man who knows he is getting away with it. Nobody is pretending this is poetry from the moors. It is a pub joke with a Marshall stack, the sort of number that made critics call the band a pastiche and made rooms full of people sing anyway. The Darkness never hid the costume. Justin has said it may have looked like posturing, but they sold millions of records and lived the life. By 2006 the cocaine bill, later reckoned around a thousand pounds a week, had become unmanageable. He left, went to rehab, and the band went quiet until the brothers put it back together in 2011, Frankie eventually back in the fold, Rufus Tiger Taylor later taking the drum stool.

That second-album moment is why "Knockers" still plays like a secret handshake. Permission to Land had the hits and the leaping videos. One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back had the bigger budget, the Queen producer, the pan flute, the cocaine snort at the top of the single, and songs that did not all survive the charts. "Is It Just Me?" matched the title track at number 8 in Britain. "Knockers" stayed an album cut, which on a station like this is a recommendation, not a slight. The sleeve art came from Mark Wilkinson, the painter behind early Marillion covers. The ticket graphic on the single nodded at a British Rail stub from Lowestoft, ringed in fire. Inside the sequence, track two is the palate cleanser: no avalanche video, no septum jokes, just a rusty lover, a brassy reunion, and a haircut compliment that refuses to leave your head.

Put the needle there and you hear why the band outlasted the novelty write-ups. Dan writes the music, fishes for a lyric, and keeps the rhythm guitar nailed down. Justin supplies the melody, the falsetto, the piano, and the punchline. Baker, who had also sat behind Foreigner and The Cars, gave them permission to overdo it and then made the overdoing sound expensive. Years later Justin would talk about learning slide in standard tuning, not the open-G shortcut, and about diving in on a Charvel when the song asked for it. The live problem on "Knockers" was practical. Lead lines, piano stabs, and Dan's slide all wanted the same pair of hands. The keytar was the workaround. The joke survived the workaround.

The Darkness are still out there, still in the catsuits when the song calls for them, still selling tickets to arenas and still releasing records, Dreams on Toast among the later ones. The official home is thedarknesslive.com, with the camp on Facebook, Instagram, and X. If you want the long conversation, the set lists, and the arguments about which solo belongs to which brother, the fan rooms worth your time are Setlist.fm and the band's own archive posts that the faithful keep alive on those feeds. And if you want the song played without a commercial barging in on the slide guitar, you are already in the right place. THE ZOO is at thezoorocks.com, listener-supported, commercial-free, built for album rock and the deep cuts the big formats filed under comedy and moved on. "Knockers" is two minutes and forty-four seconds of hair, nerve, and a chorus you will be singing after the record has gone back in the sleeve. That is the whole job.