“We couldn’t play those songs properly. It’s a bunch of kids, playing a lot of chords, not always successfully”: Glenn Tilbrook on the resurrection of the Squeeze concept album that never was

Glenn Tilbrook performs in a light checked suit with a black Telecaster.

For Glenn Tilbrook, rediscovering the dusty demo cassette labeled Trixies last year was an out-of-body experience. With a heavy clunk setting the tape in motion, and the first songs written by his teenage self crackling from the speakers, the 68-year-old Squeeze singer and guitarist felt himself beamed back to ’74, watching those long-distant sessions unfold. “Trixies doesn't even feel like me,” Tilbrook says. “But I know it is.”

By his own admission, Tilbrook couldn’t have released that original Trixies demo; aside from the audio quality, the guitar work by himself (then aged 16) and lifelong writing partner Chris Difford (19) was understandably scrappy.