Music
Dec 31, 2025
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Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford aren't friends
Squeezeâs Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Diffordâs friendship âendedâ almost 50 years ago. The Up the Junction hitmakers still perform and make music together but they are no longer as close as they used to be and donât have a relationship outside of the band. Glenn admitted to MOJO magazine: âMine and Chrisâ relationship effectively ended as a friendship in, Iâd say, 1976. âBut as a band, we could still carry on and be productive.
âI think Chris and Jools [Holland] were far closer than Chris and I were.
âDuring that time, I began to feel the pull of Chris wanting to be doing something different to what we were doing. And that was a bit weird for me.â
Even after Squeeze split for the first time in 1982, Chris and Glenn recorded their Difford + Tilbrook album together in 1984, but were barely on speaking terms.
Chris admitted: âDifford + Tilbrook was a very difficult period where we didnât talk to each other for a year, but we were making a record and it was crazily difficult to understand anything.â
Glenn added: âChris was really horrible to be around at that point. OK, he may well say the same thing about me, I donât know, but the degree of any trust that we could have in each other was completely gone by then.
âI felt D+T was an opportunity for us to take on board some other sorts of music that Squeeze wouldnât do. Songs like Loveâs Crashing Waves and Hope Fell Down were incorporating more of a contemporary black music influence, but at least one half of our duo didnât really like that.â
Glenn was deeply upset by Chrisâ 2017 memoir Some Fantastic Place: My Life In and Out of Squeeze but he thinks they have a better relationship now.
He said: âWhen Chrisâ book came out I found it really upsetting.
âI thought, if he can be as unpleasant as he was to me in that book, and show no real contrition, I didnât want to work with him any more.
âIâm not sure how much more I should say. Iâm not sure I should even say that.
âDuring that time, I began to feel the pull of Chris wanting to be doing something different to what we were doing. And that was a bit weird for me.â
Even after Squeeze split for the first time in 1982, Chris and Glenn recorded their Difford + Tilbrook album together in 1984, but were barely on speaking terms.
Chris admitted: âDifford + Tilbrook was a very difficult period where we didnât talk to each other for a year, but we were making a record and it was crazily difficult to understand anything.â
Glenn added: âChris was really horrible to be around at that point. OK, he may well say the same thing about me, I donât know, but the degree of any trust that we could have in each other was completely gone by then.
âI felt D+T was an opportunity for us to take on board some other sorts of music that Squeeze wouldnât do. Songs like Loveâs Crashing Waves and Hope Fell Down were incorporating more of a contemporary black music influence, but at least one half of our duo didnât really like that.â
Glenn was deeply upset by Chrisâ 2017 memoir Some Fantastic Place: My Life In and Out of Squeeze but he thinks they have a better relationship now.
He said: âWhen Chrisâ book came out I found it really upsetting.
âI thought, if he can be as unpleasant as he was to me in that book, and show no real contrition, I didnât want to work with him any more.
âIâm not sure how much more I should say. Iâm not sure I should even say that.
