"Beat Surrender" was The Jam's final single released on 26 November 1982.
It became the band's fourth #1 UK single for two weeks in December 1982. The 7" was backed by the B-side "Shopping". A double 7" and 12" single version was available with additional studio cover versions of The Chi-Lites' "Stoned Out Of My Mind", Curtis Mayfield's classic "Move On Up", and Edwin Starr's "War".
The song hinted at the more soul-based style to come with Paul Weller's next band, The Style Council.
It was not included on any of the band's six studio albums. In the U.S., it appeared on the five-track EP, Beat Surrender (Polydor 810751), which peaked at #171 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
The decision for the Jam's final single was between "Beat Surrender", "Doctor Love" (which Weller wrote but instead gave to Bananarama for their album Deep Sea Skiving and "A Solid Bond In Your Heart", later a Style Council single in 1983. The Jam's version of "A Solid Bond In Your Heart" was not released until 1992 on the Extras album, although Rick Buckler, the Jam's drummer, claimed that the Style Council had pinched his original drum track recording.
"Beat Surrender" was previewed live on the first ever episode on The Tube, a live music show broadcast on Channel 4, on 5 November 1982.
Famous quotes containing the words beat and/or surrender:
“When I was a kid I used to tell myself the moon was a silver gong and if I could climb high enough to beat on it with both hands all my wishes would come true.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another’s keeping.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)