Town Called Malice Town Called Malice "Town Called Malice" is a song recorded by British band the Jam from the album "The Gift". It debuted at number one in the UK Singles Chart in February 1982. The title is a play on the 1950 Nevil Shute novel "A Town Like Alice," although Paul Weller says he had not read the book at the time. It was a double A-side single release featuring "Precious" as the flip side. A 12" version was also available with a live version of "Town Called Malice" backed by an extended version of "Precious". Paul Weller has said that
A Town Like Alice by the Japanese did indeed take place during World War II, but the women in question were Dutch, not British as in the novel, and the march was in Sumatra, not Malaya. Jean Paget was based on Carry Geysel (Mrs J. G. Geysel-Vonck), whom Shute met while visiting Sumatra in 1949. Geysel had been one of a group of about 80 Dutch civilians taken prisoner by Japanese forces at Padang, in the Dutch East Indies in 1942. Shute's understanding was that the women were forced to march around Sumatra for two-and-a-half years, covering , with fewer than 30 people surviving