Entertainment For Lively Minds
Shropshire On My Mind...
Posted by Five-Centres on 11 November 2008 - 11:07am.
I know this has been said before, but there really is very little romance in British place names, meaning songs about British towns don't really exist outside of the folk world.
The only romantic parts of our musical landscape I can see are bits of London, Essex (the A13 corridor has a certain something thanks to Billy Bragg), the Mersey and some parts of Manchester. Otherwise, er...
There are no songs about Jersey, Plymouth, Rhyl or Rotherham or their like, and if there are (Rochdale Cowboy, Margate, etc), they're comedy songs.
Whither By The Time I Get To Halifax, Felixstowe, 24 Hours From Telford?
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Peter Bruntnell
recorded an album called Normal For Bridgwater in honour of the town.
Isn't that doctor slang?
In this case for 'pretty thick'. I believe NFN (as in 'normal for Norwich') is the usual abbreviation added to patients' notes, though having lived in Taunton near Brdgwater for a short time I can understand this one completely.
Unfortunately not so
I originally thought this was the case, but later found out it was dedicated to his mate Tom Bridgewater (with the E) who gets a thanks in the credits.
Apart from its general excellence the album is worth checking out for the guitar playing of James Walbourne.
Jackie Leven namedrops....
...quite a bit, but is geographically all over the place from (Snow in) Central Park to Baden Baden (Baden Baden Baden, his update on "I've been everywhere"), but often his native Scotland. I particularly like "Stornoway Girl", probably because my Mum was one.
Slubbers Arms
When in Huddersfield, I was delighted to find the Slubbers Arms, namechecked by Jackie Leven in Classic Northern Diversions
International Velvet
by Catatonia references Rhyl.
Fake Tales of San Franscisco by the Artic Monkeys references Rotherham.
Plymouth
'Second Class City' by Cyril Tawney, from the album 'A Mayflower Garland' on Argo Records, 1970.
See it on the Word Album Atlas!
Is that not
one of those albums from those 'Worst Ever Album Covers' websites..?
Fatima Mansions
Viva Dead Ponies 'He sells papers and beer in a shop in Crouch End' - I know it's London, but it ain't romantic.
Also, Coles Corner by Richard Hawley. Pulp had one which (I think) was called Sheffield, Sex City. Mott the Hoople mentioned Bradford in All the Way From Memphis.
Excuse me!
Sir, as a Crouch End resident I demand you withdraw that remark otherwise it will be pistols at dawn in Priory Park.
It's Grim Up North
If you want to sing along here are the lyrics from Wikipedia...
First verse
Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe, Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull, Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Kirkby, Kearsley, Keighley, Maghull, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs, Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge.
Second verse
Brighouse, Bootle, Featherstone, Speke, Runcorn, Rotherham, Rochdale, Barrow, Morecambe, Macclesfield, Lytham St. Annes, Clitheroe, Cleethorpes, the M62.
Third verse
Pendlebury, Prestwich, Preston, York, Skipton, Scunthorpe, Scarborough-on-Sea, Chester, Chorley, Cheadle Hulme, Ormskirk, Accrington, Stanley, Ossett, Otley, Ilkley Moor, Sheffield, Manchester, Castleford, Skem, Doncaster, Dewsbury, Halifax, Bingley, Bramhall.
P.S. a pedant writes...my place of birth is not pronounced K-ear-sley (as in the song) but Kersley. it is derived from Cress Lea, a place where water cress grew wild. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kearsley
The 12" version of this...
...is a stunner. In true KLF fashion it builds to a crashing orchestral climax - after a verse of Jerusalem - before fading into the ambient sounds of the M62 in the rain.
Ahhh
but the original 12", now that's a different story. Mu Mu.
Even further North
(Do you want a translation?
"When you go will you send back
A letter from america?
Take a look up the railtrack
From miami to canada
Broke off from my work the other day
I spent the evening thinking about
All the blood that flowed away
Across the ocean to the second chance
I wonder how it got on when it reached the promised land?
Ive looked at the ocean
Tried hard to imagine
The way you felt the day you sailed
From wester ross to nova scotia
We should have held you
We should have told you
But you know our sense of timing
We always wait too long
Lochaber no more
Sutherland no more
Lewis no more
Skye no more...... etc
I wonder my blood
Will you ever return
To help us kick the life back
To a dying mutual friend
Do we not love her?
Do we not say we love her?
Do we have to roam the world
To prove how much it hurts?
Bathgate no more
Linwood no more
Methil no more
Irvine no more.")
Reading and Basingstoke...
in Robyn Hitchcock's "I Often Dream of Trains".
"The Higsons come from Norwich, oowoooh ohhh...
...but I prefer East Grinstead". Although, to be fair, Robyn does follow that shortly afterwards with "I'm running out of lyrics"
I know you exempted the folk world
But many of the place names in American music are in country (folk) songs. So here are just a few British ones to even up the numbers - I could make this a much longer, even more boring, list:
"Dalesman's Litany" mentions Sheffield, Hull, Halifax (and Hell).
"Rambling Sailor" mentions Portsmouth (and Greenwich in some versions).
Ewan MacColl's "Manchester Rambler".
"I'm sitting in a [Widnes] railway station, got a ticket for my destination..."
And
Now try and get that out of your head for the rest of the day.
I think this is one of my favourite songs ever
That woman could give Maddie Pryor a run for her money. Championed by Wogan, I seem to recall.
I think she was
Cathy LeSurf. Sang with the Albion Band (Ashley Hutchings then provides the inevitable link back to RT).
She still is!
Cathy LeSurf, that is. A tad shrill for me, but certainl a staple of the Albion Band in the 80s. The rest of Fiddlers Dram, or some of them, morphed into the Oyster Band, who are on their 30th anniversary tour as we speak, I think.
I like this, which mentions Britains 2nd city. Memo: it starts a bit dirge-y but the chorus is quite affecting, but I appreciate you maybe have to have been at one of their gigs to fully savour.
Runrig's hebridean epic Skye
Song about the birthplace of a couple of band members:
http://tinysong.com/2iQF
No mention
of Half Man Half Biscuit yet? Unbelievable.
here:
And of course this, live at the WORD-endorsed Corbury Festival
Perhaps
The Word might like to sponsor the missing letter N
Go stand at the front of the class
Unbelievable
I thought the EMF did this, not HMHB.
No you're thinking of
"I Went To The Forrest Of Dean On A Day Trip And All I Got Was This Tangerine Down My Manhood." from HMHB's as yet unreleased Dead Bass Player Don't Make The Tea album.
David Bowie
....mentions my home town in "Star" off Ziggy:
Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve...
etc etc
Or...
..I could have mentioned Simple Minds. But I won't.
Frankie Vaughan
"Stockport", a cracking song for a cracking town.
Winchester Cathedral
Shouldn't have forgotten that one, seeing as it's my hometown.
And then there was
Finchley Central, dear old station, on the north suburban line.
New Vaudeville Band.
And then there's Chris Rea
With his sweet and affectionate tribute to Stainsby Girls. Not to mention Steel River, one of his best songs.
Run run reynard, run run run...
My home, Polesworth (a village near to Tamworth) is mentioned in Julian Cope's "Reynard The Fox"
"Reynard left and went to Warwickshire, to a mound near a railway line,
with canals and a freezing swamp. He climbs high up above the countryside
and breathes freely. To the south he could see Polesworth, and to the
north he could just make out the ruins of the priory where Joss and I
played cricket as children. We were only three miles away, probably drinking
tea and talking,"
The mound near the railway line mentioned is Pooley Mound, a place i used to play as a child (at the same time as cope was hanging around up there on acid - it's the setting for the tortoise shell photo on the front of "fried"). i always tended to have strange dreams after i'd been up there...
S & G
Scarborough Fair by that New York pair.
That New York pair
Martin & Carthy?
Nice...
one.
So good they sang it twice...
My home "town" of Rock Ferry in Birkenhead.
Duffy, obviously (ignore the morph of two words into one)
and, back in the day,
Deaf School (who cleverly managed to rhyme 'Ferry' with 'beret')
I lived in Polesworth
for a number of years and frequently walked to Pooley Mound with the dogs. It is indeed a strange place - eerie is the word.
Another famous person who lived in Polesworth was Edwin Starr. Not a lot of people know that.
I spent at
least a morning looking for Nick Drake's grave in and around Tamworth whilst out with a young lady a good few years ago. I actually found it earlier this year in Tanworth In Arden of all places.
Tanworth in Arden "of all places"
Blimey, who'd have thought of planting him in his home village?!
Except Bruce Springsteen....
...who, knowing he was fairly local, called on him to join him onstage at the NEC in 1999. And that was good for absolutely everything!
(Edwin Starr, that is, as Nick drake wasn't, um, available then.)
yep,
he used to live in pooley hall which is behind my house. Back when i was at school we had a charity car wash and one of the teachers accidentaly snapped the windscreen wiper off Edwins Bentley....
I used to know him well enough to say hello to in the street, but regrettably didn't really get into his music until i heard 25 miles a few months after he died.
another (slightly) famous ex resident of polesworth was Paul Speare who played saxamaphone for Dexys Midnight Runners (he's on too rye aye) and The Special AKA.
What we lack in songs...
... we make up for in poetry. Ludlow, Shrewsbury and various other Shropshire locations feature prominently in the work of A E Housman for example. Why not check out the following to find a poem about Lancashire town of Ormskirk (Circa 1971).
http://www.qi5.co.uk/rafterythepoet/index.php?section=poems&page=5+thora...
Additionally...
... as was mentioned above folk songs abound with place name references. Also songs in the genre continue to be written. Mike Harding's 'The Accrington Pals' is definitely not comedy. Also the Pogues' 'Rainy Night in Soho'. Why do these not qualify just because some people like to put everything in neat boxes? If you want to be a little bit obscure there was a duo called 'Splinter' (I think) who were championed by George Harrison. They sang about hitching a ride outside Durham, which took you straight into Leeds, apparently. The song may have been called 'Costafine town' but I am not sure whether that exists as a place though my road map certainly includes 'Costa'. This was about 1975 as I recall. And which old town was it that Roger Whitaker had to leave?
Indeed
Although Roger did seem to think Durham was on the banks of the Tyne.
Isn't Tunnel Of Love
by Dire Straits about a fairground ride in Whitley Bay - from Mark Knopfler's youth?
Indeed so
'Like Spanish City...'
Spanish City being the name of the fairground there - still there when I was living in Newcastle, 1993. Somewhat shabby with a certain rundown seaside town charm.
Steve Winwood
This item did appear in another thread some time ago, but Steve titled one of his albums Junction 7 in honour of the M6 junction closest to where he was brought up.
And of course Traffic did a song called Berkshire Poppies on Mr Fantasy.
Don't forget the Liverpool psychedelic band...
...called The 23rd Turnoff after the East Lancs Road exit on the M6
A big up for Carter USM
who mentioned my hometown Leigh-on-Sea in Sheriff Fatman.
as did the Bard Of Barking...
in 'A13 Highway To The Sea'
"Pitsea, Thundersley, Hadleigh, Leigh-On-Sea,
Chalkwell, Prittlewell,
Southend's the end"
Vincent Black Lightning 1952...
...by Richard Thompson has the following lines:
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme"
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Box Hill they did ride
The Del McCoury Band do a great bluegrass version which changes the geography from Surrey to Tennessee...
And down to Knoxville they did ride
God I hate that......
When they change the words! Grrrrr. It's otherwise a good version. See also: Jim Henry and a very very gaughany* Dick Gaughan.
*gaughany: broad scots dialect for impenetrable and hard to follow.
The worst example of a word change in a RT song is in the execrable version of (I want to see the) Bright Lights Tonight by Barrence Whitfield and Tom Russell..... A rock'n'roll band marching up and down, indeed!! I don't think so. Completely sullied Tom Russells reputation for me until Steve Turner banged on about him so much, I bought the recent retrospective, which is really rather good, but the song on the Word coverdisc is arguably the best, albeit maybe thru' the familiarity of Nanci Griffiths version.
Ancient
Peter Gabriel 'Solsbury Hill'
Spinal Tap 'Stone'enge'
Roger Waters
Mentions numerous towns and cities on Radio Kaos including on Home my home town of Warrington.
Elvis Costello
Hoover Factory - A40, West London
New Amsterdam mentions Rotherhithe
Oliver's Army: boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne.
American without tears: Southampton (my home town)and Nottingham.
Lindisfarne were in themselves a place name and sang about the fog on the Tyne.
And that well known song.....
....about the premier of Ziggy Stardust in the West Midlands,
"Bo(u)lder to Birmingham"
Boom, boom, rock on Trevor!
No one mentioned...
... some song by a little squirt about a long-haired lover from, where was it again? Oh no I've said too much. Forget I spoke.
Cumberland Gap
ain't nowhere, fifteen miles from Middlesbrough
Lonnie Donegan and covered by The Wedding Present
Cumberland Gap
Isn't it in the USA? I've always assumed it's somewhere that the Cumberland River flows through.
If it is streets you're looking for...
... then Baker Street was a bit hit (for Gerry Rafferty of course) and did not Donovan sing the praises of 'Sunny Goodge Street'?
What about...
... the first line of Super Trooper - "I was sick and tired of everything when I called you last night from Glasgow"
And Robbie Williams did an album track called Knutsford City Limits. I've never heard it and don't want to as I know it won't live up to the title!
But, but
Some people hear Tesco instead of Glasgow. Go figure...
Did anyone mention ...
'Rusholme Ruffians' yet?