Entertainment For Lively Minds
Songs with UK Landmarks
Posted by Lunaman on 15 January 2011 - 10:00pm.
Just thought about songs with UK landmarks. I'm sure there are loads.
The ones that come to mind are -
Waterloo sunset - Kinks
Soho Square - Kirsty MacColl's
Rainy night in Soho - The Pogues
Carrickfergus - Van Morrison & the Chieftains
I'm sure I know a few more but what are your favourites?
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Cough
Come to Milton Keynes by the Style Council
Two more (off the top of my head)
A13, Trunk Road to the Sea - Billy Bragg
Stone Henge - Spinal Tap
I have a dim recollection of Mike Read recording a song called 'A303'. In Mr Reads words "it was my answer to Route 66"
If you ever have to go to Shoeburyness ...
Was delighted to see that Bragg's song is now being curated by the V&A, see
http://www.vam.ac.uk/activ_events/adult_resources/memory_maps/contemp_wr...
for his notes on the song
Whisper it quietly,
but Kula Shaker did a song called '303' about the lethal route.
Surely that should be...
Ston'enge.
Panic
....the Leeds side streets that we slip down
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside (hooray)....any more massive from the Hull area??
Not from Hull
But London nil Hull Four still a top ten album in this house
As usual
the answer is David Bowie is I believe the catchphrase round here. His self-titled debut album has Maid of Bind Street and London Bye Ta Ta. The whole thing sounds like an anthem for swinging London.
Talking of David Bowie
Anthony Newley - Pop goes The Weasel
"Up And Down The City Road, in and out of 'The Eagle'.
Do look for it, its still there (but a bit shit)
Anyway, 'London's Brilliant Parade'
Hungerford Bridge
Oxford Street
St. Mary's Hospital
Olympia
Fulham Broadway
Regents Park
Hammersmith Palais
Kensington
Camden Town
The Diorama Theatre
and Bermondsey
HJH
Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane
Also the best single ever!
No -I give up!
What is HJH?
I refer the right honourable gentleman
to the Website FAQ:
It refers to a line in the Daily Mail in which they summed up the Fabs oeuvre with one, albeit epic, song. The device works with, say, Scott McKenzie (the 'San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)' hitmaker). The Beatles? Less so...
Thanks
for stepping up and asking that. Been bugging me for months.
Killermont Street
Aztec Camera (also covered by Fountains of Wayne)
Beat me to it,
that was my first thought when I saw the thread title. About the former Glasgow bus station of course, now Buchanan Street. One of the great Scottish exile songs imho.
Portsmouth by Mike Oldfield
Rossmore Road by Barry Andrews.
Although whether you could call Rossmore Road a landmark is another thing entirely.
err
frankie vaughan-stockport
London
Been well and truly "done" by the London That Nobody Sings blog.
http://thelondonnobodysings.blogspot.com
So how about Loughborough?
Sheffield...
..Sex City, (includes an exhaustive itinerary of the city's suburbs for added value) :
A Couple Of Manchester ones..
Rusholme Ruffians - Ver Smiffs
Whippin' Piccadilly - Gomez
a random tour
"Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960" - Brian Eno
"On reaching the Wensum" - HMHB
"Bottleneck at Capel Curig" - HMHB
"Uffington Wassail" - HMHB
"Upon Westminster Bridge" - HMHB
"Lord Hereford's Knob" - HMHB
"Avenham Colonnade" - John Foxx
"Mayfair" - Nick Drake
"Whipsnade" - Suede
More HMHB
"For What is Chatteris?"
"She's In Broadstairs"
While "A Country Practice" references both the Shropshire town of Wem and The Barbican, "Hair Like Brian May Blues" makes a reference to the "rolling River Dee" (which I have to say is very much poetic licence on Nigel's part), and "The Light at The End of the Tunnel" alludes to the Derbyshire towns of Matlock Bath and Eyam, and Notting Hill ("where the cocaine is fair-trade")
Edit: plus of course New Mills in the same song ("No frills, handy for the hills, that's the way we spell New Mills")
Headlights On The Parade
By The Blue Nile.
That would be Alexandra Parade in Glasgow
Indeed.
Or so I've always believed anyway. Makes it sound impossibly glamorous, doesn't it? From the staggeringly fantastic Hats, my favourite album of all time when p comes to s.
No-one posted this yet?
John Shuttleworth - Strangeways
Ah Beany thanks for posting this
but inexplicably, in my mind, this contains the line:
"Like Manchester you've got Strangeways
But don't go Altrincham... (can't remember the last bit)
I always loved this cos that's where I live. Maybe it's on another version? Or I have somehow channeled the spirit of John Shuttleworth and made it up? Or did I just miss it in my joy at seeing this again?
Thanks anyway x
You have been spending
too much time in the company of The Massive. It can send you bonkers after awhile. Beside Altrincham is not in Manchester.
Perhaps you were thinking of Huddersfield. On no that's The Goodies.
London again
Marble Arch- Roddy Frame
Picadilly - Squeeze
Towers of London - XTC
Oranges and Lemons Again - Jools Holland and Suggs
Oysterband - Milford Haven
"She crossed the naked spine of England
While the sun was at its height
Solway Sands and Kielder Water
Far below her left and right
And somewhere north of Tobermory
They say her path began to climb
She was heading for Newfoundland
And she might be gone some time
She saw the moon over Milford Haven
Stars over Plymouth Sound
She flew as high as heaven
And she said, I won't come down"
Ooooh, that sounds good.
The later Oysterband material is a huge gap in my collection- I have Step Outside and Ride on original Cooking Vinyl LPs, but after that, nothing at all.
Would you care to give us a recommendation for where to go next with the Oysters in order to catch up, and in particular, where that song above is tucked away?
"Deep Dark Ocean"
The one to get is "Deep Dark Ocean", from which the above-quoted song is taken. Superb from start to finish. Includes a short song in Welsh as a coda.
oysters
My own favourite would be Holy Bandits, from 1994 or thereabouts. If my memory serves me right, Ride was followed by Deserters, which is solid if unspectacular, and then by the aforementioned Holy Bandits. Next was The Shouting End Of Life, probably the rockiest of all their albums - I like it, but if you're a dyed in the wool folkie you'd probably hate it. Deep Dark Ocean came after that, and is indeed a fine album. Here I Stand was next. I never got on with that one, and afterwards I kind of drifted away from the Oysters. They were one of my favourite bands through most of the 90s though, and I saw them many many times, always a good night out.
There are also a couple of compilations available - the 2CD Granite Years is probably the most comprehensive, and covers all the Cooking Vinyl years (Step Outside through to Deep Dark Ocean), including some strong non-album tracks, but it is slightly let down by only having the weedy version of "Hal-an-Tow" from Step Outside - there is an absolutely storming later version that I think you can only get on the Trawler comp. There are at least four live albums floating around as well.
Thanks, Maggie.
And that's not a phrase I've ever used before.
Thanks also duco; I'll settle for the fact that 'Milford Haven' is on the album Granite Years.
No danger of being over-rocky on the folk-rock front from my point of view; you're talking to a man who loves Horslips after all. I've duly invested in Granite Years, Trawler and Holy Bandits. Hurrah!
PS I forgot that I've also got the excellent LP they did with June Tabor called Freedom And Rain. Time to crank up the turntable this afternoon...
not actually called Maggie ;)
"maggieloveshopey" is a Love & Rockets reference that has been causing gender confusion on internet fora since I started using it, but your thanks are appreciated regardless.
Unless you've already spent the shekels, you might want to do a comparative tracklisting of Trawler with Granite Years - I'm pretty sure there is a lot of overlap, and you might be better off just buying GY, and investing 79p with your digital music purveyor of choice to get the better Hal-an-Tow. Your shout of course.
This has also inspired me to dig out my Oyster records, and I've been enjoying Shouting End a lot this afternoon.
Thanks, er, Ray?
But the cash is already committed; I did consider checking the overlap, but the Amazon review comments re: the revamped versions on Trawler suggested to me that it might be worth having both anyway, especially as the album is currently a steal at less than 4 quid.
Aint heard Freedom and Rain
for years - must dig it out and put it in the car for the long drives I have coming up this week. Thanks for jogging the memory.
Stackridge
Purple Spaceships Over Yatton
Coniston Water
A few from
east Belfast's favourite son:
Cyprus Avenue, Connswater, Coney Island, A Sense of Wonder
Oh yes
and not forgetting 'Hyndford Street' my favourite from Van the man re places.
Did Cleaning Windows mention any specific locations??
Number
one hundred and thirty six, if I remember correctly. I've always imagined he meant Hyndford Street. Maybe that was his best mate's house, or he thought it scanned better than 'number one hundred and twenty five', where he was born. Both of them are within gob-iron hurling distance of the spot seen on the back of the Hymns To The Silence album cover.
Risking ire from my fellow nationals
who can be touchy on these matters, but assuming that we are dealing with places in the British Isles and not just the UK, I offer you Raglan Road, done by Van and a gazillion others.
oh yes
:)
Is that
a comment on the touchiness or the song? Or both?
this is the greatest London song of all time
I'd say it's a candidate for
being one of the greatest city songs of all time.
These days I associate it with Liverpool, because of a particular journey from the South West to that city, to visit a friend now dead, that ended with a ride into the city centre, headed for the bus station late on a summer evening. I had hitch-hiked from Exeter, and it had been a long day. As the car I was in got deeper into the city, and glimpses of the buildings along the Mersey came into view, the song started on the radio. As I thought to myself, "I've made it, I'm here." that saxophone came in. It's hard wired in me now; it always puts me back in that car, looking out of the passenger side window at the lights of Liverpool city centre. It's an utterly urban sound, conjured by a man who loves the countryside, is in the sprawl, yet has a tie back there in the land.
Indian Queens
by Nick Lowe.
I'm surprised no-one's mentioned Mull of Kintyre which was a double A side for Paul McCartney and Wings. But who bought it for the flip side, Girls School?
More Nick the Riff
"Basing Street" (I think it's the street the recording studio was in)
"Who Was That Man" (About the Kings Cross fire)
Also:
In "Joe Meek" Wreckless Eric sings about the Blue Plaqued building where Joe Meek lived (and died) in Holloway Road.
Then there's the Oasis tribute to the excellent Sifters record shop in Shakermaker.
Added to the playlist...
Rather than seacrhed just whizzed through my Spotify playlists and pulled these out...
Norfolk Coast - The Stranglers
Skeng - the Bug (from the album London Zoo - a bit of a cheat, I know, but it's a huge track...)
Newcastle Lullaby - Rachel Unthank & the Winterset
Raintown - Deacon Blue
West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys
Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
A dubious landmark
but The Leyton Buzzards, in their song "Saturday Night (Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees)" claimed it was "undiscovered heaven in the Seven Sisters Road".
Down your way
I've added to the Spotify playlist, including Tom Jones bringing out the Vegas element that was always inherent in the Skye Boat Song(?!) and Louis Prima singing "White Cliffs of Dover", written, of course, by an American unaware of the fact that if any bluebird has ever flown there then it was catastrophically lost.
Also, two interpretations of Betjeman poems - "Slough" by Ian McNabb and "Harrow on the Hill" by Steve Harley.
And "Leazes Park" (in Newcastle) by Kathryn Williams, which comes from the album "Dog Leap Stairs", which is a flight of scarily steep steps by the Newcastle quayside, not to be attempted while drunk.
I was tempted to put in Lonnie Donegan's version of "Cumberland Gap", since although it's originally about the pass in the Appalachian Mountains, it's apparently not far out (I'm happy to be corrected) if it's applied to its UK namesake, on the A74 (fifteen miles from Middlesborough, Kentucky, or perhaps Middlesbrough, Teesside?).
Merseybeast by McNabb
Rolls out the suburbs of Liverpool like they're going out of fashion...great tune mind.
Carlisle
Mentioned in The Smiths’ Panic, Leo Sayer’s Moonlighting and no other songs to the best of my knowledge. Unless someone knows better?
London
I always used to hum For Tomorrow by Blur back when I lived in Da Bush
She's a twentieth century girl
With her hands on the wheel
Trying not to make him sick again
Seeing what she can borrow
London's so nice back in your seamless rhymes
But we're we're lost on the Westway
So we hold each other tightly
And hold on for tomorrow
Can't think of the Westway without thinking
of the late J G Ballard ---while Googling found this wonderful quest for the location of "Concrete Ialand"
http://www.ballardian.com/the-real-concrete-island
More ballard
Very good !
If we are going Ballardian, Underpass by Ultravox! (slightly non specific I know) . In a thread cross over, can't recommend Cocaine Nights highly enough for a beach read...certainly a little easier going than Atrocity Exhibition.
The lights on the Westway...
This comes into my head everytime I drive this way out of London. Oddly, it doesn't on the journey in.
RT
Has been known to use some UK landmarks.
Off the top of my head....
Box Hill - VBL1952
I don't know if Caldrum Street qualifies, but apparently he had a job there in a steamie.
Cooksferry Queen.
Box Hill again
Box Hill
Also gets a mention in PIL's Flowers of Romance.
and by Ben Watt....
'On Box Hill' off post punk minimalist classic 'North Marine Drive'
Watford Gap
Roy Harper's 1977 ditty which appeared on 'Bullinamingvase' about the joys of a certain motorway service station.
Here's a quote from Wikipedia:
Stainsby Girls -
Chris Rhea
Chelsea Dagger - Fratellis
Fog on the Tyne - Lindisfarne
some 60s/70s ones
Donovan - Sunny Goodge Street
Justin Hayward - London is Behind Me
Gerry and the Pacemakers - Ferry Cross the Mersey
Pink Floyd - Grantchester Meadows
The Liberty Of Norton Folgate album
is, unusually for Madness, stuffed with London landmarks
We Are London has:
Regent's Park mosque
Baker Street
Kings Cross
Somerstown
The Roundhouse
The Marathon Bar
Camden Lock
Chinatown
Old Compton St
Carnaby St
and the title track:
Arnold Circus
Petticoat Lane
Shadwell
Spitalfields
Whitechapel,
Tower Hamlets
Limehouse
and, of course, Norton Folgate
Other Madness London songs
Clerkenwell Polka
Victoria Gardens
Primrose Hill
This Is A Low by Blur
Much 'shipping forecast' teminology (Malin Head although in Donegal, Land's End, Blackpool, Tyne, Forth and the Thames)
The Proclaimers - Sunshine on Leith
Pulp - Bar Italia (in Soho)
Lee Ho Fook, Soho - Warren Zevon (Werewolves of London)
Blur
Blue Jeans (he bought them on the Portobello Rd on a Saturday)
Misty Morning Albert Bridge
By the Pogues
Ghosts of Cable Street by the Men They Couldn't Hang
England 1936...
great song
John Otway - from "Louisa on a Horse"
"Look out Princes Risborough - I'm back"
And they were ready to quit
"But then we went to Croydon!"
It's Grim Up North by the KLF/JAMMS
is a litany of northern English place names:
"Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley, Bradford, Buxton, Crewe.
Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull.
Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Derby, Kearsley, Keighley, Maghull,
Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs, Grimsby, Glossop, Hebden Bridge.
Brighouse, Bootle, Featherstone, Speke, Runcorn,
Rotherham, Rochdale, Barrow, Morecambe,
Macclesfield, Lytham St. Annes,
Clitheroe, Cleethorpes, The M62.
Pendlebury, Prestwich, Preston, York,
Skipton, Scunthorpe, Scarborough-on-Sea,
Chester, Chorley, Cheadle Hulme,
Ormskirk, Accrington Stanley, And Leigh,
Ossett, Otley, Ikley Moor, Sheffield, Manchester, Castleford, Skem.
Doncaster, Dewsbury, Hali-fax, Bingley, Bramall, are all in the north"
I posted the video further up^
which might have saved you all that typing.
"Litany" is a great word though, given the KLF quasi religious/mystical Church of The KLF gibberish and also the way the chugging rhythm, train whistles and placename litany thrillingly morph into that great British hymn "Jerusalem" at the end.
Twots
The blinking KLF jessies pronounce my place of birth wrong.
Kearsley is spoken as Kers-ly NOT Keers-ly. Any fule kno it is derived from Cress Lea, as an ancient place of wild cress. Halfway between the mighty Mancunia and Bowton on the Devil's road (A666).
P.S. It could have been cutandpaste rather than typed. It's what the smart people do ;-}
I love the last 30 seconds when it all dissolves into
lashing rain and passing traffic at (I believe) Hartshead Moor services on the M62.
If they are not banned from here
Cullercoats , Whitley Bay and Spanish City via Tunnel of love Dire Straits
If they are not banned from here
Cullercoats , Whitley Bay and Spanish City via Tunnel of love Dire Straits
For years I misunderstood that line
and wondered what colour codes had to do with Whitley Bay.
Led Zep
Bron-Yr-Aur
Richard Hawleys grand tour of Sheffield
Lowedges
Coles Corner
Lady's Bridge
Dire Straits Down to the Waterline refers to Dog Leap Stairs, in Newcastle.
Dan Reed Network also did a song called Seven Sisters Road
I'm sure I'll think of some more as soon as I press post
Whilst on the subject of Sheffield...
Arctic Monkeys mention Hunters Bar (as well as Rotherham!) in 'Fake Tales of San Francisco' and Hillsborough and Shiregreen get a mention, too, in 'Red Light Indicates Doors Are Secured'.
Jarvis mentions Forge Dam and the Wicker in 'Wickerman' on 2001's 'We Love Life'.
Hawley also sang about being 'Naked in Pitsmoor'.
The ballad of John & Yoko
"Standing at the dock in Southampton"
A few off the top of my head
'They do it down on Camber Sands they do it at Waikiki' Squeeze, Pulling Mussels From a Shell
'I drove up to Muswell Hill, I've even been to Selsey Bill,' Madness, Driving My Car
Also the M62, as mentioned by Doves (M62 Song) and It's Immaterial (Driving Away From Home). Come to think of it, Doves also did a song called 'Snowdon'.
Kaiser Chiefs, High Royds - named after the former psychiatric hospital across the road from the school near Leeds attended by the band. Contains the lyric: 'Got keys to a car, Picked up a girl from Boston Spa'
Play With Fire
Now she gets her kicks in Stepney
Not in Knightsbridge any more.
Recorded at RCA Studios, Hollywood. Makes a change from all those Eagles songs recorded in Barnes.
The 'Oblivious' Hitmaker has already been cited
with Killermont Street and Marble Arch, but I've just thought of another, more obscure one, which refers to his (and my) home town of East Kilbride. The line in Somewhere in My Heart 'from Westwood to Hollywood, the one thing that's understood...' refers to Westwood, EK.
and 'Down the Dip' is
the Diplomat pub in East Kilbride now known as the Gardenhall Inn
Didn't know that...
.
3 men fae Carntyne
went to mow a meadow
3 men fae Carntyne, and a bottle o' wine an' 5 woodbine
went to mow a meadow
Not Billy's finest hour, though hilarious at the time.
Electric Avenue
Or are you going to tell me that it wasn't the one in Brixton after all, and Bob Holness didn't play sax on it?
London Town
by Wings
Point of order here
Isn't a UK landmark something like Stonehenge (the 'Tap) or the Albert Hall (HJHs)? A town or a city isn't a landmark. This thread will go on forever, if they count.
Where is?
'Point of order here'!
Its past
the point of no return
Reid this
Bathgate no more
Linwood no more
Methil no more
Irvine no more.
Lochaber no more.
Sutherland no more
Lewis no more
Skye no more
Yeah - what's that other place they mention?
Oh yeah: America. Not as famous though.
the greatest town in the world
There is a green hill far away...
I presume The Waterboys are talking about the Tor in 'Glastonbury Song' - that's a landmark isn't it? But aren't loads of other places mentioned as well?
XTC / Thomas Dolby
Whilst not in the song title, Andy Partridge's dreamlike "Chalkhills and Children" on Oranges and Lemons references a Roman Road:
"Bringing me back to earth, eternally and ever Ermine Street"
and Thomas Dolby did a song called "Cloudburst at Shingle Street" (a small settlement near Orfordness) on The Golden Age of Wireless.
Steve Earle
fell in love with a Galway girl
Also Steve Earl (with the Pogues)
"Gonna drink Camden Town dry tonight" from Johnny Come Lately on Copperhead Road
From Hull and Halifax and
From Hull and Halifax and Hell,
Good Lord, deliver me!
- The Dalesman's Litany (Trad.)
A hill near Bath...
"Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city lights"
Radio Stars
The Beast of Barnsley - a song inspired by the Yorkshire Ripper if I remember rightly (which isn't a given).
Genesis - The Battle Of Epping Forest