Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Word Takes the Tube
Posted by Gatz on 17 September 2009 - 8:34am.
I was sitting here planning a route for a day in London today when it naturally occurred to me to make music connections with the names of tube stations.
A couple of obvious ones to begin with:
Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty
(Sunny) Goodge Street - Donovan
Vauxhall (and I) - Morrissey
Off you go then. I expect a full set by the time I get home this evening.
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"Finchley Central"....
....by the New Vaudeville Band.
"King's Cross" by Pet Shop Boys.
(Then there's "Heaven, Hell Or Euston" by ZZ Top, of course.)
"Plaistow Patricia"
Ian Dury & The Blockheads
He could have been
the ticket man at Fulham Broadway station.
What a waste.
The most obvious one is
Waterloo - Abba or The Kinks (with a Sunset)
Have a fun day in London Town!
Down in the Tube Station at Midnight
Doesn't say which tube station - they're usually closed by then anyway.
But how about Warwick Avenue from Duffy's last album, and then there's the glorious not-at-all ripped off from Roy Harper Baker Street Muse by Jethro Tull.
"Victoria" The Kinks
"Victoria"
The Kinks
Mile End
Pulp
4 more
Guns Of Brixton/The Clash
Angel/Jimi Hendrix
Upminster Kid/Kilburn & The High Roads
Notting Hill Gate/Quintessence
All Saints
All Saints
Featuring the Alperton sisters
ZZ Top
La Grange Hill.
And of course Space, with their single "Hainault, you and me 'gainst the world now".
And Sweet - "Everybody wants a piece of the Acton".
Who could forget
the Flaming Groovies' "Shake Some Acton"
Main Line, Town, East, West, South, North, Town - so many Acton tube and rail stations but somehow you're never ever near enough to any of them at any time, in my experience of once living around the area.
This reminds me of one of my favourite typos from when I worked in bibliographic information - a book whose title was incorrectly entered as "Aircraft Carriers in Acton"
It conjures up some wonderful images...
Archway People
by Saint Etienne
From Balham to Brooklyn - Turin Brakes
...
Amy Winehouse's favourite station: High Barnet. Haithangyuw.
Ian Dury covered a few...
... in The Bus Driver's Prayer
Our Father,
Who art in Hendon
Harrow Road be Thy name
Thy Kingston come
Thy Wimbledon
In Erith as it is in Hendon.
Give us this day our Berkhampstead
And forgive us our Westminsters
As we forgive those who Westminster against us.
Lead us not into Temple Station
And deliver us from Ealing,
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley,
For Iver and Iver
Crouch End
Central Line
East London's finest jazz funk pioneers from 1982....
The Only Living Boy In New Cross - Carter USM
Mile End - Pulp
are but according to
Kafkaesque argument I have the ticket office bloke New Cross isn't a tube station and that's why I can't use my oyster for "pay as you go" "but it's on the tube map I say" "ah but it's an overland station he replys.........."
He's being a jobsworth and wrong...
As an ex London Transport employee, New Cross (and NXG) are at the bottom end of the East London Line are perfectly capable of accepting valid Oyster cards at the station and on the replacement bus service whilst the engineering works are taking place.
Tickets please!
fraid he is right until Boris pulls his finger out
you can't use an oyster on the overland to go to london bridge etc you have to use a paper ticket, when it was open you could use oyster on the east london line. Won't the Olympics be fun!
Ah...
But you CAN use the replacement bus service!
Integrated transport eh?
my best experience of that
was easter bank holiday when it ran to surrey quays only to find the jubilee line closed and I had an almost 2 hour journey to travel a mile.
Rainy Night in Soho (Square)
The Pogues
there's no tube station
called soho
Hence...
the (Square) as there is one called Soho Square!!!
I'm really confused
did tottenham court road get renamed ?
My Bad
as the kids say. Should have checked. I would have sworn blind there was a station called soho square on the circle line. Realise now i was thinking of Euston Square... Well I haven't lived in London for nearly 20 years if that's an excuse....
No
No there isn't! I worked on Soho Square for 5 years and can categorically state that there is no such station.
abbey road
TFL obviously want to confuse the hell out of Japanese tourists that or it's a deceitful way to regenerate the east end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Road_DLR_station
not a song
but isn't "Tooting Beck" something immoral groupies do to a certain diminutive Californian pop former wunderkind
A-Bomb in Wardour Street
The Jam
A pedant writes…
Wardour St isn't actually a Tube station
Anything by…
… 80s goths Balham and The Angel
Also
Pimlico - David Devant & His Spirit Wife
Vauxhall And I - Morrissey
Northern Line - Opal
Oops,
Sorry, I missed the Morrissey ref. in the original post
Richmond
The Faces
Leyton Buzzards
and Camden Town by Suggs
and not forgetting
No Sleep Till Hammersmith
oh and gatz
hope you're not using that map it's i think pre 1980's as the jubilee lien not on it!
Well before the '80s, in fact…
… no Victoria Line either. Also, Tooting Bec has its old name of Trinity Road, Strand station is still there and Angel is called Canonbury & Essex Road.
Any others?
Is this the original Harry Beck design?
back in the days when
London Transport obviously couldn't imagine that anyone might want to to [or leave] South London
No we sensibly use
the overland rather huddle together in the sweaty dark with the shop girls and office juniors like north Londoners. Up in the air is the only way a gentleman chooses to travel!
According to one of the free sheets yesterday
the latest iteration of the tube map has the Thames removed! I suppose it's a sort of inverse remastering designed to lose detail.
A name no longer used but how about
"Do the Strand" - Roxy Music. "Do the Aldwych" doesn't quite have the same ring....
If you're running out of ideas, more name changes and abandoned stations are listed at http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/
Thanks for that link!
What a brilliant site - that's my lunchtime entertainment sorted then.
When I lived in London
and used the tube regularly,I used to be fascinated by the occasional random glimpses I caught of some of these stations, or the old station buildings at ground level.
Also I loved seeing the rich tapestry of old advertising hoardings and tiling revealed during the course of renovations and then built over and quite often destroyed. There's a brilliant comment on that somewhere on the site, reflecting ruefully on the opportunities missed for making commuting journeys a bit less soul-less, and the way that preserving some of these features could perhaps have made parts of the tube network into a much more interesting and unique experience for both London residents and visitors.
This may also be of interest
http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke/features/2817/London_Underground...
I don't know if the 1938 trains still run, though the line's only a few miles away from me as the crow flies.
You may also enjoy...
http://www.ipswich-underground.co.uk/
The twist being, of course, that Ipswich has never, ever had an underground railway. Which didn't stop National Express cut & pasting parts of this site wholesale into their consumer magazine. What larks!
Skirky,
as a former inhabitant of Ipswich, I'd just like to say you've made a middle-aged man very happy, and reminded him how nice his former home can look in fine weather.
Thank you.
Remember it that way
and don't go back.
It's a hole.
If I can find time
I may be there in the next few days, Joe, as I'll be visiting my Mum in Melton, and I really should get over to see my friend Siobhan.
NB You may well find that the passing of time (it's twenty-three years since I moved to Naaarch) lends Ipswich a rather rosier glow than you're feeling at the moment.
Maybe
but I only moved away about 4 months ago. FWIW, I think Melton is a lovely place though
"...about 4 months ago."
Yeah, that was what I meant, Joe. (Not that I'm stalking you.)
You're right about Melton. I shall be walking Border Collies by the Deben, and doubtless also wandering up the hill into Woodbridge, where I grew up.
Ipswich came later - my move to the Big City ;-)
Possibly Parsons Green
by Fairport Convention
Camden Town by Suggs
Another Northern Line ref
The Mill Hill Self-Hate Club - though I can't remember the performer's name.
Absolutely Barking Stars - Maria McKee
Dagenham Dave - The Stranglers [not exactly a tube station, but close).
Van Morrison's Slim Slow Slider mentions Ladbroke Grove - does that count?
Morden A Feeling - Boston (Manor) - it's OK, I'll see myself out.
Mill Hill Self Hate Club
Was by Ed Ball, formerly of The Times who had a song called Goodbye Piccadilly.
a few more
Morrissey - Piccadilly Palare
Fergie - London Bridge
Piney Gir - 199 to Elephant and Castle
Belle & Sebastian - Mornington Crescent
The Sweet - Cockfosters ('Does anyone know the way to Cockfosters!) - this goes through my head every time I take the piccadilly line
Morrissey again
Your Arsenal
Bored at lunchtime, so...
The James Bond (Street) Theme
Whitesnake - Pimlico Again on My Own
Anything by LewiSham 69
Marvin Gaye - Sexual Ealing
Belinda Carlisle - Epping is a Place on Earth
Crowded House - Hainault, Hainault, Don't Dream It's Over
Elton John - Surrey Quays to Be the Hardest Word
/coat
The Blue Sea of Ibrox
by the A.B. Boys.
Farewell to Govan - The Bow Triplets
Partick Nil - Eux Autres
What? London has an underground, too?
in that case
Zoologischer Garten
Walthamstow
Wasn't it an album by East 17?
Barron Knights
Long ago, outside a chip shop in Walthamstow
Was a young rocker called Greasy Joe
Anymore for anymore
The Small Faces comp - Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette
Adam and The Ants - Hampstead
Stones 'Play With Fire' Lyric - "owns a block in Saint John's Wood"
Let's Arnos Grove - Earth Wind And Fire
Barbican Girl - Aqua
Smoke On The Bayswater - Deep Purple
O Canada Water - National Anthem
Holborn In The USA - Bruce Springsteen
Redbridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel
Ruislip Of The Tongue - Whitesnake
Theydon Bois Of Summer - Don Henley
Warren Street (What Is It Good For) - Edwin Starr
here's a few
Microdisney - Singers Hampstead Home
Hampstead Incident/Sunny South Kensington - Donovan
Jamie T has a song called Northern Line, so that's a lot of ground covered right there.
The Style Council had Piccadilly Trail.
Archway People by Saint Etienne
Victoria Gardens - Madness
And that's without resorting to puns or using lyrics.
I may have some more later on!
Maid of Bond Street
from The Dame's early period.
there's is
a Burt Bacharach tune called "bond street"
Piccadilly Circus
By Stiff Little Fingers. Last song on "Go For It"
Two from Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers
Album - "Bongos over Balham"
Song - "Goodbye Nashville, Hello Camden Town"
Sorry, I've been away...
Are we playing Mornington Crescent ?
Robyn Hitchcock's 52 Stations
On the Northern Line.
Duffy
Warwick Avenue
Does Cricklewood
have a tube station? According to The Goodies, nothing ever happens there.
bargepole refers you
to the 'ask fred' section of the current issue of M*j*, which lists many more of these.
Depeche Mode never fails to deliver
Monument
Canary In A Wharf - The Police
Hunting Highbury And Islington - a-ha
Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Burnt Oak Tree - Dawn feat. Tony Orlando
Anything by Celine Dion
guaranteed to Turnham Green.
Oh, is that my coat?
River Deep Mountain Highgate - Ike & Tina Turner
Bank is a tube station
Metroland
Not quite on topic (and yet it also is), if you have an hour to spare I can think of few better ways of spending it than by watching Sir John Betjeman's marvellous early 70s piece on the social history of the Metropolitan Line.
Here's the first of 5 parts on, fittingly enough, the ’Tube
Who could forget
Cliff Richards' immortal "Living Dollis Hill"
Any excuse...
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2006/02/02/unde...
Thought this might be interesting to share. It's Dorian Lynskey's graphical representation of 100 years of music which takes the London Underground Map and uses each of the seperate lines as musical genres and each of the stations as key artists; the Northern Line becomes Hip Hop, Circle Line is pop etc. The convergence of five lines at Kings Cross/ St Pancras must have been a tough one for Lynskey to find a fit for, there aren't that many HipHopElectroDancePopJazzFunkers about.
it was a strange
and to my mind pointless homage to simon pattersons "great bear"
http://briankerr.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/patterson_great_bear85.jpg
Also slightly amusing
the anagram version.
http://www.maproom.co.uk/maps/anagrammap.gif
see also animals in the tube map
http://www.animalsontheunderground.com/the_animals.html
Didn't know of the Great Bear version
so thanks for that knowledge-embiggening nugget. I found Lynskey's effort quite interesting actually, particularly in the crossovers between genres such as the Kings Cross example cited in my original post though some of the artists included seem to have been done with a 'they'll fit there' arbitrariness. Basment Jaxx indeed!
watch out watch out
there's telegraph hack about, probably a "coincidence"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6219582/The-best-London-Und...
and via popbitch...
caution - may contain sexism
http://londonist.com/attachments/Matt/declutteredtubemap.jpg