St John's Wood Affair

"As I grow older going too far down the road from St John's Wood where I read on the notice board that God is by my side all the time. 'Hello God. Would you like to take a walk? Maybe we can have a talk?'..." sings Patrick Campbell-Lyons on St John's Wood Affair by the only Nirvana you need to know. I hate the way the group's work is described as baroque as that suggests a certain whimsical listlessness whereas the lovely arrangements on Nirvana's All Of Us are really powerful. The most famous St John's Wood song is of course Play With Fire, which is quite neat really as our Mick is a keen cricket fan, and Lord's is in the vicinity. Lord's has been immortalised in a number of cricket related songs, like Lord Beginner's Victory Calypso which celebrates the West Indies 1950 test success. A song that I doubt would pass Norman Tebbit's cricket test when the Tory bully echoed the sort of sentiments TV sit-com character Alf Garnett once spouted. Coincidentally Alf's catchphrases inspired the title of another St John's Wood related song when Mickey Dolenz sang about hanging out with the Beatles at Abbey Road and back at their pad in Randy Scouse Git. And for those in search of Nirvana -with some great London '60s footage ...