Monday 5 April 2010

Beckton Dumps

"Then I give my lucky dog a stroke. Well he just gives me a wink. And I know what that mean now. Well it mean that I need to put on his lead if I don't want a mess on my cheap pan. That's cool. 'Cause I know I can trust him to grab the fuzz if they bust in. Get him boy!" sings Steve Marriott from deep in the Essex countryside on Humble Pie's Beckton Dumps before he escapes in a Proustian way back to the area of east London in which he grew up. The track comes from the LP Eat It which has some great tracks on, and is made all the finer for the presence of The Blackberries, as Stevie aimed for a real soul revue vibe. What transports Steve back to Beckton, the old gas works and the piles of waste dumped there, which locals knew as The Alps, is not made clear, but certain Small Faces songs sometimes have the power to transport me back to my own youth and it's then you realise how great they were ...

4 comments:

  1. Great Post (Made 7 years ago.) I was just wondering what the Bekton Dumps were and googled it and I found this post.

    I want to go to England some day and tell people I came to visit the English Alps.

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  2. "...if I don't want a mess on my G-Plan", not "cheap pan". That doesn't even make sense, not sure why all the lyric sites have it that way. Look up G-Plan.

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  3. Yes, Raving Dave - I think it's G-Plan, ( & not 'cheap' nor even 'chip' )

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