"Life from a window, observing everything around you. Staring at a grey sky, try to paint it blue - teenage blue ..." The Jam are (is?) sort of excluded from this project on the grounds that everyone should know their songs by heart. But Life From A Window is just about the only song to spring to mind that mentions the Post Office Tower. And that was my favourite building in London as a kid (and caught here perfectly from a window chez Dusty 7s). The idea of the revolving restaurant or whatever seemed decidely glamorous, and I suppose the fact that I was never taken up there has kept the romance alive. Likewise The Jam's Modern World LP is a little unloved or blindingly worshipped. But it was one of the first LPs I ever bought, and there are a couple of songs on that flawed work I still love ... that is, Life From A Window and I Need You. Raw love songs in a way. Out of all of Paul's London-related songs I would have to choose Strange Town. I think it was Danny Baker who wrote that if you don't like that song you don't like pop music. I can remember cutting my head open in the school playground one day (you can still see the scar), being sewn up at the hospital, and coming home to watch Top Of The Pops where The Jam performed Strange Town in striped jackets like I'd recently picked up in a charity shop ...Friday 30 April 2010
Life From A Window
"Life from a window, observing everything around you. Staring at a grey sky, try to paint it blue - teenage blue ..." The Jam are (is?) sort of excluded from this project on the grounds that everyone should know their songs by heart. But Life From A Window is just about the only song to spring to mind that mentions the Post Office Tower. And that was my favourite building in London as a kid (and caught here perfectly from a window chez Dusty 7s). The idea of the revolving restaurant or whatever seemed decidely glamorous, and I suppose the fact that I was never taken up there has kept the romance alive. Likewise The Jam's Modern World LP is a little unloved or blindingly worshipped. But it was one of the first LPs I ever bought, and there are a couple of songs on that flawed work I still love ... that is, Life From A Window and I Need You. Raw love songs in a way. Out of all of Paul's London-related songs I would have to choose Strange Town. I think it was Danny Baker who wrote that if you don't like that song you don't like pop music. I can remember cutting my head open in the school playground one day (you can still see the scar), being sewn up at the hospital, and coming home to watch Top Of The Pops where The Jam performed Strange Town in striped jackets like I'd recently picked up in a charity shop ...
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That's a wonderful picture.
ReplyDeleteIt's lovely isn't it? I stumbled across the photo first and thought "yes!" then realised where it came from.
ReplyDeleteYeah, my Mom and Dad (that's right, "Mom", not "Mum - I'm American!) took me to the restaurant in the Post Office tower in the mid-70's when I turned 14, I think. Sometimes I think of that when I hear "Life From a Window." Anyway, I always thought the sky was "teal blue" but "teenage blue" does have a certain Jam-y poeticness to it.
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