Chelsea Bridge

"Was it an hour since I ran to the stop to catch my 91? I don't mind the rain in my neck. It's all part of the season's fun ..." Ah. Louis Philippe again. We may need to ration his appearances here. But he does have a way with London songs. Lazy English Sun, for example, deals with the perils of leaving your umbrella on the 91 bus given the unpredictability of the English summer. And then there's Chelsea Bridge, a particular favourite. The bridge? Well, yes, in a way. But I really meant the song. A vocal and piano treat, and hommage to the French vocalese jazz tradition. It would be Louis' sleevenotes to the reissue of his Rainfall set that got me interested in Les Double Six, the Parissienne vocal ensemble that featured Christiane Legrand and Ward Swingle. So Louis has earned his frequent appearances here.

Brompton Oratory

"Up those stone steps I climb. Hail this joyful day's return. Into its great shadowed vault I go. Hail the Pentecostal morn. The reading is from Luke 24. Where Christ returns to his loved ones. I look at the stone apostles. Think that it's alright for some ..." There is something so perfect about Nick Cave's Brompton Oratory. A beautiful brooding song set in a magnificent Catholic church in the heart of Chelsea & Kensington. Thank god for London's churches ...

Sunny South Kensington

"Come loon soon down Cromwell Road, man. You've got to spread your wings ..." Now I'm not sure I subscribe to the Saint Etienne Finisterre thing of believing in Donovan over Dylan, love over cynicism ..." but I do like a bit of Donovan. And he wrote some lovely London songs. Some lovely sunny ones. Sunny Goodge Street, of course. And Sunny South Kensington. Of its time, perhaps. But any song that mentions Jean Paul Belmondo, Mary Quant and Ginsberg in the same verse is all right with me. So here's the original 7", giving us another excuse to say: "Blimey squire, that's what I call a record player ..."

Walking down the King's Road

"In the Chelsea drugstore with some friends of mine, saw Mister Jimmy still standing in line ..." A gem from the 1979 mod resurgence Squire's Walking Down The King's Road, adopting a bit of a 'things ain't what they used to be' stance, explicitly refers to one of the ridiculously small number of Rolling Stones songs that openly mentions London life. Now as someone born in the same place as Jagger and Richards (a crossfire hurricane!) this is slightly disappointing. you'd want there to be many more. Or am I missing something? This, of course, is the other big Stones London number ...

Spot The Lights

"Now the rain is falling down. And I am getting wet. Think I'll take a walk down King's Road. Join the Chelsea Set ..." Spot The Lights by The Barrier is a wonderful dark night of the soul psychedelic punk gem where our desperate hero takes a lonely night time stroll round Sloane Square, hearing the tube trains beneath his feet, steeling himself to make it on his own. This contribution comes courtesy of Back To Zero's Brian Kotz and his encyclopaedic knowledge of British '60s sounds. And speaking of the King's Road, here's Anthony Newley taking Lucille Ball to find the London mods ...

Parties in Chelsea

"What are you doing next Saturday week? Would you like to come to a party with me?" An offer you can't refuse courtesy of the Television Personalities' Parties In Chelsea. There have been so many and not enough words written about Dan Treacy and the TVPs. Perhaps not enough has been made of Dan's extra-curricular activities. His label Whaam! for example put out some wonderful records. The Marine Girls' Beach Party. Khartomb's Swahili Lullaby. And Small World's rousing Love Is Dead ...

The Boy From Chelsea

"In Chelsea there's a boy, working in a little coffee shop there. He's got the cutest smile. And every chance I get I stop there ..." Ah when the '60s were swingin' it wasn't just Bacharach & David among the songwriting fraternity that wanted a piece of the action. Goffin & King gave it a go too. Now there was a time when unisex hair salons were the height of sophistication. And it was a neat song tradition too. Thus the Goffin & King number in question could be David Jones singing The Girl From Chelsea, pre-Monkees, and with the sort of mockney accent Damon Allbran made a career out of. Or better still it could be Truly Smith singing about The Boy From Chelsea. Oh I love these YouTube postings, revealing people's private obsessions. Gor, look at the chassis on that ...

London Life

"On weekend nights we dance until dawning, then go to hear the speeches at Hyde Park Sunday morning ..." sings Anita Harris in London Life. Judging by recent tabloid reports Anita's London life these days is not that different than that of a lot of us who seem to have been deserted by lady luck. She's certainly had her ups and downs. Oh but in the '60s it was a different story. London was swingin' and Anita got to sing a number specially written by Bacharach & David about the capital. She would memorably appear as Nurse Clarke in Carry On Doctor, but I won't go into that or I might get a clip round the ear. 1966 seems to have been a busy year for Anita too ...

How's Life in London?

"All the girls in Queens ask me ... seen in the Philippines they ask me .. and all my Spanish brethren ask me ..." And what they all want to ask the London Posse is How's Life In London? And Rodney P and Bionic would be only too keen to tell all and sundry. The London Posse realised early on in the hip hop stakes it wasn't worth taking on the American rappers at their own game so they twisted things, used their native tongue, the city slang, played up the colloquialisms, in the same way that London reggae MCs like Tippa Irie and Smiley Culture had done a few years previously.

Cry from the city

"I have reached the end of my tether. No one getting their act together. It's all trial and error. No one seems to want to cope, in the city of no hope ..." The words may sound desolate but the song itself is incredibly beautiful. This is the dub version of Cry From The City by Fish Out Of Water, with some neat scat vocals in the background by Robert Wyatt. This comes from a 1995 LP, Lucky Scars, which is wonderful. Fish Out Of Water is a group led by Genie Cosmas, with a great reggae, jazz, classical, Raincoatsy vibe. Genie has for the last 20 years been running Stream Records, a label promoting music by disabled musicians. There's some great material available at the label's website (http://www.streamrecords.co.uk/).