Notting Hill Eviction Blues

"I'm off to work in the morning. Back home late at night. The landlord gets his money. But the children hardly a bite ..." It's not just Van that's had a hard time of it down and out in W10. Roddy Frame sang about having the Notting Hill Blues, and 20 odd years earlier Ram John Holder had the Notting Hill Eviction Blues, echoing the era of Rachmanism., and the exploitation of West Indian immigrants in the Notting Hill area by unscrupulous landlords. Around the same time Ram John put in an appearance in John Boorman's Leo The Last, which told the story of a European aristocratic ornithologist who inherits a mansion in a deprived part of Notting Hill and watches his neighbours through a telescope. The great Marcello Mastroianni took the lead role in this experimental work which criminally doesn't seem to be generally available. A while later Ram John appeared in Horace Ove's Pressure, a pioneering work of Black British cinema, again set in the Notting Hill area. This is available on DVD, and a taster appears on YouTube ...

Friday's Child

"You're up in Park Lane now. And I'm somewhere around in Tottenham Court Road ..." It's fascinating what songs people came up with immediately when this project kicked off. Brian (Back To Zero) Kotz straight away suggested Them's You Just Can't Win, one of a few of Van's songs from that time that refer to London. Bring 'Em On In has Van walkin' down by Queensway, so that could be one. More certainly, Friday's Child has Van singing about watching the sun come up 'round Notting Hill Gate. This is perhaps my favourite Them track, and makes me think fondly of a cherished series of Rock Roots LPs Decca put out in the '70s featuring Them, Small Faces, Zombies. Changed my life those LPs. On into his solo career, and in the fantastic He Ain't Give You None Van's warning people not to go down on Curzon Street, and confessing how he got messed up somewhere called Notting Hill Gate ... "I lived up there for a while. But I moved out. And when I moved out I was in such a state. Ain't never goin' back there ...". Then on Astral Weeks' Slim Slow Slider he's seen her walking down by the Ladbroke Grove. I love it when places in London are awarded the definite article. Like Van's the man ... down by The Thames.

London By Night

"Down by the Thames, lights that sparkle like gems seem to wink at each girl and her beau ..." Another suggestion with a Thames reference was Frank Sinatra singing London By Night. Somewhat appropriately it came from Rob Simmons of The Fallen Leaves and once of Subway Sect. I say appropriately as it was the Sect's frequent mentions of Frank that sent me rummaging through my mum's records, thus beginning a long love affair with the artistry of Sinatra. London By Night came from Frank's 1958 set, Come Fly With Me, his first work with Billy May, and much to our approval it's a themed LP. The song itself, London By Night, was written by Carroll Coates, about whom I know shamefully little. Frank recorded the song again on his 1962 LP, Sinatra sings Great Songs From Great Britain, which may be the only record he made outside the US. Among Carroll Coates' other credits is Sunday In New York, one for our American comrades to feature. Frank of course was passionate about his USA which is just one reason he applauds so madly at the end of this astonishing Patti Labelle rendition of The House I Live In. Frank himself made a public service film of the same name, and in case anyone still wonders why he is considered to be so cool ...

Earlies

"Weekends we'd just wash away the dirt of busy, hazy London. The night grew cold, the Thames is old ..." Peter Ackroyd's fine book on the Thames: Sacred River is the sort of work you want to keep returning to. And yet, perhaps understandably, among all the literary references etc it's missing out on the songs. There have naturally been many songs that refer to the Thames in passing. One of the most beautiful examples would be Earlies by the Trash Can Sinatras, which Alistair Fitchett has suggested we feature. It is a song I'm ashamed to say I wasn't familiar with, but I have fallen in love with it. It makes me think of days long gone when I would be on earlies too, and you'd be heading out while the world seemed to be still sleeping, and one day as I set out before sun up I saw these two fox cubs playing in the snow while their mum looked on protectively. You wouldn't have seen that round our way in the daylight ...

Boy meets girl so what

"The day you left me my world fell apart. The sun ceased to shine. That day you broke my heart. And London fell down into the Thames ..." Now Mr Eden those words I believe are taken from your song Boy Meets Girl So What, a what you might call ironic pop tone, I'm sorry I mean tune, from your days in McCarthy. We are here to discuss this obsession you have with the waters of the Thames. We have already made reference to The Drinking Song of the Merchant Bankers where you suggest: "I'm not about to throw myself in the Thames". And now one of our witnesses, a Mr Dan Dan The Pantry Man, draws our attention to the words you use about a poor couple in Unfortunately: "Oh let us both go to a better town where money's not scarce. 'Cause otherwise we'll go to the Thames or The Serpentine ..." Unfortunate is hardly the word Mr Eden. You seem to paint us a picture of the couple on the verge of throwing themselves in the water. And this seems a particularly unhealthy obsession in your work. What do you have to say for yourself? I am, I assure you, prepared to keep an open mind ...

Grief came riding

"I started thinkin' about London and how nothing good ever came from this town, and if the Thames weren’t so filthy I would jump in the river and drown ..." sings Nick Cave in Grief Came Riding. Discuss! Actually this is a quite beautiful song, with Nick at his melancholy best. It also has some nice references to Battersea Bridge, and you are warmly encouraged to listen to this number in conjunction with Nick's homage to the Brompton Oratory. And being something of a ladies' man Nick's grief would have no doubt have been eased by the sight of Lulu delightfully dancing by on the Embankment ...

Someone's pinched me winkles

"The Cockney tribes in Britain were meeting for the games held annually, once a year, along the River Thames ..." I have this recurring nightmare where on accepting a prestigious literary or cultural studies prize up pops a family member to point out that even at the age of five he was a smart boy and could perform a word perfect rendition of Two Little Boys. So it's a bit of a relief to reveal without fear of humiliation Rolf Harris in something of a more scholarly mode, performing a traditional folk ballad highlighting quaint Cockney customs ...

Dirty Water

"Yeah, down by the river. Down by the banks of the river Thames. That's where you'll find me ..." As their name implies The Inmates weren't adverse to a little appropriation, and they made The Standells' Dirty Water their own, adapting it to reflect London rather than the Boston Ed Cobb wrote about. Certainly when this version hit the charts many of us were hearing the song for the first time and weren't familiar with The Standells'. I have to confess I actually prefer The Inmates' interpretation. Sentimentality? Well, Wild Bill Hurley and his outfit benefited from the new mod generation's interest in '60s source sounds, and were perhaps the last of the future primitives in the tradition of Dr Feelgood, Hot Rods, Count Bishops etc ...

Thames at high water

"Everything you say you say to threaten. Anything you hold you hold like a weapon ..." sings Cath Carroll in Miaow's Thames At High Water, a fantastic dancefloor filler originally recorded for a Peel session and salvaged by LTM on an essential compilation. LTM also reissued Cath's wonderful England Made Me set. Factory has had some stick for its A&R policy, but I admire Wilson's loyalty to Manchester scenesters. Cath nevertheless cites several Miaow numbers as being very much London songs, and Thames At High Water is one she pinpoints as being Rotherhithe or Bermondsey related, dating from a time she was squatting in the area.

Thames Crokadiles

"Thames Crokadiles will be fed well tonight ..." sings Earl Zinger ominously in his mean, moody and magnificent number about strange goings on in the night and Thames Crokadiles. Not for the first or for the last time does our hero Rob Gallagher set himself up in opposition to the madness of the modern world. Putting on his Luddite hat and coming on like a contemporary resurrection man he suggests switching off the TV, karaoke, laptop and so on, and refers to the ritual hanging of palm pilots. The track's taken from Zinger's Speaker Stack Commandments, which is an essential work of art. And as for crocs in the Thames? Don't bet against it.