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 ...

Oxford Street, W1

"'Cos there ain't no love in Oxford Street ..." sing the Television Personalities on Oxford Street, W1 on the flip of their debut 45, which of course contains one of the greatest guitar solos in the history of pop. The TVPs were right. Who would want to go to Oxford Street now? But ... "When I was 17, London meant Oxford Street ..." sings Tracey Thorn on Everything But The Girl's Oxford Street. And I know what she means. At that time (the start of the '80s) the street had three branches of Virgin, and there was no need to head out west to Rough Trade or up to Camden. You could get all the independent and odd pop releases you needed in the Megastore, downstairs at The Pantheon, or up at Marble Arch where memorably I saw John Lydon and Feargal Sharkey in the shop at the same time (not together) and to a 15 kid that was a dream come true. I can remember buying the Marine Girls' Beach Party LP on Oxford Street (Tracey Thorn's first group's release on the TVPs' Dan Treacy's Whaam! label) and I guess I would have been 17 then. I certainly bought her A Distant Shore cassette on Oxford Street the following summer. And probably Ben Watt's Summer Into Winter 12". Possibly the first Everything But The Girl single too ...

Negotiations in Soho Square

"As music drifted from the late night show. The boy and girl without a place to go. Sat together just to pass the time. They found a love as good as you will find anywhere ..." Soho Square may be closely associated with Kirsty MacColl, but The Tremeloes' Negotiations In Soho Square touched on the subject of benches and romance many years before. It's a fantastic song, and yet another great example of a '60s group tapping into what's hip and happening. It was a smart move to use the songwriting pair of Tony Colton and Ray Smith. They're one of those teams that the more you delve the more you realise their significance. They wrote some fantastic mod blasts, made some of their own using the Tony Colton name, penned some for others like I Stand Accused (which Elvis Costello covered), Zoot Money's Big Time Operator and Star Of The Show, The Shotgun Express' I Could Feel The Whole World Turn Round, Sharon Tandy's Border Town, Cream's The Coffee Song, and Georgie Fame's Red No. 9. At the end of the '60s they had their own group Poet and the One Man Band which also featured Albert Lee and a couple of Fotheringay guys. They made an incredibly beautiful but sadly lost LP. They'd later work again with Albert Lee (and indeed Chas Hodges) in the great country rock outfit Heads, Hands And Feet. Among their side-projects would be writing Belfast Boy for Don Farnon and working with Richard Harris on the soundtrack of A Man Called Horse. They also worked quite a bit with the great arranger Johnny Harris, notably on Shirley Bassey's Something LP where she was given a fantastic hip makeover. This was an assignment Johnny had won after the release of his wonderful LP Movements where he came up with some exceptionally cool orchestral workouts ...

Berwick Street

"Last two bananas 'ere for a pound ..." I suppose part of the magic of music is its ability to evoke a certain time and place. Berwick Street by Loaded Knife is a work of art that does exactly that. It is quite simply a tribute to the street, its market, and its record shops. Indeed it's created out of samples from records bought in Berwick Street mixed with cries from the traders. Listening to it suddenly you are back in the late '90s standing on the threshold of Sister Ray's, trying to remember the titles on your shopping list, was it a new Certificate 18 12" or an On-U Sound reissue or a Pole CD, before wandering up to Mr CD to sift through the temptingly cheap jewel cases or being reckless in Reckless or perusing the wares in Selectadisc. Loaded Knife's Berwick Street was on a 7" released a few years back on Spiky Records. Loaded Knife is DJ Wrongspeed and DJ JD, a pair of sound remodellers with a wonderful sense of mischief. Their work is very much worth investigating. The track Berwick Street is particular intriguing though in its use of street cries. After all the setting of street cries to music is a very old tradition, and while the great Luciano Berio updated the Cries of London in 1974 I can't think of too many occasions when London's sounds have been used as effectively. While touching on the subject mention must be made of the London Sound Survey which is a remarkable labour of love and a valuable archive of the Capital's very being.

Carnaby Street

"The street's that a part of the beat that's the heart of the scene. You know my Auntie Rene would find it quite obscene ..." Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave star as Brenda and Yvonne in the George Melly-scripted film Smashing Time where two girls from the North are drawn to the delights of swingin' London but quickly find it's a hollow sham. Rita and Lynn were so great at the 'ugly duckling' roles. And oddly I've always been more drawn to the awkward anti-swingin' London films like Smashing Time, The Knack and Georgy Girl (with the wonderful Jim Dale-composed theme song) rather than the likes of Blow Up or Performance. I don't think that bears too close an analysis. There is a kind of irony in George Melly sending up the swingin' '60s scene as his book Revolt Into Style on the Pop Arts in Britain helped fuel my own obsession with the mod thing. Ah gone are the days when you could pick up a copy of that, Generation X (the Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson one), Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen, and all the Nik Cohn books, for next to nothing in any charity shop.

In Der Carnaby Street

"I walk around in Piccadilly. Looking at the shops in Regent Street. There's lots of things to see in London. And when you're feeling low there's always Soho ... " sings the great Sandie Shaw on her lost 1968 b-side London where she rather wonderfully sounds as if some clothing is about to be removed. Oddly the song is easier to find now in the Spanish or German versions. I loved the way the proper pop singers would record their songs in other languages. Sandie in Italian works a treat for me. This recording of pop songs in other languages sometimes resulted in singers being more successful away from their native shores. Nancy Holloway and Peggy March are great examples. Peggy, for example, from the mid-'60s onwards was far more popular in Germany than back home in the US. And one of her German hits was In Der Carnaby Street which as well as demonstrating the international currency of pop culture features some rather splendid whistling too ...

Up At The House Of Cecil Sharpe

"And now I'm working in Soho. The glasses clink and the lights are low. Those dear old days are dead and gone. I dance with nothing but a python on ..." sings Carole Pegg during the version of Sydney Carter's Up At The House of Cecil Sharpe she recorded with her husband Bob in the early '70s as part of an LP And Now It Is So Early. This was a great collection of Sydney Carter songs, which featured the great man himself on a handful of tracks. Bob and Carole had a little earlier recorded Sydney's Lord Of The Dance on their He Came From The Mountains LP. That record features a fantastic and haunting cover of Phil Ochs' The Scorpion Departs. The Peggs are perhaps best known for their works as Mr Fox which are right up there with the best of the British folk rock recordings. I would argue that Carole's voice was the best of that whole electric folk era. And her solo LP Carolanne is very much worth seeking out. This song of Sydney Carter's though is a witty piece about someone who was very much part of the folk scene up at Cecil Sharpe House, the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), but times change, people fall out of favour, and needs must so they're now earning their money by doing a bit of exotic dancing in Soho. You can see what we meant about that mischievous twinkle in Sydney's eye. The LP itself can be bought direct from Carole, who is now a highly respected ethnomusicologist, at her website.

Fanlight Fanny

"Up the West End, that's the best end, where the night clubs thrive. Down into a dive you go. Now there's a jazz queen, she's a has-been, has been Lord knows what. Every night she's there on show. She dances underneath a magic spell. She's full of charm and beer and stout as well ... " sings the inimitable George Formby at the start of his little number about Fanlight Fanny the frowsy night club queen. Ah the allure of the underworld. Not all it's cracked up to be sometimes is it? This song was performed by George in the 1939 Ealing Comedy Trouble Brewing which also starred a lovely young Googie Withers. The late great Clinton Ford resurrected the song at the start of the '60s and had a hit with it as Fan Dance Fanny. It's got some great lines in it this song it really has ...

Rockin' At The Two I's

"Now I rushed out the gate, went walking down the road, I got up to the bus stop, put on my overcoat. Along came a bus, a number 54. When I got inside they were rockin' on the floor ..." sings Wee Willie Harris in his tribute to the birthplace of British rock 'n' roll, Rockin' At The Two I's. This infamous coffee bar in Old Compton Street was sanctuary for anyone who was anyone in the early history of UK skiffle and rock 'n' roll. If you look at old pictures of the time you can practically smell the coffee and hair oil, and sense the svengalis, songwriters and would-be stars hanging out there dreaming their dreams. Bermondsey boy Wee Willie Harris is perhaps best known now as one of Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Cheerful, but he was one of the graduates of the Two I's academy. His debut single was his tribute to the coffee bar, and I particularly like it for the reference to coming home to have his tea because that's what people did. Another south east London graduate of the scene was Terry Dene, and his debut single White Sport Coat is a particular favourite of my mum. The flipside, Man In The Phone Booth, is a bit of a London song with its reference to the telephone number Stepney 51586. With a hint of mystery and vulnerability you can see why our mums went for Terry ...

Old Compton Street Blues

"Mmm, you made it to the silver screen and yet you're not a star. And advertising corsets didn't get you too far. But money has its favourites and yours went back to them. So you modelled in a studio in Greek Street for the rent. There you met Antonio, your lover from afar. Who put you on the streets to make the money for his car. And the circle turns and turns and turns so fast, little girl ..." Al Stewart's Old Compton Street Blues tells rather a sad tale about shall we say Soho's entertainment industry. And it's all the more effective because it's sung in such a detached, impersonal way. It appears on Al's second LP, Love Chronicles, from 1969, which is perhaps his finest work. It features some nice musical settings, which are helped by the presence of a Fairport Convention/Jimmy Page types. But it's the story telling that works so well on this particular track. It's a film in itself ...