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London
October 2009ZANI - The One Nobody Sings
It was Iain Sinclair who inadvertently inspired The London Nobody Sings, a project that will provide a year’s worth of London related songs online. For as wonderful and as fascinating as his books are, there is oddly an absence of music in his writing, and for a city like London that’s an opportunity missed.Similarly Sinclair’s works have inspired a flurry of online activity with passionate psychogeographers posting photos and facts of forgotten London. But, again, what about the musical accompaniment? My personal London is a musical one. Certain places in London remind me of certain songs. Memories of specific occasions conjure up certain refrains. And so on. London life, after all, has inspired so many writers to compose songs about the city. So it seemed like a fun idea to collect some of the more overlooked examples of London songs, in the same way Sinclair has reclaimed lost London books and places. In other words, it was time to look beyond Waterloo Sunset, Itchycoo Park, The Clash, Ian Dury, Squeeze, Madness and Saint Etienne.
Having quickly collated a long list of London songs, it became apparent there were no conclusions to be drawn about a specific London voice or sound, except that its musical map and make-up is as wonderfully mixed-up and messed-up as the city itself. That’s actually got to be a good thing. You name it, and it’s represented in a London song. Every emotion and pretty much every location have been sung about. Either by a born and bred Londoner or an adopted son or daughter.
Certain things did emerge as the project developed. Certain sorts of music proved to be rich sources of London songs, for example. The music hall tradition, about which the great Colin MacInnes wrote so vividly in his Sweet Saturday Night, is a real treasure trove of London songs, with some wonderfully witty words. From Albert Chevalier’s Knocked ‘Em In The Old Kent Road to Gus Elen’s Postman’s Holiday to George Formby Snr’s Looking For Mugs In The Strand. And there are plenty more where they came from.
Interestingly some of the features of the music halls can be seen again in the early 1980s as a UK reggae MC/DJ chatting style developed, where humour, deft wordplay, and popular culture references would be used to make some serious points. The vibrant London reggae sound systems scene provided us with quite a number of works of pure genius, from the likes of Smiley Culture (Police Officer/Cockney Translation), Laurel & Hardy (You’re Nicked), Papa Benjie (Fare Dodger), Asher Senator (Abbreviation Qualification), on the Fashion label out of Lavender Hill. It was a wonderfully entertaining period in the city’s musical history, but one which is criminally overlooked.
The music hall tradition also has definite links stylistically to some of the great late ‘60s psychedelic pop (literally in the case of Ian Whitcomb’s Mod Mod Music Hall), and some of the less obviously cool outfits of the time have unexpectedly left us with some wonderfully rum London themed songs. Last Night in Soho by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich has already been featured, while the Tremeloes’ Negotiations in Soho Square is a treat in store.
Punk predictably provided us with some great London songs, with some of the more unexpected locations mentioned along the way. O Level’s East Sheen, Richmond by Pinpoint, and 999’s Another Tulse Hill Night spring to mind. Indeed many of the London songs featured are about a sense of place, but it is possible to trace aspects of London’s history through song. Civil unrest is well represented. From Fairport Convention’s Wat Tyler, to The Ghosts of Cable Street by The Men They Couldn’t Hang, Pioneers’ Riot In A Notting Hill, and a series of songs about the 1981 Brixton riots. Miscarriages of justice are well covered too, with Ewan MacColl telling the tale of Timothy Evans and 10 Rillington Place, and both Elvis Costello and The Bureau singing about the hanging of Derek Bentley at Wandsworth Prison. A more militant early ‘80s reggae MC Ranking Ann offers Kill The Police Bill, a 12” funded by Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council, while Menace’s GLC is a fierce punk era condemnation of an earlier Tory GLC administration.
If all of this has a touch of the Bob Dylans and Theme Time Radio Hour about it, then that’s a fair accusation. But it’s all taken one stage further, with the developing themes and each song linked to the last. Sometimes this flows naturally, like a day out sequence, featuring Louis Philippe’s Sunday Morning Camden Town, Mark Murphy’s Sunday Afternoon Dingwalls, on to watching the sun go down on Primrose Hill with Beverly Martin, and Sunday night Posing At The Roundhouse with the Television Personalities.
The whole project is subjective, of course, reflecting personal prejudices and the limits of musical knowledge. But the project has opened up new horizons, with some wonderful discoveries along the way. I wasn’t familiar with the late, great Frank Tovey’s work after Fad Gadget, but his solo work contains some fantastic London themed songs, like IKB (RIP) which details a chance encounter with the ghost of Isambard Kingdom Brunel under the Westway. Similarly I’d forgotten how wonderful the work of Rob Gallagher was in his Galliano and Earl Zinger guises, or how many London songs Malcolm Eden of ‘80s underground favourites McCarthy had actually written.
Hopefully The London Nobody Sings project will prove to be enlightening and a lot of fun. Initially it seemed a bit far fetched to keep it going for a whole year, but everyday long lost songs seem to appear, so we can be more discerning. And if anyone is concerned about the absence of Blur or Dizzee Rascal songs then there are other projects to be undertaken. There is, after all, a complementary site called The New York Nobody Sings. And other cities could follow this lead.
© Words - Kevin Pearce
The London Nobody Sings
