3 January 2008
Streets of London
Music and Lyrics by Ralph McTell
Have you seen the old man
In the closed-down market
Kicking up the paper,
with his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news
So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind
Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?
She's no time for talking,
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home in two carrier bags.
In the all night cafe
At a quarter past eleven,
Same old man is sitting there on his own
Looking at the world
Over the rim of his tea-cup,
Each tea last an hour
Then he wanders home alone
And have you seen the old man
Outside the seaman's mission
Memory fading with
The medal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city,
The rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn't care
Listen to Sinead O'Connor's cover version on YouTube.
I had a bit of a strange early childhood, musically.
I don't remember listening to a lot of pop music, and I certainly didn't have many tapes or records. Most of the music in the house was classical, or my dad's big band stuff.
One of my earliest memories of playing music was a tape by Mary O'Hara, an Irish harpist and singer. I think it was the album "Tranquility", but it's difficult to tell because it's out of print now, and there's not much about it on the interwebs.
It was on that album that I first heard the song "Streets of London", and I'm fairly certain that's where the seeds of my fascination with London as a city started.
I think I played that tape to death, and I would sing along, my head filling with ideas of London as the Mean City, where the pavements were paved with gold, but the gutters were filled with the ashes of those who tried and failed.
The older I grew, the more convinced I was that London was this big scary place, but then I'd read about hidden places, disused tube stations. I saw, and read, Neverwhere, and my fascination only grew, and like a moth to a flame, I found myself actually here, walking those same streets of London.
It's a heartbreaking song, and I've seen them all - and more - in my time here, but for all it's a hard and cruel place, it's also, at least, in my experience, a vibrant and exciting place to be.
One day I'll have had my fill of it I'm sure, but not now, not yet.
I remember someone playing it to us on a guitar at primary school. Back in the Kumbyah era, the early Seventies.
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