An NPR interview with Ian McLagan confirms Ronnie Lane was the one who had the inspiration for the song, co-written with help from Steve Marriott. "Dreaming spires" was a line borrowed from an Oxford brochure. Though bandmates have offered various locations as the actual park, Ronnie said it was in Ilford, and Steve specified that it was Ilford's Valentines Park.
What is great about this song, though, is of course less a tribute to the place and more a tribute to the time. It's impossible to listen to this song without somehow being transported to the '60s. Even if you were not around during the era of the counter-cultural revolution in consciousness and empowerment of youth wanting to change the world, you experience it when hearing Itchycoo Park.
@KangNKodos in Ronnie’s biography, Can You Show Me. Dream he says he wrote it and Steve came up with the middle eight.
@KangNKodos in Ronnie’s biography, Can You Show Me. Dream he says he wrote it and Steve came up with the middle eight.
He was in a hotel room and there was a magazine there about Cambridge with its bridge of Sighs and Dreaming Spires. Steve said it was about everyone’s local park. Steve’s was in Manor Park. He thought Ronnie’s was Spitalfields churchyard. Ronnie said he’d based it on the hum, God Be On My Head but when you youtube that there doesn’t seem to be any similarity. Anyway, it was defo about an acid trip.
An NPR interview with Ian McLagan confirms Ronnie Lane was the one who had the inspiration for the song, co-written with help from Steve Marriott. "Dreaming spires" was a line borrowed from an Oxford brochure. Though bandmates have offered various locations as the actual park, Ronnie said it was in Ilford, and Steve specified that it was Ilford's Valentines Park.
What is great about this song, though, is of course less a tribute to the place and more a tribute to the time. It's impossible to listen to this song without somehow being transported to the '60s. Even if you were not around during the era of the counter-cultural revolution in consciousness and empowerment of youth wanting to change the world, you experience it when hearing Itchycoo Park.
@KangNKodos in Ronnie’s biography, Can You Show Me. Dream he says he wrote it and Steve came up with the middle eight.
@KangNKodos in Ronnie’s biography, Can You Show Me. Dream he says he wrote it and Steve came up with the middle eight.
He was in a hotel room and there was a magazine there about Cambridge with its bridge of Sighs and Dreaming Spires. Steve said it was about everyone’s local park. Steve’s was in Manor Park. He thought Ronnie’s was Spitalfields churchyard. Ronnie said he’d based it on the hum, God Be On My Head but when you youtube that there doesn’t seem to be any similarity. Anyway, it was defo about an acid trip.