| Aztec Camera – Killermont Street Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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This one needs at least one comment ... a beautiful, beautiful song. Killermont Street is where you get the bus in Glasgow to get to East Kilbride, Roddy Frame's home town. The song runs themes of links to his family and to his, and Glasgow's past. take a trip to reprieve, every hour they leave ... the buses leave every hour and you only need to board to link to your past and your family. A lovely thought for people like me who grew past the feeling of needing to be away. "I made it south to see That the love I had spurned Was just the hate in me" ... he takes the trip home (south from Glasgow to East Kilbride) and gets back to his family, physically and emotionally. "As the ships and the steel Slip away to the cry of 'compete' ... the steel and shipbuilding industires that made Glasgow are pretty much done and gone. They slip away physically as he leaves Glasgow and they slip away into Glasgow's past ... |
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| The Pogues – Transmetropolitan Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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A manifesto for the London Irish of the 80's ... drinking and making mayhem all across the capital. This song folllowed hard on the heels of the more reflective, but similarly themed Dark Streets of London .. two takes on Irish London. A few non-politically correct references but funny all the same. In case anyone doesn't know .... ICA - as said above, the Institute of Contemporary Arts on the Mall. Brixton's lovely boulevards .... irony ... in the 80s Brixton (south London) was seen as a no-go area by many and most famous for the black riots. Hammersmith's sightly shores .... Hammersmith was a big Irish are in West London with pubs along the river. Again, nothing "sightly" to most people and no "shores" you'd recognize as such. Camden Palace poofs ... "poofs" is an English pejorative slang for gays that you would never hear now. The Camden Palace nightclub at the time was the mecca of the new romantics, Spandau, Culture Club, Steve Strange etc.... it's clear what Shane thought of them! Whitehall is the boulevard in Westminster where the main government offices are and the term "whitehall" covers government and civil service in general. Queers in the GLC ... as someone said, that was the Greater London Council which at the time had a pretty far left-wing administration which supported what at the time was a controversial (!) equal rights for gays agenda. Somers Town ... was a big Irish area just between Camden and Euston Road Pentonville Road on a sunset eve .. again sounds poetic but ironic ... a big drinking area for Irish in north London but not somewhere you'd even see the sunset. The beauty that's mill lane ... not conventional beauty! It's hard to imagine that Shane's Irish London is pretty much gone.... many went back or faded into the background. The genuine Irish pubs are almost gone and the themed "Irish" pubs are ... well you know what they are. |
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