During my recent, first trip to England (for work), which culminated in a free day and a half to myself running through the streets of London, I was immediately struck by how many locations I’d only dreamed of in song surrounded me. Most likely just as many New York locations pop up in popular song, but I didn’t grow up with much mystery over our largest city, situation just 90 miles up the turnpike from my hometown, A good part of my mad dash through London was structured around hitting spots I only knew through music, yet everywhere I turned 3 other locations cited in songs appeared. Beyond the above-ground locations, which I won’t mention for fear of giving away answers in this finite Last Man Standing, song references even flew by me as I rode the London Underground. The following link will bring you to a map of the London Underground system. For this week’s Last Man Standing, how many tube stations can we find cited in song?
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/standard-tube-map.pdf
Go!
I suggest tube lines should be eligible as well, not just stations. And maybe even just “Underground” and “tube” if the context is clear that it’s the London Underground in question.
Also want to be clear the reference can be in a lyric, and not just in titles?
“Sitting in the carriage of a Bakerloo [train]….”
Protex Blue – The Clash
“When I arrived in Euston, I was little more than a child……”
“Life On The Road”-The Kinks (I thought it was “Houston” when I first heard the song)
“Sunny Goodge Street”-Donovan
“Plaistow Patricia” – Ian Dury
Yes, the reference can be in the lyrics but not the title. I will allow references to specific lines, but not anything as vague as simply the word “tube.” We’re trying to fill in specific blanks here.
I don’t know if the London Underground connects to obvious train lines beyond the city, but I don’t want us straying beyond the stops on the Underground map. The train line I took from some town near Oxford into London, for instance, does not count.
I hope these answers help! Thanks for thinking about the rules.
You know what I love about this first entry? Every time I passed that stop I knew it was from some song, but I couldn’t identify the song that turned me onto it. All I could think of was the pudgy, pimply Clash roadie from the movie Rude Boy, Baker. I knew the stop was known to me from some Clash song.
Good ones, but DON’T BOGART THIS THREAD! Remember, as with all Last Man Standings, keep yourself to one entry per comment. Feel free to add multiple individual entries, however.
I’m claiming Knightsbridge from the Beatles’ take on the folk song “Maggie Mae.” I had that tune rattling through my brain almost non-stop during my mad dash through the streets of London a few Saturdays ago.
Good thing you are imposing some limits, I started thinking of London bus routes and before you know it we’re on to motorways and cross-channel ferries….
“Waterloo Sunset” – Kinks
Yes, I got to come out of that station en route to the South Bank area, if memory serves, and took a picture of it!
Because we disembarked at St. John’s Wood to get to Abbey Road studios I found myself in the conundrum of visiting a Beatle landmark while having the Stones’ “Play With Fire” stuck in my head.
“Your mother, she’s an heiress, owns a block in St. John’s Wood.”
Works also for Knightsbridge if anyone wants to double-down.
aloha
LD
White City – The Pogues
Willesden Green by the Kinks
Guns of Brixton – Clash
Ian Dury’s pre-Blockheads band Kilburn and The High-Roads had a song called Upminster Kid, and he named his 1981 ‘solo’ album Lord Upminster.
The Squeeze song Up the Junction:
I never thought it would happen
With me and the girl from Clapham.
Van Morrison’s Slim Slow Slider
Saw you walking
Down by Ladbroke Grove this morning.
The Kinks (again) – Denmark Street
“Down the way from the Tottenham Court Road”
Pete Townshend’s solo album White City has a song called White City Fighting.
There’s a Motorhead album called No Sleep Till Hammersmith, but I’m not sure the word Hammersmith actually appears in any Motorhead lyrics.
Both “London” by the Smiths and “I’m a loser” by UFO reference Euston station.
Sweet double-down move! I began my Saturday tour by walking from my hotel in Soho to Abbey Road.
I stumbled on Denmark Street while getting pleasantly lost. It was cool, like Philadelphia’s Jewelers’ Row but with musical instrument stores rather than jewelry shops.
That’s cool, the title counts. The Clash never sings that titular word in their song, either, right?
The Kinks (again, again) – Willesden Green
“Well I tried to settle down Fulham Broadway
And I tried to make my home in Golders Green
But I gotta get that train
And go back home again
Oh how I miss the folks back home in Willesden Green
Apologies to al for the repeat.
Morrissey – Hairdresser on Fire
“Oh, oh, hairdresser on fire
All around Sloane Square”
Donovan (again) with more sunshine – Sunny South Kensington
“One evening as I was lying down in Leicester Square/
I was picked up by the coppers and kicked in the balls”
Old Main Drag – Pogues
Squeeze, again, with “Piccadilly.”
Looking at the map, you could divide the Tube by the Kinks section, the Who section & the Ian Drury section.
Another Kinks song: “”Holloway Jail”
It’s “Lime Street” not Knightsbridge. She’s a Liverpool lass, our Maggie.
Robyn Hitchcock’s “Trams of Old London” from I Often Dream of Trains is practically a one-stop shopping place for this. For example:
Ludgate, Fenchurch, Highgate Hill
Rolling slowly up there still
Waterloo and Clerkenwell
Out to Aldgate East as well
What a fabulous song, too. Dear Lord, I love that record. How sad that they never got within shouting distance of being that good again.
Is there a more obvious one than Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street?
Duh! I always forget that guy was English or Scottish or whatever. Has an Englishman ever been responsible for 2 hit songs (he was part of Steelers Wheel, right?) that sounded so NOT English?
Excellent!
This song goes a long way to filling in the map!
Agreed! Argy Bargy is their best-known album, but East Side Story is by far THE BEST, if you ask me.
I was saving that one.
Yes, I like Argy Bargy a lot but East Side Story is a cut above. And I still remember how crushed I was when the mediocre Sweets from a Stranger came out.
Speaking of Gerry Rafferty, last night I stumbled upon that tv show “The Voice” and decided to watch a few minutes out of curiosity. A contestant was in the process of choosing and then rehearsing to do a version of “Stuck in the Middle”, with Gwen Stefani coaching him. Afterward the judges were all expressing how amazing and special his arrangement and performance were. The reality was unremarkable in every respect. What a joke! (As if I expected anything different.)
Duffy – Warwick Avenue
Didn’t realize the song references a station and not a street.
Man, I suck at understanding lyrics! I stand corrected. That’s a 2-minute minor, or whatever they call it in hockey, for me.
Kew Gardens by Mary Hopkins
Here’s Microdisney with their song, “Singer’s Hampstead Home.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-385oPqUis
English Envy by Nixon’s Head (and penned by our own Chickenfrank
“Everyone I know calls me Leicester Square.”
Yes it does. Some of the larger tube stops all serve British Rail.
Little piece of Ladymisskirroyale trivia: growing up, when something was really really busy (i.e. “like Grand Central Station”), my mom would say, “This is just like Clapham Junction.”
Saint Etienne, from “London Belongs to Me”: “Took the tube to Camden Town…”
BTW, Saint Etienne lyrics are a wealth of tube stops. Just saying…
New Amsterdam by Elvis Costello mentions Rotherhithe.
Saint Etienne, “Girl VII” mentions several locations, including Chalk Hill.
And as an added, reverse treat, here is the cover of Saint Etienne’s last album, “Words and Music” which is a theme album about the importance of music during those growing up years (and beyond). You’ll notice it’s almost the opposite of what we’re doing now: a picture of a London map, but with all the streets named after locations mentioned in other people’s songs:
http://pitchfork.com/news/45496-saint-etienne-announce-new-album/
PPS – This is the band who gives you Bob Stanley, he who recently wrote “Yeah Yeah Yeah,” that history of popular music.
Roddy Frame – Marble Arch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arWwLrpDEq8
Try to not nod off – it is a pretty tune.
“Richmond,” by Faces.
LAST MAN STANDING!
eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh, East Acton, North Acton, West Acton, South Acton, Acton Town, Acton Central…all these options and Townshend leaves it at “Stardom in Acton”? NO foresight at all that someday one may need a LMS entry?
“Be specific, the man wants specifics!” – KMoon, “TKAA”
aloha
LD
Oh! Notting Hill Blues by Aztec Camera!
Zing!