主播大秀

From E10 to W10, London’s unique cultural melting pot has produced some of the greatest music of the modern era. Here are 11 of the capital’s best songs containing lyrics inspired by the fierce energy of the city, its swathes of beauty interspersed with its often mean streets…

1. The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset (1967)

Perhaps the greatest song ever written about London. Ray Davies’ observation of a couple meeting at a grey and busy Waterloo station at sunset, next to the “dirty old river”, is infused with a melancholic beauty, way beyond the charms of the actual location itself. Combined with the sense of nostalgia generated by the song’s melody it’s not difficult to believe his assertion that “As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset / I am in paradise”.

2. The Clash – London Calling (1979)

Referencing the 主播大秀’s World Service callout in the title, Strummer and Jones’ anthemic call to arms was written after the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown in 1979, and is a fearful vision of nuclear apocalypse, flooding (“London is drowning / I live by the river”, later addressed by the construction of the Thames barrier), and state repression. Yet for all its doom and gloom, the song has slowly grown into one of London’s most symbolic and proudly referential songs.

Blur's Damon Albarn and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, 1995

3. Blur – For Tomorrow (1993)

Blur wrote this seemingly wistful ode to the city during the early 90s when they were just beginning to dominate the U.K.’s music scene alongside Britpop’s other major contenders, Oasis. Unlike their brash counterparts in the north though, Blur’s barbed lyrical sarcasm hides a darker existentialist take on things with lines like “modern life is rubbish” amongst its varied London references which also include this: “Take a drive to Primrose Hill / It’s windy there, and the view’s so nice”.

4. John and Beverley Martin – Primrose Hill (1970)

There have been many songs written about this panoramic view of the city, but husband and wife duo John and Beverley Martin’s romantic and wistful 70s folk rock masterpiece manages to fuse the idea of domestic bliss with the view from the hill at sunset, adding poignancy to the splendour of the experience itself.

5. The Jam – Strange Town (1979)

Paul Weller rarely had anything nice to say about London, and Strange Town’s tale of moving to the big city with its alienating nonchalance (“I’ve got blisters on my feet / Trying to find a friend in Oxford Street”) is no exception. This song sums up the confusion and bustle of the big city that can seem to care little for the individual.

6. Gerry Rafferty – Baker Street (1978)

The song everyone knows for its rousing saxophone-led chorus also deals with alienation. Written by Rafferty whilst submerged in contractual issues, it reflects his state of mind at a time when his uncertain future was in the hands of London’s stony legal elite and he was required to stay in the Baker Street area, away from his native Scotland: “This city desert makes you feel so cold / It’s got so many people, but it’s got no soul”.

7. Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls (1984)

“In a West End town a dead end world...” The Pet Shop Boys summed up the “big city bright lights” glamour of London’s West End and showed it for what it really was: a place of unfulfilled dreams, lost people, and seedy exchanges.

Lily Allen performing at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Glasgow, 2014

8. Lily Allen – LDN (2006)

This exuberant slice of modern day pop describes a summer’s day in the city, coolly referencing old ladies struggling along with Tesco bags alongside “pimps”, “crack whores” and people eating “al fresco” in the park. Despite riding her bike in the sunshine it’s still the dark underbelly that wins through at the song’s conclusion: “When you look with your eyes / Everything seems nice / But if you look twice / You can see it’s all lies”.

9. Pulp – Mile End (1995)

And most definitely NOT nice is the desolation of 90s East End London described in Pulp’s story of high-rise squatting in Mile End, where a fractured urban landscape is mirrored by the deprivation of the people themselves. “The Pearly King of The Isle of Dogs / Feels up children in the bogs / And down by the playing fields / Someone sets a car on fire”.

10. Jammz (feat. Scott Garcia) – It’s A London Thing (2016)

One of Grime’s most recent classics, a snarling tale of life in London for a huge proportion of the capital’s troubled youth. Referencing gentrification, it highlights the changing face of the city as the socially mobile mix with the poor in areas still awash with gang crime and poverty. “Corporations move poor people out their homes / And they claim that their fixing the ends / And apart from pushing up all the rent prices / These Starbucks ain’t doing s**t for the ends”.

11. Adele – 主播大秀town Glory (2008)

Poor old London, is it really that bad? Well no, as Adele so simply put it in her 2008 Blues and Soul interview: “Here in London – even if I’m having a s**t day – there’s still something I love about the place”. This is her song about the London she loves, the people that live and thrive there. It is their spirit and diversity which is at the heart of all these and other great songs about this fascinating city.