10/07/2010

London Belongs to Me



Myth making has always been part of songs about places, particularly about America. For both British and American artists, America was often a place to fantasise about, infinitely more exciting than England. The British singer. Ian Hunter,for example,  in Mott the Hoople and beyond, wrote a whole series of songs that reflected a fascination with the country through lyrics that mythologized the place, from Memphis to Central Park. More recently, Pete Doherty has done the same for England, with his lyrical themes round Albion.

London, too, has had its share of myths and the construction of an alternative reality. Over the past 20 years, the group St Etienne have referenced more London names in their songs than most artists, though like many chroniclers they are not natives of the place they describe so well, coming to the capital from Surrey and Windsor. There are several pieces by them that could have been included in a column on songs and places - Mario’s Cafe, their early nineties tribute to a cafe in Kentish Town, frequented by students from North London Poly; almost any track from the Tales from Turnpike House album, about life in and around a block of flats in Islington; Madeleine, which makes even the Holloway Road sound a dreamy, sun-lit place to walk down. And that is quite an achievement.

London Belongs to Me, off their 1991 album Foxbase Alpha, is perhaps not one of their finest songs but it epitomises the St Etienne view on London. An ethereal Sarah Cracknell drifts like a summer breeze over a musical wash of electric piano chords, simulated bells, the sound of heat and crickets. It is a timeless sound, the only thing tying it down being the line ‘To the sound of the World of Twist, You leant over and gave me a kiss’, (the World of Twist were a short-lived Manchester group of the early nineties).

The title has perhaps a double meaning. It is taken from a 1945 novel by Norman Collins,( later made into a film starring Richard Attenborough and Alistair Sims) about a group of tenants in Kennington in the run-up to WW2 and is a kind of love letter to London and the variety of characters in it. However, it also suggests that people endlessly create their own London -and no more so than St Etienne. The London of their songs is in a kind of parallel universe. Superficially everything seems the same but look a little closer and there are subtle differences. The reference points that everyone knows are there: Kentish Town, Camden Town, Parkway, Leicester Square .However, you move through a London that is sunnier, more cultural, sophisticated, more European, a cool and easy-going metropolis that is very definitely London but has echoes of Paris and Rome. There is a vibrant cafe culture, where chic girls drink coffee in bohemian caffs and young lovers stroll in the sun as though in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont rather than Regents Park. It is a seamless synergy of the modern and the past, especially sixties pop culture.

Yet the reference points of this are far from the Britpop and ‘Cool Britannia’ of the mid and later nineties, with the Union Jack motifs, the rush to lay claim to be the new Beatles/Kinks/Small Faces and the New Labour pastiches of Swinging London and ‘I’m Backing Britain’ of the Wilson government of the sixties. The St Etienne London here is that of Blow-Up and The Knack, of Georgina Jones of the Adam Adamant series. When, at the end of the film Billy Liar, Julie Christie sets off on the train to London, leaving Tom Courtney (Billy Liar) on the platform, this is the kind of London she would have arrived at.

The overall sound of St Etienne is always more than the sum of the parts. It has sometimes been likened to the music of a hair shampoo advert, of an open-top sports car driving past a corn field. That is true-it is supposed to. However, look below the superficiality and there is usually a crafted pop song with a layer of interpretation. Take the song Side Streets, from Tales from Turnpike House.


The lyrics of ‘no-go zone’ and ‘features I quite like and don’t mind keeping’ and the accompanying video showing Pete Wiggs striding purposefully through a landscape of tower blocks, graffiti, underpasses, pit-bull terriers, muggers, hoodies and possible rapists say one thing. The music, with its gentle bossa-nova rhythms and Sarah Cracknell’s soothing voice, says another. It is about reclaiming the streets, creating the world that could be.

It is relaxing visiting the London of St Etienne: there is a pastoral feel to the urban landscape, If you can’t find any rose-tinted glasses, put on some headphones and ‘just close your eyes and breathe out slowly, tonight the world loves you only'.

Link to song

27 comments:

  1. Hey Geoff - great column and I'm desperate to hear the song, the link doesn't work though......

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  4. The new link should work-the previous website obviously had problems

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  5. Great - thank you Geoff! This one works great.

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  6. Geoff, great column. Did you see the film that Saint Etienne made to accompany the album Finisterre? It came out in 2003. It was sort of instead of music videos for the singles on the alubum. They were inspired by the 1994 film London, directed by Patrick Keiller. The film was shown behind them on stage when they played live. It was footage documenting 24 hours in the life of London. I will send along a link if I can find a clip online.

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  7. Hi, we are the Crabapples, in San Francisco. We have our own song called London Belongs to Me Pt 2. Enjoy!: http://www.slumberlandrecords.com/sounds/crabapples-london_belongs.mp3

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  8. Geoff, I think there is a connection between some of your columns: I feel like Saint Etienne revived the sounds of swinging London a little, as described in your column about "Finchley Central." You know, the catchy ephemeral sound, revisiting classic British pop of the 60s.

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  9. Geoff, as usual you rescue a band for me! I thought of this band's music as simply the unabashedly melodic brand of Brit-pop (Cool Britannia and Doc Martens, plus of course Blair chatting with musicians at cocktail parties in Number 10). Very interesting to see the double meanings and subtlety now you point it out.

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  10. Geoff, I totally agree with your assessment. Something about the airy atmospherics and kitschy pot-pourri, mix-n-match sound sums up a version (alternate, ideal) of London.

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  11. This is such a great description of the song's London- the pastoral, the dreamy, summer breezes and sunlight, a little rose-tinted. It made me wonder if we can say that the music's visual art equivalent would be watercolor paintings of London - perhaps this kind of thing is St Etienne on canvas?:

    http://www.wroberts.com.au/watercolor_images3/trafalgar_square_watercolour_800px.jpg

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  12. I'd never thought of that before, Maggie, but of course, they are the aural equivalent of a watercolour painting-brilliant! This is the cover of the original book they took the title of the song from:
    http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2044/2890930017_36aa9e3bc1.jpg

    I think it was too subtle for the Cool Britannia era,Laura-Geri Halliwell in a Union Jack dress and Blair ostentatiously carrying a guitar into Downing Street. It did touch on 'Swinging London', as Chris says, but more as using images and atmosphere to create something new. I'm glad they have been rescued for you!

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  13. No, I havent seen the Finisterre film, Camille-I'd like a link if you find one

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  14. Yes, I agree with you Geoff - this song, along with "Nothing Can Stop Us" and "Girl VII" are really celebrations of bohemian London life. They predate Britpop, too. Britpop owes a lot to them, but they don't owe anything to Britpop. And their cut-n-paste approach is too contemporary to be simply pastiche.

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  15. Isn't "London Belongs To Me" a take on Merrilee Rush's 1968 AM radio hit "Angel of the Morning"? If so, it supports Geoff's point that it is a song about an alternative reality - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbUNVm1k3nU& - because that song has its own rose-tinted spectacles ("Maybe the sun's light will be dim /
    and it won't matter anyhow").......

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  16. Great choice for your column Geoff. I think the best thing about the Et is how totally British they are. If I get to move to London I must take a day just wondering about with them on shuffle in my ears.

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  17. Oh god how I hate Saint Etienne. For these reasons:

    1. Sarah Cracknell's stylings are so blankly sweet and opaque.
    2. They’re too self-aware (all three members are pop-music encyclopedias, and like to flaunt it)
    3. They are far too 'British' (i.e. cheeky or quirky)
    4. Almost all of their early albums or compilations have titles taken from Beach Boys records!
    5. Their recordings are littered with generic house music clichés, such as standard TR-909 drum patterns and Italo house piano riffs

    Oddly I hadn't heard "London Belongs to Me Before" and I'm still chewing on Geoff's interpretation. Maybe like Laura this will redeem them for me. But that's a tall(ish) order.

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  18. Thanks for writing about this band Geoff. Their view of the 60s and 70s is the same as mine, even if wistful. Saint Etienne, cruelly under-rated but masters of intelligent pop.

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  19. Yes I think you would like the film too. And you would like the whole album Finisterre too Geoff - a real love/hate letter to London, with its iconic image of the collapsed Ronan Point on the cover, recorded at a time of mass demonstrations against the government and just after Ken Livingstone had been elected Mayor. Alternately harsh and gentle, electronic and thrumming, it includes the nu-disco call-to-arms single "Action". Unreleased tracks on the second disc of the deluxe edition include a tribute to the mysterious Aqualad who resides under the Thames, waiting for his moment to take the city back from the financiers and to open up the Post Office Tower’s revolving restaurant once again.

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  20. That's so perfect - the novel cover as a watercolor; brilliant - thanks Geoff!

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  21. Sure! Here is a trailer for the film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVimAE_IOMw

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  22. I've missed the Beach Boys links, Kyle-I cant think of any of their songs used as titles offhand.

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  23. Maybe I'm wrong then, but I'm pretty the Interlude album had "Stevie" from the Beach Boys tribute album "Caroline Now", then the Beach Boys-esque harmonies pop up on a number of tracks, including “Sun In My Morning” off Tales From Turnpike House. Also their song "Avenue" is a deliberate take on the Beach Boy's track Wonderful. And "Action" is an electro-disco paraphrase of the Beach Boys' "Do It Again". Which is all fine except I really hate the Beach Boys!!

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  24. I just found and instantly love your column Geoff. You bring up some things I've been pondering for a while. Firstly, Saint Etienne's love affair with London is difficult to share sometimes. For example, on a Sunday night when tube stations are apparently closed for a laugh, and all bridges are roadblocked due to some ridiculous street party, meaning you have to take a £20 ride through the backstreets of Lambeth from a sneeringly sarcastic cabbie. The brutalised, Boris-bossed London of 2008 has never been the one Saint Etienne is addressing. On the other hand, I do understand the romantic London of the imagination. And Saint Etienne are as much an aesthetic standpoint as they are a pop group. It's a two-way process: London inspires them, and in return they give it a soundtrack it only fleetingly deserves. (Not for nothing is their new hits compilation entitled London Conversations). They give us a a dream blueprint of what London – and, indeed, pop music – could be. Thanks for expressing all this in your column.

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  25. Sorry I meant "brutalised, Boris-bossed London of 2008 ONWARDS" - obviously!

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  26. I think 'dream blueprint' is right. Though their songs are full of mundane details, they dont try and reflect 'reality' as such.

    You're right about the Beach Boys echoes in some tracks, Kyle-though strangely they dont conjure up California!

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  27. It seems to be like dream land. i feel like going there. u have posted very nice information with beautiful picture.

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