The Attraction of London - Some Songs

Sonny Boy Williamson, I'm Trying to Make London My Home

At Sonny Boy's grave:

Caetano Veloso. London, London

The Kinks, Waterloo Sunset


BBC Radio 4, Soul Music, Waterloo Sunset


The alternative view:


Ralph McTell, Streets of London


The Clash, London Calling



"I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare. No, let's say Shakespeare and Dickens, to get them in the right order," Ben Okri

 "You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London", Samuel Johnson


I enjoyed what London had to offer, whenever I lived there. 
The time always came when I was glad to leave - but I kept returning.
What do I miss most? London friends and The British Library.



The City



A thousand hands

wiped

upon a single towel.



A thousand smiles

wiped

into a single scowl.



A thousand voices

silenced

by one explosive vowel.



A thousand bodies

collide.

Unheard the beggar’s howl.



London, 1967.