Streets of London

Ralph McTell-

• English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s.

• McTell is best known for his song “Streets of London”, which has been covered by over two hundred artists around the world.

• First recorded in 1969, the song at one point sold 90,000 copies a day and has been covered by more than 200 artists. It also won Ralph an Ivor Novello award for best song and continues to feature in folk music’s “best of” playlists

The song was inspired by McTell’s experiences busking and hitchhiking throughout Europe, especially in Paris and the individual stories are taken from Parisians. McTell was originally going to call the song “Streets of Paris”. but eventually London was chosen, because he realised he was singing about London.

• Streets of London, Lyrics:

  Have you seen the old man

   In the closed down market

   Kicking up the papers

   With his worn out shoes?

   In his eyes, you see no pride

   Hand held loosely at his side

   Yesterday’s paper

   Telling yesterday’s news

   So, how can you tell me you’re lonely

   And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

   Let me take you by the hand

   And lead you through the streets of London

   Show you something to make you change your mind

   Have you seen the old girl

   Who walks the streets of London

   Dirt in her hair

   And her clothes in rags?

   She’s no time for talking

   She just keeps right on walking

   Carrying her home

   In two carrier bags

   So, how can you tell me you’re lonely

   And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

   Let me take you by the hand

   And lead you through the streets of London

   Show you something to make you change your mind

   In the all night café

   At a quarter past eleven

   Same old man

   Sitting there on his own

   Looking at the world

   Over the rim of his tea cup

   Each tea lasts an hour

   And he wanders home alone

   So, how can you tell me you’re lonely?

   Don’t say for you that the sun don’t shine

   Let me take you by the hand

   And lead you through the streets of London

   Show you something to make you change your mind

   Have you seen the old man

   Outside the seaman’s mission

   Memory fading with

   The medal ribbons that he wears?

   In our winter city

   The rain cries a little pity

   For one more forgotten hero

   And a world that doesn’t care

   So, how can you tell me you’re lonely

   And say for you that the sun don’t shine?

   Let me take you by the hand

   And lead you through the streets of London

   I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f1jkqOEk_I

• Roger Whittaker version- In 1971, Roger Whittaker released his version making the song gain great popularity internationally. It appeared in his album New World in the Morning. The single “Streets of London” was the B-side to his own song “Why” with the radio stations promoting his version of McTell’s song. It was also B-side to his huge hit “The Last Farewell” also in 1971.

Streets of London could just have easily been called Streets of Paris. It was in part inspired by the clochards (homeless) who lay on the hot air grates of the French capital’s metro to keep warm, placing their boots under their head so they wouldn’t be stolen as they slept. The tune came first to McTell, and then the subject matter. “I tried to fit the people I’d seen on the Paris streets to this tune,” he recalls. Once the song developed, McTell drew on his own experiences growing up in England and changed the location of the title.

• 2020 Coronavirus updated verse: The result was Ralph McTell agreeing to write a new verse of his legendary hit Streets of London – something he’d always previously refused to do.

Why Ralph McTell has updated his hit Streets of London for coronavirus era – BBC News

In my opinion It reflects some fundamental human truths.

But this isn’t an ode to England’s capital city. The “closed down market” where the old man is nonchalantly “kicking up the papers/ with his worn-out shoes” to find leftover fruit from packed away stalls was actually a market in Croydon, London, near where McTell grew up.

Namely, the fear of ending up alone, like the heartbreaking tale of the old man in the all-night café, sipping tea slowly and then wandering home alone. McTell believes that “everyone, deep down, is scared of that emptiness and loneliness and that alienation… by singing the chorus, it makes it all go away.”

• The song is undoubtedly heart-stirring and resonates with people,In a way of studying like children in schools who hearing the lyrics  as poetry to learn about those less fortunate than themselves. It provokes strong emotion. For me personally, it conjures up fond childhood memories of my dad playing it on the guitar.

• How about you,is this popular song did conjures up somthing for you?

• Does the song encouraged your feeling that as a group we are more united, and can make a biger changes togther?