London calling see we ain't got no swing, except for the ring of that truncheon thing.
.LONDON PICSPAM AND PLAYLIST.
Basically, since I am leaving London so soon I wanted to do a sort of homage to my city because I love it and I grew up here and don't know anywhere else as well as I know the twisted alleyways and dirty streets of London. I love the total, complete and utter gritty, urban feel of it, the cobblestones in Covent Garden, the view from Embankment at night when the riverbank of the Thames is all lit up, the residential areas and how they get so still at 3am even though there are millions of people sleeping around you and how when you walk through the City you pass modern offices made of plate glass and hard iron but then just after there's a Victorian era building, all ancient cement and crumbling brickwork. I love the history and the culture and I am going to miss it a ridiculous amount, something I only just really realised.
Blur ~ For Tomorrow.
London's so nice back in your seamless rhymes
But we're lost on the Westway
So we hold each other tightly
And we can wait until tomorrow.
Mr Hudson & the Library ~ On the Heath/A Tale of Two Cities.
Down into town we stroll
I suggest no more rock and roll
Canary Wharf our Christmas tree
Sucking up electricity.
I see Battenberg houses
Night club sky
I hear nursery rhymes
Fill my eyes, write these lines.
Morrissey - Irish Blood English Heart.
I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour
And Tories, and spit upon the name of Oliver Cromwell.
The Good, The Bad and the Queen - Northern Whale.*
Another wave crashed over you
It put you in a spell
On a cold place you know well.
The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset.
Dirty old river, must you keep rolling
Flowing into the night
People so busy, makes me feel dizzy
Taxi light shines so bright.
Pink Floyd ~ Learning to Fly.
Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit
Ice is forming on the tips of my wings
Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything
No navigator to find my way home
Unladened, empty and turned to stone
A soul in tension that's learning to fly.
Kasabian - Where Did All the Love Go?
Can’t see the signs
Of a real change a commin’
Take another sip
From your hobo’s wine
Get yourself a million miles
From the concrete jungle
This is a time
Full of fear full of anger.
The Clash - The Guns of Brixton.
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh-the guns of Brixton.
Coldplay - Cemeteries of London.
God is in the houses and God is in my head
And all the Cemeteries of London
I see God come in my garden but I don’t know what he said
For my heart it wasn’t open.
Bloc Party - England.
They stood on his fingers
Kicked the back of his head like a ball
they filmed the beating
On their mobile phones.
.THE WHOLE MIX.
All photography by me over the course of this year thereabouts.
* Just a note about The Good, The Bad & The Queen song (they're a supergroup made up of Damon Albarn (of Blur and The Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (of The Clash) and Simon Tong (of The Verve) and this song is about this whale who swam up the Thames a few years ago. It was named many names but my favourite was Gonzo (like the Muppet cos it had a big nose GEDDIT).