Songs: Leicester's Trying To Tell Me Something

notes / gigs / releases

It feels like Leicester's trying to tell me something
And that something is 'Don't come back'
They seem afeared that I'll return with my guitar
And so they are
Redeveloping my past
And if you think that that sounds paranoid
I would draw your attention to the fact
That one by one each pub I've loved or played above
Has been demolished
Or turned into some flats

Feels like they're trying to knock down my life in rock
I wish they'd stop
Trying to knock down my life in rock
I wish they'd stop it

The Magazine got knocked down to build Halls of Residence
The Royal Mail is now a parking lot
They roofed over the Pump & Tap
And walled over the stage
And they created office space from the Durham Ox
The Physio is derelict, The Angel is a house
The Spreadeagle's just a hole in the ground
The Charlotte's just stopped going
Though all that still remained of my days there
Was Phil who still did the sound

It feels like they're trying to knock down my life in rock
I wish they'd stop
Trying to knock down my life in rock
I wish they'd stop it

And so I went to see the Council
In the banana buildings on Welford Road
Wherein I found the councillor for planning applications
Looked like me with a goatee
He said Hello
I am the you from an alternate universe
Where you never moved on from the same old pubs
Stuck in the past you never had adventures
Or made half the friends you have
And also never fell in love

So I've come here to knock down your life in rock
Don't try to stop
Me as I knock down your life in rock
Don't stop

Published by Wipe Out Music Publishing

As with so VERY many of my songs, this song is ALMOST entirely true (there ISN'T a Mirror Universe version of me working at Leicester City Council... well, not as far as I know anyway) and is based on Something I Have Been Saying In The Pub For AGES. ALL the pubs listed in verse two are pubs that I EITHER did gigs in OR drank in regularly and ALL have been demolished/rebuilt as stated in the lyrics. It is a BIT EERIE i must say, and every time I go back to Leicester I am surprised and RELIEVED to find that Firebug has AS YET escaped the wrecker's ball.

The song first came about through JAMMING on June 14 2007 in Stayfree, and at that point was JUST the verses. I took it home with me and over the next week or so worked out the words, only getting slightly STUMPED halfway through the final verse - i knew SOMEONE from my past would be responsible, but WHO? Later that evening I realised it would be ME, and in the morning (THIS morning in fact, 26th June) I finished it off, allowing myself a HA! when I changed the final line of the chorus, as i thought it was Quite Good.