The Bangles' Going Down To Liverpool was the first thing to pop up on the shuffle this morning. It's a song that always makes me smile to myself. Many things make me smile to myself: dogs running and laughing, the cover of The Sound Of Bread, Christmas Eve, Canada geese on the wing, harbour views, Play Misty For Me, Sixties crockery.
But this song in particular has a naive charm. Had any member of the The Bangles ever been to Liverpool before they wrote this song? I think they had some romanticized Letter To Brezhnev-Echo & The Bunnymen-Boys From The Blackstuff view of mass unemployement and hardship being channelled into the music scene, which may be true, but how would they know?
So you get lines like: 'Hey la! Where you going with that UB40 in your hand?'. Quite sweet really. And the very fact that they say they're 'going down to Liverpool' - what do they mean, like going down the off licence? Or visiting from Carlisle?. And when they arrive in Liverpool, they say they're going to 'do nothing'. How rebelliously 1980s. How creative. I love this song. It's like Roger Miller's England Swings - a rosy cartoon of a song.
You can laugh, but I'm quite a fan of The Bangles oeuvre, though Eternal Flame reminds me of being long-term unemployed and it raining a lot. The others are okay though. In Your Room, If She Knew What She Wants, Manic Monday, even Walk Like An Egyptian, which really really reminds me of being a student. I saw The Bangles on the same bill as Simple Minds, The Cult, The Waterboys, In Tua Nua (where are they now?) and perhaps another that has lipped my mind, at the Milton Keynes Bowl (where is that now), possibly in 1986, but it could have been '87. More likely to be '86 I think.
Anyway, the poor Bangles got bottled off. Shame really, cos I was right up the front with a birds eye view of their thigh-high boots and short skirts and it was great. And they beat a retreat. Boo! Still, at least I saw them.
6 comments:
I may be mistaken, but I think that Kimberly Rew from Katrina and the Waves wrote Going Down to Liverpool, and was originally recorded by the Canadian and her merry band of tosspots.
Interesting, in which case, someone else with no idea about Liverpool wrote it.
May I recommend Susannah Hoffs album of fab Sixties covers that she did with Matthew Sweet; Under The Covers Vol.1? I'm sure there won't be a second, but the first is great.
In fact you burnt this for me. i like it very much. Their I See The Rain is a triumph
Coincidentally I'va sort of had this song on my mind these last few weeks. Though in my post-40 addled state it's become confused with Hendrix's 'Hey Joe'
as in "Hey Joe, where you goin with that UB40 in your hand?"
Maybe I should work on a 'mash-up'?
Suicide, I think that's a great idea.
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