15. Anti Nowhere League - Streets of London (WXYZ)

 

Three weeks at number one from 9^th January 1982

There’s a sketch in the series “Big Train” which portrays Ralph McTell struggling to engage with an audience who only want to hear his hit “Streets of London”. Whenever he begins to play anything else, everyone gasps in astonishment at his audacity, and begins heckling furiously until he is forced to concede and play the song again. And again.  

It does a brilliant job of sending up the plight of talented songwriters who are mainly known for their one huge success – for make no mistake, McTell was (and is) damn good. He’s the closest Britain ever came to producing a Gordon Lightfoot styled folk singer, and at his very best his work intertwines beautiful storytelling with intricate finger-picked guitar lines. The actual B-side of “Streets Of London”, “Summer Lightning”, could have acted as a point of entry to anyone wanting to journey further into his catalogue, and the album that was plucked from (“Easy”) contains other material like “Maginot Waltz” whose unexpected lyrical conclusion acts as a stab to the heart. 

His slightly undeserved "one hit wonder" status very nearly didn’t happen for him at all – he didn’t regard “Streets of London” as a contender for either of his first two albums when he first penned it in the sixties, deeming the subject matter too depressing. The producer Gus Dudgeon persuaded him otherwise and got him to record it in simple acoustic form for his second album “Spiral Staircase”, issued on the independent Transatlantic Records in 1969. 

From there on, “Streets of London” began to slowly grow in popularity, becoming a track that other folk performers sang in pubs and clubs. A ripple effect was created in the process, elongating its life far beyond the usual lifespan of a track from an (at best) cultish folk album. 

Thanks to its burgeoning reputation, McTell finally released it as a single in a swollen, more intricately produced form on the Warner Brothers subsidiary Reprise in 1974, and it climbed to number two in the national charts early the following year. That version is disliked by some purists for its wintery choral embellishments which could be argued to treacle up the song and over-embellish the point; the unvarnished 1969 recording is the one most folkies would point you towards.

I have to be honest, the production – whether raw and authentic or luxurious and icy - has never been the central issue for me. As much as I love McTell’s voice and the sumptuous melodies, and even some of the observational aspects of the verses, the chorus is a slightly unnecessary slap in the face. We’re expected to believe that because homelessness and human suffering exists, all other emotional reactions to personal tragedies, depression or emptiness are null and void. “How can you tell me you’re lonely?” pleads McTell. “Very easily actually, Ralph”, the listener could be forgiven for replying. “My Mum died last month and my partner is being an unsympathetic arse. And no, I don’t think your idea of a tramp pointing session in Central London is going to make me feel better, thanks all the same.” 

The central philosophy to “Streets of London” is rather too abrupt and facile, the musical equivalent of your irritating work colleague sneering “First world problems” when you tell them your car didn’t start that morning, or perhaps even Bono’s Band Aid cry of “Tonight thank God its them instead of you” stretched to an entire song. Unlike McTell’s best work, it’s an unsurprising and simplistic narrative, and that’s probably why it did so well commercially. The mass market generally only tends to have time for folk music when it tilts heavily towards sentimentality. Bert Jansch, who performed on the 1974 version of the track, stated that unlike McTell's other work it had “no mystery”, which feels like a fair assessment. 

The public adored the song's simple, sharp message, though, and the track simply wouldn't fade from view, eventually becoming bashed about by so many honking buskers and amateur performers that it felt inescapable. Victoria Wood took aim at its ubiquity in the eighties, featuring it in a sketch about care homes, where every single example of live residential entertainment involved terrible musicians singing the song in an inappropriately cheery fashion. 

By the time enough wannabe Dylans got their plectrums around it, McTell’s gentle baritone had been replaced in the public’s consciousness with a street poet rasp – so by 1982, your average British provincial High Street might have featured two things; a busker straining his way through “Streets of London” outside WH Smith, harmonica strapped around his neck, while 100 yards further down, a group of young mohicaned town punks sat throwing crisps at each other outside a branch of Presto. That halfway point, within earshot of both the wannabe beatnik and the teenage Sid Vicious wannabes, is where the Anti Nowhere League come in (finally). 

I doubt The League, as they were known to their friends, really gave the decision to cover this a lot of conscious thought. They were not by nature a complicated band, and nor would they claim to be. They were adored by Gary Bushell for their directness and coarse humour, and were to punk’s second wave what The Darkness were to the 00s Rock Revival, having their cake and eating it, treading an extremely fine line between ironic OTT posturing and a genuine love for their genre. If you thought punk was old hat, that was fine – The League grinned and gurned to almost gave the impression they might think that too, giving their act a plausible deniability (notably, when a Smash Hits journalist honestly and nervously pointed out that he thought this single was terrible, they burst out laughing and appeared to agree with him). The lead singer Nick Culmer, aka Animal, had a tendency to use aggressive gestures like a Fagin-esque pantomime crook, wore leather armbands with studs and sported a beard like a Motorhead roadie. 

On the other hand, if you loved punk, that could be fine too; they performed it well enough to pass, and offered just as many easy jokes as Splodgenessabounds while seeming as controversial as their nearest rivals. 

Suffice to say, they don’t treat “Streets of London” like a classic, instead picking it up like a empty beer can and lobbing it forcefully against the recording studio walls. In the process of doing so, they actually highlight the track’s casual dismissiveness in the chorus, originally hidden behind mournful melodies and angelic backing vocals. It sounds like it always was a punk song, and by the time 1982 rolled around, maybe it was closer to one than not – no longer entirely in McTell’s hands, the track had taken its own journey and turned into a harsh street melody. 

It was very nearly a hit all over again, with The League taking it to number 48 in the national charts. Some of that success might have been due to people genuinely appreciating the Jimmy Pursification of the song, but might equally have been down to the appeal of the B-side, “So What”, a song flecked with so many profanities that the Metropolitan Police investigated whether it should be banned under the Obscene Publications act.

The Anti Nowhere League exploded into the record shops in a way that must have caused the established second wave punk bands to balk – their debut release on a tiny label appeared to be making as much noise as The Exploited’s “Dead Cities” from the year before, and had a more memorable melody (somebody else’s) as well as a turbo-charged, memorable and headline generating flipside. It was a dramatic entrance and it didn’t go unnoticed; 1982 would become their year, one in which they probably didn’t make as many in-roads as they hoped for, but certainly became big news in both punk and indie terms. 

Whether their material has always worn well lyrically speaking - and in some cases even stood up at the time it was released - is a whole other area we'll have plenty of opportunities to delve into, so let's save those arguments for later. 

As for Ralph McTell, no doubt he cashed in the extra royalties and stayed quiet. At the last count, there were 212 recorded versions of the song, so one more, whatever its intentions, hardly mattered. 

Trivia

• There was also a computer adventure game called “Streets Of London” issued in the early 80s, which involved your character trying to succeed against the harsher realities of London life. One option was to mug passers by for their loose change. I somehow doubt this was an officially authorised Ralph McTell product. 

• At the risk of sounding like a contestant on “Would I Lie To You”, I once accidentally gate-crashed a magic mushroom party where the attendees – mostly scooter boys – appeared to be using a second-hand vinyl copy of Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London” to gently ease them into the experience. Quite why you would do this is anybody’s guess, but it’s just one more example of an absurd, unintended little side turning the song has taken. 

Away From The Number One Spot

Sitting in “Not On Spotify” corner is Orbidoig’s “Nocturnal Operations” at number 28, featuring Billy Mackenzie on chimes and some very “Streets of London” styled choral vocals. It’s a baffling disc which arguably might not have had any indie chart presence at all were it not for Mackenzie’s involvement.

Clint Eastwood and General Saint also reach a 28 peak with cult reggae classic “Talk About Run”, a track with a big enough profile to have managed better.

A bona-fide national chart hit also emerges at number 15 during the final week of Anti-Nowhere League’s stay at the top, in the form of Mobiles’ “Drowning In Berlin”. It only peaks at number three on the indie listings, but its national number 9 peak is a baffling outcome for such a layered, complicated and eccentric single, a rare example of indie invention barging its way into the national consciousness. In another world, this may very well have stalled at number 25 in the indie chart like so many ambitious releases before it.

The complete charts are available at the UKMix forums. 

Number Ones In The National Chart

The Human League – “Don’t You Want Me” (Virgin)

Bucks Fizz – “The Land Of Make Believe” (RCA)