London Is The Place For Me / Lonely Londoners and high-life bedsit life…

  • Lord Kitchener-London Is The Place For Me-calypso-Honest Jons-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-4A fair while ago now I came across the London Is The Place For Me compilation album – part of a series that documents the music of young black London in the 1950s and a new wave of those who had emigrated to this fair isle – all Calypso cheer in the face of adversity and Picadilly high life.

    Well, maybe…

    At a quick glance/listen it/they seem like the put-a-brave-face-on-things, quite polite and inoffensive take on the Windrush generation’s experience (especially in contrast to say Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners book – which is a considerably more overtly realist, unsettling reminder of lack of social welcome and cohesion back when).

    The Lonely Londoners-Samuel Selvon-Afterhours Sleaze and DignityHowever, when you actually separate the lyrics of something like Lord Kitchener’s My Landlady and its refrain of “Every Monday: Mister give me my rent” from its, well, sunkissed music and sit down and read them, they are actually quite bleak and put one in mind of a world nearer to say a pre-British New Wave film-esque utilitarian way of living:

    My landlady’s too rude, In my affair she likes to intrude… Five o’clock in the morning, the landlady is peepin’.

    Lord Kitchener-London Is The Place For Me-calypso-Honest Jons-Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity-2This is how she start, a lot of restrictions to break your heart “After ten o’clock tenants must know my front door is locked”…

    And on the wall she stick up a notice “No lady friends – not even a princess” and if you disagree, out you go immediately…

    No chair, no table, the convenience is terrible and on the other part no hot water to take a bath…

    And believe you sleep like a rabbit, a dirty sheet with half of a blanket and she has the audacity to tell me I’m living in luxury…”

    Visit The London Is The Place For Me series at the old Discogs here.

    Background on the albums and their home at Honest Jon’s here.

    Peruse them elsewhere here.

Leave a Reply!

What do you think?

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *