Friday. Midnight.
Another hour of the weekend sound track
before + after
"...at midnight everybody dancing on street
here...everyone with same identity...down their sake...sake is
very strong...like vodka...very dangerous, so everyone get a rolled
up ne-newspaper, set it on fire, and put it in between" (underworld, king of snake)
You're out of the pub, now, after that extra-long drinking up time you get, just because you can, just because you once sold comics with the bar staff, because you're nice to the pub cat, and finally you put your glass back on the bar and they lock the door behind you as you push outside.
As you push outside onto Wardour Street into the solid mass of drunk people. Oh no. Friday. Summer. Everyone's full of beer and sunshine and they don't want to go home to the suburbs where they belong.
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls*
Concrete Jungle, The Specials (3.08)
Unbelievable, EMF (3.28)
Damn you're grumpy and impatient with these crowds. Just how many of those swanky cocktails did you down earlier?
Shit. Now what. It's friday midnight. Should you stay or should you go? You can't go home. You couldn't get home if you tried.
Car Song, Elastica (2.24)
No sleep 'till Brooklyn, The Beastie Boys (4.07)
There's not a chance of getting a real taxi, and you're not pissed enough to fall incoherently into the sticky velour seats of a dented minicab. You don't want to be down in the tube station at midnight and these bloody yellow pedal-cabs are pissing you off, as they cluster and reverse around the corner by Bar Italia and right over your new shoes.
Oh, Bar Italia. Coffee. Drink coffee. Figure out the next place.
London calling, now don't look at us
Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
Pearl's Girl, Underworld (4.35)
Nowhere to run, Martha and the Vandellas (2.55)
This is the worst time. The time when almost everything is closed. If you go to a club now, you'll be hitting that surge of waiting. If you've not planned for it, it'll be hell. You can't go home on a friday night. You need to dance, right? Or you need to find a corner, with a steady supply of fine drinks, and you'll talk with fast hands and a carton of cigarettes, until you are all best friends, and the world has no problems left.
Reverend Black Grape, Black Grape (4.23)
Yeah. You can sit here, sit here at this silver table under the clock that's right exactly twice a day, and poke sugar into the foam of your over-priced cappuchino. "Right now I'm looking around for the right words for these specially gorgeous things." And that sweet caffeine gets into your blood and starts dancing with the booze, and the floods of people make you feel alllll-right. Yeah.
Southern Mark Smith, The Jazz Butcher (3.36)
(Love is Like a) Heatwave, Shonen Knife (2.48)
Here you can be a happy cigarette vending machine to the homeless as you assume the role of the evil fashion police, camping it up madly and shouting into the parade along Frith Street at the worst excesses of high-street high-fashion knock-offs.
"Oo-er! Look at the arse on HER!"
Hit me Baby, One More Time, Dweezil and Ahmet Zappa (4.11) **
Damn. London's beautiful. The people are beautiful. Look at the swirls of colours and the shimmery-shiny bodies that squeeze through the gaps between parked cars, and flow down stairways.
Back to Life, Soul II Soul (3.51)
Turn on, tune in, cop out, Freak Power (4.15)
Now get this
London calling, yes I was there too
An' you know what they said - Well, some of it was true!
You sidestep that vomit outside the Pitcher and Piano, and admire the dancing crowds.
But they're not dancing in the streets. they are staggering around, shouting at each other now they've been kicked out of the closed pubs, and their heads and bellies are overflowing with beer and barcadi breezers.
The Passenger, Siouxsie and the Banshees (5.09)
Going Underground, The Jam (2.56)
They are lost in the mess of London's licensing laws. And all the doorways of the late night bars are filled with big shouldered bouncers, and shoving, squealing masses, attempting to beg or push their way in, tangled in bedraggled boas and dissolving smeary lipstick cool.
London calling at the top of the dial
an' after all this, won't you give me a smile?
I never felt so much a' like...
You're too funky for this. Too fired up to wait around. You need to feed that itch in your feet, cash in on that wiggle in your stride. You can't sit still anymore. No more talking. No more "what about this? what about there? how about that place?" Time to go dancing. Or something. Maybe.
Firestarter, The Prodigy (4.40)
Lost in Space, Apollo 440 (3.25)
pissed in a tube hole at tottenham court road i just come out of the ship talking to the most blonde i ever met. shouting lager lager lager lager shouting lager lager lager lager shouting lager lager lager shouting mega mega white thing mega mega white thing mega mega white thing mega mega shouting lager lager lager lager mega mega white thing mega mega white thing so many things to see and do in the tube (Born Slippy, Underworld)
* Quotes from London Calling by The Clash
** Yes, stupid cover versions are funny at half past twelve on a liquid night, surrounded by wide-eyed friends.
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