I have been to see Ralph McTell. Leeds is full of buskers and it's as likely as not when one turns a corner that one will hear someone singing 'The Streets of London'. The best version is by the chap with the flat cap who is often to be found outside Marks & Spencer's on Briggate. Mind you he does fine versions of all the buskers standbys. All together now: "I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told".
McTell is, of course, about much more than one song and the concert was a fine mixture of strong material, entertaining banter between numbers (including, as it happens, a reference to playing on the same bill as Paul Simon) and excellent singing and playing. His lyrics very often cover wider material than boy meets girl, boy loses girl and he included songs dedicated to performers he admired including Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson and the Reverend Gary Davis; the last featuring in its intro an amusing story about how the Rev almost shot Country Joe McDonald.
And what of his pension plan? He obviously has an ambivalent relationship with it. I have heard him refer to it as "a young man's song", implying that he couldn't or wouldn't write it now. Here he encourages the audience to sing with him and, unusually, it works. I have often had cause to lament the enthusiasm of folkies to join in with the artists because frankly all it does is prove that most people can't hold a tune. (In fairness, it's not just folkies - don't get me started on the white-man clapping that accompanies many performances of all sorts of music). But, for whatever reason, on Streets of London in the City Varieties tonight, it works.
It's a very direct song (Bert Jansch, who played on the single version, said it had no 'mystery') and maybe that's why McTell doesn't rate it so highly. As most readers will probably be aware it's actually about experiences that he had in Paris rather than London, but I think we all recognise a universality of both time and place in the stories. As someone in whom I don't believe said "The poor you will always have with you."
Anyway, I'll end this blog with the first verse from McTell's song 'An Irish Blessing' which speaks to me directly
How my life is changing now
My young ones start to leave their home
I wish that their uncertain road
Was one that I could tread with them