20. 10 Songs about the Neighbourhood

1. Round Are Way - Oasis
2. Penny Lane - The Beatles
3. Two Doors Down - Mystery Jets
4. My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
5. Stereotypes - Blur
6. Your Own Backyard - Dion
7. Stanley Road - Paul Weller
8. The Street Where You Live - from 'My Fair Lady'
9. Local Boy in the Photograph - Stereophonics
10. Screen Door - Uncle Tupelo

Yes, of course I could have included 'Neighbourhood' by Space, but, really, how low do you want me to go?
The theme from Neighbours was a more realistic option. It's true, after all, that just a friendly wave each morning helps to make a better day. That being so, I can only look at my recent attitude to my neighbours and despair. I think, with each different neighbour, I've become increasingly entrenched and insular - perhaps it reflects the erosion of society and community precipitated by Margaret Thatcher. I've gone from the golden childhood idyll of our first neighbours the Hymases, who i practically felt we shared house and garden with, to the suspicious and furtive way I look at my recent neighbours in South London, via kindly old women who always throw back your tennis ball, Kenyan farmers and their children always hanging round looking for biscuits, weird Scottish drunks and their insane cats, dull students gatecrashing parties, young professionals I could barely muster a smile for. What remains true is that we love to make up stories about our neighbours, imagine their lives, their thoughts.
I actually quite like the neighbourhood i live now - it feels more like a genuine community than a lot of parts of South London. The different strata of life seem to co-exist pretty happily round here, the newsagents are friendly, the walk home from the tube late at night doesn't feel like a gauntlet, even if local character Mental Steve is being particularly mental, the curry places recognise my face, the kids pouring out of the local school every day scream and shout at each other, occasionally annoying but never intimidating, the cars crash every month or so at the dodgy junction, the joggers churn round Clapham Common, but a) i lack the basic warmth to actually befriend people and b) the ones that piss me off are the ones in the posh flats, playing rubbish music, the kind of rubbish I play to them -for these surely are my clientele, at the quizzes i run. There's really nothing to it, though occasionally i build it up into a feeling of alienation and grand contempt. Hence

The balcony of the opposite flat
is full of city drinkers,
Blaring out the standard tracks
and shaking up the neighbours
But anger is so awkward
now that language is so loose.
The truth is that the best you
can do is keep your cool.

The punch is late in coming -
eyes have gone on elsewhere.
Some sing along distracted,
of course the words are threadbare
and I know no one else knows
as many words as I
But the feints that duck the truths
validate those lies.

I know the city drinks us dry
of sanctity and solace.
Profanity's my currency
in common with the godless.
The sea wind blessed my thoughts -
perhaps it will again
one day when the punches
have all been thrown in vain.

Mercury rises just as seldom
as it falls in these parts -
anger is as futile as staking
all on charts and graphs.
I could stare you out forever
if I could hold your gaze
for even one tender fragile second
of one of those rare mercury days.

Across the street, some city killers
no doubt confront their demons.
Let them. I won't fight a thing, though,
except overwrought feelings
'cause anger is so awkward, while
resignation is so solid
though neither has an answer to
the emptiness that follows.