42. 10 Songs which look North

Welcome to the North - The Music
Northern Lites - Super Furry Animals
North Country Boy - The Charlatans
Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan
Girl from the Northern States - The Young Republic
It's Grim Up North - The Justified Ancients of MuMu
Northern Whale - The Good, The Bad and the Queen
Quiet Crown - Idlewild
A Big Day in the North - Black Grape
Northern Sky - Nick Drake

It strikes me that England's North has its equivalent in America's South, the "real" country for ordinary decent folk, which sets itself in opposition to the gloss and urbanity of New York/London. Obviously this isn't a revolutionary theory. The Belle and Sebastian-esque song here by American band The Young Republic gets to grip with the idea, with the Girl from the Northern States being too arty-farty and prim to understand the true worth of the beautiful American South. Of course, Bob Dylan's "North Country" is a whole different matter, talking about the bleak, cold world he grew up more usually called The Midwest. Perhaps these areas - Minnesota, Wisconsin etc have their vague equivalent in England's West Country or maybe Midlands, but really i'm into the area of talking bollocks now.
Anyway, the thing that always got me about The North is that it's got a whole 300 miles more northern than it (Teenage Fanclub have an album called 'Songs from Northern Britain' and, you know, they're not from Manchester). Leicester say, or Nottingham, would describe itself as being in the North and yet it's barely a quarter of the way up Britain.
Anyway, the North is heavily and cleverly romanticised in song and literature and film, a hell of a lot more than places like Bognor Regis, Newbury and Margate anyway, and rightly so, I suppose. Even the gritty realism of much of that is a romanticisation of sorts, i think.
My romanticisation of the North is in terms of moors and cliffs and holy islands and castles and seabirds etc, which is actually just as tied in with Scotland as Northern England, but I'll separate them for now and probably get to Scotland later.
I was thinking in terms of a folk song here , but didn't want to get too carried away with a language I didn't have a proper grasp on. i was also just focusing on the words Northern Soul. Northern Soul is a funny one - it's a term all over music magazines, and yet is really, in musical terms, a pretty nebulous concept. I've had more than one person ask me, slightly shamefaced, what really is this northern soul? and tho I know a little about the Northern Soul clubs and the all-nighters, I couldn't necessarily identify what was Northern Soul on listening. Southern Soul, on the other hand ...

And how she'd cast his dearest wishes
to the welcoming arms of the Northern sky
and wonder felt a sure minute distant
as he stole glances at her face shining
so full of joy, it could make him cry

And how those birdsongs swooped and soared
and recast the sound of the Northern soul
and the chill wind, a kiss, a sweet sting
pushed them together in a time of no asking
and no giving of anything but the whole

And how those folk songs swept right through him
and made their home right at his core,
and they pretended they were material
for deep and bearded men of the soil
to imprint into rhyme and lore

And how the coastal road unfolded
to each fishing village and sharpened strand
shadowed by some dormant castle
still, after all, master of every cliff
exposed, each naked grain of sand

And how the Northern nights compressed
and stripped sleep from the tireless minds
they carried to their only good goal,
and the summer tides stripped their memory
of all that's easily left behind