Music Pilgrimages - Lyrics

Ferry Across the Mersey

The Mersey Ferries is a ferry service that runs between the Pier Head at Liverpool, and the Wirral terminals at Seacombe, Wallasey and Woodside, Birkenhead.

The Ferry Service inspired the song by Gerry & The Pacemakers, a track which was later covered by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Lyrics - Strawberry fields forever

Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army children's home in Woolton, a suburb of Liverpool, England.

Lennon grew up near the home and used to play in the wooded area behind the building with his childhood friends, Pete Shotton and Ivan Vaughan. In 1967 the name became world famous through the release of The Beatles single Strawberry Fields Forever, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Strawberry Field had an annual fête, which John Lennon and his aunt Mimi regularly attended. One of Lennon's favourite events as a young boy was the garden party that took place each summer in the grounds of Strawberry Field. Lennon's Aunt Mimi recalled his reaction: As soon as we could hear The Salvation Army band starting, John would jump up and down shouting, 'Mimi, come on. We're going to be late.'

Strawberry fields closed it's doors as a children's home in early January 2005 and is now a church and prayer centre. The famous gates marking its entrance still stand and are well visited by Beatles fans.

Lyrics/Video - Shakermaker

Sifters records is a second hand record shop in Didsbury a southern suburb of Manchester.

Part of the lyrics of the 1994 single Shakermaker goes "Mister Sifter sold me songs when I was just sixteen", the record shop was the place where Noel and Liam bought records. The video for Shakermaker also features the shop very briefly.

Sifters records was still open for business in April 2007.

Lyrics - Itchycoo Park

Itchycoo Park is a psychedelic pop song written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane of the group Small Faces. It is debated which park is described in the track, with various opinions on where it is.

Some sources have suggested 'Itchycoo Park' would be the name East End kids gave to any local park where vagrants gathered, others say it comes from stinging nettles that would make people itch if exposed to them.

Various people who grew up in Manor Park and met Steve Marriott says they (the local kids) nicknamed little Ilford Park 'Itchycoo Park' because of the great amount of stinging nettles there.

Lyrics - Ian Dury�s early band

Ian Dury formed the band Kilburn and the High-Roads in 1971, the name being a pun on the road in this north part of London.

Ian Dury was vocalist and lyricist, co-writing with pianist Russell Hardy and later recruiting several of the students he was teaching at Canterbury School of Art, guitarist Keith Lucas and bassist Humphrey Ocean.

The Kilburns found played on the London Pub Rock circuit and signed to Dawn Records in 1974, but despite a lot of good press coverage and a tour opening for The Who, the group failed to rise above cult status. The group disbanded in 1975.

Lyrics - Homeward Bound

Paul Simon wrote the song at Widnes railway station while waiting for his train. The song describes his longing to return home, both to Brentwood, Essex, England, and to return to the United States.

Lyrics - Common People

The school was immortalized in Pulp's song Common People, as the place where the woman who caught Jarvis Cocker's eye (along with Jarvis himself) studied.

The college was also the site of The Sex Pistols' notorious first ever "gig" (notorious because some say they were actually thrown out after 5 minutes).

Lyrics - Willesden Green

Willesden Green is the title of a song written by Ray Davies and performed by The Kinks and is included in the soundtrack of the 1971 film Percy.

The Kinks Willesden Green Lyrics
Well I tried to settle down Fulham Broadway
And I tried to make my home in Golders Green
But I gotta get that train
And go back home again
Oh how I miss the folks back home in Willesden Green
You know, I tried, I really tried to settle in this big city
And I always thought I could make it all on my very own
But there's one thing that keeps calling me
To that little, that little semi-detached
That's the folks, yeah, the folks back home
In Willesden Green

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros sang from Willesden to Cricklewood on their album Rock Art and the X-ray Style.

Lyrics - You Cant Always Get What You Want

The Chelsea drugstore was opened in 1968 and had a very distinct front of glass and aluminium making it stand out in a street where most buildings would be of an older architecture.

The drugstore was modelled on Le Drugstore on Boulevard St Germain in Paris, it contained bars, a pharmacy, cafes and a record store in the basement, it was open 16 hours a day, seven days a week. The drugstore's exterior, and one might presume it's clientele, so shocked the residents of Royal Avenue that they demanded to be cut off from The Kings road, which happened in 1971.

In the lyrics for 1969 track You Can't Always Get What You Want Mick Jagger wrote 'I went down to the Chelsea Drugstore to get your prescription filled'. It is debated what the track is actually about, though the reference to the Chelsea drugstore is clear enough as Mick Jagger lived in Chelsea.

The Drugstore also features in Stanley Kubrick's 1972 film A Clockwork Orange, main character Alex browsing the record shop, located in the basement of the drugstore.

In the present day, 2008, a McDonalds restaurant occupies the Chelsea drugstore.