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Made in Shoreditch

I also contribute a weekly column to Made in Shoreditch magazine called 'Old East End/New East End', where I look at the relationship between the East End of old and new, looking at the changes and the stalwarts in landscape, residents and culture, focussing on one street or district each week. You can find it here.

5 of the Best - Home

Monday 19 November 2012

I've recently moved into a new home back down in London. Clearly apathy has taken over my ability to conjure up anything mildly relative to what's actually going on in the world, so here's 5otB to do with home.


Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Our House: I had to, didn't I? This absolutely magnificent confection of a song is stuck in my head due to Grand Designs being on the box 24/7 (the sponsors, B&Q, use it as their sponsor's advert song). David Nash's simple harmonic movement offset by the dreamlike vocal melody and lyrics which force home that idyllic, faux aspirational nonsense Channel 4 seem to love all work to create a song which is half social parody, half Beatles-esque pop perfection.


Our House

Simon & Garfunkel - Homeward Bound: Paul Simon's dreary-cum-happy ode to being back in New York when stuck at a listless train station in Northern England should resonate with anybody who has had the misfortune of being stuck in such a pickle. Up there with S & G's finest.

Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues: In truth, this song does not need my endorsement on a post on a blog read by a handful of people. Its power, influence and place in time are cemented whatever I say, however, when one is trying to place homey imagery and the sheer poetic chaos of it all, one need look no further. The basement, the pavement, the bed, the alleyway, the raw wonder of the Beat-cum-Eliot-cum-Blues-cum-Guthrie brutality of this song's lyric and musical signifiers throw caution to the wind and stupefy anybody faced with it.


Dylan at his mercurial peak

Sam Cooke - Bring it on Home to Me: Sam Cooke's voice against the sound of a pneumatic drill ripping through a pavement while somebody rubbed sandpaper against one's cornea would still delight, soothe and dumbfound. Against this song it does all that and more. Yeaheyah.

Tame Impala - Music to Walk Home By: Tame Impala are one of my favourite bands of 2012. Their '66-'67 era Beatles style with a modern inflection has a trippy, throwback-yet-relevant appeal unlike anything I've heard in recent years. This song, much like Lonerism, the album it comes from, is a superb, psychedelic ride that nobody could want to get off of.


Music to Walk Home By

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