Once again it has taken eternal renegade Jarvis Cocker, these days known as plain Jarvis (well how many other Jarvises do you know?) to subvert a Known Rule of Pop: namely that songs with British towns and cities in the title always sound a bit rubbish.
And even then Jarvis's apocalyptic From Auschwitz to Ipswich, performed with pessimistic panache on Wednesday night at Camden's Koko and featuring on his new album, manages to get round the inherently prosaic connotations of half-inching Suffolk's county town for a song title by pairing it with a place of significantly greater historical significance (apologies to Bobby Robson and Ipswich Town's 1981 Uefa Cup-winning side).
But what other songs are about or feature the names of British towns and cities in their title? Jimmy Osmond's puke-inducing 1972 number Long Haired Lover From Liverpool springs to mind. Then there's - and we hesitate to even speak the words - Ralph McTell's Streets of London, a number two hit from 1974 which in its ability to incite in the listener a sorrowful empathy for the plight of the homeless is equalled only by millionaire Phil Collins' 1989 tearjerker Another Day in Paradise.
In short, the barrel is running pretty empty. Can you rectify this situation? If so please post your song titles below.
