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Songs about buildings

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I was in Waterloo station the other day, and everytime I pass the old Eurostar terminal (now all boarded up), I just feel terribly sad. It’s such a lovely building, a modern take on the old traditional train shed and built with a certain style. I have no idea what’s going to happen here but at the moment it just looks awful. It doesn’t have the glamour of being a ruin it’s just nothing, and it may be weird, but I can’t help thinking about the people who designed and built it. All that effort for maybe 10 year’s use. Anyway, I was wondering about two things; songs that are specifically about buildings. I just couldn’t come up with any, was thinking of the obvious – Waterloo Sunset – but it’s not really about the station. Anyway, homework for today – songs about buildings and buildings that sadden you.

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  3. Nice thread @dodger. I know what you mean. The high school I attended, a beautiful old sandstone building with a wood panelled library and traditional gym hall in the centre of the school – designed like this on purpose I’m told – was demolished a number of years ago.

    It seems it was preferable to pull this down and build a new one. There are many reasons for this. Not least our demand for shiny new, well resourced buildings. The new school is also beautiful but, somehow, I still feel sad at the loss of my seat of learning.

    I work in Education. One of the favourite inspirational quotes I’ve read is – a school is a building with four walls and tomorrow inside. I love this. I love how it taps into how I felt about my school. It was jam packed with our tomorrows.

    Buildings are a huge part of who we are, how we live and how we experience and remember our lives.

    From the wonderful Tiny Rewards, Admiral Fallow have expressed it perfectly. A damn fine band and a brilliant album.

    http://youtu.be/G1PxAvi1gMA

  7. I can only think of two, the first, which has already been mentioned is Hoover Factory. What stands out about this as opposed to other songs that mention buildings, is that it is about what the building looks like rather than what goes on or has gone on there. Lines like “Must have been a wonder when it was brand new” and “one of these days the Hoover Factory is gonna be all the rage in these fashionable pages”.
    The other one that came to mind was “Winchester Cathedral” which appears to have been chosen as the focus of the song merely because it’s big and has a bell.

  8. 32 West Mall

    Bristol 1970: The Stackridge headquarters were in the communal flat we shared at 32 West Mall, Clifton. When not at home we could usually be found at The Royal Oak pub at the end of the street or, after midnight, at The Dugout Club in Park Row. The flat was up seven flights of stairs, we shared one light bulb and the roof really did leak.

  9. The building in the Finnish capital are splendid. Some fine examples of art-deco. There’s even an Aussie band called Architecture in Helsinki, but sadly they don’t have any songs about the Sibelius Monument!

    And now a fine song about a style of architecture. The Divine Comedy’s Assume the Perpendicular.

    • The Kinks also did a song about that part of Her Majesty’s estate. It’s on the Muswell Hillbillies album called, very straightforwardly, Holloway Jail.

  15. Only one room, but John Cale and Terry Riley probably catch a lot of the atmosphere of the whole Palace of Versailles.

    The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles

    And could this be a ghost in the palace?

    Paris 1919

  20. They’ve redeveloped the streets around Victoria Station and Victoria Street twice in the 25 or so years I’ve been working in London. Second go just about finished.

  21. Arguably Colin Moulding’s finest; Andy Partridge thought so.

    About his parents and their generation, their hopes for escape that were never realised. It accompanies me on many of my cycle trips.

  39. Blimey, some great suggestions.

    I forgot an album called Pram Town by Darren Hayman, about living in a new town. He’s for a whiny voice, so hard for me to listen for any length of time.

  41. I’m surprised there aren’t more songs about stations. There are some remarkable buildings.

    This one, Grand Central Station, by Mary Chapin Carpenter is a song about 9/11.

  47. You’d think there’d be more songs about that great London landmark.

    But this will do nicely. The Trembling Blue Stars – St Paul’s Cathedral at Night.

    Basically the band was a solo project of Robert Wratten who used to be in the Field Mice. It would have been even more appropriate if he’d been an ex-member of the Church Mice!

  55. What a rich vein you found here Dodger.

    You may all be interested to hear that the Trellick Tower is running neck and neck with the Chelsea Hotel and Winchester Cathedral for the building with most songs written about it. Talk about a pop cultural icon!

    Keep on posting. Can we list it? Yes we can!

    Here’s what we’ve found to date.

  56. Two very different concept albums about tower blocks.

    South African jazz
    Soweto Kinch – A Life In The Day of B19 : Tales Of The Tower Block

    London pop
    Saint Etienne Tales from Turnpike House

    And now a song from Jarvis – Mile End

  61. Kid Creole and his Coconuts mentions a whole bunch of famous landmarks in this song, including the Stockholm amusement park Gröna Lund in verse two…!
    Dancin’ at the Bains Douches:

  63. This lovely load of old tosh from the sixties.

    Written by Geoff Stephens, one of those brilliant “backroom” songwriters from that era – he also wrote The Crying Game, Semi-Detached Suburban Mr James are among the best, There’s A Kind Of Hush among the worst.

    Apparently the idea for Winchester Cathedral came when he was sitting at the piano wondering what to write a song about and looked up at the calendar on the wall, which had a picture of said cathedral on it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT0Jh9lUhrc

  65. Back to the OP. In Waterloo Station, make sure you don’t brush past any 60 year old actresses or you’ll end up in court, even if CCTV shows the contact was a fraction of a second and you were carrying a newspaper in one hand & a bag in the other.

    • Haven’t done that, but did chat to Chris Kamara there once.

      I’m going to wrap this up now – some great suggestions – with a song from a building that would sadden us all. Take it away Johnny.

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