0:00:02 > 0:00:04London - one of the oldest and greatest cities in the world.
0:00:04 > 0:00:06BIG BEN CHIMES
0:00:06 > 0:00:08Home of beggars, poets,
0:00:08 > 0:00:12queens and kings, where I grew up and learned my music.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23But what is the music of London? And what are the songs of London?
0:00:23 > 0:00:26And what, if anything, is the sound of London?
0:00:29 > 0:00:34Please now join me on a knees-up of discovery of London music.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Let's hear your childhood songs.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44Let's hear the dark meaning behind those apparently-harmless nursery rhymes.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47BELL CONTINUES TO CHIME
0:00:49 > 0:00:53Let's hear the old songs we sang around the piano with Nan.
0:00:53 > 0:00:59Let's hear the even older songs that Nan sang at the public executions.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01Let's uncover how skiffle, punk
0:01:01 > 0:01:04and even the blues have their roots in London.
0:01:18 > 0:01:23Now, let's consider, where should we begin?
0:01:23 > 0:01:25We could start here.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Miles upstream from the lovely Westminster chimes,
0:01:30 > 0:01:32up there at The Nore.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36We're now at the Gravesend Reach and anybody who would have invaded,
0:01:36 > 0:01:40the Romans, the Danes, the lot, they would have come up to London,
0:01:40 > 0:01:43trying to nick our women, nick our jobs and listen to our songs.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48So perhaps my first question should be,
0:01:48 > 0:01:51what is the earliest recorded music?
0:01:51 > 0:01:55Well, an elderly professor at Oxford one night told me
0:01:55 > 0:01:58that the earliest recorded music was from the Roman times.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01Apparently, the Roman potter,
0:02:01 > 0:02:04perhaps in old Londinium, in the marketplace,
0:02:04 > 0:02:08would sign his vase when he'd finished it as it was rotating
0:02:08 > 0:02:10by scoring the inside of it.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13When you placed the vase back together, place it on the machinery,
0:02:13 > 0:02:16put the needle in, spin it, Bob's your uncle,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19you're hearing the lovely sound of the Londinium Roman market.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23Sadly, there's no actual evidence of this working anywhere.
0:02:23 > 0:02:25MUSIC: "London Calling" by The Clash
0:02:25 > 0:02:27# London calling and I
0:02:27 > 0:02:28# I live in the river... #
0:02:28 > 0:02:32But the Romans did land here in London 2,000 years ago,
0:02:32 > 0:02:34attracted by the low interest rates,
0:02:34 > 0:02:37cheap slaves and the narrowness of the river,
0:02:37 > 0:02:39because they could cross the river here.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45And one of the best-known songs about London,
0:02:45 > 0:02:49known throughout the world, is about that crossing.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54# London Bridge is falling down
0:02:54 > 0:02:57# Falling down, falling down
0:02:57 > 0:03:00# London Bridge is falling down
0:03:00 > 0:03:03# My fair lady
0:03:07 > 0:03:11# Take a key and lock her up
0:03:12 > 0:03:15# Lock her up, lock her up
0:03:15 > 0:03:18# Take a key and lock her up
0:03:18 > 0:03:21# My fair lady
0:03:26 > 0:03:29# Build it up with wood and clay
0:03:29 > 0:03:33# Wood and clay, wood and clay
0:03:33 > 0:03:36# Build it up with wood and clay
0:03:36 > 0:03:39# My fair lady
0:04:00 > 0:04:03# Build it up with iron and steel
0:04:03 > 0:04:06# Iron and steel, iron and steel
0:04:06 > 0:04:09# Build it up with iron and steel
0:04:09 > 0:04:13# My fair lady
0:04:13 > 0:04:16# Iron and steel will bend and bow
0:04:16 > 0:04:19# Bend and bow, bend and bow
0:04:19 > 0:04:22# Iron and steel will bend and bow
0:04:22 > 0:04:25# My fair lady. #
0:04:30 > 0:04:34The church of St Magnus the Martyr, rebuilt after the Great Fire,
0:04:34 > 0:04:37standing at the portal of Old London Bridge.
0:04:37 > 0:04:38Children have innocently sung
0:04:38 > 0:04:41London Bridge Is Falling Down for centuries,
0:04:41 > 0:04:46blissfully unaware of the sinister suggestion that the "my fair lady"
0:04:46 > 0:04:50refers to the body of a young virgin buried in the ancient foundations
0:04:50 > 0:04:54to bless what was to become the most famous bridge on earth.
0:04:56 > 0:05:00The medieval square mile had almost 100 churches and 80,000 people.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02It's hard to know what music they heard
0:05:02 > 0:05:05but the thing I am now using to communicate with you
0:05:05 > 0:05:09was being invented by them - the English language.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12And medieval Londoners would have heard the lot -
0:05:12 > 0:05:14tavern songs, Lollard hymns,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18but most of all, the ringing of bells.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23The oldest bells we've still got in London date to about 1510
0:05:23 > 0:05:26but we know there were bells around for several centuries before that
0:05:26 > 0:05:30and I think probably easily, from the point of the Battle of Hastings.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33BELLS CHIME
0:05:33 > 0:05:36You had some bells that were known as saints or holy bells,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39and they were used to call people to worship,
0:05:39 > 0:05:41but then most towers used to have a collection of bells
0:05:41 > 0:05:43that were just rung for celebration.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45BELL CHIMES
0:05:45 > 0:05:49As I walk through the city today, the one sound that hasn't changed
0:05:49 > 0:05:51might well be those bells.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54Because the bells, that's the same sound...
0:05:54 > 0:05:56- would I be right in thinking? - That's right. If you think about it,
0:05:56 > 0:05:59what other sounds are there in the city of London today
0:05:59 > 0:06:04that you would have heard 100 years ago, 200 years ago and 300 years ago?
0:06:04 > 0:06:07Bells have been there throughout the centuries.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09BELL CHIMES
0:06:09 > 0:06:1250 years ago, there's children playing in the street,
0:06:12 > 0:06:14occasionally the dog barking,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17the whining gearbox of a Wolseley as it cranked its way down the road.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20Now, that's gone. No children play in the street.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24Everything else has changed, except the bells. Shall I ring the big one?
0:06:24 > 0:06:27- Yes.- That's the one everybody enjoys.- It's on the money.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28So I'm pulling it off.
0:06:32 > 0:06:37BELL CHIMES
0:06:37 > 0:06:41Bells told an illiterate population everything -
0:06:41 > 0:06:44When there was a coronation, a fire, a plague,
0:06:44 > 0:06:46a wedding, a funeral or simply the time of day.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49MUSIC: "Parklife" by Blur
0:06:49 > 0:06:53I've whipped out my appropriately named Austin Westminster
0:06:53 > 0:06:55to visit an artist who's sung about modern life
0:06:55 > 0:06:59and is now using bells to evoke an Elizabethan London
0:06:59 > 0:07:00for his new song cycle, Dr Dee.
0:07:06 > 0:07:07The girls and boys...
0:07:07 > 0:07:10You're the only man that I know...
0:07:10 > 0:07:13and I have great admiration for any man that has properly cast bells
0:07:13 > 0:07:16with the inscriptions... Where did you get the inscriptions from?
0:07:16 > 0:07:21I found them in a book I bought down the Portobello Road.
0:07:21 > 0:07:22Will you hang them?
0:07:22 > 0:07:25At one point I sort of had
0:07:25 > 0:07:28delusions of grandeur, and thought I could get
0:07:28 > 0:07:32the whole chromatic scale in bells this size.
0:07:32 > 0:07:36Oh, my word. You would have to have a girder the size of...
0:07:36 > 0:07:38Well, I thought if I could construct them
0:07:38 > 0:07:43on the top of the...of this building, you know, and have...
0:07:43 > 0:07:46as the Westway is just there and we have ravens,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50I thought on stormy nights I could be up there in my cape,
0:07:50 > 0:07:53- ringing the bells.- Yeah. Lovely.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57Ravens flying around me, and sirens on the Westway.
0:07:57 > 0:07:58But that's the sound of London.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02How do you think the sound of London has changed? That is the old sound.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04That's one of the ways I channel it.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08- Through the sounds of the bells of the churches?- What I enjoy doing
0:08:08 > 0:08:11is being in the past and the present simultaneously.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13I like that.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16I think that's what I love about London,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19is, you know, its monumental history.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23# The broken heart
0:08:23 > 0:08:27# The blackbird sings
0:08:27 > 0:08:31# And the moon, it laughs
0:08:32 > 0:08:35# As war begins
0:08:37 > 0:08:38# Dance... #
0:08:38 > 0:08:41FLUTE PLAYS
0:08:41 > 0:08:42I went back to the sort of things
0:08:42 > 0:08:46that you would imagine people would have played then,
0:08:46 > 0:08:50well, people did play then, like lutes and recorders and sackbuts.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54- Rackets.- Yes.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57- I've got a few rackets, actually. - Nice.- Yeah.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01# Hurricane spit and tornado
0:09:01 > 0:09:05# Growl over London today... #
0:09:06 > 0:09:09Going back to the sound of London, where do you think it's all going?
0:09:09 > 0:09:13I hear a lot of the sounds of London
0:09:13 > 0:09:17in the nether regions around Radio Four, late at night.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20There's a lot of pirate activity.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22DUBSTEP MUSIC
0:09:22 > 0:09:26So the exciting thing is to identify the essence,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30which, in its way, is in something like that bell,
0:09:30 > 0:09:34- and cook something new up.- Yes. Yeah.
0:09:36 > 0:09:40It is impossible to hear the earliest tunes of London.
0:09:40 > 0:09:41They weren't recorded.
0:09:41 > 0:09:45So to find out about the first songs to be sung in modern English,
0:09:45 > 0:09:49I'm visiting this unassuming building off Primrose Hill, which houses
0:09:49 > 0:09:53the world's greatest collection of English folk music and dance.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Chief librarian Malcolm Taylor
0:09:55 > 0:09:56has a room full of rare documents
0:09:56 > 0:10:02gathered by the Edwardian song collector Cecil Sharp.
0:10:02 > 0:10:04Where do I begin, if I'm looking for the music of London?
0:10:04 > 0:10:09This is the Folk Music Society, but am I in the right place to start?
0:10:09 > 0:10:14The first thing you have to remember about the collectors of folk music
0:10:14 > 0:10:20was that they saw the towns and cities as corrupting places.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24They wanted to preserve something they thought was dying out
0:10:24 > 0:10:27so they wanted to write it down and preserve it and study it.
0:10:27 > 0:10:30At the same time, they wanted to use it
0:10:30 > 0:10:33to try and create a national identity for the music.
0:10:33 > 0:10:37In other words, it's pure when it's in the country, being handed down,
0:10:37 > 0:10:41- that's unchanged?- It's like this rural idyll they were looking for.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47But once it gets to the city, people are hearing music-hall songs
0:10:47 > 0:10:50- and that's all getting mashed up. - It's getting mashed up, but also,
0:10:50 > 0:10:53the concert halls were being swamped by German and Austrian music
0:10:53 > 0:10:55- and what have you. - Classical music?- Classical music.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58They did go to some of the workhouses,
0:10:58 > 0:11:03like Sharp collected in the Marylebone workhouse in London.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06He had over 50, sort of, informants in there
0:11:06 > 0:11:08but the people in the workhouses,
0:11:08 > 0:11:10they're coming in off the land, a lot of them
0:11:10 > 0:11:14and a lot of emigrants coming in ended up in the workhouses,
0:11:14 > 0:11:19bringing their traditions with them, so the whole thing is a melting pot.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21The songs were clearly in London,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25because they were printed in their thousands
0:11:25 > 0:11:28and they were all printed in the most dangerous areas
0:11:28 > 0:11:32because these were for the voices from below,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34these were for the people.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37What the poor people of London wanted in their music
0:11:37 > 0:11:39wasn't pure or idyllic.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42They revelled in songs about sex, love,
0:11:42 > 0:11:45crime, corruption, misbehaviour and death.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49These graphic tunes were broadside ballads.
0:11:49 > 0:11:52A particularly dark spot where these songs were sung
0:11:52 > 0:11:56is now the perfectly harmless traffic intersection at Marble Arch,
0:11:56 > 0:12:00but was originally the gruesome location of Old Tyburn Gallows,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04as early music expert Lucie Skeaping explains.
0:12:04 > 0:12:06You'd obviously go to where the crowds were
0:12:06 > 0:12:09and there were ballad peddlers at places like Bartholomew Fair,
0:12:09 > 0:12:11street markets, all the rest of it,
0:12:11 > 0:12:14but one place you would be sure to find a good crowd
0:12:14 > 0:12:17who would hopefully listen to you sing and then buy a ballad
0:12:17 > 0:12:18would be at a public execution.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24A typical kind of song you might sing and indeed sell at a hanging
0:12:24 > 0:12:28would be a song about the prisoner...
0:12:28 > 0:12:31- Yes.- ..sometimes purporting to be his last words.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34So you could, later that night, go to the pub and sing,
0:12:34 > 0:12:38"Oh, this is what...Fred sang just before they hung him"?
0:12:38 > 0:12:42Yes, some sort of celebrity, a highwayman or something.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45# I am a poor prisoner, condemned to die
0:12:45 > 0:12:49# Oh, woe is me for my great folly
0:12:49 > 0:12:52# Fast fettered in irons
0:12:52 > 0:12:53# In place where I lie
0:12:53 > 0:12:57# Be warned, young wantons, hemp passeth green holly
0:12:57 > 0:13:01# In honour of my birthday then
0:13:01 > 0:13:05# I robbed in bravery 19 men
0:13:05 > 0:13:09# Lord Jesus receive me, with mercy relieve me
0:13:09 > 0:13:13# Receive, O sweet Saviour, my Spirit to thee. #
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Buy one for the little baby. A lovely present for him.
0:13:18 > 0:13:21CHOIR SINGS, CROWD CLAMOURS
0:13:21 > 0:13:23- Here's the spot.- Oh, my God! - This is the very spot, right?
0:13:23 > 0:13:26"The site of Tyburn Tree."
0:13:26 > 0:13:30It's an awful idea to think they called it a tree, because of course
0:13:30 > 0:13:32it was a triple gallows, I think,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35so you're going to get triple your money's worth if you came to watch
0:13:35 > 0:13:38because three people could be hanged at once.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40Of course, this wasn't London in the old days.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Tyburn was a village some four miles or so outside London,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46which of course was the City of London,
0:13:46 > 0:13:51so the prisoners from, say, Newgate Jail would be brought in a cart...
0:13:51 > 0:13:53It'll be your turn next! Goodbye!
0:13:53 > 0:13:57..stopping at various pubs to get more and more drunk,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00egged on by people who would maybe follow the cart
0:14:00 > 0:14:01and finally end up at Tyburn.
0:14:01 > 0:14:07# When on the ladder you do me view
0:14:07 > 0:14:11# Think I am nearer Heaven than you
0:14:13 > 0:14:16# Lord Jesus receive me, with mercy relieve me
0:14:16 > 0:14:22# Receive, O sweet Saviour, my Spirit to thee. #
0:14:22 > 0:14:25May God bless all my friends!
0:14:25 > 0:14:28And may my enemies be hanged as I am.
0:14:30 > 0:14:37# We would go on loving in the same old way... #
0:14:37 > 0:14:39The streets of London have always been paved with buskers,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42singing for the shiny shillings in your pocket.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46# If those lips could only speak
0:14:46 > 0:14:49# And those eyes could only see... #
0:14:53 > 0:14:55In the 18th century, London was growing fast.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58The population was now well over half a million
0:14:58 > 0:15:01and the people had a huge appetite for broadside ballads.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07I'm meeting Professor Vic Gammon at Seven Dials in Covent Garden,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11one of the most dangerous and wicked areas of old London,
0:15:11 > 0:15:13where they were printed, sold and sung.
0:15:14 > 0:15:16You know, law enforcement people
0:15:16 > 0:15:19would be rather trepidacious about coming into this area.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22It had that reputation. Lots of Irish immigrants here
0:15:22 > 0:15:25as well as people coming in from the countryside
0:15:25 > 0:15:29in England and so on. It's full of noises, it's full of workshops,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32it's full of people doing things, printing presses, hammering,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35people selling their wares on the streets, all sorts of street traders
0:15:35 > 0:15:37and the ballad singers.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40# Quoth John to Joan, wilt thou have me?
0:15:40 > 0:15:42# I prithee thou wilt and I'se marry with thee... #
0:15:42 > 0:15:45They would sing the song, and I would go past
0:15:45 > 0:15:48and if I liked what they were singing, I'd listen to it,
0:15:48 > 0:15:50- learn it by ear...- Yes. - ..and then take the music away,
0:15:50 > 0:15:53- so that was the way you did it, by ear?- You'd take the words away.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56It would sometimes say "to the tune of"
0:15:56 > 0:15:58and it might be a very popular tune,
0:15:58 > 0:16:02Fortune My Foe, Greensleeves, one of those well-known ballad tunes,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05so you got lots more sets of words than you ever have tunes, usually.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09These sheets are sold in their thousands. They're not minor things.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11Some of the most important early printing
0:16:11 > 0:16:13in terms of volume are ballad sheets.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16# I's under yon broad oak will lie
0:16:16 > 0:16:19# Upon my back to see the sky... #
0:16:19 > 0:16:22London remains the biggest centre of production, and this part of London,
0:16:22 > 0:16:24not just London, this part of London,
0:16:24 > 0:16:28the Seven Dials, Monmouth Court, Monmouth Street,
0:16:28 > 0:16:32foreign visitors who had come here talk about, you know,
0:16:32 > 0:16:34almost every corner, there is a ballad singer on it.
0:16:34 > 0:16:36Much more than say, buskers today.
0:16:36 > 0:16:39You certainly get writers saying the place is infested,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42that's the word they use, infested with ballad singers.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45# Then say me Joan, say me Joan, will that not do...
0:16:45 > 0:16:47# I've corn and hay in the barn hard by...
0:16:47 > 0:16:49# I cannot come every day to woo...
0:16:49 > 0:16:51# And three fat hogs pent up in the sty...
0:16:51 > 0:16:53# As under yon broad oak I lie... #
0:16:54 > 0:16:57Cecil Sharp was the most prolific collector.
0:16:57 > 0:17:02He copied down nearly 5,000 tunes in England and North America,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05which is a great story in itself, because when he goes to America,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08he finds the British ballads, many of which have died out here,
0:17:08 > 0:17:11and they're alive in the Appalachian Mountains.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16If you thought the roots of the blues were purely African-American,
0:17:16 > 0:17:21think again. The blues are sung in English, and extraordinarily,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24some of the songs began here in London
0:17:24 > 0:17:25before they crossed the Atlantic.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29# I went down to St James infirmary
0:17:29 > 0:17:33# Saw my baby there
0:17:33 > 0:17:35# Decked out on a long white table... #
0:17:35 > 0:17:38So here we are in old St James's in London,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42and one of the songs I'm very interested in,
0:17:42 > 0:17:45which I believe originates in 18th-century London,
0:17:45 > 0:17:46is the St James Infirmary Blues.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49Tell us about that song, what you know of it.
0:17:49 > 0:17:52# To the St James infirmary... #
0:17:53 > 0:17:57It started off as an old ballad, a couple of hundred years old,
0:17:57 > 0:17:59and then it travelled to Virginia,
0:17:59 > 0:18:03where it was collected in 1941 by Alan Lomax
0:18:03 > 0:18:05from a woman called Texas Gladden
0:18:05 > 0:18:08and then, my particular version,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12the version I sing at the moment, went through Mama Cass
0:18:12 > 0:18:15and has come back to me and I've sort of,
0:18:15 > 0:18:19me and a band called Mawkin from Essex have kind of re-anglicised it
0:18:19 > 0:18:21- so it's gone full circle. - And taken it back to its roots,
0:18:21 > 0:18:25which is where the St James Infirmary hospital was, right here.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28- And here we are.- So what was the person in the St James Hospital,
0:18:28 > 0:18:30what was he being treated for?
0:18:30 > 0:18:33- Syphilis.- Nice.
0:18:33 > 0:18:34Good old folk music disease.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37Well, I suppose that's part of folk music. What I think is great
0:18:37 > 0:18:41is the way you get a song like that, then you see it and you make it new.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44That's what I think is brilliant about you, but what's great is,
0:18:44 > 0:18:47it's like it comes from London, it goes to the Appalachians,
0:18:47 > 0:18:50it turns into the blues, and then it comes all the way back...
0:18:50 > 0:18:52Oh, you've gone. It comes all the way back to here.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54So there it is, there's St James's Palace.
0:18:54 > 0:18:56There are some modern people in the street
0:18:56 > 0:18:59but let's go back to 18th-century London.
0:19:20 > 0:19:26# When I was a young girl
0:19:26 > 0:19:30# I used to seek pleasure
0:19:30 > 0:19:35# When I was a young girl
0:19:35 > 0:19:40# I used to drink ale
0:19:40 > 0:19:44# Then it was out of the ale house
0:19:44 > 0:19:49# And into the jailhouse
0:19:49 > 0:19:53# Right out of the barroom
0:19:53 > 0:19:58# And into my grave
0:20:06 > 0:20:11# And had he but told me
0:20:11 > 0:20:15# Before he disowned me
0:20:15 > 0:20:24# Had he but told me of it in time
0:20:24 > 0:20:27# I could have got pills
0:20:27 > 0:20:34# And salt of white mercury
0:20:34 > 0:20:37# But now I'm just a young girl
0:20:37 > 0:20:41# Cut down in my prime. #
0:20:41 > 0:20:45BIG BEN CHIMES
0:20:45 > 0:20:49The evocative chimes of Big Ben, the Westminster chimes.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52That little tune that I mentioned earlier
0:20:52 > 0:20:55which had been written by an incredibly famous German immigrant.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57Let's go up to the top of the tower
0:20:57 > 0:20:59and meet Paul Roberson and find out more.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04Everyone knows that tune,
0:21:04 > 0:21:07- everybody has grown up with that tune in London.- That's right.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Everybody in Britain has grown up with that tune.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13It is part of the signature of the sound of London.
0:21:13 > 0:21:18But the tune, the chimes, that comes...
0:21:18 > 0:21:21really, that's associated with a very famous composer, isn't it?
0:21:21 > 0:21:28The chimes were composed on the basis of four notes from Handel's Messiah,
0:21:28 > 0:21:31the four notes after the Hallelujah Chorus,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34I Know My Redeemer Liveth.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38The chime tune is based on that.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41So the most famous, really, chimes in the world
0:21:41 > 0:21:44were written by Handel in London, and it has a great resonance
0:21:44 > 0:21:47for Londoners, doesn't it? And lots of people around the world.
0:21:47 > 0:21:49We have had people up in the belfry and they're in tears...
0:21:49 > 0:21:51MECHANISM CLATTERS
0:21:51 > 0:21:53- It's meant to do that.- Yeah? Good.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56We have had people up in the belfry, virtually in tears
0:21:56 > 0:21:59because it just means so much to them.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03Did it stop at any point? Have the chimes had to be stopped?
0:22:03 > 0:22:05They were stopped all through the First World War
0:22:05 > 0:22:07as at the time, they were frightened
0:22:07 > 0:22:10that Zeppelins would be able to hear it and would aim for London.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12During the Second World War,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15they were stopped for a little while
0:22:15 > 0:22:18because when the chimes were being transmitted on the radio,
0:22:18 > 0:22:21people listening to the radio could hear the bombs being dropped
0:22:21 > 0:22:24and air raid sirens going off and this sort of thing,
0:22:24 > 0:22:26and they thought that was too distressing,
0:22:26 > 0:22:29so they actually transmitted a gramophone record playing.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33SOUND OF BIG BEN STRIKING
0:22:33 > 0:22:34But it caused such an outroar,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38because people thought that Big Ben had actually been destroyed
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and that's why they were transmitting this gramophone record,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45so in the end, they decided they would carry on transmitting live,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48even though you could hear this racket going on in the background.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51We are interrupting our programme to bring you a newsflash.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54People felt that while Big Ben was still striking,
0:22:54 > 0:22:56London was still standing.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58Yeah, and the chimes, and the Westminster chimes,
0:22:58 > 0:23:02chiming with Handel's tune at the beginning, beautiful little tune.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06- Composed by a German.- Exactly, yes, so there we are. Quite so.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12# London pride has been handed down to us
0:23:12 > 0:23:15# London pride is a flower that's free
0:23:15 > 0:23:18# London pride means our own dear town to us
0:23:18 > 0:23:21# And our pride it forever will be. #
0:23:28 > 0:23:30Handel wrote The Messiah in London
0:23:30 > 0:23:34100 years before one of its phrases was sampled for the bells
0:23:34 > 0:23:36of this mighty clock in the 1850s.
0:23:40 > 0:23:41Let's take time out for a moment
0:23:41 > 0:23:45to reflect that great music wasn't only coming from the streets.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49It was also being commissioned for the churches and for the court.
0:23:52 > 0:23:58HE PLAYS THE WESTMINSTER CHIMES ON HARPSICHORD
0:24:15 > 0:24:181723.
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Not the time, but the year, when Handel made this his home in London.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30Yes, 25 Brook Street. So this is were Handel lived.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33What a genius he was and what a lovely house for him to live in.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36There's fielded panelling, nice walnut furniture,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40and portraits here of some of the great musicians that he worked with,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44many of whom were, like himself, immigrants into London.
0:24:44 > 0:24:46For instance, here - Faustina,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49the great Italian opera singer who moved over here,
0:24:49 > 0:24:52and over here, a rather strange fellow at the harpsichord.
0:24:54 > 0:24:57HE SEGUES INTO A JAZZY TUNE
0:24:58 > 0:25:02It's in this room that Handel would have written lots of his music,
0:25:02 > 0:25:05and at the same time he was trying to write something for the state
0:25:05 > 0:25:09or another opera or something great, there was a constant din going on
0:25:09 > 0:25:12in the street out there in 18th-century London.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17This picture rather beautifully depicts that type of noise.
0:25:17 > 0:25:18Come a little bit closer,
0:25:18 > 0:25:22and you can actually hear some of the sounds of 18th-century London
0:25:22 > 0:25:25as we observe these Hogarthian grotesques
0:25:25 > 0:25:29annoying this poor man here, one of Handel's friends, a violinist.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33So the violinist is looking out, getting crosser and crosser
0:25:33 > 0:25:37because here, a ballad singer is screaming right under his window.
0:25:37 > 0:25:42Her baby is crying. A child is playing with a rattle.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45A really annoying child is having a piss right outside the front door.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49Another child is playing his drum. Thanks very much, indeed.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52A busker is right outside your window with his pipe.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54One of the criers of London
0:25:54 > 0:25:57is hollering her wares all over the way here.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59Another of crier of London with a bell there,
0:25:59 > 0:26:01I think this looks like a fishmonger.
0:26:01 > 0:26:02There's a man sharpening a knife.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06Can you think how annoying that would be? And somebody else here,
0:26:06 > 0:26:08a huntsman blowing his horn as he comes through London,
0:26:08 > 0:26:10some drunken revellers shouting out,
0:26:10 > 0:26:14cats shouting on the roof, and all Handel's trying to do
0:26:14 > 0:26:18is write the Messiah, thank you very much. So why don't you shut up!
0:26:25 > 0:26:27- A few hundred years later... - MOTORBIKE PASSES
0:26:27 > 0:26:30..still pretty noisy in the streets of London.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32Another strange thing is this.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34In the house next door to Handel...
0:26:36 > 0:26:38..Jimi Hendrix lived for a brief while.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44Yes, all the migrant musicians move in around here.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47MUSIC: "Hallelujah Chorus"
0:26:47 > 0:26:51MUSIC: "Cool For Cats" by Squeeze
0:26:54 > 0:26:58The sounds of London have often been made by immigrants as well as locals
0:26:58 > 0:27:01and the songs are often wary of the big bad city
0:27:01 > 0:27:02inhabited by a sinful people.
0:27:07 > 0:27:11By the beginning of the 19th century London was known as
0:27:11 > 0:27:13the wickedest city on earth,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16and had a population of over a million.
0:27:19 > 0:27:21# Up London city I made my way
0:27:21 > 0:27:24# Up Cheapside I chanced to stray
0:27:24 > 0:27:26# Where a fair pretty maid I there did meet
0:27:26 > 0:27:28# And I greeted her with kisses sweet
0:27:28 > 0:27:30# I was up to the rigs, down to the jigs
0:27:30 > 0:27:31# Up to the rigs of London town
0:27:31 > 0:27:34# Up to the rigs, down to the jigs
0:27:34 > 0:27:36# Up to the rigs of London town
0:27:43 > 0:27:45# She took me to some house of sin
0:27:45 > 0:27:47# And boldly then she entered in
0:27:47 > 0:27:49# Loudly for supper she did call
0:27:49 > 0:27:51# Thinking that I would pay for it all
0:27:51 > 0:27:53# I was up to the rigs
0:27:53 > 0:27:55# Down to the jigs
0:27:55 > 0:27:59# Up to the rigs of London town
0:27:59 > 0:28:01# I was up to the rigs
0:28:01 > 0:28:03# Down to the jigs
0:28:03 > 0:28:07# Up to the rigs
0:28:07 > 0:28:09# I searched her pockets and there I found
0:28:09 > 0:28:11# A silver snuff-box and ten pound
0:28:11 > 0:28:13# A golden watch and a diamond ring
0:28:13 > 0:28:15# So I took the lot and locked her in
0:28:15 > 0:28:19# Up to the rigs, down to the jigs Up to the rigs of London town
0:28:19 > 0:28:23# Up to the rigs, down to the jigs Up to the rigs of London town
0:28:23 > 0:28:27# Up to the rigs, down to the jigs Up to the rigs of London town
0:28:27 > 0:28:31# Up to the rigs, down to the jigs Up to the rigs of London town. #
0:28:33 > 0:28:35JOOLS CLAPS
0:28:35 > 0:28:38That was top of the range. Spiers and Boden, that was so beautiful.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41What a lovely song. Where does that song come from?
0:28:41 > 0:28:45Well, it's an old folk song, probably started off as a music hall song,
0:28:45 > 0:28:48maybe late 19th-century, and that particular version
0:28:48 > 0:28:51was collected from a gentleman called Charger Sammons.
0:28:51 > 0:28:53- Yes, nice name.- Yes, very nice name,
0:28:53 > 0:28:58but it was quite widely sung all over the place. I think people like to...
0:28:58 > 0:29:02- About London and for Londoners? - Yeah, people like to hear stories
0:29:02 > 0:29:06about how vile and despicable the people of London were
0:29:06 > 0:29:08so that was a good one for that.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11- Great. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm after. Thanks.- See you.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17By the mid-19th-century, London's great artists and singers
0:29:17 > 0:29:20were no longer to be heard on the streets. They'd moved indoors
0:29:20 > 0:29:24to fill the newly built palaces for popular entertainment -
0:29:24 > 0:29:27the music hall.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to introduce
0:29:30 > 0:29:32'the one and only Little Titch.'
0:29:50 > 0:29:52Down here, this is one of the great
0:29:52 > 0:29:56last bastions of music hall, probably, in the country,
0:29:56 > 0:29:58certainly in London.
0:29:58 > 0:30:00Wilton's Music Hall.
0:30:00 > 0:30:021858, for crying out loud,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06and it's now the oldest music hall, I believe, in the world.
0:30:06 > 0:30:10Fantastic. When were the very first music halls? About that time?
0:30:10 > 0:30:12Round about 1840 onwards.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15In fact, in the 1870's, which was after this place closed,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19there were 300 music halls in London alone.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25What were the sort of people who came to see the stuff then?
0:30:25 > 0:30:28It would have been mostly people connected with the sea,
0:30:28 > 0:30:30because the docks is just over there.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32And it would be mostly sailors,
0:30:32 > 0:30:36who'd been at sea for six months and saved all their money.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38They'd come in here, pockets full of money,
0:30:38 > 0:30:41where they'd be sung to, drunk to
0:30:41 > 0:30:45- and their every whim catered for! - Yes!- You know!
0:30:45 > 0:30:48This is the place where Champagne Charlie was first...
0:30:48 > 0:30:52George Leybourne is purported to have first sung Champagne Charlie
0:30:52 > 0:30:54on this stage,
0:30:54 > 0:30:58which is a song really that covers the whole period of music hall.
0:30:58 > 0:31:00You just hear that song once -
0:31:00 > 0:31:03# Champagne Charlie is my name. #
0:31:03 > 0:31:06And you can hear the handsome cab going by, can't you?
0:31:06 > 0:31:10It's a great song! And he's purported to have first sung it here.
0:31:10 > 0:31:12- Let's go and have a look. - Shall we see if he's still there?
0:31:12 > 0:31:14Let's have a look.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19Music hall doyen, Roy Hudd, has introduced me to a fantastic
0:31:19 > 0:31:22and rare song of the period, While London's Fast Asleep.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26That was a song that was written by a man called Harry Dacre.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29Harry Dacre's claim to fame was he wrote great,
0:31:29 > 0:31:33happy music hall love songs like Daisy Daisy Give Me Your Answer Do,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36I'll Be Your Sweetheart - songs like that.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40This was a song, goodness knows what he had seen,
0:31:40 > 0:31:42but he had must have come back and had a few one night
0:31:42 > 0:31:44and thought, "I'll tell you the truth in the song,"
0:31:44 > 0:31:46because they all knocked London.
0:31:46 > 0:31:49A lot of the early songs knocked London.
0:31:49 > 0:31:50MELODIC PIANO TUNE
0:32:01 > 0:32:05# The greatest city of the world is London
0:32:05 > 0:32:10# At least that's what the wealthy people say
0:32:10 > 0:32:13# It's very nice for some
0:32:13 > 0:32:16# What always gets the plum
0:32:16 > 0:32:21# I only get what people throw away
0:32:21 > 0:32:27# It's very nice for starving boys in winter
0:32:27 > 0:32:32# It's very nice the camping out at night
0:32:32 > 0:32:36# A doorstep for your bed
0:32:36 > 0:32:39# Another for your head
0:32:39 > 0:32:44# Because you haven't sold your bloomin' lights
0:32:47 > 0:32:51# While London sleeps
0:32:52 > 0:32:55# And all the lamps
0:32:55 > 0:32:59# Are gleaming
0:32:59 > 0:33:03# Millions of her people
0:33:04 > 0:33:09# Now lie sweetly dreaming
0:33:09 > 0:33:14# Some have no homes
0:33:14 > 0:33:19# And all their sorrows weep
0:33:21 > 0:33:25# Others laugh and play the game
0:33:27 > 0:33:33# While London's fast asleep. #
0:33:39 > 0:33:41APPLAUSE
0:33:47 > 0:33:50By the early 20th century, the population had swollen
0:33:50 > 0:33:54to six million and the city was absorbing its surrounding villages.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00Its music hall performers had become the first working-class popstars
0:34:00 > 0:34:03and their songs were sung by everyone.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06WHISTLING
0:34:06 > 0:34:09A lot of the songs I knew from my dad's shaving.
0:34:09 > 0:34:12When my dad shaved, it was quite a rigmarole.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14In those houses you didn't have bathrooms
0:34:14 > 0:34:16and you had to get some hot water.
0:34:16 > 0:34:18He'd spend a lot of time and he'd sing.
0:34:18 > 0:34:21# We all came into this world
0:34:21 > 0:34:26# With nothing no clothes to wear. #
0:34:26 > 0:34:29And he'd sing bits and pieces of songs like that would come up.
0:34:29 > 0:34:32# Give me a London girl every time. #
0:34:32 > 0:34:36In the house, there would be a fair amount of old-time singing.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39The old girl who lived on the top floor and her husband,
0:34:39 > 0:34:40we used to like having little sings,
0:34:40 > 0:34:44while we played cards, for example.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48The whole feeling of the music hall is community.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51# If you saw our little back yard
0:34:51 > 0:34:53# What a pretty spot, you'd cry
0:34:53 > 0:34:57# It's a picture of a sunny summer day with the turnip tops
0:34:57 > 0:35:01# And cabbages what people doesn't buy well I'll make it on a Sunday
0:35:01 > 0:35:02# Look all gay
0:35:02 > 0:35:04# Course the neighbours thinks I grows 'em
0:35:04 > 0:35:06# And you'd fancy you're in Kent
0:35:06 > 0:35:09# Or at Epsom if you gaze into the mews
0:35:09 > 0:35:13# It's a wonder that the landlord doesn't want to raise the rent
0:35:13 > 0:35:17# Just because we got such nobby distant views
0:35:17 > 0:35:22# What views! Cos it really is a very pretty garden
0:35:22 > 0:35:26# And Chingford to the eastward might be seen
0:35:26 > 0:35:31# With a ladder and some glasses you could see to Hackney Marshes
0:35:31 > 0:35:35# If it wasn't for the houses in between. #
0:35:35 > 0:35:40That was brilliant, if I may say so! Fantastic rendition!
0:35:40 > 0:35:42It's a great song, it's a great song.
0:35:42 > 0:35:45Anybody singing it would be...
0:35:45 > 0:35:48It really is about the growth of London,
0:35:48 > 0:35:52an enormous number of songs were about how London was creeping out.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56At the turn-of-the-century, London was expanding enormously.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01There used to be the wall went around the city of London
0:36:01 > 0:36:05and you looked in and saw St Paul's in the city
0:36:05 > 0:36:07and that was it from the hills going around.
0:36:07 > 0:36:09Now, I think the M25 is the wall that goes round London,
0:36:09 > 0:36:14and you look in and see the great big towers of Canary Wharf and everything.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18If we were to update If It Wasn't For The 'Ouses In Between,
0:36:18 > 0:36:19how do you think it would go?
0:36:19 > 0:36:25# Cos it really is a very pretty garden
0:36:25 > 0:36:29# And Hendon to the Northwoods might be seen
0:36:29 > 0:36:34# Even if you was a dwarf you could see Canary Wharf
0:36:34 > 0:36:38# If it wasn't for the houses in between. #
0:36:38 > 0:36:41- It's just a little... - That's beautiful. Very Good.- No!
0:36:41 > 0:36:46# Lazy Sunday afternoon
0:36:46 > 0:36:49# I've got no mind to worry... #
0:36:49 > 0:36:52The great music hall performers of the early 20th century
0:36:52 > 0:36:56were among the first artists able to record and sell their songs,
0:36:56 > 0:36:59so we can still hear them on the radio...
0:36:59 > 0:37:02# Here we all are... #
0:37:02 > 0:37:04..with the help of the right person.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Broadcasting House,
0:37:06 > 0:37:10built in the 1930's, the iconic home of BBC.
0:37:10 > 0:37:12For years music could be broadcast
0:37:12 > 0:37:14from London to the whole world from here.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17Yes, from London to the whole world. And now in this building,
0:37:17 > 0:37:19one of the greatest broadcasters
0:37:19 > 0:37:22the BBC has, is making his show.
0:37:24 > 0:37:28Danny Baker knows about all kinds of London music...
0:37:28 > 0:37:29Here we go!
0:37:29 > 0:37:33..but is an expert on the last of the music hall artists,
0:37:33 > 0:37:35like Leslie Sarony and Max Miller.
0:37:37 > 0:37:39DANNY WHISTLES
0:37:39 > 0:37:40BOTH: Oi!
0:37:40 > 0:37:41# How you getting on? #
0:37:41 > 0:37:42HE WHISTLES
0:37:42 > 0:37:45Oi! # How you getting on? #
0:37:45 > 0:37:49HE MOUTHS: # God love 'em, crikey, cor blimey
0:37:49 > 0:37:52# You'd hear Mrs Mippin remark
0:37:52 > 0:37:54# I scrub and I rub and I do not cumbub
0:37:54 > 0:37:56# Just to sit in the soot as it's dark. #
0:37:56 > 0:37:58# Look at the cawfin
0:37:58 > 0:38:00# Bloomin' great handles
0:38:00 > 0:38:03# Ain't it grand to be blooming well dead. #
0:38:03 > 0:38:05There's so many great lines in this.
0:38:05 > 0:38:07# Look at me brother
0:38:07 > 0:38:09# Bloomin' cigar on
0:38:09 > 0:38:13# Ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead. #
0:38:13 > 0:38:15You know there's a follow-up, it's on here -
0:38:15 > 0:38:16Three Cheers For The Undertaker.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18RAUCOUS LAUGHTER
0:38:18 > 0:38:21Three Cheers For The Undertaker. So funny!
0:38:21 > 0:38:23- Just as the title!- I know!
0:38:24 > 0:38:26That is a great title.
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Three Cheers For The Undertaker!
0:38:30 > 0:38:32# Umper, umper, stick it up your jumper
0:38:32 > 0:38:34# Tra-la-la-la-la. #
0:38:34 > 0:38:37It was banned by the BBC, Umper Umper Stick It Up Your Jumper.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40People say Oompa Oompa Stick It Up Your Jumper, but the original song
0:38:40 > 0:38:42which is that, was the first song to get banned by the BBC.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44- Big Cockney song. - Because Umper was like...?
0:38:44 > 0:38:47No, stick it up your jumper. You couldn't say things like that!
0:38:47 > 0:38:49RAUCOUS LAUGHTER
0:38:51 > 0:38:54# You say you cannot sleep at night Your bed is no temptation
0:38:54 > 0:38:57# Say the word and marry me
0:38:57 > 0:38:59# And I'll be your salvation
0:38:59 > 0:39:02# I'll take your Horlicks up to bed
0:39:02 > 0:39:04# And stop your night's starvation... #
0:39:04 > 0:39:06HE MOUTHS
0:39:06 > 0:39:08Bring the band on! Bring the band on!
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Great! What joy.
0:39:13 > 0:39:16That's beautiful. You better get in and do your radio programme.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18I've got ten minutes yet. Literally there's no preparation, none.
0:39:18 > 0:39:20LAUGHTER
0:39:20 > 0:39:23- We're capturing this on film.- No, that's all right. Everyone knows it.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26Eight minutes and he just couldn't care less.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29SONG: "The Lambeth Walk"
0:39:44 > 0:39:47- Oi!- Oi!- Beautifully done. - Lovely, lovely.
0:39:47 > 0:39:50- Lovely sound that, John. How would you describe that?- Gorgeous.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52Well, it's beautiful, beautiful,
0:39:52 > 0:39:55but it's not really characteristic of the London I knew.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58We didn't have these little organs, we used to have...
0:39:58 > 0:40:02The barrel organ we had was really a street piano.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05You turn a handle and you activate the equivalent of a piano key
0:40:05 > 0:40:07banging the string.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09And that had a different sound.
0:40:09 > 0:40:12And what sort of other sounds?
0:40:12 > 0:40:15The sound on my street? Well, the Salvation Army on a Sunday.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18Kids singing, I mean, the street was a playground.
0:40:19 > 0:40:22And all the girls in the street would be skipping.
0:40:22 > 0:40:25Skipping sounds or the games that were played in the street
0:40:25 > 0:40:26had lots of noise.
0:40:27 > 0:40:29# Teddy bear teddy bear switch off the light
0:40:29 > 0:40:33# Teddy bear teddy bear say good night... #
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Cricket, football, we would play in the street. The sounds of kids.
0:40:37 > 0:40:38# Our princess
0:40:38 > 0:40:43# There was a lovely princess long long ago... #
0:40:47 > 0:40:53# Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57# That I love London so... #
0:40:57 > 0:41:01I've come to a Victorian school in the east end to listen to
0:41:01 > 0:41:03a sound that used to be common on the street of London,
0:41:03 > 0:41:05but is now only heard in the playground.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08# Bunny got shot by the UFO
0:41:08 > 0:41:10# Bunny got shot by the UFO. #
0:41:11 > 0:41:17# London's burning, London's burning, come quickly, come quickly.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19# London's burning, London's burning... #
0:41:20 > 0:41:23Children used to play perfectly harmless singing games
0:41:23 > 0:41:27on the street, even though the meaning of the old songs
0:41:27 > 0:41:30was often about death, destruction, disease and execution.
0:41:30 > 0:41:33# It's the end with fire, fire... #
0:41:33 > 0:41:37Things like London's Burning, London Bridge Is Falling Down,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39Ring A Ring O' Roses, that sort of thing,
0:41:39 > 0:41:43they would tend to be done by nursery level now.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48The older children like this wouldn't do that sort of thing.
0:41:48 > 0:41:50What they do more is clapping rhymes
0:41:50 > 0:41:53and sort of dance routines with clapping.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04I suppose the sound of the street itself is different so the children
0:42:04 > 0:42:07that play in the playground, they don't play on the street so much?
0:42:07 > 0:42:10Yeah, that's the major change in the last 50 years.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14Children don't play in the street any more. We did, I did as a child.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18Nowadays, for various reasons, we don't play in the street.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21So the sound of the street has changed, considerably.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27After the First World War, many things changed.
0:42:27 > 0:42:30London was now home to nearly 8 million people,
0:42:30 > 0:42:33many of whom were listening to a music that was more international.
0:42:33 > 0:42:37The London dance bands of the 1930S
0:42:37 > 0:42:41had their own unique take on American swing.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46The swinging London of the 1930s,
0:42:46 > 0:42:48that must have been a pretty exciting time.
0:42:48 > 0:42:49Who was your favourite singer of that period?
0:42:49 > 0:42:52Oh, my favourite singer, there's only one singer from that period,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56that was Al Bowlly, the one voice, isn't it?
0:42:56 > 0:42:58That everyone immediately recognised.
0:42:58 > 0:42:59I'm sure Dennis Potter did him
0:42:59 > 0:43:02a big favour in bringing him back with Pennies From Heaven.
0:43:02 > 0:43:08# Your poise, your pose, that cute fantastic nose
0:43:08 > 0:43:11# You're mighty like a knock out
0:43:11 > 0:43:14# You're mighty like a rose.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17# I'm sold, I'm hooked... #
0:43:17 > 0:43:20When Al Bowlly got up to sing and he was conducting the band,
0:43:20 > 0:43:24he'd sing a line and he'd turn away on an ordinary love song
0:43:24 > 0:43:27and tears would be streaming down his face.
0:43:27 > 0:43:29God, did he know how to sell a song!
0:43:30 > 0:43:34Music hall was based totally in London and they were the ones who
0:43:34 > 0:43:39sang all the songs about the place where all music halls where.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44When it got to the big bands of the '30s it was much more,
0:43:44 > 0:43:47from all over America particularly, the songs.
0:43:59 > 0:44:03# London is the place for me
0:44:03 > 0:44:06# London this lovely city
0:44:07 > 0:44:10# You can go to France or America
0:44:10 > 0:44:13# India, Asia or Australia... #
0:44:13 > 0:44:16Following World War II, another immigrant sound arrived in London
0:44:16 > 0:44:19this time on a ship from Jamaica.
0:44:19 > 0:44:23It landed at Tilbury Docks on 22nd June 1948.
0:44:27 > 0:44:32This is where the Empire Windrush docked with 500 immigrants on board.
0:44:32 > 0:44:34The beginning of a process that would change
0:44:34 > 0:44:36the soundscape of London forever.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40Arrivals at Tilbury, the Empire Windrush brings to Britain
0:44:40 > 0:44:43500 Jamaicans, many are ex-servicemen who know England.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45They served this country well.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47In Jamaica, they couldn't find work.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50Discouraged but full of hope, they sailed for Britain.
0:44:50 > 0:44:51Citizens of the British Empire
0:44:51 > 0:44:54coming to the mother country with good intent.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57So the Windrush ship arrives here, everybody's looking forward
0:44:57 > 0:45:00to a super new life in lovely London town
0:45:00 > 0:45:04and on that ship was one of the great masters of calypso music.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06Lord Kitchener.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08Lord Kitchener,
0:45:08 > 0:45:11now I'm told you are really the king of calypso singers, is that right?
0:45:11 > 0:45:13- Yes, that's true.- Will you sing? - Right now?- Yes.
0:45:13 > 0:45:19# London...is the place for me. Doom doom doom.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22# London...this lovely city...
0:45:24 > 0:45:29# You can go to France or America, India, Asia or Australia
0:45:29 > 0:45:32# but you must come back to London city
0:45:32 > 0:45:34# Doom doom doom
0:45:34 > 0:45:36# I've been travelling the countries years ago
0:45:36 > 0:45:41# But this is the place I wanted to know, darling London
0:45:41 > 0:45:43# This is the place for me. #
0:45:43 > 0:45:46So, you've just got off the ship, you've arrived,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49"Hello, London. Here I am." Hang on a minute, it's the customs.
0:45:49 > 0:45:54If you have goods to declare, blah blah blah blah blah
0:45:54 > 0:45:57pick up the telephone and await assistance.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03Hello, I've just arrived and I want to report,
0:46:03 > 0:46:05I think there were some people bringing in
0:46:05 > 0:46:07some illicit ska and calypso rhythms
0:46:07 > 0:46:12that are likely to influence the London music for years to come.
0:46:12 > 0:46:14Thanks.
0:46:14 > 0:46:15He said that'd be fine.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18# London, that's the place for me... #
0:46:31 > 0:46:35I'm off to see Sterling Betancourt, who optimistically arrived
0:46:35 > 0:46:39from Trinidad in 1951 to play The Festival Of Britain.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42The instrument he played had never been heard, or seen,
0:46:42 > 0:46:44in London before.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14We tried to give them a surprise
0:47:14 > 0:47:17because we didn't paint the drums.
0:47:17 > 0:47:20We had it all rustic and rusty like garbage.
0:47:20 > 0:47:22Yeah, yeah?
0:47:22 > 0:47:25As...a surprise. You know?
0:47:25 > 0:47:28So when the people saw us...
0:47:28 > 0:47:30taking all these rusty old drums
0:47:30 > 0:47:32they were laughing.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34They were saying,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37where are they going with these dustbins?
0:47:37 > 0:47:39They called us dustbin boys.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42But when we finished playing our first tune,
0:47:42 > 0:47:46everybody was applauding and it was such a surprise.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50They even said it was black magic because they couldn't understand
0:47:50 > 0:47:55how you can get music from these old rusty drums.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58When you first got to England, what was England like when you arrived?
0:47:58 > 0:48:00Was it how you expected it was going to be,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03or what did you think it was going to be and what was it like?
0:48:03 > 0:48:06No, no, I thought, "England is such a bright lovely place,"
0:48:06 > 0:48:11but when we arrived, it was all dark and gloomy and grey.
0:48:13 > 0:48:16And all the bombed out sites.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21I suppose all the musicians are drawn to London
0:48:21 > 0:48:25- because there's the work and everything's there...- That's right.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27And in Archer Street every Monday,
0:48:27 > 0:48:31they used to have a big crowd of musicians there.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35Anybody who wants to get a musician for a job,
0:48:35 > 0:48:40you go there on a Monday afternoon and the place is crowded.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43People used to say, "What's happening there with all this crowd?"
0:48:43 > 0:48:47But they see the people with the notebook, the musicians,
0:48:47 > 0:48:49and say "I'm looking for a trumpeter." "I want a bass guitar,"
0:48:49 > 0:48:54and everybody's going around. But now that don't happen.
0:48:57 > 0:49:01Sterling was lucky. Like the rest of the country,
0:49:01 > 0:49:03London was looking for some post-war fun and games.
0:49:03 > 0:49:05Soho was now dancing to its own version of jazz, calypso
0:49:05 > 0:49:08and Latin American rhythms.
0:49:16 > 0:49:21This is one of the historically most important floors in London.
0:49:21 > 0:49:25What is it, you're wondering? Is it part of Roman London? No.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28Is it, perhaps, a very special part of Newgate Prison floor
0:49:28 > 0:49:30that's been perfectly preserved? No.
0:49:30 > 0:49:32Is it a parlour from Bluegate Fields
0:49:32 > 0:49:34that's been perfectly cut out and kept?
0:49:34 > 0:49:36No, it's none of these things. If we look carefully,
0:49:36 > 0:49:40we will see that it is in fact a maple herringbone parquet floor,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44beautifully laid here, and it's a dancefloor.
0:49:44 > 0:49:45And it's the dancefloor of a place
0:49:45 > 0:49:49that has particular significance for me - the 100 Club.
0:49:52 > 0:49:54In the spring of 1957,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58Humphrey Lyttelton was playing here at the 100 Club on this stage,
0:49:58 > 0:50:02and the dancefloor was packed with young Londoners
0:50:02 > 0:50:05all excited by the blues and jazz music.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07It's a well-known fact that that music
0:50:07 > 0:50:12can certainly arouse feelings in a person, perhaps of love and desire,
0:50:12 > 0:50:14and that evening was no different.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18Two young Londoners left this club,
0:50:18 > 0:50:21aroused by the music and the dancing.
0:50:21 > 0:50:23They went home, one thing led to another,
0:50:23 > 0:50:28and then, nine months later, in January 1958,
0:50:28 > 0:50:30I was born.
0:50:31 > 0:50:32Thanks, Humph.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42'It's London's Tin Pan Alley. Birthplace of melodies
0:50:42 > 0:50:45'which have kept Britain singing in good times and in bad.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48'Just 60 yards of plate glass windows,
0:50:48 > 0:50:51'behind which a million new songs are being heard.'
0:50:54 > 0:50:58For years, the centre of London song publishing had been Tin Pan Alley,
0:50:58 > 0:51:01a short street within shouting distance of Seven Dials,
0:51:01 > 0:51:04and the selling of Broadside Ballads hundreds of years before.
0:51:04 > 0:51:08MUSIC: "Halfway to Paradise" by Bobby Vinton
0:51:12 > 0:51:16In the late 1950s, its cosy atmosphere was shattered
0:51:16 > 0:51:19by teenagers with addictions to skiffle, Cliff Richard,
0:51:19 > 0:51:21coffee bars and American rock and roll.
0:51:24 > 0:51:28Suddenly there was a new breed of young British talent
0:51:28 > 0:51:30hoping to make it as pop stars
0:51:30 > 0:51:33with the help of agents like Larry Parnes.
0:51:35 > 0:51:39One true London voice in this new Americanised youth market
0:51:39 > 0:51:40was Joe Brown.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44This was the real hub of the music industry, really, in London.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48And how about when you were with Larry Parnes and all those, sort of,
0:51:48 > 0:51:51those first British London, the first London pop stars, isn't it?
0:51:51 > 0:51:52I guess so, yeah.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55# Let's go Let's go again, boys, yeah
0:51:57 > 0:51:59# Ohh, guitar! #
0:52:03 > 0:52:04So what about the sound of London?
0:52:04 > 0:52:07How would you think of the sound of a London street? How was it then?
0:52:07 > 0:52:09Was it different back then, the street?
0:52:09 > 0:52:14I mean, I used to push a barrow round the East End of London.
0:52:14 > 0:52:15- You were a proper barrow boy?- Yeah.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19And so, would you have a call that you shouted out? What was it?
0:52:19 > 0:52:20Er...
0:52:22 > 0:52:27"All fresh winkles! Winkles all fresh!" Things like that.
0:52:27 > 0:52:28Any other cries you'd have?
0:52:28 > 0:52:31Can you remember any other ones that people would shout out?
0:52:31 > 0:52:33Yeah, things like, "Shift that bloody barrow!"
0:52:38 > 0:52:40And the newspaper sellers, I never knew what they...
0:52:40 > 0:52:44- what did they shout? I don't know what it was.- Depends on the paper.
0:52:44 > 0:52:47I remember it was, "Star News and Standard!"
0:52:47 > 0:52:49Yeah, and there was... JOOLS SHOUTS INCOMPREHENSIBLY
0:52:49 > 0:52:51Oh yeah, nobody knew what that was.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54JOE SHOUTS INCOMPREHENSIBLY
0:52:54 > 0:52:56Exactly! Better get one quick.
0:52:58 > 0:53:00After you.
0:53:00 > 0:53:03'Joe was one of the first British pop stars,
0:53:03 > 0:53:06'but he'd grown up on the songs of the music hall.'
0:53:06 > 0:53:08Yeah, that's a good 'un, yeah.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10Yeah, OK, yeah.
0:53:10 > 0:53:16# Oh, wotcher All the neighbours cry
0:53:16 > 0:53:20# Who you going to meet, Bill? 'Ave you bought the street, Bill?
0:53:20 > 0:53:24# Laugh, I thought I would have died
0:53:24 > 0:53:28# I knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road. #
0:53:28 > 0:53:30What a beautiful song. I love that song.
0:53:30 > 0:53:33Where did you first hear the song? In your mum's pub?
0:53:33 > 0:53:36Yeah, I lived in a pub in Plaistow, which is in the East End
0:53:36 > 0:53:40and, I mean, we used to have a piano player come in there.
0:53:40 > 0:53:41There was a whole family of 'em,
0:53:41 > 0:53:44and they used to sing all them old songs.
0:53:44 > 0:53:49And when I first started recording, that's the only music I knew.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52So I was recording stuff that I'd heard in the pub, you know.
0:53:52 > 0:53:55Only I didn't do the verses, just the choruses.
0:53:55 > 0:53:57What sort of songs were they doing though, then?
0:53:57 > 0:54:00For instance, this one.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03You might not guess the song, but this is the verse.
0:54:04 > 0:54:06# Well, you don't know who you're looking at
0:54:06 > 0:54:09# Until you look at me
0:54:09 > 0:54:11# I'm a bit of a nob, I am
0:54:11 > 0:54:13# Belong to royalty
0:54:13 > 0:54:15# And I shan't forget the day I married
0:54:15 > 0:54:17# Dear old Widow Birch
0:54:17 > 0:54:22# I was King of England as I toddled from the church
0:54:22 > 0:54:26# Outside, the people all shouted "Hip hooray!" #
0:54:26 > 0:54:28- Hooray!- Thank you.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31# Said I, "Get down upon your knees"
0:54:31 > 0:54:33# "It's Coronation Day"
0:54:35 > 0:54:38# I'm Hen-er-ey the Eighth, I am
0:54:38 > 0:54:41# Hen-er-ey the Eighth, I am, I am
0:54:41 > 0:54:44# I got married to the widow next door
0:54:44 > 0:54:46# She's been married seven times before
0:54:46 > 0:54:49- # Well, every one was an 'En-er-ey - En-er-ey!
0:54:49 > 0:54:51# Wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam
0:54:51 > 0:54:54# I'm her eighth old man named Hen-er-ey
0:54:54 > 0:54:57# Hen-er-ey the Eighth, I am. #
0:54:57 > 0:55:02And it goes on and on, up and up and up, till only dogs can hear it.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42We have revealed how some of the words of the old London songs
0:55:42 > 0:55:46worked their way into the blues, and after the war in London,
0:55:46 > 0:55:48it was going to work the other way around,
0:55:48 > 0:55:51and the blues was going to work its way into London music.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54People like Chris Barber, Humphrey Lyttelton, George Melly,
0:55:54 > 0:55:57Ken Colyer, Alexis Korner, John Mayall, Stan Greig,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00Cyril Davies, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03Long John Baldry, the Rolling Stones,
0:56:03 > 0:56:07would take the blues into London and make it into their own thing.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10MUSIC: "Smokestack Lightning" by Manfred Mann
0:56:10 > 0:56:14One of the many British blues bands formed in '60s London
0:56:14 > 0:56:18was Manfred Mann, fronted by singer Paul Jones.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21The band formed under various different names,
0:56:21 > 0:56:23but in 1963 it was called the Blues Brothers.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25And, there's another story,
0:56:25 > 0:56:28we went to, we auditioned for EMI Records,
0:56:28 > 0:56:31and they said, "We like the band but the name's stupid.
0:56:31 > 0:56:33You'll never get anywhere with a name like the Blues Brothers."
0:56:33 > 0:56:38# Smokestack lightning
0:56:38 > 0:56:42# Shining just like gold... #
0:56:42 > 0:56:46And what sort of places did you use to go in London
0:56:46 > 0:56:49to hear or to perform in those early days?
0:56:49 > 0:56:53- The short answer to that question is the 100 Club.- Yes.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05It was still mostly jazz, but then most places were.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09But they all began to have blues nights.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12What are we talking, sort of early 1960s?
0:57:12 > 0:57:15We're talking deep fog, actually.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21I had a band in Oxford at the time,
0:57:21 > 0:57:24and I actually thought I had the only blues band in England.
0:57:24 > 0:57:28As London grows, I seem to be learning, people come to London
0:57:28 > 0:57:30because it's the centre, so all the musicians come here
0:57:30 > 0:57:32because they've got to find a gig,
0:57:32 > 0:57:34they've got to find a recording contract.
0:57:34 > 0:57:37- Whatever they've got to do, they're going to find it here.- Absolutely.
0:57:37 > 0:57:39There was nowhere else.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43I mean, I met people from the Spencer Davis Group from Birmingham,
0:57:43 > 0:57:47from the Animals from Newcastle, you know, various people.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50# If you see my little red rooster
0:57:53 > 0:57:56# Please drive him home
0:58:02 > 0:58:05# If you see my little red rooster
0:58:08 > 0:58:11# Please drive him home... #
0:58:11 > 0:58:12Their sound wasn't the same
0:58:12 > 0:58:15as the American people they'd been listening to.
0:58:15 > 0:58:17They created their own thing by hearing it
0:58:17 > 0:58:20and it comes out in a different way, and then it becomes great pop music.
0:58:20 > 0:58:22Exactly right.
0:58:22 > 0:58:26'With their top hit, You Really Got Me Going," The Kinks!'
0:58:27 > 0:58:31# Girl, you really got me going
0:58:31 > 0:58:35# You got me so I don't know what I'm doing, now
0:58:35 > 0:58:38# Yeah, you really got me now
0:58:38 > 0:58:41# You got me so I can't sleep at night. #
0:58:41 > 0:58:44- You write about London quite distinctly.- No.
0:58:44 > 0:58:46You don't?
0:58:46 > 0:58:50My influences were the blues, Dixieland...
0:58:50 > 0:58:54and when I wrote You Really Got Me,
0:58:54 > 0:58:58it was my attempt to write a blues song.
0:58:58 > 0:59:00I wanted it to be for John Lee Hooker
0:59:00 > 0:59:02or Howlin' Wolf, someone like that.
0:59:02 > 0:59:07But it ended up, I have this theory, "I'm a honky from North London."
0:59:07 > 0:59:09That's the way my blues sounds.
0:59:09 > 0:59:11MUSIC: "Waterloo Sunset" by the Kinks
0:59:14 > 0:59:16'Ray Davies became a great poet,
0:59:16 > 0:59:20'and a beautiful ornament in the landscape of London.'
0:59:20 > 0:59:25# Dirty old river must you keep rolling
0:59:25 > 0:59:29# Flowing into the night
0:59:29 > 0:59:34# People so busy make me feel dizzy
0:59:34 > 0:59:38# Taxi lights shine so bright... #
0:59:38 > 0:59:43What's the first music you can remember hearing in your world?
0:59:43 > 0:59:48You know when you make a movie, you have an atmos track?
0:59:48 > 0:59:50The sound of where the person lived.
0:59:50 > 0:59:52And it wasn't music, it was a sound.
0:59:53 > 0:59:59A cacophony, people walking, talking, traffic, trains.
0:59:59 > 1:00:01I could hear trains in the distance.
1:00:01 > 1:00:05The subway train coming out.
1:00:05 > 1:00:08I could hear that, it was all one sound, it was no song.
1:00:09 > 1:00:14There is something about delivery, good old-fashioned barrow boys.
1:00:15 > 1:00:19It's like, the other thing about musical people, like barrow boys,
1:00:19 > 1:00:23you had to grab an audience,
1:00:23 > 1:00:26and pop songs were a bit like that.
1:00:26 > 1:00:30You've got a minute to say what you've got to say.
1:00:30 > 1:00:33Here you go, girls, chat to us. I don't charge a lot!
1:00:34 > 1:00:36That's what's called a Piccadilly cumber.
1:00:36 > 1:00:39Whether it's a street trader, the people in the capital
1:00:39 > 1:00:42have always admired the verbal linguist.
1:00:42 > 1:00:45Someone like Arthur English, "I was in Trafalgar Square
1:00:45 > 1:00:47"a woman went down, ace, Jack, King, Queen, on the deck.
1:00:47 > 1:00:49"She come round, she said, 'Where am I?' I said,
1:00:49 > 1:00:51"Map of London, Lady, half a crown."
1:00:51 > 1:00:54That is just ludicrous, but it's get as many words into that space as you can,
1:00:54 > 1:00:56because I know you've got other things to do,
1:00:56 > 1:00:57because you live in London.
1:01:00 > 1:01:03By the mid-1960s,
1:01:03 > 1:01:06what had started with the Empire Windrush was in full swing.
1:01:06 > 1:01:09Jamaican music in the form of Bluebeat,
1:01:09 > 1:01:11ska, and later reggae,
1:01:11 > 1:01:13became an important fixture in the city's soundscape.
1:01:26 > 1:01:29London had become the musical centre of the world,
1:01:29 > 1:01:31with The Beatles now its most famous residents.
1:01:31 > 1:01:34The world and his wife wanted to record their sound
1:01:34 > 1:01:35in the nation's capital,
1:01:35 > 1:01:39at studios like Abbey Road, immortalised by The Fab Four
1:01:39 > 1:01:43themselves and the home of bands like Pink Floyd and The Hollies.
1:01:43 > 1:01:45Now, regrettably, covered with graffiti.
1:01:49 > 1:01:52# Oi! How you getting on..? #
1:01:54 > 1:01:56Earlier on you said to me you didn't think there was London music.
1:01:56 > 1:02:00I thought it was a specious concept because I don't think you could ever
1:02:00 > 1:02:03hear a record and say that sounds like a London record.
1:02:03 > 1:02:06So, I think the idea of a London SOUND is too nebulous,
1:02:06 > 1:02:09you can't pin that down. A London rhythm, yes,
1:02:09 > 1:02:10there's definitely a London rhythm.
1:02:10 > 1:02:12- And what is that London rhythm? - Attack.
1:02:17 > 1:02:22In 1976, this noisy city gave birth to a new music once again.
1:02:22 > 1:02:25This time punk.
1:02:25 > 1:02:26Now get this...
1:02:26 > 1:02:29# London calling, yes, I was there, too
1:02:29 > 1:02:32# An' you know what they said?
1:02:32 > 1:02:33# Well, some of it was true
1:02:33 > 1:02:37# London calling at the top of the dial
1:02:37 > 1:02:38# And after all this
1:02:38 > 1:02:40# Won't you give me a smile..? #
1:02:40 > 1:02:43Londoners are brash, extraordinarily confident,
1:02:43 > 1:02:45and it is a brash confident city.
1:02:45 > 1:02:47Because London, you've got to get heard.
1:02:47 > 1:02:50And I do think it is entirely related to traffic noise
1:02:50 > 1:02:53and just the populous, and the noise of it.
1:02:53 > 1:02:57The thing that Ian Dury adapted, which is as old as the hills,
1:02:57 > 1:03:01the "oi," is literally being heard to someone over there.
1:03:01 > 1:03:03CROWD: Oi, oi!
1:03:03 > 1:03:07Well, actually, the name's Dury, and I come from Upminster,
1:03:07 > 1:03:10and Hornchurch, and Romford, and Walthamstow, and Harrow,
1:03:10 > 1:03:11and other places.
1:03:13 > 1:03:15The impeccable attack of Ian Dury.
1:03:22 > 1:03:26# Just cos I ain't never had, no, nothing worth having
1:03:26 > 1:03:28# Never ever, never, ever... #
1:03:31 > 1:03:31Oi, oi.
1:03:31 > 1:03:33CROWD: Oi, oi!
1:03:39 > 1:03:41Hello, playmates.
1:03:41 > 1:03:46Here's a little song about a young man's adventures in London.
1:03:49 > 1:03:53# Billy Bentley, go to London early in the day
1:03:53 > 1:03:55# Half a quid, mate
1:03:55 > 1:03:57# Stands to reason
1:03:57 > 1:03:59# Hold your horses
1:03:59 > 1:04:00# Move along there
1:04:00 > 1:04:03# See the show, sir
1:04:03 > 1:04:04# Hello, cheeky
1:04:04 > 1:04:06# First time, ducky
1:04:06 > 1:04:07# You'll be lucky
1:04:08 > 1:04:12# Billy Bentley he's a caution, have a pleasant stay... #
1:04:15 > 1:04:18Just capturing those little, it's a verbal you get,
1:04:18 > 1:04:21"Mind your back, please move along there, see the show, sir.
1:04:21 > 1:04:24"Nice time, ducky, you'll be lucky," and things like that.
1:04:24 > 1:04:26# Hold very tight, please... #
1:04:30 > 1:04:31We loved dear Ian,
1:04:31 > 1:04:34so Suggs and I wrote this song as a tribute
1:04:34 > 1:04:36to a great and proper London poet.
1:04:42 > 1:04:46# Oh it's the crooked leg, the crooked mile
1:04:46 > 1:04:49# The hotel lift and the menacing smile
1:04:49 > 1:04:53# The energy of an itinerant child
1:04:53 > 1:04:57# To catch a glimpse of Mr Oscar Wilde
1:05:01 > 1:05:04# Waterborn, Southend on Sea
1:05:04 > 1:05:07# Twisted, bent, disability
1:05:07 > 1:05:11# Lord Upminster, Bo Diddley and Richard III
1:05:11 > 1:05:15# With the most unroyal mouth that you've ever heard
1:05:15 > 1:05:19# He's never gonna do it, oh, he has and all
1:05:19 > 1:05:23# They're smiling politely, but they're really appalled
1:05:23 > 1:05:27# And it's turned out oranges and lemons again
1:05:27 > 1:05:30# All three bells in a row
1:05:30 > 1:05:34# We're in and out of the Eagle
1:05:34 > 1:05:37# And up and down the City Road... #
1:05:51 > 1:05:54I wonder if Ian would have been singing at Tyburn
1:05:54 > 1:05:56if he'd been alive in the 17th century,
1:05:56 > 1:05:58or perhaps hanging there?
1:05:58 > 1:06:01But then he wouldn't have been such an influence on every proud
1:06:01 > 1:06:04Londoner who's followed so closely in his footsteps.
1:06:04 > 1:06:08# Our house, in the middle of our street
1:06:08 > 1:06:11# Our house, in the middle of our
1:06:11 > 1:06:13# I remember way back then when everything was true
1:06:13 > 1:06:15# And when we would have such a very good time
1:06:15 > 1:06:17# Such a fine time... #
1:06:17 > 1:06:19So, where does the music of London start for you?
1:06:19 > 1:06:22What is your first memories of London music in London?
1:06:22 > 1:06:26Being in this area, in Camden, it was a very strange mixture,
1:06:26 > 1:06:30actually, because it was mainly Irish and Greek Cypriot.
1:06:31 > 1:06:33So, the sort of music you'd find
1:06:33 > 1:06:37wafting out of the windows here would be mostly Irish,
1:06:37 > 1:06:39and, indeed, the occasional zither.
1:06:39 > 1:06:40Yes, nice mix.
1:06:44 > 1:06:46I mean, my earliest memory is really of hearing live music,
1:06:46 > 1:06:50would be hearing my mum sing, my mum sang in bars and clubs around Soho.
1:06:50 > 1:06:52So, I'd be travelled around after her,
1:06:52 > 1:06:53like most red-blooded young London kids,
1:06:53 > 1:06:56hanging out on the doorsteps of pubs,
1:06:56 > 1:06:58looking through the letterbox
1:06:58 > 1:07:02trying to see your dad's trousers, if they're still in there.
1:07:02 > 1:07:05There were always pianos in pubs, and you would always get one
1:07:05 > 1:07:10of those old dolls playing a funny old London sounding tunes of old.
1:07:10 > 1:07:14That do seem to really evoke old London, I don't really know why.
1:07:28 > 1:07:30I remember a chap who used to come in with his mum,
1:07:30 > 1:07:33he was a big camp fellow, and he had an enormous head, and curly hair,
1:07:33 > 1:07:36and he would sing Don't Laugh At Me, I'm Just A Fool,
1:07:36 > 1:07:40and it had such pathos about it the whole pub would be crying.
1:07:41 > 1:07:44You'd have those sort of tears, and then the next minute,
1:07:44 > 1:07:46you turn around, and he shouted to the pub,
1:07:46 > 1:07:48"Fish Song," and they would all go, "Fish Song,"
1:07:48 > 1:07:51and he would say, "There's a lot of lovely fish in the sea,
1:07:51 > 1:07:53"but there is only one fish for me."
1:07:53 > 1:07:57And then all the pub together would sing, "Our souls, our soul."
1:07:57 > 1:08:00Then they would howl with laughter.
1:08:00 > 1:08:06So babyish, but what a marvellous atmosphere was created.
1:08:07 > 1:08:11The biggest influence on the band when we got started was Ian Dury,
1:08:11 > 1:08:14and then this really keen interest in Jamaican reggae and ska,
1:08:14 > 1:08:17and literally just fusing the two things, quite naturally.
1:08:17 > 1:08:20I think it was Elvis Costello, or somebody, who said,
1:08:20 > 1:08:24one of the great things about London bands is that they're trying to appropriate black music,
1:08:24 > 1:08:26and get it slightly wrong.
1:08:26 > 1:08:28I always thought that was a compliment to us.
1:08:28 > 1:08:30Yes, that is right.
1:08:30 > 1:08:33But the whole ethos of it, meant, in fact we are right in the place
1:08:33 > 1:08:35we got our break, The Dublin Castle, here in Camden Town.
1:08:35 > 1:08:39And the governor started to realise that these young Herberts
1:08:39 > 1:08:43might attract a few customers, and sell a few more pints.
1:08:43 > 1:08:46And when seven skinny teenagers started leaping about,
1:08:46 > 1:08:50playing Jamaican ska, the Irish regulars were somewhat bemused.
1:08:50 > 1:08:51One step beyond...
1:09:15 > 1:09:16One step beyond...
1:09:16 > 1:09:19Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner that I know
1:09:19 > 1:09:22London isn't even one place - it's a collection of
1:09:22 > 1:09:24villages, communities and neighbourhoods.
1:09:24 > 1:09:27That's how it continues to inspire different kinds of music
1:09:27 > 1:09:30and remain at the heart of many of popular music's
1:09:30 > 1:09:31greatest players and poets.
1:09:49 > 1:09:52I never thought I was growing up in London, London was the world.
1:09:52 > 1:09:54London is the world to me.
1:09:59 > 1:10:02William Blake never left London.
1:10:02 > 1:10:06He left for one day and got sort of anxiety and came back.
1:10:15 > 1:10:20London's glory and its curse is that the roads are inaccessible,
1:10:20 > 1:10:23and they are too small, it's not the grid system.
1:10:25 > 1:10:27As long as we keep away from the grid system,
1:10:27 > 1:10:31London will be confusing and have neighbourhoods,
1:10:31 > 1:10:36and have idiosyncratic, sort of, communities...
1:10:37 > 1:10:41..pockets of communities, which makes London great, I think.
1:10:49 > 1:10:53# A foggy day
1:10:53 > 1:10:57# In London town
1:10:57 > 1:11:00# Had me low... #
1:11:00 > 1:11:02It's nearly the end of my investigation
1:11:02 > 1:11:05into the sounds and songs of this great city.
1:11:11 > 1:11:15We've seen London's sound constantly growing and evolving,
1:11:15 > 1:11:19as its population has gone from thousands to millions.
1:11:29 > 1:11:34But in this world of change, let's go to a reassuring constant -
1:11:34 > 1:11:37the changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
1:12:32 > 1:12:34The lovely sound of the Welsh Guards.
1:12:34 > 1:12:37Superb musicians, playing away.
1:12:37 > 1:12:40If we started at the beginning of our programme, and look back,
1:12:40 > 1:12:43we've heard the music of all the different centuries,
1:12:43 > 1:12:47and in the last 300 years, this has been playing all the time,
1:12:47 > 1:12:48not this particular song,
1:12:48 > 1:12:51but the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.
1:12:52 > 1:12:54# Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road... #
1:13:01 > 1:13:03But what of the future?
1:13:03 > 1:13:06I trust the people of London can sleep soundly in their beds
1:13:06 > 1:13:09knowing that somewhere in the city
1:13:09 > 1:13:12someone will always come up with something new and great,
1:13:12 > 1:13:15which will go on to dazzle the world.
1:13:17 > 1:13:19Thank you. Be seeing you.
1:13:24 > 1:13:27And that's jazz!
1:13:27 > 1:13:31# Round my hometown
1:13:31 > 1:13:35# Memories are fresh
1:13:35 > 1:13:39# Round my hometown
1:13:39 > 1:13:43# Ooh, the people I've met
1:13:43 > 1:13:48# Are the wonders of my world
1:13:48 > 1:13:51# Are the wonders of my world
1:13:51 > 1:13:54# Are the wonders of this world... #
1:13:54 > 1:13:57Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd