Song #5 The Jam

I love London like no other city. I've done a lot of travelling and I always miss London, I breathe London. It's an infection, it's an obsession. I sometimes wonder whether it's because I'm not a Londoner by birth, whether the zeal of the convert is the cause.

My parents lived in London before I was born, we had relatives living in London, my Mother in particular had the London addiction. We had to visit 3/4 times a year and some of my earliest memories revolve around those trips. The Lucozade sign on thee M4, the flyover next to the Hammersmith Odeon, the Fullers Brewery, getting lost in Selfridges, the smell of the tube and the burst of air and noise as the train approached, junkies in Piccadilly, red buses and black cabs.

As I got older the trips became little pilgrimages, searching out the great record shops, places where my addiction for vinyl could be sated for a while. Not just the obvious Virgin at Marble Arch, or the original HMV on Oxford Street, but the treasure troves in Notting Hill and Camden, Rough Trade and the great stalls around Newport Market. And trips to see bands at the Electric Circus, Gossips, the Marquee, the Fulham Greyhound...

Eventually I moved to London and this song was a poem of love.

If you've spent a hot summer in any city, when you're young and have no responsibilities, when everything is possible and you can talk for hours and watch the dawn, when a bottle of wine a pack of fags and some friends is all you need in the world then "That's Entertainment" is a song of genius.

I can only suggest that you look up the lyrics for yourselves - read about the small joys and petty tragedies that make up real life. The smells and sights, victories and heartbreaks.

This is a song that can break my heart

"A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drills and ripped-up concrete
A baby wailing, stray dog howling
The screech of breaks and lamplight blinking"

Martin D'Souza

That's Entertainment