Name: The Miles Between
Duration: P00H04M35S
Description: I wrote this in the 1970s, early-ish in my own 25 years in London. While I did spend some of that time in the ‘wastelands’ of West London, Lucy is not my alter ego: my spells in bedsits were by no means the worst years of my life. Perhaps she's the unnamed heroine of 'She's Leaving Home', or Mary in Alan Tunbridge's 'Mary Go Round', discovering that the big city may not be the Promised Land.

The Miles Between

from The Game of London by David A. Harley

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about

I wrote this in the 1970s, early-ish in my own 25 years in London. While I did spend some of that time in the ‘wastelands’ of West London, Lucy is not my alter ego: my spells in bedsits were by no means the worst years of my life. Perhaps she's the unnamed heroine of 'She's Leaving Home', or Mary in Alan Tunbridge's 'Mary Go Round', discovering that the big city may not be the Promised Land.

lyrics

The Miles Between (the City and the Heart)

Deep in the Underground
two policemen were patrolling up and down
An old man swearing to himself
Sifted through some rubbish that he'd found
A busker played out fantasies until they moved him off the concourse
And wrote him out of the part
As he whistled up the steps you'd never know that he was falling
In the miles between the city and the heart

Lucy checked her A to Z while the drama was played out
Then took the exit two steps at a time
The street signs and the time and the interview ahead
Were all that occupied her mind
From the top of the steps she saw him sitting by the roadside
Picking aimless chords on his guitar
When their eyes met she knew that he was falling
In the miles between the city and the heart

That night she sat alone in her bedsit in W9
Half-aware of the TV
Determined not to fret about another wasted journey
One more already-filled vacancy
Half-hoping for the phone, even a call from home
To ease the loneliness that crept under her guard
She looked at her bare walls, afraid she might be falling
In the miles between the city and the heart

Impatiently she switched the news off
Lighting one more carefully-rationed cigarette
She gave up trying to write letters, scanned some ads in Time Out
And threw the magazine down on the bed
Praying to someone, somewhere under her breath
"If I'm falling, please don't let me land too hard.
I can't go back now, please save me from the wasteland
In the miles between the city and the heart."

credits

from The Game of London, released April 19, 2021
Guitar, Vocal, Words & Music by David A. Harley. Hat tip to Rebecca Over, from whom I pinched the phrase 'the city and the heart'.

license

about

David A. Harley England, UK

David Harley is a former professional musician, administrator, IT security editor, author and researcher, and former much else that is even less impressive. He now lives in Cornwall. More info at whealalice.com