‘Streets of London’ has a good message ~ February 6, 1997

David Heiller

Music was a big part of my life when I was in the Peace Corps in Morocco from 1977 to 1979.

Roger and David making music in Morocco.

I played the banjo a lot to pass the time. When I’d get together with American friends, we’d always play music.

One of my most memorable musical moments in Morocco came at a workshop that the volunteers were having in Tangiers. I don’t know how much work we got done at this workshop. I do know it was a good time to visit with friends, compare war stories, and play music.

We were sitting around in a hotel lobby, playing music, when an English gentleman joined us. He brought out his guitar, and the rest of us soon put ours away.

He was good. Very good. The kind of performer you’d pay music to see at a college coffeehouse. He played song after song. Wow, it was nice listening to him. We fell under his spell.

And he came up with a classic line that night, one I still remember. One of the volunteers asked him, with a dreamy look in her eyes, if he knew “Streets of London.”

He smiled, and paused, and said in his British accent, “Know it? I know the bloke that wrote it.”

I’ll never forget those words, spoken with just the right amount of understated pride. Know it? I know the bloke that wrote it.

He told about singing it with Ralph McTell, who was the bloke that wrote it. Then he proceeded to sing the song, and it instantly became one of my favorites.

I had known the song before and liked it plenty, but this guy brought it to life.

Steve and David in Morocco

The song has a message I still fervently believe. I think about it every time I think life is rough.

Look at people like Laurel Hultgren and Randy Hjelmberg, who are featured on this week’s front page. They have health problems galore, but they look on the sunny side of life.

I worked at Camp Courage for five summers. Every camper had some type of physical handicap. Some were on their last legs. Some didn’t have legs. Pick a physical handicap, it was at Camp Courage. It’s hard to lump them all together, but I honestly can’t remember any camper ever complaining about anything. The happiest times of their lives were at camp. Maybe that’s selective memory on my part. But it seemed to me the camp was aptly named. The campers had a lot of courage.

I saw a lot of courage and dignity in Morocco too. Morocco has a very simple system of welfare. It’s called begging. If you ever think you have it bad, think about standing on a lonely street in Fez, on a clammy winter night, holding a child in one arm and an upturned palm in the other. That takes courage and dignity. Thinking of scenes like that, which I saw plenty, my little problems didn’t seem so insurmountable. They still don’t.

“Streets of London” sums up this message as well as any song I know. “Don’t complain. You don’t have it so bad. Look around you, and count your blessings, because life could be a whole lot worse.”

Streets of London by Ralph McTell

Thank you for reminding me of that Ralph McTell and thank you, Mr. Nameless British Musician in Tangiers, Morocco, in 1978.

Streets of London

Ralph McTell

Have you seen the old man 
In the closed-down market 
Kicking up the paper, 
with his worn out shoes? 
In his eyes you see no pride 
Hand held loosely at his side
Yesterday’s paper telling yesterday’s news 

So how can you tell me you’re lonely, 
And say for you that the sun don’t shine? 
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London 
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind 

Have you seen the old girl 
Who walks the streets of London 
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags? 
She’s no time for talking, 
She just keeps right on walking 
Carrying her home in two carrier bags. 

Chorus

In the all night cafe
At a quarter past eleven, 
Same old man is sitting there on his own 
Looking at the world 
Over the rim of his tea-cup, 
Each tea last an hour 
Then he wanders home alone 

Chorus

And have you seen the old man 
Outside the seaman’s mission 
Memory fading with 
The medal ribbons that he wears. 
In our winter city, 
The rain cries a little pity 
For one more forgotten hero 
And a world that doesn’t care 

Chorus