My own feeling about protest songs is that if they get too specific they tend to turn into dour, turgid polemics which don't wear well at all with time. They thus have a very short shelf life. Much of the stuff Phil Ochs wrote is like that. The thing I like about "Blowin' In The Wind" is that it has a timeless and universal quality. It could apply to almost any time period. That makes it far more effective as a song that will endure and continue to mean something to people.

I find "Streets of London", however, to be maudlin and quite uninspiring...but it does have a good melody.

I sometimes play a parody I wrote of "Streets of London" called "Streets of Brechin". Brechin is a small and quite unremarkable little place not far from where I live. It's not near as bad as I make it out to be in the song...it's just a small rurual place where basically nothing ever happens at all...and that makes the song a lot funnier for the people who live around this general area and who know Brechin.

It goes like this:

The Streets of Brechin

Have you seen the sidewalk kids
Who hang out on the streets of Brechin
Baseball caps upon their heads
Nothing much within
Vacant faces, witless poses
Nose ring dangling from their noses
Killing time and dreaming about
The Seven Deadly Sins

And how can you tell me you're lonely?
And say your life's a waste of time?
Let me take you by the hand
And lead you through the streets of Brechin
We'll do some checkin' that'll make you change your mind

And have you seen the daily gathering
Of the Brechin Lionesses
With their bulging shopping bags
And their gossip magazines
Catching up on local scandals
Staring down the teenage vandals
If you run afoul of them
You'll know just what I mean

And how can you tell me you're lonely?
And say your life's a waste of time?
Let me take you by the ear
And lead you through the streets of Brechin
We'll do some checkin' that'll make you change your mind

And have you seen the closet queen
Who minces through the streets of Brechin
Past the scowling rednecks
And the jeering kids
No one there to peck or pinch him
Come sundown they'll prob'ly lynch him
Then get drunk and wreck the place
Just like their daddies did

And how can you tell me you're lonely?
And say your life's a waste of time?
Let me take you by the nose
And lead you through the streets of Brechin
We'll do some checkin' that'll make you change your mind


The important thing is to get the "hand, ear, and nose" part in the right order in the 3 choruses! ;-) You must finish with "nose" for the best effect. This song is my antidote to having heard "Streets of London" way too many times over the years...

Most of the younger men around here do wear baseball caps, and nose rings were really big about 10 years ago...but thank God that fad seems to be wearing off now. What you see more now is tongue studs and little decorative thingies pierced subtly on the side of a girl's nose and some eyebrow piercings too, but not many of those wretched nose rings any longer...