Lyr/Info Req: Inner City Song (Don Baker)

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Declan
Date: 24 Mar 07 - 07:53 AM

Don't want to be pedantic but its Loughan House, near Blacklion in County Cavan, which had recently been opened as a prison for young offenders when Don wrote the song.

As far as I remember the motorway reference was to a plan to run a motorway down Parnell Street in the heart of inner city Dublin. Thankfully this particular motorway plan didn't go ahead (yet at least. Road Engineers rarely scrap plans, they tend to put them on hold).

Someone seems to have done some cleaning up on the lyrics generally. (It may have been Don Baker himself for all I know. As I recall it Don used to sing:

"remembering his old buddies, and the games they used to play" and
"A mass of filthy buildings, a hole of poverty"

Subject: Lyr Add: INNER CITY SONG (Don Baker)
From: Shaneo
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 04:42 PM

THE INNER CITY SONG
(Don Baker)

The old man sits wonders just what can he do
He's live here in the neighborhood since 1922
He's forced to leave his home to make way for their plans
And he knows that they don't care or give a damn

So he takes a stroll down Monto what's left of it today
Remembering his childhood and the games he used to play
Now all he's got are memories and they are but a few
And it seems the money grabbers want them too

Chorus:
And living in a one room slum ain't easy
Raising seven children on the dole
No place for kids to play while you build your motor way
Is Loughlin house the playground of today?

Dublin's inner city is a sorry sight to see
A mass of filthy buildings strife and poverty
The people find it hard to make ends meet most of the time
And you're surprised that they should turn to crime

Chorus:
And living in a one room slum ain't easy
Raising seven children on the dole
No place for kids to play while you build your motor way
Is Loughlin house the playground of today?

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 04:17 PM

Susanne or somebody, can we get a transcription of this song?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 12:08 PM

Thank you, Shaneo! Not least for your confidence that the interested party would still be around!

Paddy - if YOU'RE still around: I've heard 'Her Father ...' sung by Iain MacKintosh, and though not particularly delicate, it was quite funny. I think there is a Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly CD? tape? out, with both their recordings, which should contain this song.

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: GUEST,Shaneo , forgot to log-in
Date: 23 Mar 07 - 10:34 AM

The Inner City Song , was written by Don Baker in 1980 and was a No1 hit for The Jolly Beggermen. Gay Byrne of 'The Late Late Show' asked Don to write a song about Dublin ,here

is what he wrote , warts and all , Don gives a true description of what Dublin is really like , things have changed since then , but the greedy builders are still milking the people.

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: GUEST,Paddy(1)
Date: 06 Nov 00 - 08:20 PM

Mick

Never heard the Jolly Beggarmen's version of "Her father didn't like me anyway", but I suspect it is a crass version.

Before you judge the song try to listen to a very early recording by Findar and Eddie Furey, before they became "The Furey Brothers and Davey Arthur".

Maybe it is to do with what was going on in my life at that time, but it remains as one of my all time classics, although I never could my hands on a get a recording.

I anyone has the words, I would be grateful

The coat she wore still lies upon the bed
That book I gave her that she never read

. . . . .

. . . . .
She left without a single word to say
Her father didn't like me anyway.

Paddy(1)

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 06 Nov 00 - 07:50 PM

What a shock! For a moment I actually thought you were trying to tell me GR&BC wrote the Inner City Song!!! (Who did, by the way? Any info?)
Mick, you have my sympathy! Checking just now, I found I have c. 500 songs with no lyrics at all, and another 930 that need to be checked - not to mention different versions. Let's see which one of us gets round to the Inner City Song first, or manages to gather some further info on it. Happy hunting ... and thanks to both of you!

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 09:40 PM

...written, as I expect you know, by Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly.

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Mick Lowe
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 08:03 PM

Now there's a coincidence, I was listening to this song only today and by the JB's (well I think it is as it's on a tape of a tape of a ..etc.etc that I acquired from somewhere and hence no cover notes ).. judging by the lyrics it is definitely about Dublin, Susanne. I keep meaning to get around to transcribing the lyrics (yeah and about 200 other songs as well). The point of this ramble being that I kinda like this song, unlike another that appears on the tape "Her father didn't like me anyway" which is downright crass...

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 04:57 PM

It was The Jolly Beggermen, but that's all I can tell you, apart from the fact that the song appears on a couple of compilation records:  A Celebration Of Dublin  and  The Sound of Irish Folk

Malcolm

Subject: Lyr/info req: Inner City Song
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 04 Nov 00 - 01:26 PM

I THINK the title was given as 'Inner City Song', and the band name was given as Beggarman, Beggarmen or Jolly Beggarmen. I taped it from the radio some years back. It is about living in an impoverished inner-city area, and my impression was always that it was about Dublin. But the band could be American, and Seamus Kennedy mentioned in another thread he'd played in a similarly named band. Any help on this one? Thanks!