What is it with Camden Town? Not long since just another run-down inner London burgh, now it's like Haight-Ashbury after the deluge. Awash with drunks, nutters, small-fry dope dealers and over-eager scene-seekers 24 hours a day; only the presence of [+]What is it with Camden Town? Not long since just another run-down inner London burgh, now it's like Haight-Ashbury after the deluge. Awash with drunks, nutters, small-fry dope dealers and over-eager scene-seekers 24 hours a day; only the presence of a monolithic Sainsbury's hinting that real life may still be going on.
It's dusk, the dead of winter, and outside the Tube station it's hard to tell who's buying, who's selling and who's just waiting for the cashpoint on the corner. And as I shoulder my way through the throng, I think I catch a fragment of melody, a sound heard almost internally, felt beneath the skin. As I hear it again I find myself stopping mid-stride, commuters, thieves and would-be socialisers crashing into me. Moving to the crash rail, I peer round for the busker, the open-car window, the bootleg CD stall. But there's nothing but roaring traffic, the great buses heaving into Camden Road, the blur of voices. And then breathing through it, there's the music again.
There are certain sounds, certain phrases and cadences, that belong to you, that you'll never transcend or escape. And it occurs to me, standing in the freezing rush hour din, the noise of the yellow blurring lights, that there are also sounds that are communal: the music that got whole generations on the move, that accompanied the great gatherings. And the music that made us storm out of the dining room, that played in our heads as we hung out in the windswept precincts of Harlow New Town at nine at night, thinking it was really late (and I haven't even been to Harlow New Town).
At that moment, I catch sight through the crowd - or I think I do - of a tousled head moving towards the Tube, and a face caught for a split second in the station's glare. I plunge into the crowd after it, and hear somewhere (not in my ears, that's for sure) the music, that music.
A wall of blue-garbed inspectors blocks the entrance to the Tube, ticket
barriers beyond. They've changed the bloody layout! Rounding the corner, I see him crossing Kentish Town Road, identifying him instantly from the Pied-Piper ringlets, the magician's scarf thrown back over his shoulder Somerset! The great trash alchemist, the man with the rock 'n'roll gazetteer in his pocket, the entire youth culture roadmap in his
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