Life In A Northern Town - Dream Academy (cover-live by Bill Sharkey)

Life In A Northern Town (Dream Academy, 1985/1986). Live cover performance by Bill Sharkey, Home Studio, Hawaii Kai, HI. 2022-03-13. "Keeping the Oldies Alive"

"Life In A Northern Town" was Dream Academy's debut single, written by band members Gilbert Gabriel and Nick Laird-Clowes, which climbed the Billboard Hot 100 chart to #7 in 1985/1986 (Whitburn, 2013). Sugarland w/ Little Big Town and Jake Owen also charted with their version of the song; their version stalled at #43 on the Hot 100 chart and climbed to #28 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart in 2008 (Whitburn, 2013). "Life In A Northern Town" was co-produced by David Gilmore of Pink Floyd fame and was an elegy for the late Nick Drake (C. Monger, allmusic.com, 2022). In an interview with Mojo magazine, Laird-Clowes stated that he had an interaction with friend Paul Simon about how to name the song: "I played him the song and he asked, 'What are you going to call it - 'Ah Hey Ma Ma Ma?' I told him that we intended to name it 'Morning Lasted All Day.' 'That's no good,' he said and so I came up with 'Life In A Northern Town.' which he thought was a great title" (songfacts.com, 2022). Laird-Clowes explained that the song was written about the collapse of the UK shipping industry (K. R. Higgons, medium.com, Feb 23, 2021).

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Lyrics:

A Salvation Army Band played
And Children drunk lemonade
And the morning lasted all day,
All day
And through an open window came
Like Sinatra in a younger day,
Pushing the town away
Ah

Ah hey ma ma ma na hey ah
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.

They sat on the stoney ground
And he took out a cigarette out
And everyone else came down
To listen.
He said "In winter 1963
It felt like the world would freeze
With John F. Kennedy
And The Beatles."

Ah hey ma ma ma na hey ah
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.
Ah hey ma ma ma na hey ah
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.

The evening had turned to rain
Watch the water roll down the drain,
As we followed him down
To the station
And though he never would wave goodbye,
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train pulled out of sight
Bye-bye

Ah hey ma ma ma na hey ah
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.
Ah hey ma ma ma na hey ah
Ah hey ma ma ma
Life in a northern town.