13 Songs – 5

Inner city life – Goldie/Metalheadz

The weekend before I got married in 1996, I was in Notting Hill. In a house I’d never been in before or since. It was gone midnight, the room dark, the smoke thick, the music loud with the sensi & my senses clamouring to control proceedings. I’d been in the party for the best part(y) of the last 5 hours, having trundled deliriously from Norman & Joey Jay’s Good Times Sound System on the corner West Row and Southern Row, where I had danced and drank copious amounts of Red Stripe. However, now I was somewhere else completely… 

I like dance music, rare groove, jazz, soul & funk especially. I’d given House Music a swerve (which was a mistake that I later remedied) and as for Drum ‘n Bass, well to be fair I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. I could feel my verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle 8 pop sensibilities begin to re-emerge after being banished by the four Jazzmen of the Apocalypse in the 80’s (Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and John Coltrane). 

I had pretty much embraced the by now established electronic sounds (from a listening perspective), especially when New Order and even more crucially ACR embraced electro sounds – that ultimately pointed me to the essential Kraftwerk. However, this sounded different, like music from a land I didn’t recognise, music from a decade that I hadn’t been invited to, quite simply music not made for me.

I sat on a sofa, nursing a can of Stella, a joint, a new acquaintance and a sense of accelerating bewilderment. A few of my friends were hanging out at the party too – this was sort of a second stag night (2 of 3) and I was slipping lower into the sofa, deeper into the night. 

And then, it happened. It was as if the DJ had realised he’d been playing his whole set at 33rpm, when it should have been 45rpm – all of a sudden boom! There it was Drum n’ Bass, right up in my face and I loved it. Off the sofa, on the dancefloor, never to sit back down again! 

Inner-city life

Inner-city pressure
Inner-city life
Inner-city pressure taking over me
But I won't let go
I won't let go
Your love

Inner-city life

Come to me
In those open arms is where I wanna be
Livin' free
I need to be
I need to be your love

Livin' free
I long to be
I long to be your love

Inner-city life
Inner-city pressure

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Clifford Joseph Price / Clifford Price / Diane Charlemagne / Diane Charlemange / Rob Playford

Inner City Life lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Peermusic Publishing