As once-famous retail names disappear from the High Street they are rarely celebrated in popular song, although we do have ‘…Saturday’s girls work in Tescos and Woolworths..’ by The Jam, ‘Man At C&A’ by The Specials, ‘Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid’ by SquarePusher and Van Morrison sang ‘…the orange boxes are scattered against the Safeway Supermarket in the rain…’ as he gazed out on ‘St Dominics’s Preview’.
On a release from their forthcoming album ‘English Tapas’, The Sleaford Mods commemorate the demise of department store stalwart British Home Stores last year with a combination of low-fi electrobeat and a lyric of personal paranoia. Starting near the bins in an alleyway (sounds a bit like the back area near the Cambridge BHS?) our hero is weighed down with problems ‘…we’re going down like BHS, while the abled bodied vultures monitor and pick at us…’. Peppered with subtle references as to the causes ‘…Laying on a boat mate look at you (Look at you!)…’ we even get a namecheck for TV sitcom royalty ‘…we are the Baldricks son, and Blackadders….’
A fitting tribute to the end of an era, check out the video too…
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