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Clifton in the Rain

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CLIFTON in the RAIN — Al Stewart.

The rain came down like beads
Bouncing on the noses of the
People from the train
A flock of salty ears
Sparkled in the traffic lights
Feet squelched soggy leaves across the grain
I took my love to Clifton in the rain

And all along the way
Wanderers in overcoats with
Collars on parade
And steaming in the night
The listeners in the Troubadour
Guitar player weaves a willow strain
I took my love to Clifton in the rain

Jacqueline Bisset
I saw your movie
Wondered if you really felt that way
Do you ever fear
The images of Hollywood?
Have you felt a shadow of its pain?
I thought of you in Clifton in the rain
dlcalguy
Active Ink Slinger
I've always loved this song. Thanks for posting.
Unknown User
Quote by dlcalguy
I've always loved this song. Thanks for posting.


Thanks for saying so.

Yeah, one of my favourite acoustic songs too. It has a quintessential late sixties Englishness.

I'm not that big a fan of all his stuff, but For some reason I've managed to see Al Stewart live four times, over as many decades, drawn to the gigs by nostalgia, his music being the soundtrack to our courting days.

The last time was about seven years ago at Manchester's prestigious Bridgewater Hall, where he played to a packed house — which was a big step up from the previous gig I saw him play a few years before in the back of an "old man's" pub to an audience of four dozen people.

At seventeen my the girlfriend (now wife) and I snatched the mattress from my parent's bed (they were away in Spain at the time) and laid it out in the back of my estate car and drove two hundred miles to the Chelmsford Folk Festival (hosted by John Peel). We had won two tickets in a completion run by the NME.

http://chelmsfordrocks.com/chelmsfordfolkfestival.html


On the way there we picked up three hitchhikers, two girls and a guy. Seatbelts were not compulsory in the UK back then, so the three spent the journey rolling around on the mattress as we drove. Not sexually, that is, just thrown every-which-way by my teenage driving — there must be a Lush story in there somewhere).

Anyhow, my memory of Al Stewart is seeing him looking forlorn after completing his set, just standing by the food stalls with no apparent purpose. A pretty girl ran up to him and they spoke. Soon afterwards the couple went off together.
dlcalguy
Active Ink Slinger
Quote by LucaByDesign
Thanks for saying so.


No problem. I saw him one time. It was at Bristol Colston Hall. Can't remember the exact date, but the Troubadour folk club in Clifton had closed by then and Year Of The Cat had yet to be released. So, 72 or 73, probably. It wasn't a packed house by any means and he invited everyone to move down to the front ten or so rows. Someone called out a request for CitR and he made a big deal about not remembering how it went. In Bristol! So we sang it to him to jog his memory smile
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Quote by dlcalguy


No problem. I saw him one time. It was at Bristol Colston Hall. Can't remember the exact date, but the Troubadour folk club in Clifton had closed by then and Year Of The Cat had yet to be released. So, 72 or 73, probably. It wasn't a packed house by any means and he invited everyone to move down to the front ten or so rows. Someone called out a request for CitR and he made a big deal about not remembering how it went. In Bristol! So we sang it to him to jog his memory smile



Thanks for that. I found it really interesting. I take it you hail from the Avon area? Only recently learned Troubadour was (is?) a Bristol club.


In one of those odd synchronicities that occasionally dog me, after reading your post I went back into the lounge and picked up the book I'm presently reading: London Overground by Iain Sinclair.

This is a non-fiction work, a piece of London psychogeography in which Sinclair takes us on a journey along the Ginger Line. So strange, that of all things, I should find this reference to Clifton on the next page I turned to. I have copied and typed the relevant paragraph below.

Previously he has been talking about meeting Angela Carter, describes her author photo on the back of her first novel. Then we have


"Carter, newly married, poses with cat on lap, in rocking chair . . . She chooses to give up her work as a reporter on provincial news and moved with her husband to Bristol, where she read English. Bristol was the right place, trading in long-established Bohemia, the utopian dream of Samuel Coldridge, Robert Southey and the Pantisocrats — and pioneer nitrous oxide sniffers like Humphrey Davy and Thomas Beddoes at the Pneumatic Institute in Clifton. The geography was right, with the gorge, the wells, the stately terraces. And the social and historical history of docks, cigarette factory, zoo, substantial wealth was generated by the slave trade. This was just the kind of place, in later times, for the Blairs to invest in property.
"

I love literary synchronicities like this, am a sucker for woo of all kinds.
TantricHeart
Active Ink Slinger
Many years since I last listened to this. His guitar style reminds me of Ralph McTell.
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Quote by TantricHeart
Many years since I last listened to this. His guitar style reminds me of Ralph McTell.



It was the air we breathed back then.

Here's Al just the other day performing the same song.

To quote him from another of his songs at the time: "Oh, could that still be you, is there anything time can't do . . ."