The Man Who Saved A World

Listening to The Man Who Sold The World

on the Bob Harris show at your Nana’s

when you should have been revising.

The traffic from the Kingston by-pass

roared by her New Malden terrace.

Harris played it again and again.

 

Oh! You Pretty Things on the radio

in the spring sunshine on the

back porch. Or was it Changes?

What a euphoric song that was.

Catching the Routemaster

at the end of the road.

 

The fish and chip shop

on the corner. The house

of your mother’s early years.  

It’s a God-awful small affair …

And for those moments

you didn’t care about the way

 

you broke up with that girl,

and whether you might

get together again

after the exams were over.  

Forget the summer of love,

those conformist hippies

 

flashing peace signs, following

Chairman Mao. It was five years

later, the year that Bowie, and Ziggy,

told you it was ok to be different,

to drop out of uni, to have

no particular place to go.