Taylor Swift is in trouble. On her newly released album is a track about London. Her boyfriend is from London. In fact from just up the road in Highgate. So Taylor turns her lyrical flair to My city and her newfound love for it. Or for him. Or both. Gets a bit blurred with all that gushing post-teeny stuff. But the stories she tells about ‘a stroll in Camden Market’, and ‘trips to the West End’, are a bit wrong. No-one except school trips from Madrid and pickpockets from Romania goes to Camden Market. Its shit. As is pretty much the whole of the West End other than Fitzrovia and the odd parts of Soho that haven’t been tragically over-commercialised.

So in reply I’ve written a song dedicated to Tennessee, where Taylor moved when she was 14. And I too have tried to avoid the horrible stereotypes and clichés and stick to the truth. Its to tune of ‘Stuck in the middle with you’, that wonderful old Steelers Wheel song which, since being adopted in Reservoir Dogs, has never quite sounded the same again anyway.

Well I know they’re burning crosses tonight
I’ve got a feeling that some people here ain’t white
Its so good to see the flames flicker like strobes
As I stand here in my cone hat and robes

Nazis to the left of me, racists to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle like a Jew

The country scene here is simply the best
The Grand Ole Opry and all of the rest
Nashville is the place for Good Ole Boys
While they’re wives have parties for sex toys

The other major industry here is incest
Sexual habits in Tennessee ain’t like the rest
We like to get it on with our wives
Daughters, cousins, sisters all our lives

Sister to the left of me, daughter to my right
Here I am, stuck in the middle of the two

Well its the Deep South that we’re talking
Confederate flags carried while we’re walking

Or stuck on the sides of the Chevy fenders
But man we don’t like Homos, poofs and benders

Plea-ea-ea-ea-ease… etc…

Happy Saturday, and apologies that due to the early hour of yesterday’s publication I may have cause to regret my misplaced optimism about the cricket. Deep regret.

A xxxx