Girl With One Track Mind (Sexhunters)
I Fell in Love on the Northern Line
Coventry Precinct A score years since I first left Coventry, I'm off again,
With thoughts of what's changed - and what's just the same,
I ponder the Precinct with its cheery new face,
And read the council's planning aught new in its place,
It makes me nostalgic for nineteen eighty-seven,
When the Precinct was an idyll of Sky Blue heaven,
Our F.A. Cup heroes ruled the roost that day,
One city on the streets to honour their play,
Life in those times seemed a tireless laugh,
Covering pop for the Evening Telegraph,
Hanging out with Lynval Golding and his soulful band,
Going wheresoever music could be found,
Promoting the gig named Cov Against Apartheid,
Relishing every second of my Coventry ride,
Yet all roads led me back to the Precinct,
Whose nature was compulsive, distinct,
Who could forget seeing deaf kids knocking able-lugged yobs about,
Outside Busters nightclub where they'd fallen out?
Or the rain-tainted labyrinth that formed a muggers' paradise,
Where knifepoint wallet-snatchers vanished in a trice,
Fear stalked the Precinct late-late on Saturday night,
Sheer terror of razor slash in unsolicited fight,
Then I recall that Coventry was where Larkin began,
Long before he branded me 'a very rude young man',
It was where I shopped at the covered market by day,
And snacked on rubber-burgers at Roundabout Café,
At night I went to Poly gigs with my pal Jerry Vine,
Taking in The Proclaimers or the legendary Divine,
Now with sadness I'm leaving once again,
The Precinct's improved, I guess, but now and then
I think of what would have been without the blitz of 1940,
And the Gibson Plan that turned out Basil faulty,
Methinks that now The Precinct's part of Coventry's lot,
Would demolition help? I'd say: 'Probably not!'
Coventry has its cathedral, precinct, spire and steeple,
Yet what makes a city great, its buildings or its people?