Farewell To My City

(album: FTHC - 2022)

So here it is, the ending:
The one that neither of us ever thought was coming
The black letter day when we're finally, irrevocably done
And I am really, actually leaving the place I used to call home

7,300 days, give or take
Of swearing blind I wouldn't leave, that I'd always stay
But strange as it sounds, when the change came around
I realised there were plenty of vows
I made as a kid that I'd broken
But that kid got lost somewhere around Camden

So I took a walk the other day from Soho up to Alexandra Park
From the student halls where I started
Past a thousand bars I haunted, broken-hearted, after dark
Past the bus stop outside Warren Street
Where in my headphones I first heard that heavy new beat
That would whisk me up to Kentish Town
Where me and the Deads laid down our first words, our first skittish sounds

But I started feeling a little trapped, a little hemmed in
Walking over the hill, heading northeast from Camden
Up towards Holloway, and that magic flat where me and Dave
Kept plugging at the white aways until we'd been up for however many days
And the FOMO that started out in Soho just ended up with little to show
Except old ghosts and new lows

And then I started to relax and to breathe a little easier
As my path turned north towards Hornsey, past the back of Nambucca
And all the morning returns from tour, and all the street corners where I used to score
Got overshadowed by the Hogs Back and a certain special someone
And the whispered possibility of something more

And as I crested the hill and looked down upon Crouch End
Alexandra Palace on the next rise, arms open like an old friend
I realised this part of my journey was coming to a close
And how our lives will be after, nobody knows
I guess I got older, that's how it goes
And I know it sounds weak but I'll still see you at shows

I got tired of London, not tired of life
I'm so sorry, my darling, to leave you behind
We had a hell of a run there, but I must go down to the sea
While you're always changing, it wasn't you, it was me

(Farewell to my city)
I'm just one more of your ghosts
(Farewell to my city)
I'll still see you at shows
(Farewell to my city)
London, you can keep my bones
(Farewell to my city)
So it goes, so it goes
(Farewell to my city)
I'm just one more of your ghosts
(Farewell to my city)
I'll still see you at shows
(Farewell to my city)
London, you can keep my bones
(Farewell to my city)
So it goes, so it goes
So it goes, so it goes