The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 01/09/14
Amsterdam - "Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" (2002)
Although I referred to - and recommended - and gave you a brief sample of - this beaut a long time ago, I have been most remiss in failing to point you in the direction of the full track.
Why is this such an outstanding track - one of the greatest pop songs of the last twenty years, to my senses? It's a great tune, it has a fantastically singalongable chorus, and the lyrics encapsulate what Liverpool means both to itself and to those who have fallen under its various influences through the ages. It's a potted history of the city; from the slave ships and the boats which brought the starving Irish across the water, via Merseybeat and football to the darker hours of the Bulger case, it's all in there.
It was John Peel's second favourite song - after The Undertones' Teenage Kicks - and one he always had to segué into another track because he was too choked up to speak after it. It's ten years this October since Peelie died; this is another one of those reasons why I'm forever grateful to him, and why I miss his musical acumen and his style still:
