Tuesday 17 August 2010

Oh I wish I was Brentwood bound…

Why Paul Simon wished he was homeward bound to Brentwood

As a teenager I’d heard a rumour that Paul Simon wrote his classic song Homeward Bound while sitting at Brentwood Station in the 1960s. Back then it was easy to imagine him in the moribund waiting room writing lines about shades of mediocrity.

But in the internet age it’s possible to verify such assertions, and the truth is that Simon penned Homeward Bound in either Ditton or Halebank stations in Widnes, while waiting for a train back to Brentwood, where he was living with his girlfriend. Blimey. Yes, it was Brentwood that made Simon and Garfunkel get all poetic.

SITTING IN THE RAILWAY STATION

He made his UK debut at the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood in 1964 and met Kathy Chitty there, the inspiration for Kathy’s Song and America. She was a 17-year-old Essex girl on the door selling tickets to bearded men in cord jackets. They dated for two years until Paul returned to the US. Kathy now lives in Wales and maintains a diplomatic sound of silence on all Simon-related subjects. Although I can picture her as a slightly folksier version of Celebrity Big Brother’s uber-Essex babe Chantelle.

These days if Simon was homeward bound to Brentwood, he’d walk out of the station, trudge 100 metres up King’s Road and come to the Amstrad headquarters. You wonder what Sir Alan Sugar would make of the wandering folk troubadour:

“Paul, shut up a minute will yer, you’re doing my head in! You took a bloody trip to Widnes to play a gig and all you could do is whinge about yer bleeding girlfriend Kaffy. No sales figures, just lyrics scrawled on a British Rail timetable. I’m not having that. Shut up, I am talking! OK, you can knock out a decent tune, but you ain’t doing it for me. If I asked you to build me a swimming pool you’d be knocking off every time you saw some leaves that are green turn to brown. With regret, Paul, you’re fired!”

25 comments:

  1. Possibly the second biggest musical moment in brentwood's history (after motorhead at the hermit club, 1980)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was there definitly 80 or later my ears wrung for over a week. I saw them many times after mostly at Hammersmith Oden. Fan for life.

      Delete
    2. 78 I was there the threshold of pain tour, my mate Mick soundchecked them and they burst his eardrum in the process.. loudest gig I've ever been to.

      Delete
  2. Gavin Hadland comments via email: I was at that Motorhead gig! I remember I was blocking the view of a Hell's Angel and rather than say 'excuse me' he simply picked me up and placed me a few feet to one side. Good days!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What year was it Pete? nigel-m is way off. I reckon 78-79?

      Delete
    2. No he ain't I was there.

      Delete
  3. While Matt George adds:

    Presumably Bridge Over Troubled Water referred to a particularly poor West Ham performance at Stamford Bridge, the Sound of Silence followed a visit to Arsenal and Scarbourough Fair celebrated a fine performance by the Seadogs...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Where us the Railway Inn? I know of the Railway Tavern - has the name changed or is the venue no longer there?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi . The Railway Inn was directly opposite where the Railway Tavern is now. It was demolished sometime around 1965 or 1966. We had our Sea cadet parades there after our HQ near the station burned down in 1965

      Delete
  5. "selling tickets to bearded men in cord jackets"

    You cann't have been there, because there were not many bearded men in cords, albeit I can think of one!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I agree with Anonymous, there weren't many bearded men there, I was there, presumably you weren't. Kathy was nothing like Chantelle.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Paul and Kathy could be found having a beer with all their chums at the Ship pub Gidea Park most Friday nights.
    Paul subsequenly had a wednesday night residency with his house mate Al Stewart at Mother Hubbard pub Buckhurst Hill. (now a apartment block)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I went to St Helen's school in Ingrave Road when Paul Simon actually came and played for us in 1964 or 1965. I recall he played "old MacDonalds farm". His girlfriend and muse, Kathy Chitty,of "Kathy's Song" fame was the school clerk who colected the dinner money

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, I was there around 66-7 onwards and stayed there til the early 70s, was it the Jr or infants across the road?

      Delete
  9. I used to stay at the Railway Inn as a child as Ted and Meg Lewis, my grandparents, were proprietors. I do remember the folk club on a Tuesday or Thursday evening which met in the function room on the first floor. Those queuing to pay their 1/6p entrance definitely did have duffel coats beards and open toed sandals. Two of Paul Simons recordings made there are kept in the County Archives in Colchester or Chelmsford (I can’t remember which).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember a girl at St Helen's school called Julie bailey whose parents may've been the landlords?

      Delete
    2. No Julie Bailey’s parents ran the off licence at the junction of Warley Hill and Crescent Rd over the railway bridge. I thought it was the Railway Hotel not the Railway Inn.

      Delete
  10. Paul also appeared at Chelmsford Folk Club above the White Hart pub. The Resident group The Halliard (Geoff Harris, Dave Moran and Nigel Patterson at the time)Penned a skit on Pauls hit called 'The Sound of Finance' Folkies were a bit anti pop culture in those days. Ha Ha. Nigel is still about I believe. Dave Emigrated. Geoff went on to pursue his regular career.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Apologies. The pub was probably the Kings Head. It was pulled down when they cleared the Cattle Market.

    ReplyDelete
  12. All this talk of Brentwood musicians had me thinking about Procul Harem... The name Bobby Harrison jumped out at me so I found this page so I phoned my mum and although she couldn't remember at first she evenytually remembered that her mate Susan was Bobby Harrison's sister and he was the drummer of the band and lived next to the East Ham Estate.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It IS the Railway Hotel! I used to stay there as a kid and Grandad ran the pub for years. It was an Ind Coope pub and was demolished in the 70s when Alan Sugars head office of Amstrad was built.
    It was right opposite the Railway Tavern.

    ReplyDelete
  14. And kind of full circle... a classical singing group called Voces8 featured on Paul Simon’s recent album ‘7 Psalms’. One of them, Christopher Moore, is a Brentwood lad.

    ReplyDelete