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Her City I Was After

by Personnel

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about

The song brings together fantasies, realities and disappointments of finding queer life in London. Mapping venues from different decades, nick names and codes for cruising and socialising, it is an unrequited love song to Soho.

While the song draws on places and characters from the 1930s to 1970s, the music video depicts 1990s London. Using archival footage by film maker Mark Harriott from 1991, we see everyday life in Soho and a direct action by queer activist group OUTRAGE! as they drag up and take over the clothes shops that had refused to let men buy ‘women’s’ clothing.

‘Her City I Was After’ is the first single from the forthcoming Personnel album Leeward (2024). Leeward draws together moments of queer socialisation – and its absence – growing up during the UK’s ‘Section 28’ legislation which banned the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality to children. Guest vocalists include Jamie Crewe (Poisonous Relationship) and Douglas Dare.

lyrics

It was her city I was after: second-hand smoke
whispering and laughter, in on the joke
Up the Euston Tavern
A table at Chez Victor’s
Down the stairs to Heaven
A few more down to Trisha’s

Picking up the cues
Picking up the rules
of how to do the tea dance by the park
When you know, you know
if he’s so, he’s so
Admiring the roses after dark

It was her city I was after: Lavender Lil’s
Rose and Molly Bothways, the Dutchess DeVille’s
Spy a signet ring flashed on a little finger
An eye out for the law if you’re so inclined to linger

Knowing where to go, and what to show
Late night lounging in the bar
Then make it home and wake alone
in daylight longing in the bath

It was her city I was after: a previous age
Hearing who had passed through the corner cafés
“The Lily Pond was ours you should have seen it in its glory!”
All these streets are made of someone else’s stories

The myth of town
still hangs around
all dressed up with nowhere to go
It’s waiting there
in Soho Square
asking for the time, so à la mode

credits

released October 11, 2023
Song, Production, Mix - Personnel
Vocals - Josh Andraos
Mastering - Rupert Clervaux

Thanks to Ed Webb-Ingall, Mark Harriott, Josh GT, Luki, Micha Rivers and the Bishopsgate Archive

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Personnel London, UK

Personnel is a song writing studio started by Robbie Defacto in 2020.

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