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Pretenders - Talk Of The Town

Pretenders - Talk Of The Town Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Pretenders II
Released: 1980

Talk Of The Town Lyrics

Such a drag to want something sometime
One thing leads to another I know
Was a time wanted you for mine
Nobody knew
You arrived like a day
And passed like a cloud
I made a wish, I said it out loud
Out loud in a crowd
Everybody heard
'Twas the Talk Of The Town

It's not my place to know what you feel
I'd like to know but why should I?
Who were you then, who are you now?
Common laborer by night, by day highbrow
Back in my room I wonder, then I
Sit on the bed, look at the sky
Up in the sky
Clouds rearrange
Like the talk of the town

Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday
You've changed your place in this world
You've changed your place in this world

Oh but it's hard to live by the rules
I never could and still never do
The rules and such never bothered you
You call the shots and they follow
I watch you still from a distance then go
Back to my room, you never know
I want you, I want you but now
Who's the talk of the town?

Writer/s: HYNDE, CHRISSIE
Publisher: EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Talk Of The Town

This song was named after a real London nightspot. Located in Leicester Square, it opened in 1900 as "The London Hippodrome," and it hosted various circus acts, variety shows and musical performances. In 1958 is was renovated and reopened as "The Talk of the Town," becoming a cabaret restaurant where many artists would perform, including Frank Sinatra and The Temptations. It closed in 1982 and was revived as a nightclub called "The Hippodrome." In 2009, it was once again closed, this time with plans to make it a casino.

The lyrics are filled with a longing for a seemingly unobtainable love. It is thought that they refer to Ray Davies, the frontman of the Kinks who later fathered Chrissie Hynde's child.

Chrissie Hynde shared the inspiration for the song during a performance on the BBC Songwriters Circle program in 1999: "I had in mind this kid who used to stand outside the soundchecks on our first tour... I never spoke to him. I remember that the last time I saw him I just left him standing in the snow, I never had anything to say to him. I kind of wrote this for him, so, in the unlikely event that you're watching this, I did think about you."

Pretenders - Back On The Chain Gang

Pretenders - Back On The Chain Gang Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Learning To Crawl
Released: 1982

Back On The Chain Gang Lyrics

I FOUND A PICTURE OF YOU, OH OH OH OH
WHAT HIJACKED MY WORLD THAT NIGHT
TO A PLACE IN THE PAST
WE'VE BEEN CAST OUT OF? OH OH OH OH
NOW WE'RE BACK IN THE FIGHT
WE'RE BACK ON THE TRAIN
OH, Back On The Chain Gang
A CIRCUMSTANCE BEYOND OUR CONTROL, OH OH OH OH
THE PHONE, THE TV AND THE NEWS OF THE WORLD
GOT IN THE HOUSE LIKE A PIGEON FROM HELL, OH OH OH OH
THREW SAND IN OUR EYES AND DESCENDED LIKE FLIES
PUT US BACK ON THE TRAIN
OH, BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG
THE POWERS THAT BE
THAT FORCE US TO LIVE LIKE WE DO
BRING ME TO MY KNEES
WHEN I SEE WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO YOU
BUT I'LL DIE AS I STAND HERE TODAY
KNOWING THAT DEEP IN MY HEART
THEY'LL FALL TO RUIN ONE DAY
FOR MAKING US PART
I FOUND A PICTURE OF YOU, OH OH OH OH
THOSE WERE THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF MY LIFE
LIKE A BREAK IN THE BATTLE WAS YOUR PART, OH OH OH OH
IN THE WRETCHED LIFE OF A LONELY HEART
NOW WE'RE BACK ON THE TRAIN
OH, BACK ON THE CHAIN GANG
Writer/s: HYNDE, CHRISSIE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Back On The Chain Gang Song Chart

This is a tribute to James Honeyman-Scott, the Pretenders guitarist who died of a drug overdose in 1982 at age 26. Scott's death was followed by bass player Pete Farndon's 10 months later. Farndon had been kicked out of the band because of his drug problems and died of an overdose.

The "picture of you" Chrissie Hynde sings about is a picture she found in her wallet of Ray Davies, leader of the band The Kinks. Hynde and Davies were a couple and had a daughter together. This song started off about him, but the meaning changed when Honeyman-Scott died.

This is a very emotional song. Chrissie Hynde sometimes tears up when performing it.

A Chain Gang is a group of convicts who are chained together while they do manual labor, usually outside.

This was the first Pretenders single featuring Billy Bremner and Tony Butler, who replaced Farndon and Honeyman-Scott.

This was released as a single almost 2 years before the album came out.

Pretenders - My City Was Gone

Pretenders - My City Was Gone Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Learning To Crawl
Released: 1984

My City Was Gone Lyrics

I went back to Ohio
But My City Was Gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, o, way to go Ohio

Well I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to go Ohio

I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga falls
Said, a, o, oh way to go Ohio

Writer/s: HYNDE, CHRISTINE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

My City Was Gone Song Chart

This song is about Akron, Ohio, where Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders was raised. Akron was an industrial city known as the "Rubber Capital of the World," which despite the smell of burning rubber, was a place Chrissie enjoyed growing up. In the '70s, it was gritty but vibrant, and it had a thriving rock scene with bands like Pere Ubu, Devo, The Bizarros, and Jane Aire & The Belvederes.

Hynde would augment her musical education with the R&B she could find on Detroit radio stations, and would seek out rock music from the likes of Lou Reed and The Rolling Stones. She did a lot of traveling and played in a lot of bands before forming the Pretenders in 1978 when she relocated to England. Returning to Akron in the '80s, she was disappointed in what the city had become: shopping malls and segregation. "Everything's just huge masses of granite blocks, and everything's outsized. It might look good on a drawing, but it doesn't seem to apply to human life," said Hynde.

The conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh uses the opening riff of this song as theme music for his radio show. Limbaugh and Hynde have radically different political views, but she cannot stop him from using the song as long as the show continues to pay royalties.

This was released as the B-side of "Back On The Chain Gang."

Pretenders - Stop Your Sobbing

Pretenders - Stop Your Sobbing Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Pretenders
Released: 1979

Stop Your Sobbing Lyrics

It is time for you to stop all of your sobbing
Yes it's time for you to stop all of your sobbing oh oh oh
There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop it stop it

It is time for you to laugh instead of crying
Yes it's time for you to laugh so keep on trying oh oh oh
There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop it stop it

Each little tear that falls from your eyes
Makes, makes me want
To take you in my arms and tell you
To stop all your sobbing

There's one thing you gotta do
To make me still want you
And there's one thing you gotta know
To make me want you so
Gotta stop sobbing now
Yeah yeah stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing at all
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing at all
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing at all
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Stop, stop, stop sobbing
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing at all
Stop, stop, stop, stop
Gotta stop sobbing at all

Writer/s: DAVIES, RAY
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Stop Your Sobbing Song Chart

Written by Ray Davies and recorded for The Kinks' 1964 self-titled debut album, this was later covered by The Pretenders as their first single. The Pretenders' recording of the song led to the relationship between Davies and the band's frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, which eventually resulted in the birth of a child.

In order to convince guitarist James Honeyman-Scott to join the Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde hired one of his favorite recording artists, Nick Lowe, to produce this song.

In his autobiography, Ray Davies writes of a girlfriend who may have been the subject of this song: "Her sobbing was making me feel guilty and I told her to stop... there was something so desperately lonely about her."

The Pretenders covered another Ray Davies penned track a couple of years later, "I Go To Sleep," for another single release.