I miss England
But I won’t find it across the Channel,
I won’t find it in my local,
I miss England
I can still smell
Stale smoke and lager
From going to meet father
After school at The Regular
I remember when
Chips and gravy was 70p
And you ate on your knee
On the curb side. Try that for bouji
I’ve got that scar
On my right knee cap
From when I got knocked over playing tag
(Can’t do that on your iPad)
Do you remember
When hand me downs were just… hand me downs
Not vintage or retro or Brick Lane found
We didn’t know the difference anyhow
When the radio
Sang about the Millennium
And She’s The One, and Come Undone
And “rich beyond my wildest dreams” was just a million
Winding up cassettes
And trying to stop it in the right place
Praying your Walkman didn’t chew up the tape
That you’d carefully recorded from the radio that day
We might not have known
About Sunseekers and Yachtmasters
But we knew what time to come home for lasagne
Without a smartphone
We might not have seen
Phi Phi and New York and the Monaco F1
All before the age of 21
But you knew how your neighbour liked their tea done
When my plane hits the ground
I hear it in my head, “England’s green and pleasant land”
Because I knew it, I lived and was raised in that land
Of which even Blake was proud
Alas, what would he see
If he returned to two thousand and fourteen
A bunch of idiots deciding between X-Pro II and Hefe
But ignorant to the faces on the street?
It’s done now
Times have changed – I suppose it’s just how
Nana said, she doesn’t recognise her own town
Still, gets me down
Can we get
Some chips
And listen to Robbie
You tell me
About your day
With no emojis
Let’s walk
Hand in hand
To The Queen’s
Let’s not
Put it on IG
Let’s just… be
I miss England
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc&w=420&h=315]