Song
South of the River
A heat-hazed song about the long way home, when the music has stopped but the night has not quite let you go.
Appears on
Releases
- Lullabies for Broken Screens Album
- South of the River Single
Words
Lyrics
Verse
Warm beer
Plastic cups
Bare feet on the grass somewhere near Vauxhall
Bluetooth speakers distorting in the dark
Somebody’s mixing old trance records
From a shopping trolley
The city behind us
All pink glass and aircraft lights
And the river moving slowly
Like it has all summer
Chorus
South of the river
Everything glittering
Late July
And nobody wants to go home
We were gold in the phone light
Sweat on our shoulders
Basslines drifting across the water
For one impossible summer
London loved us back
Verse
Last boat from Greenwich
Everyone drunk on prosecco and serotonin
Tower Bridge opening
Like a hallucination
Your eyeliner blurred into ultraviolet
While strangers shared cigarettes
And life stories
Like they had known each other for years
The skyline flickering
Warm against the clouds
Chorus
South of the river
Rooftops and satellites
Night buses
Turning slowly through the heat
There were parties under railway arches
Afterhours in Peckham
Sunrise over the Thames
For one impossible summer
We believed we were infinite
Bridge
DJ playing something ancient
Hands in the air
People kissing strangers
Like the world was ending gently
And somewhere above Brixton
The dawn arriving silver-blue
While somebody shouted
“This is the best night of my life”
Chorus
South of the river
Smoke machines and starlight
Boat wakes
Shimmering under Canary Wharf
The music still echoing
Long after the speakers died
And London breathing around us
Beautiful and temporary
Like it always is