Day 256. In my ears and in my eyes. (13/9/13)

All in all I've had a very 'Springsteen Summer'. The preparation for his Coventry show with its 'Born to Run, start to finish, the whole album' moment of wonder, the afterglow of yet another three plus hours set saw me immerse myself in his catalogue for quite some time.

Bruce is possibly the last and quite probably the greatest of the American mythologisers, the Rock'n'Roll poets who documented their ordinary surroundings and made them magical for listeners on this side of the Atlantic and I've spent months this year (and many years of my life) surrounded by the names 'Greasy Lake', 'E Street' 'Tenth Avenue' 'Asbury Park' '52nd Street' and 'Atlantic City'. The 'giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light' sounds far more romantic than it could ever really be.

And that's the point; America just sounds better than England. Nevada rather than Yorkshire. Arkansas not Devon. Nebraska not Lancashire. Maryland not Merseyside.

It's no wonder that English artists don't feel the need to romanticise their surroundings, they're just too drab, there's no magic.

Or is there?

Here's five acts who make their hometowns sound amazing;

The Clash

Obviously if you're going to talk about mythologies then you have to start with a band that self mythologised from day one. The Clash exemplified their immediate surroundings, from the squats where they founded the band to The Westway and from The Westway to the world as they stated themselves.

And The Westway is?  A flyover above the A40. But that doesn't matter, it sounds mysterious, lawless, the last outpost of the Wild West relocated to London.

London Calling. Obviously. It's a stance, a summoning a call to arms in the face of the coming Armageddon. It's the sound of rebellion. It makes London sound cool. And trust me, everybody outside London will tell you that London quite definitely isn't cool. We all hate the place. But The Clash made it cool.

Coolest of all though? (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais. I've been there now, now that it's the Hammersmith Odeon. I know that it's no better than Manchester Apollo or Liverpool Royal Court in its gig holding heyday. It's a large hall with beer infused sticky carpets and barely adequate toilets. I know this. And I know that all Joe Strummer is singing about is a night out watching a reggae all nighter. But it's not, it's much more than that, it's a meditation on the state of music, it's a placing away of his own band from the hordes that followed, it's a despairing look at the scene that he's still part of and an admission that he's got issues "I'm the all night drug prowling wolf who looks so sick in the sun" He's alone and looking for more to his life.

And in doing so he makes a concert hall in London sound like the most magical place on Earth.

Lets stay in London then;

Donovan. Donovan can seem a bit of a knob at times. Far too hippieish, far too 'far out man' and far too likely to try and claim that he invented everything but, God, in the 60s he touched brilliance quite often.

Sunny Goodge Street is, quite clearly, a trip. Its blissed out, cello driven and flute laden jazz, telling of violent hash smokers, sparkling magicians, and other obviously acid soaked images. It could be indulgent, it's brilliant. I've often passed through Goodge Street on the Tube and considered stepping off to see 'the firefly platform' but why ruin the magic? It'll only be a street and I prefer Donovan's version.

Up north -

Aztec Camera's Killermont Street is buried away at the end of the over produced, far too 80s 'Love' album; a small acoustic gem about leaving love behind, moving on, heading to 'other times, other places', a song of regret where reprieve can only be found by leaving. But it's easy to leave because these trips leave every hour from Killermont Street. "We can get there by bus" sings Roddy Frame and it's not a metaphor because Killermont Street holds Glasgow's bus station.

And bus stations can't sound this immaculately beautiful.

Perhaps the answer is never to go to these places, they'll only disappoint with their reality.

But I have been to The Kardomah Cafe. Admittedly it was no longer known by that name by the time I visited but it was still magical and the reason it was magical was The Cherry Boys' single dedicated to it. Flowing in on a breeze of bells, harmonicas and harmonies the song is nothing more than a depiction of sitting in a cafe watching people walk by as you nurse a cold cup of tea. Somehow the building became imbued with the beauty of the song, gaining a lustre that it didn't truly deserve.

Perhaps the answer is for artists to see the beauty that we miss. Perhaps the answer is for your subject to have real meaning for you.

John Lennon understood this. So did Paul McCartney. John understood that the Salvation Army grounds that he played in as a child that represented some kind of escape to him could represent something universal to a larger audience. Paul understood that a local high street with a roundabout could offer stories if you had the eyes to see them, understood that he could make the prosaic perfect.

And so The Beatles gave us Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. The finest double A side in pop and in the first of those tracks quite possibly the greatest achievement in the history in recorded sound.

All from a knowledge that if you look hard enough then there is romance everywhere. From Route 66 to Memphis Tennesee to the Guns of Brixton to Villiers Terrace, the magic in the place is that magical piece of yourself that sees the beauty and passes it to others.