WHEN YOU’RE ALONE AND LIFE IS MAKING YOU LONELY
YOU CAN ALWAYS GO DOWNTOWN
WHEN YOU’VE GOT WORRIES, ALL THE NOISE AND THE HURRY
SEEMS TO HELP I KNOW
DOWNTOWN
Most kids think of their parents simultaneously as the most glamourous people on earth as well as the oldest people on earth. I was no different, so when my Mom told us stories of how she used to go shopping in downtown Albany, it felt like the fanciest place in the world. She also had a record (a real vinyl record) of Petula Clark singing her signature hit ‘Downtown’ that I would play on our first record player and imagine my mother walking along Pearl Street seeking out a dress or hat or a piece of jewelry. She grew up in the time of Jackie Kennedy and the elegant suit dresses of Chanel paired with a pill box hat. It was a classic style that endures to this day.
JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC OF THE TRAFFIC IN THE CITY
LINGER ON THE SIDEWALK WHERE THE NEON SIGNS ARE PRETTY
HOW CAN YOU LOSE?
Years later, she would also show us the brighter lights of New York City and Boston, and I would eventually get lost in both on occasion, but somehow they always paled in comparison to the way little old downtown Albany sounded when it was the most exciting retail perch near Hoosick Falls or Amsterdam, NY. While its days of bustling feel lost forever, there are still glimmers of it when all the state workers are out and about for lunch, or when a new restaurant or store opens up. They are too often fleeting, but some linger…
THE LIGHT’S SO MUCH BRIGHTER THERE
YOU CAN FORGET ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
FORGET ALL YOUR CARES
SO GO DOWNTOWN
THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE DOWNTOWN
NO FINER PLACE FOR SURE
DOWNTOWN
EVERYTHING’S WAITING FOR YOU
DOWNTOWN… DOWNTOWN
This revamped version of ‘Downtown’ as sung by Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘Last Night in Soho’ is the remake I didn’t realize we needed, bringing a melancholic undertow to the notion of Downtown as a frame of mind, a time and place lost to history but rekindled in a new generation, and a new way of making one’s way through the world. The original optimism of the song is tempered by the recent decades that have certainly worked to dampen such enthusiasm. Yet hope remains on the wistful and breezy notion of finding spaces and places of escape.
DON’T HANG AROUND AND LET YOUR PROBLEMS SURROUND YOU
THERE ARE MOVIE SHOWS DOWNTOWN
MAYBE YOU KNOW SOME LITTLE PLACES TO GO TO
WHERE THEY NEVER CLOSE DOWNTOWN
JUST LISTEN TO THE RHYTHM OF A GENTLE BOSSA NOVA
YOU’LL BE DANCING WITH THEM TOO BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER
HAPPY AGAIN
There is a time in most of our lives – maybe our twenties, sometimes into our thirties -when the world feels as glamorous as it will ever feel, when we are as handsome and young and fashionably turned out as we will ever be, and if we’re lucky we catch the feeling, and feel the crest and synergy of it as we walk in our own ideas of Downtown. Somewhere my memory turns into that of my mother’s, and I’m browsing the endless counters at some department store, spritzing perfume and letting the silk of scarves run through my fingers as if they were the smallest jewel-like streams of water.
THE LIGHT’S SO MUCH BRIGHTER THERE
YOU CAN FORGET ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
FORGET ALL YOUR CARES
SO GO DOWNTOWN
THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE DOWNTOWN
NO FINER PLACE FOR SURE
DOWNTOWN
EVERYTHING’S WAITING FOR YOU
DOWNTOWN… DOWNTOWN
