Mourning England in Song. Part 2: 1973 - Street Life - Roxy Music

Readying myself for what feels like a forced emigration, I am putting together the soundtrack of a whole life spent living in England...

I am a trans woman who has lived in the UK almost her whole life. Now I am leaving the country, forced out by the deepening political, legal and cultural hate. It's a bitter moment. I am trying to come to terms with having to do this by, amongst other things, charting my 64 years of life in England in 64 songs that I have loved and which have formed the soundtrack of my life in a country that has made clear it doesn't want me anymore. You can read more about the background to this project here: https://kierkegaardslunch.blogspot.com/2026/08/mourning-england-in-song-part-1.html

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Street Life - Roxy Music (from Stranded)

I was just eleven when this epic came out, and I remember discovering it a year or two later - likely when Roxy's next album, Country Life appeared (containing the absolute belter of a track, All I Want Is You), and sent me off checking into the backstory of this extraordinary band. It saw Roxy beginning to transform from pure art-rock, an era in which Brian Eno had taken keyboard duties (he'd just left after locking horns with Bryan Ferry once too often) and into a more mainstream space, though Ferry was not yet in the tuxedo that signified the rest of his career.

This song is all about the rhythm and syncopation which grabs and holds your attention all the way through. It opens with a cacophony of street noises, underpinned by percussion and keyboard which resolve into the opening of the vocals - when Ferry comes in on the off beat. He carries the song at a relentless pace, almost a chant, with drums chattering beneath and a wonderful, classic repeating Roxy guitar phrase wandering above. Somehow discordant car horns are woven into it all as the lyric talks of being hounded by modern life.

I was engrossed by Street Life from the first time I heard it - a song I have come back to in the 50+ years since and marvelled at each time, thinking how layered it is, how it grabs you and doesn't let go. And then there's Ferry's extraordinary voice...that range...and that vibrato! I felt the energy and excitement of this song, and this band, as I was becoming a teenager, and the excitement's never left. Roxy Music remains on my playlist in 2026. 

Other contenders in 1973 included Live and Let Die by Wings - still the best ever Bond theme - the beautiful My Love, also by Wings and See My Baby Jive by Roy Wood and Wizzard - which was, and remains, bonkers and wonderful. Plus Bowie had a world-class single out that year, but I'm going to come back to that as the track appeared first on a 1971 album...

See you next time...