Liverpool Sunday July 6 2003
A gig so thick with memories I could barely remember the lyrics! I was quite nervous singing “In Liverpool” for the first time in Liverpool! But the audience was wonderful and gracious.
“Do you have any questions? or requests?” I asked. “Why aren’t you wearing your bandanna?” one woman demanded to know. This got a laugh from the audience. “We want you to disco dance!” I think she shouted later. When I finished the show the audience jumped to their feet. As I said I was so nervous telling the same stories I tell every night that I couldn’t think of anything else!
I wish we had stayed in Liverpool so I would have been able to explore more fully this city that I sing about every night. Instead I found to my surprise that we were staying in Chester, which is a beautiful city about half an hour away but one that I am not nearly as connected to! I couldn’t believe that I had actually been to Liverpool for the third time, and still not been out and about! I will have to make time for this as it’s getting silly. I can’t just sing about the Liverpool of my imagination forever. I woke up this morning with a sense of loss that it had been 13 years since I had visited Liverpool, written about it and still not really experienced it...
While we were in Chester we visited the cathedral. Glynn came into the gift shop. “We’ve just had a fire alarm in the main room of the carthedral,” he said casually. “Are you kidding me?” I said. “How many are we going to have on this tour?” This was the third one.
Before the show Dougie came running in to tell me that they had seen the clock that always told the same time! “Haven’t they fixed it yet?” I asked. Dougie hooted with laughter and Phil, whose grandfather was an heurologist, explained that it was a clock that had been bombed in World War 2, and they have kept it that way as a momento. Not only does it tell the same time but the four different faces all tell different times.
After the show I autographed a bunch of stuff for fans, mostly guys. “Liverpool boys are the best!” one of them told me.
I kept thinking, what really happened back then? I guess because my 44th birthday is coming up next week, I was in the mood to think back on being 17. I remember the Liverpool artist asking me for my address and I wouldn’t give it to him. I was afraid of him a little and thought he’d show up at my house and my stepfather would be angry. “Well, I’d like to say I’ll always remember you but you never can tell with those things.” he said, and that made me mad, but understandably his feelings were probably hurt!
Then I wrote the song and gave it to him. It was very uncharacteristic of me to actually write my feelings down in the moment and give it to him, as usually it takes years to process my feelings...
[Next: London, England - July 7, 2003]