A Man Could Lose Himself in London: "You're In a Bad Way" by Saint Etienne

 

 Saint Etienne were part of the huge wave of “Alternative Music” in the 90’s, and of all their many hits, my favorite MUST be “You’re In A Bad Way” off their terrific album :”So Tough” back in 1993~

From the first time I heard the song (on the awesome MTV Alternative music program “120 Minutes”) I fell in love with the song-The song was so CATCHY, the video was so KITSCHY, and WOWWW the lead singer was so GORGEOUS! 
The next day at work my co-worker had already purchased the album that the song came from, and we spend all evening listening to it as we worked! Besides being just as groovy as I remembered, the lead-in to You’re in a Bad Way on the CD was a snippet of dialog where some gent says, “Of course London’s a big place…It’s a VERY big place, Mr. Shadrack…a man could lose himself in London. Lose Himself. LOSE Himself. LOSE…HIMSELF…IN LONDON!!” This was just a TERRIFIC opening, I thought, and I always included it whenever I put "You’re In A Bad Way" onto Cassette compilations I made for myself and friends.

For years as I enjoyed the song, I never knew where that bit of talking came from,a dn it wasn’t until years and years later and the arrival of Youtube where  somebody uploaded a clip from a 1963 film called “Billy Liar” that I FINALLY got the source of those now-classic lines!

The scene detailed Tom Courtenay as Billy Fisher in the office of his boss, the aforementioned “Mr. Shadrack”, where he practices a speech he’d been rehearsing. Simply mesmerizing to watch the clip and the way the dialog just flows into the “lose yourself in London” lines so effortlessly!!

 Years later, in the advent of burned CD compilations and Ipod playlists, I tried to recreate my old cassette mix with CDs, and was horrified to find out that the Billy Liar dialog was cut in half between "You’re In A Bad Way" and the previous track for “Avenue”.  So unless I included “Avenue”, the song started with only the very last line of “Lose himself in London!”

I didn’t know what to do til I turned to my friend Saburo, who managed to record the track for me with the entire passage intact by recording the snippet at the end of Avenue and the body of You’re in a Bad Way and then ripping a brand new MP3 of the song! Yatta!

Just the other week, I was putting together another CD collection, and while setting up the track lists for the burner, saw that Saburo had written in the MP3 track info:

“Of course London’s a big place…It’s a VERY big place, Mr. Shadrack…a man could lose himself in London.

Lose Himself. LOSE Himself. LOSE…HIMSELF…IN LONDON!!”