Leon Rosselson 1972
Written for E. D. Berman's successful Save Piccadilly campaign which also employed street theater to fight high-rise development proposals to make the "heart of London" more respectable. "I don't remember the details but in essence it meant putting people underground to make room for more traffic. The plan was shelved and Piccadilly and Eros, in all their seediness, remain as a disreputable meeting place for lonely souls and lost tourists. The Save Piccadilly campaign asked me to write a 'protest' song. I wrote two. This one with its banner-waving singalong refrain, 'That's not the way it's got to be' and "The Man Who Puffs The Big Cigar'."
Piccadilly’s just a slum where the slugs and weirdies come
Knock it down and clean it up and watch the towers rise
Make it look respectable, everything identical
Trees will be permitted of the regulation size
But where have all the people gone?
The concrete towers in spring look sad.
Why does the wind blow hard as stone?
Why is this place so cold and drab?
Chorus:
That’s not the way it’s got to be, people before property
We want a meeting place and not a traffic jam
Let Eros speak for all of us, London’s streets belong to us
No to their profits and their Piccadilly plan
Concrete is very neat, keep the people off the streets
Shove them down in tunnels where they won’t get in the way
Hotels and offices, valuable properties
What a lot of money we’ll be making every day
But where have all the people gone?
The concrete towers in spring look sad.
Why does the wind blow hard as stone?
Why is this place so cold and drab?
Road space is what we need, give the traffic room to breathe
More cars are expected so provisions must be made
What to do with Eros, Piccadilly’s glamour boy?
Corner him and pen him in and teach him to behave.
But where have all the people gone?
The concrete towers in spring look sad.
Why does the wind blow hard as stone?
Why is this place so cold and drab?