THE CITY FIRES
©Trev Teasdel Coventry July 1970
Amidst the conflagrations
Living substances survive.
Squandering their energies
In the furnaces they do thrive.
Making haste that’ll only guarantee
An early grave.
Chorus.
And the cities burn
And the cities burn
And the cities burn
You’re gonna die
You’re gonna slowly die
You’re gonna slowly die too young
In the city fires
In the city fires
In the city fires.
Preachers scream from the steeple
That we’re heading for hell
But tell me people if this place ain’t worse than hell.
Making waste; it’ll only guarantee an early grave.
Bridge..
The evil witch has cast her jinx
Beelzebub now rules.
Pandemonium’s the song he sings
As he swallows all you fools.
And he’s gonna drink your blood
As your bodies slowly burn.
Chorus 2
As your bodies burn
As your bodies burn
As your bodies burn
You’re gonna die
You’re gonna slowly die
You’re gonna slowly die too young
In the city fires
In the city fires
In the city fires.
……….
I was working at the GEC Telecommunications in Coventry and Pete Waterman, who was the shop steward and worked on the next section, put some music to a lyric I had written – A Lotta Rain is Fallin’ and teamed me up with Billy Campbell, a bass player who also worked at the GEC and was in a band called Coconut Mat
https://sites.google.com/site/bandsfromcoventry/coventry-bands-a-to-z/coventry-bands-c/coconut-mat
……….
I was working at the GEC Telecommunications in Coventry and Pete Waterman, who was the shop steward and worked on the next section, put some music to a lyric I had written – A Lotta Rain is Fallin’ and teamed me up with Billy Campbell, a bass player who also worked at the GEC and was in a band called Coconut Mat
https://sites.google.com/site/bandsfromcoventry/coventry-bands-a-to-z/coventry-bands-c/coconut-mat
I went to see the band and they were a heavy rock outfit and Billy asked me to write a lyric for the band. at the time Black Sabbath were new on the scene with a top selling first album and Led Zepplin’s Whole Lotta Love was playing everywhere. So I thought I would write something in that vain, hearing Led Zeppelin power chords behind the lyric. However Billy reject the lyric saying ‘You can’t have a pop single with the word ‘Beelzebub’ in it!’. Forever ever after he nicked name me Beez le bub-as he pronounced it!
I hadn’t realised the band were thinking about a single, they never said and I didn’t think they had those kind of connections at that stage. However, I learnt later that Billy was in an early Coventry band called the Eggy with Roger and Nigel Lomas who had played in the hit band The Sorrows, and the Eggy had made a single – here. It hadn’t been a hit but they did have the connections. Nonetheless, I had to laugh 5 years later when Queen hit the No 1 spot with Bohemian Rhapsody – what word was in that song – yes ‘Beelzebub’. I’d loved to have seen Billy face when that came out – but also I’d lost contact with him by then.