It's 31 May, 2022. I'm a Texan who was living in Kharkiv, Ukraine (I opened an ESL school there after leaving China to escape the pandemic), when the Russian Army rolled through last February. My business, my house, my whole damned life went up in thermobaric smoke from Russian artillery. I jumped ship to Poland, but I only get 90 days visa-free in Schengen. On day 89 I flew out of Warsaw to London, where I had some old friends. Landed here just in time for the queen's Platinum Jubillee. Would you believe it was here, on the ground in London, with Three Pounds Sixty Five Pence in my pocket and everything I own in a suitcase, that I heard this song for the first time? Perfect.
We were in a bar in California and the band knew how to play this. The woman I was with knew how to two-step, so she took a break from line dancing and we two stepped from California back to Texas with this song.
I was lucky enough to go to many ACL concerts in the first few years. Then it turned gradually turned to crap. They left country behind (mostly) with an occasional visit by Willie. I haven't watched or contributed for many years. I really love Gary P Nunn!
As a ‘limey’ - although not from London - I love this song! The lyrics are witty and the tune is a real ear worm! My son (who’s forty!) played it for me during a long drive in his car and I listened to it on repeat for ages. I just wish I’d discovered ‘London Homesick Blues’ a long, long time ago.
BTW, "those limey eyes were eyein' the prize some call manly footwear" is an allusion to a line from another country and western song, "Okie from Muskogee." Other numbers you might enjoy are "Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother," and "Friends in Low Places."
Ok, on my "Bucket List" go to London England, with a cheap guitar, go to Marble Arch Station, and sing this song, get busted, get banned from England, and laugh my ass off all the way back to TEXAS!!!!!
If you're going to London, take a suitcase full of money. It is one expensive place. Good advice from a limey. BTW, you could sing this song all day and they wouldn't have a notion what it was about.
