Song 382: This week’s playlist track is Downtown by Petula Clark, written by Tony Hatch, and you can find a YouTube video of it here. On the week that includes the biggest retail day of the year, AKA Black Friday, this 1960s shopping anthem seems fitting. When the single came along at the beginning of my teenage years, people usually went Downtown to do their shopping, although perhaps a modernized version would carry the title At (or To) the Mall. When I heard it back then, I knew exactly which 3-block stretch to picture, and I certainly would have enjoyed the chance to Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty (or at least once were). I didn’t often get the opportunity to listen to the music of the traffic in the city, though, or take in all the noise and the hurry, because I didn’t have much change in my pocket, and my family couldn’t contribute much either, so even if Petula had graced the scene, she probably wouldn’t have seen me there, but yet, listening to her singing could, at that moment, help me to forget all my cares, and it sometimes still can.
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