Richard Hawley - Tonight The Streets Are Ours Video

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"Tonight The Streets Are Ours" Video Review

Back in 1997, before a stint touring with Pulp rescued him from oblivion, Richard Hawley was “going mental with drink and drugs.” Ten years on he’s one of the UK’s most critically acclaimed singer-songwriters.

Fifth album Lady’s Bridge, out 20 August, is probably his most downbeat release yet. Stately and mature, it finds the 50s obsessed troubadour’s playing down his rockabilly tendencies in favour of billowing, string-swept Northern balladry.

Speaking of Tonight The Streets Are Ours, his firtst release from the album, Richard Hawley himself says: "I saw this programme on TV about ASBOs and by the end of it I almost shoed the telly in. For me it's quite angry so I wanted to turn that into a positive cause I don't agree with destroying things – well sometimes it's a good idea."

"I was sort of imagining the choir in Angels With Dirty Faces, the James Cagney film. There's a fairground quality to it too. I changed this track quite a bit. It's huge now. I just think that old people and women and kids should be able to go out on the streets and not be worried about being battered. It's partly that and the middle section of the song is about how much people need each other, we can't exist on our own we have to co-exist with each other."

"But mainly it's about the brutal ignorance and insensitive way this f**king pile of shit government has decided to deal with anti social behaviour. The future of any country is in its kids and if a shit load of them are basically taught to just be consumers is it a surprise that when they can't consume because they're poor that they just go 'well, we'll take it anyway'? An ASBO doesn't do anything, it's just a piece of paper that says 'go away'."

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