Scott Lavene - Disneyland In Dagenham

Basildon and Pitsea, Tilbury and Dagenham. Southend on Sea, Rainham and Vange
It’s the A13.
Before it ended up in Paris they nearly built Disneyland on Rainham marshes in Essex, just around the corner from the sewage works and the Ford factory of old Dagenham where my mum and dad once did night shifts just after I was born, Stitching seat covers, and smoking cheap cigarettes.
When I was 17 I knew a man from Rainham, a thin man called Trevor who lived on the seventeenth floor of a high rise, a hopeless grey building dotted with dirty curtains with smoke and sad TV pouring from the windows.
Basildon and Pitsea, Tilbury and Dagenham. Southend on Sea, Rainham and Vange
It’s the A13.
I used to buy acid and speed from Trevor, running the risk of murder catching the lift up and up and up and the secret knock, knock knock knockity knock. It was the best view that poverty could give. Trevor had two kids, a bad speed habit, and three TV’s all turned on but with no sound. There was always brick sized lumps of hash on the tables and dirty floors, always Tupperware filled with powders on the kitchen surfaces. Stacey, Trevor’s girlfriend was a retired stripper and she was pretty, too pretty for a man with only three teeth and 9 burglary convictions. She was always cooking chicken and the kids were always eating it, grubby little boys with big smiles, bouncing tennis balls off the outer walls and watching silent TV.
Basildon and Pitsea, Tilbury and Dagenham. Southend on Sea, Rainham and Vange
It’s the A13.
I didn’t like staying there too long but once, when the sun was setting west over the city, I stayed for an hour waiting for my drugs to show up, sitting on the balcony, watching east London dying, counting conversations and distant clouds and wondering how Mickey Mouse was gonna fit in round there. Dagenham ain’t no place for Disneyland. There’s no Jazz clubs, and my old man said, “Son, you can never trust a town without Jazz clubs.”

Written by:
Benjamin Woods, Scott Lavene

Publisher:
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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